Ding Dong

The witch is gone.

I'm not sure when it happened but I can only assume it has been a fairly recent occurrence. Her broom hasn't been seen parked in front of her apartment and the local children don't seem to be behaving as though they've been turned into gingerbread.

Her patio––a monstrous place––was nearly empty of her strange, maroon decorations, the wicked creatures with open mouths as bird feeders, and the twisted, stick art reminiscent of the Blair Witch Project. The only thing remaining was a bizarre sculpture that hung above her patio doors, a skull with blood red wings shooting out from it like flames, reminiscent of the Día de los Muertos masks worn in Mexico the day after Halloween. It was exactly where it has always been and even though her blinds were open and I could clearly see the entire apartment was empty, it made me nervous, as though she was somehow watching us, waiting to lock Duncan and me up in a cage to fatten us up before tossing into a cauldron.

Duncan, who has not been allowed anywhere near her for years, seemed to know she was gone and walked right up to the patio. I hung back, even whistled at him out of habit, to come back to me and steer clear of the entire cursed area. But he was impervious to whatever spell she had cast over her property, and sensed no power remaining in the watchful black eye-sockets of that dreadful mask. He was so confident in himself that after sniffing around for a moment or two, he ambled up to the edge of the railing, raised his leg and shot a steady stream of pee right across the cement, a faint of steam rising up where it landed. And when he was done he looked up at me, grinned in that Golden way of his, wagged his tail, and gave me the all-clear.

The witch is truly gone.

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