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Moonshine made no secret that he was as reluctant to part with Maggie as she was with him, and even allowed himself to come in full view of Colin as he followed them at the edge of the wood where it bordered the highway. He exerted no other spell to keep her near, however, and as the wood and road parted to make way for a stream, parted from them with a last flourish of his tail, releasing her after an orchid-eyed good-bye to vanish into the forest.
That night, as they camped far from that section of the North-em Woods, Colin had to occupy himself with his music and Ching with his toilet, and they all had a cold supper, for there were no comments, nor questions, nor answers from the witch who had belatedly found reason for homesickness.
As she finally rolled herself in her goosedown blanket, Ching came and lay in the crook of the arm that cradled her cheek, purring, "Poor Maggie. Why can't you content yourself with a broom, like your foremothers?"
CHAPTER 4
Colin woke to another muffled, mist-shrouded day, and to the smell of fresh-brewed herb tea and berry cakes. Maggie was sitting on a rock by the fire, a clay mug of tea warming one chapped hand while the other turned over the iron trap that had nearly ended the rabbit's life. She looked up as he rolled over, and poured him a mug of tea.
"What do you intend to do with that, anyway?" he asked, accepting the tea and indicating the trap.
"My aunt, the one we're supposed to see on the way, does a little metalwork. I thought I'd see what she makes of this. Berry cake?"
"Please." He got up and stretched, then hunkered down again to enlighten his inner workings with the hot tea and fragrant cake. He was surprised, when he woke up enough to think about it, to find the warm breakfast fire. It had been such a wet spring he wondered that she was able to locate any dry wood. "Ummmm-these are delicious. A little early for berries, isn't it?"
"Not for me. I just dry them when they're available and freshen them up when I need them. Same with the cream. Would you care for some?"
"Yes, thanks."
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She poured a little white powder into his tea and it turned a soft toffee brown. He tasted it. "That's amazing."
"Glad you like it."
They passed that day and the next pleasantly enough, once more reaching a village and scattered outlying houses by the middle of the third day. Colin remembered as much as he could of unicorn lore, and entertained Maggie with all the stories and songs he could think of concerning the mystical beasts. He even made up a unicorn song, on the spot, which delighted her so much that she managed from somewhere to produce an excellent meat pie for lunch and fresh peaches for dessert. Colin hadn't eaten so well since he left East Headpenney, and fitted the long discourse he was delivering, on the difficulties of keeping the proper dramatic tension present in one's lyric while doing an appropriate number of aesthetically correct doo-dahs in the music, in between appreciative slurps and gobbles of peach flesh and juice. He quite forgot to wonder where she found peaches six months before they would blossom and nine months after they should have rotted, or how she had dried them to include pits and all.
"About that song you don't like, for instance, Maggie," he said as an example. "There is something about it that bothers me."
Maggie, who could only stand so much jargon about someone else's specialty, shot her peach pit into a puddle of water. "There's a great deal about that song that bothers ME, minstrel," she said.
Ching was giving his full attention to his lunch of reconstituted trout heads and had not so much as a glance to spare them. Cat music tended to consist of one pleasant long hum of lyric and he saw no need at all for any other kind.
"Well, I know, that, of course, but what I mean is, there's no proper ending at all. It's anticlimactic, don't you think?"
"I certainly hope so," she replied. She would hate to think it would all end like that-with Winnie riding off for no good reason with some grubby gypsy while her bewildered husband rode home scratching his head. She began to see what Colin was talking about.
"Just so. Well, I'm actually very glad, indeed, you had me come along to protect you on this journey. Perhaps our investigations will suggest a more poetic conclusion."
"Oh, please," Maggie groaned. "Not one of those where he cuts out her true love's heart and hands it to her in a cup of gold, following which she either dies of despair or he cuts her in half and then throws himself upon his own sword in remorse. I'm ever so tired of that one. It's Gran's favorite."
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