Lee carried Karl back to her cave. After that meeting of the hags, it was a huge relief to be back there with just her. The news had been altogether more than he could bear, but Lee's hugs and comforting words gradually soothed him. She reassured him that she would be his mother now.

"No matter what anyone says, you'll always be my little prince," she murmured as she held him close, her cold breath tickling his ear and her musty stench filling his nostrils. "You're safe here. That's what matters."

He had to get something clear. Grandmamma lived. He forced himself to think of that. He had to talk about Grandmamma. He showed Lee the little snow globe of Rosewood Castle. She had already seen it – indeed, she had placed it on a little niche in the rocky wall. But it was his one connection to Grandmamma, so it was important.

Lee held it up to her face. "Ooh, pretty."

"Grandmamma got back to her castle? Ulva said the PLATs made a wall of death around Ostinia, but you can fly over it? Mum?" he decided he must call her "mum." He had to please her so that she would agree.

Lee looked sad. "Oh darling, I can't fly that high. The wall of death extends into the stratosphere where the air's too thin... I can only fly a little and then only when I've taken my special potion and it doesn't last long and then I have stomach pains for days…" she grimaced and touched her belly. "But there is still hope. We may find a way someday." She gazed at him with unblinking eyes and rubbed her green cheek with her unnaturally long fingers. Her blue eyes had a weird intensity of expression. He wondered whether it was normal for her or whether she reserved that look for him. "I can teach you things and then perhaps we can find a way together. We mustn't lose hope."

He nodded, not sure how else to respond to that.

Her eyes widened further and she cupped his face in her hands. "That's my good boy. Some good can come even of a tragedy. We'll be happy. You'll see."

In the days that followed, Lee distracted his mind from his sorrows in a variety of ways. There was a type of ugly, bald mouse that had a hole somewhere in the back of the cave. Lee had names for each and directed Karl on how to feed them crumbs.

"This ones Bibi," she said as the hairless thing stood on its hind legs in the dim light. "Give him a crumb, darling, go on."

She also had a board-game of her own invention with carved wooden pieces that she had painted in different garish colours. One of these was an ugly pink blob with a staring, blue eye and no mouth and the others were little discs with smiley faces which were intended to represent "swamp hoppers."

On a dismal afternoon as the snow swirled outside the cave entrance, they played the game while seated at the little table. Fortunately, the strange pink fires Lee kept burning in the two far corners of the cave warmed everything up. The sweetish smell of smoke from the fires mingled with Lee's own distinctive body odour, which was distracting, but the game was easy to follow. They took turns rolling the dice to decide how to move the blob and the hoppers by turns. The blob piece hopped around the board trying to catch the hoppers. It was hollow with a small compartment inside and each time it landed on a hopper square, Lee placed the hopper piece inside it.

"What's he doing with the hoppers? Eating them?"

The flickering pink lights of the fire played over Lee's vivid green face, the clash of bright colours making her look weirder than ever, throwing her unusually wide forehead and sharply prominent chin into stark relief. She gave a small smile, but her eyes looked sad. "The blob is a 'she,' darling. And no, I'm sure she wants to take care of them. That's why she carries them around."

"Still could be eating them."

Lee bit her lip and her eyes flickered from the blob piece to gazing intently at him again. "No, she's just lonely. When she's collected them all, she'll take them to her cave. Shouldn't we feel sorry for her, hey?"

Karl nodded and then he remembered Aila's advice. Lee was proud of the things she had made, so perhaps he'd better show more appreciation for them and not be so critical. He glanced around the cave. She had carved quite a lot of things out of wood. Some of them were pretty strange. One of them was a painted baby doll wrapped in a blanket. It looked eerily lifelike – more than any doll that had belonged to his sisters. She had even made the eyes look real. Why would she do that? The sight of it did not exactly make him feel comfortable.

"Your carvings are all very good, mum" he said aloud. "Um… you've even carved a baby. That's amazing."

She beamed at him. "Thank you, Karl. Carving can be so therapeutic. It's something I will definitely teach you."

Karl won the game and Lee grinned widely and congratulated him, calling him her clever boy. Aila swept into the cave at that moment. She was now wearing a tight fitting black dress. "Hello! Good to see you're both doing so well. You're not lonely anymore Lee – it's been several days since you've followed me around wanting company."

"Darling, now that I am your mother, this hag is officially your auntie Aila," said Lee, gesturing towards Aila. "She likes to say silly things sometimes."

Aila glanced at the blob piece. "I'm not the only silly hag. When you insert yourself into your story, prose or board game, does your self-insert not have to create her own art with self-inserts, and does this process not spiral on forever? Whether a writer sees herself as a one in a million success and the life of any party, or whether she sees herself as a lonely creature that lives in a cave?"

Lee gave a small smile. "It's easy to be snobbish about someone's art, but not easy to write or craft things. And who's lonely now? You're looking in the wrong cave, sister."

00O00

The following day, Lee had the idea to take Karl swimming. She took him further into the network of rocky passageways, into a tunnel that dove steeply downward towards the heart of the mountain where the air was warm and moist and smelled fetid. The tunnel opened into a vast cavern dominated by a small lake, the iridescent surface reflecting shimmering light onto the walls and ceiling of the cavern that gleamed with bioluminescence.

Lee had brought bathing suits for them both, including a skin-tight one for herself complete with a swimming cap. She looked really strange with her red hair concealed beneath the cap – the size of her nose was much more noticeable and her resemblance to a great, green bird of prey plucked bald was strongly enhanced. Karl hoped the water was not cold. His sisters had always enjoyed playing in the river in summer, and it was with a real pang that he remembered this…

Lee was gazing at him anxiously. "You OK, Karl?"

"Fine mum. Umm … I never could swim like my sisters could."

