Traycup wandered the forest for sixty-six weeks, sixty-six days, and sixty-six hours before he finally found the witch's cottage—not the witch from before, no. This was a different witch and a different cottage—there can be more than one, no rule against that. And even if there was a rule against it, who's making the rules, anyway? And who's breaking them? But never mind that for now. As for this new, different witch, it was Sandy the witch, who was tired of sandwich puns, so we're not going there. Traycup rode a unicycle up to the front door and sang half a soup jingle, then knocked—just to be on the safe side.

Sandy flang open the door and harped, “You're late! We're on in five! Jesus Christ, you haven't even been to wardrobe!” She grabbed him, threw him into the laundry hamper, and lit it on fire, just so the hamper'd know where to go. It skittered with unaimable excitement towards wardrobe, where the wardrobeers snatched Traycup and slapped him into a chair. There was no time for makeup so they just put a paper bag on his head and wrote “keep away from acid” on it. The costume was with ease Bedazzled on, of course.

Sandy stood before the troupe—Polite Dexter, the addermancer; Stannal Ingrovioid Bolshtz, the cable technician; Traycup, the word warbler (for tonight); Dilvy Ommelette O'Sanderson III, the relief pitcher; and Mub, the spout. They were the sixth-best in the business, but tonight would make or break them.

“Tonight will make or break us,” Sandy said, so I guess I'm talking to myself over here, but whatever. She can have this one. “We're the sixth-best in the business, but mark my words, we'll topple Stroudle's Amazing Plantation Owners with this performance! I want everyone to give it their some, get their goats, and never smile again!”

With that, they raised the curtain, and the performance was joined.

After the show, Traycup, covered in blueberries and bite marks, said to Dilvy, “It's as good for counting as not, I'd think! Or I'd, had I the time and place f'rit!”

But Dilvy wasn't as amused as a parcel-based wombat, and said, “We'll be lucky to see the corner of a square.”

“Undismallate yours'lf!” said Traycup. “A giving's been given, and gone good!”

Dexter came by, clapped them on the shoulders and in irons, and laughed early and said, “Don't let thy selves be undercooked!” This did little to prevent Dilvy from become a stack of missing plates, so he went on. “It's been done like the first runner—no pictures, please! It's well enough to put it on the scale until the full pounds!”

Dilvy fluctuated in size, or so it seemed, and then said, “I'll enter fruit shortly—or the banana's man—though I've heard it level!” She turned into wind and made the whole house shake, and Traycup and Dexter saw the floor.

Dexter said, “There's tying things, localized in buckets, and multiple brown bugs.”

“It's son't,” said Traycup.

Dexter feigned a lie, and there was peace. I think.

Sandy came by with snacks—not sandwiches, of course, but hot dogs, tacos, and falafels. While everyone ate, vultures crowded the cottage in a circle, wicked and greedy creatures, knowing not what transpired withindoors, but yearning for more all the same, and basking in their infinite ignorance. Their greed grew past their hunger, and soon they pressed themselves at the windows and doors, and peeped through the panes and keyholes, and drew the house into the darkness of their slakeless thirst, and their hearts echoed in the hollow hearts of anyone who had a hollow heart, and also in various bowls and cups that were about.

“An eating's abraded,” said Traycup, “but not abated, though heavily debated!”

“And adequately baited,” said Sandy. “This isn't about you, ringer. The show must go on.”

Sandy stepped into the outside, resealing the door bepast her, and all the vultures circled around, and had knives and guns and laid out bear traps, and began laughing their copyrighted gang laugh. Traycup found the door was locked, and as keys were troublesome for him, he was fully waylaid, and during the meanwhile Dexter, Dilvy, Bolshtz, and Mub all came to the window snackless, and they wanted to watch and see what Sandy and the vultures would do next, but no one had a notebook at all.

The vultures said, “Mishearing or misseeing—these are the options we're stuck to! Then make the least effort, and for no reason, and make a new lie where the old lay well enough! Boat-goers' code fragment!”

The wind blew—but how would one know? The grass waved in its smooth swipe, and the sound of the rustling grass came into the air, and came on the wind, and the cooling breeze was on your cheek, like a blow from the weight of the sky. The voice of the wind carried fear and threats, like the voice of an enemy in the mouth of a lover. There will always be wind. Deal with it.

Sandy said, “Lo, how the mighty tree, roots drinking deep of the earth, throws his hands up high and yearns for everlasting disassembly, in indifference! A mighty, splintered nation, its wealth in poverty, its warriors worriers, begs and borrows and pleads—oh, a real quack trapper! Immediately enrich indirection!”

A hundred ants came after the vultures, which might not seem like much, but these ants were driving tanks, and the tanks were driving Ferraris, and the Ferraris were driving me nuts, so I kicked them out of the house the moment they turned eighteen—that band of theirs is never going to get their “big break,” and far be it for me to stomp on children's oathes, but they are just not good. Have you heard their stuff? Even the titles are too much to swallow. What've we got here, it says... “I Need Muh Girl,” “Tonight's Thuh Night,” “Nothin's E-Z.” Yeah, especially spelling, apparently. Like, really. “Thuh”? What's wrong with “tha” or “da” or “de”? At least those are more common slang. Well—they can be someone else's problem now. I have one of my own.

The vultures grew arms and shed them just as quickly, leaving off the S with deliberation. “Let's make a fence with joy: was it a doubly late veritable schoolful of cows? We'll ring a solid skull to that! Consider it to be a triangle, and one more than pancake mix!”

