headboard pinned her arms to her sides. ‘Aaargh, let me go! None of this is working anyway! I’ve tried all of those disgusting tonics, and nothing’s happened!’
The witch shuffled towards her, her silver cane and copper foot going clink-clank-clink as she neared. ‘It will work if yeh give it a chance! We just gotta be patient. We’ll find the right one and yeh can be cured, if yeh just open wide.’ And she advanced with the tonic, ready to pour it down Willow’s gullet if she had to.
Willow shook her head frantically as the vile-tasting tonic began to froth. The witch clamped a strong hand on her jaw and began to dribble it on to Willow’s tongue. Willow closed her eyes, thrashing wildly as her senses filled with the stench of rotten fruit, her heart thundering in her chest – and then, suddenly, there was a loud popping sound.
‘Oh n— OH!’ breathed Oswin, peeking out from the bag at the noise, turning from pumpkin orange to a bright lime green in relief, though his ears were still faintly orange. ‘Oh! Yeh did it!’
Willow opened her eyes, then blinked in bewilderment as she saw that the witch and the bed that had been pinning her … had disappeared.
‘Come on, let’s SKEDADDLE!’ suggested Oswin.
The tower, however, did not want to let them go. Not without a fight. It sent a bedpan and a chair flying at her and Oswin, who turned a violent shade of orange in his outrage.
‘Aaargggggh!’ Willow screeched as the iron poker leapt from the floor and hurtled towards her, pricking her in her side. ‘Ouch. Stop it! Stop this right now!’ The poker slowed down, but continued to poke her wherever it could find a gap. She batted it away with her arm, earning herself countless scratches in the process, as it kept prodding her into giving the tower back its witch. Only … she couldn’t. She wasn’t sure how.
Oswin wasn’t having the best time either. He was fighting off several rolled-up copies of the Middling Times, which were repeatedly smacking him over the head. His ears were starting to smoke in a rather worrisome way, which usually meant he was on the verge of blowing up. ‘Oi,’ he said as one of them thwacked him on his ear. ‘Stop that!’
Thwack. ‘A curse upon yeh!’ Thwack.
‘A curse!’ he growled Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
Finally, Willow screamed, ‘Ouch! Eugh. Stop. Just STOP! Enough of this, Tower. Or I will make you disappear too!’
The rolled-up newspapers above Oswin’s head seemed to sag. One of them smacked him rather feebly on the forehead one last time, and he hissed a low warning, his flame-orange fur standing on end. The poker, meanwhile, paused before Willow’s feet, the top bent towards her in a hangdog sort of way.
‘Um, thank you,’ said Willow, rubbing her arm, which was starting to sting from all the scratches. ‘Now I suggest you open the door and let us out.’
The door remained stubbornly shut. It juddered on its hinges somewhat reproachfully.
She narrowed her eyes, crossed her arms and, summoning her fiercest voice, declared, ‘If you do not OPEN this door right NOW, I will NOT release your witch.’
There was a long pause, while Willow tapped her foot impatiently, and then, with the faintest of clicks and a slow, reluctant creaking sound rather like a sigh, the door opened.
‘Good,’ said Willow, hiding her relief that it had worked. She helped Holloway climb through the wall, breaking some more of the plaster with a chair leg so that he could get his shoulders and torso through. Once he was clear, she grabbed Oswin by his long tail and shoved him back inside the green hairy carpetbag, to his outrage.
‘Wot choo go an’ grabs me by the tail like that for!’ he harrumphed. ‘Wot wiff being thwacked on me ’ead and monster-’andled like that, there’s jes no respect, me being the last kobold an’ all!’
She ignored this, and together she and Holloway dashed out of the room and down the stairs before the tower could change its mind – or the witch popped back from wherever Willow had sent her. Whichever came first.
As soon as they were outside, the thirteen-foot tower door slammed itself shut with a loud BANG, and then bolted itself for good measure. Perhaps it was hoping that she wouldn’t change her mind and come back either. Then it sort of bent a little, like it was looking down at her rather expectantly, and Willow realised with dread that it