There came a smell of smoke on the air, and far off the sky was red, a great hot redness, like a bleeding and festering sore, a blight on the world, an oozing pit of ruination, and from it came hate and death and fear, laying the foundation for its own eternal undoing. Tales from faraway lands will one day follow, and drag with them myriad gods and heroes, all drunk on lies, filling up the shape of your ear and your stomach, and all will bear witness to the truth forevermore. They know you. That's their advantage. But, do you?

Now, Traycup watched the battle from the crow's nest, and his marble brain was rolling about in his headbox, because he was full of marble marbles, which may as well have been cheating. He had all his eyes open, and set quickly to etching, but in haste was made waste, and no one was around to sweep it up.

Sandy said, “I've seen a pastry manhandled twice. Be wed, or read, or red, too—and then whatever flows from that bubbling spring—and then let a cat begin its decorative farce. All at once, acquire a surfeit of deep grass and a sunful sky!”

The vultures cawed and squawked and drew up the divorce papers, having uncovered a dire secret, but it was all moot, for the wedding was off before it'd begun, and still had yet to pass, now all the easier with the veil lifted and her true face shown—not the ensistered one, but the categorically false limitation of existence which was all we could hope to ever achieve. It had all been for naught. Hearts were born to break.

The vultures said, “Sheep dog! A fork in the road and old desires, your artificed bloodborne woe! Little by little, at the center of the toy store, the coming hordes bear a trick question! Why, that's no bear, but a giraffe! Tart royalty!”

There was an earthquake, and the ground committed that classic crime, but here was a valueless pastoral land, and its low woes didn't even slow down for the toll booth—but I guess you don't have to anymore, they have the high-speed things up—yet despite all these clever trinkets, they still get caught off guard by a little shimmy and shake! The cottage collapsed partially, or at least part of the cottage collapsed, but everyone was sort of okay—most of the front room was still standing, the upstairs in it now, and at the top of the tallest mast was the crow's nest—but it was drained of its occupant, for Traycup had come down, and now stood beside Sandy.

Traycup forgot the first thing he had been told and said, “See, here—and here as well—but if I do more you'd be abhorred at the score thus told, you layperson! Unwronged, but wringing—does it ring, like ding-a-ling?—from here to the top and back, or somewhat less than half of that—put it all away! Looking down on me, or you found inspiration in the attic, in the doorless room where the child wasn't born? See these old water pipes, gouged with some tacky tats—you'd fry some words and only get the skins! A cleric shops!”

Someone had a funny idea about music, and found something no one'd noticed before—enough for attention-getting, but they barely scraped by in terms of chump change. Or perhaps that's backwards. The museum booked them nonetheless, if only to prop them up ere the cops did the same, and they took their place in the second-darkest room. The curator called this success, and returned to the maintenance of the galleria, dusting off a still-life of some vultures—the very same that had attempted fair crimes at the Sandy household—which had been painted by the Great Greek Parsnipinator, who was wanted in four states for charges of the bulls and the light brigade, and by now had crossed the date line, the deadline, and a fine line.

“That's a fine line,” remarked the G. G. P. as he crossed it.

“That's the last time you'll cross me!” declared the fine line, drawing its sword, jumping into its drag racer, and speeding after the G. G. P.

The G. G. P., substantially spooked, ducked into a local bookstore, and did the thing where you bury your face in a newspaper so that the guy who's chasing you can't find you. Everyone else in the local bookstore, keenly interested in this hot new trend, also buried their faces in their books, magazines, and newspaperia. This was the only local bookstore in the prefecture, and since everyone was tired of the big box stores and online shopping, there were over sixty-six thousand people crammed into the store.

“Well, well, well,” said the fine line, and three wells answered its summons.

“Sir, yes, sir!” hummed the wells as they salted (sic).

“He's in here somewhere,” said the fine line, narrowing its eyes and staring about suspiciously. “You!” it snapped to the guy at the register, “did you see the G. G. P. come in here?”

“What did you say in Spanish?” said the guy at the register.

“Cut!” said the principal. “That's not your line, Rick.”

“Yeah, it is. That's what you said. You said, 'say, 'what did you say in Spanish?''”

“No,” said the principal, “I said, 'say, 'what did you say,' in Spanish.'”

“I'm calling my agent,” said Rick. “I don't have to put up with this shit, I'm ten years old.”

“And you'll stay ten,” the principal roared, as Rick stomped off to his trailer, “until you get your lines right!”

The fine line stabbed the principal with a laser pen and said, “The only line that's got it right is me.” The principal was lightly bruised, as a laser pen has no sharpened point to stab well with, but the point had still been made.

No one was getting paid enough for this.

The wells went to work, swiping all the books and newspapers from everyone and throwing them down themselves, so they could be well-read, but failed to realize that wouldn't work, because they were, y'know, not well-read. This did, however, have the effect of revealing the G. G. P. The fine line swooped down on him.

“Caught you at last!” said the fine line.

“You'd have more luck catching a cold!” said the G. G. P., who turned into a flock of doves and got a job driving taxis downtown—not glamorous work by any means, but something that needed doing. They only got paid bimonthly, and no one tipped well, and soon the doves became jaded, turned to drink, and sometimes stayed up late, too late, wondering what had happened to that wide-eyed youth, that boy who was overflowing with—for the fourth time at least—promises.

“That boy is dead,” said the doves to the mirror, “and you know it.” They opened the medicine cabinet to get their pills and then slammed it shut too hard, and a fine crack appeared across the mirror, symbolizing how the doves felt like their very self had been shattered, and the fine crack tackled the doves while the fine line rode in from the north, and together they finally brought the G. G. P.-turned-doves to justice.

Sandy glanced over at Traycup.

“Does this sort of thing normally happen?” she said.