"I'll be right there with you. We'll be out before the waves come. The lake has an internal tide."

She picked him up and carried in into the shallows. Her skin felt cold and clammy as always so it was like being in the arms of a giant frog-lady, but she could not help that - fortunately she had cut off her long nails after the first night she had rescued him for which he was thankful. The water was surprisingly warm and he felt he could splash around the shallows quite happily. Then something slimy brushed past his leg and he gave a little cry. Lee had noticed it too and she slipped under the water and emerged with a pallid eel clutched in one hand.

She held it up as it wriggled and writhed this way and that, horribly slimy looking in the strange light of the cave. "Well spotted darling. I can make my eel stew when we get back. Even Aila praises my eel stew and she's such an epicure for a hag." She chucked the eel onto the rocky shore of the lake and then grinned at him. "Let's play at swamp hoppers. I'm the blob."

She reared to her great height and slowly lunged after him as he splashed around and then scooped him up in her clammy arms as he giggled madly. "Got you, you cute little hopper." She kissed him on the forehead. She was clever that she could kiss without her nose getting in the way. If he had just seen a picture of her, he would have guessed that a lady with a nose like that could not kiss at all. She was also clever to have found a pool like this – much warmer, therefore much better than a river. She was clever in many ways.

Feeling a warm glow of affection for her, he kissed the cold tip of her long nose. "I'm glad you caught me mum."

She chuckled and feeling silly, they rubbed their noses together. "I do love you," she said softly.

She wanted to see how well he could swim next and he swam a few strokes while she stood alongside him suggesting a different way of turning his head to breathe. "That's great, you're going to make a fine swimmer. But that's enough for now … the waves will be welling up from the deep center of the lake."

"I wanna swim over there," said Karl excited.

She gave him a stern look for the first time since they had met. "No! Not until I'm satisfied you're a strong enough swimmer."

"Can't we ride the waves? Please?" said Karl, giving her the bambi-eyed look that had usually worked on Anna and his first mother, the queen.

Lee sighed. "Can those eyes get any bigger? Alright, but I'm keeping hold of you."

She clasped him to her big, cold body and strode towards the center of the lake. Then the waves welled up and swept them towards the shallows.

"Oof!" Lee landed in a sitting position on the lake-shore still clutching him as he giggled madly. She was soaked and her cap was wrinkled.

"See mum? It's great."

"By the moon, so it is! But mummy's already had enough of it."

"Can't we go again, please?" He kissed the cold tip of her nose again.

She sighed. "Alright. You'll always be safe in my arms."

00O00

So Karl's new life as the witch's son began. The pain of losing his royal family would never go away, but he grew to love his witch family. Certainly he grew to love Lee and he could accept Ulva and Aila as aunts. Karl and Lee sometimes made trips to the mountain peaks and sometimes either Ulva of Aila would accompany them. On one such occasion it was night and the moon was full and bathed them in its silvery light, but in the distance and in all directions, the flickering wall of death could be seen. Karl and Lee had made a snowman. Karl was wrapped tight in layers of furs, but Lee was dressed in a simple black robe and was barefoot and bareheaded in the snow, the little snowflakes alighting on her red hair, making it look peppered with salt or sugar or something…

Aila was with them this time. She did not like the feel of snow under her feet like Lee did, so she wore leather boots that reached almost up to her knees.

"More snow around his stomach, I think, darling," said Lee, scooping up the snow in her bare hands.

"You don't want your snowman to be perfectly beautiful like Karl is, I can see that, but what exactly are you going for?" asked Aila. "It's hard to see what he's supposed to be."

Lee shook her head, her red hair rippling and bouncing. "No snowman could be perfect like my son."

Aila nodded. "No snowman could have hair like spun gold, eyes bluer than a fresh Spring sky, porcelain skin or a perfect little face. And your snowman doesn't happen to look like anything much."

Lee gave a small smile. "If you don't like our snowman, try building a better one."

"A better use of my energy would be catching a mountain goat, we're running very low on red meat" said Aila and she stalked away. Then she called back over her shoulder. "If you hadn't cut off your claws, you might be able to help."

"Pssh, a mother shouldn't have claws and I never liked hunting," said Lee, her penetrating voice cutting through the frigid air without her having to raise it.

Later she wanted to take Karl on a flight. First she had to take a potion made from her special fungus that caused her to retch slightly and clap a hand to her mouth.

"Does your mum look green?" asked Aila, nudging Karl.

"How long did it take you to think that one up?" snapped Lee, shoving her red hair away from her face. She beckoned to Karl. "Come, darling…" she strapped her son to her with a leather harness. She breathed heavily several times as Aila folded her arms and then they were in the air. Karl felt a thrill throughout his being as they rose high above the mountains and towards the heavens, leaving Aila and the snowman far below.

The moon was like a ghostly galleon, tossed on a sea of clouds. "See the world as mummy sees it, my little love," called Lee.

The wind roared in Karl's ears. He tried to yell to ask how high she could fly carrying him, but his voice was not nearly loud enough to compete with the wind this high. The glimmering walls of death dominated the horizons in all directions. Lee told him later that she could not fly up very high where the air was too thin, but maybe someday they would find a way…

00O00

A year after she had rescued him, when midwinter came round again, he lost his first baby tooth. He showed it to Lee and her green face lit up. "Oh Karl, this is your first step to becoming a man. Leave it under your pillow tonight… and I don't know about the Tooth Fairy, but a night-hag will definitely steal it away."

Karl grinned. "Would she?"

Lee tutted and put on her mock serious face. "You know the stories of these night-hags."

Since he had lived with her, he had told her about the ridiculous rumours that had circulated about hags. Fortunately, such ugly superstitious stories seemed to amuse rather than upset her, now that her son knew it was all rubbish.

"Mum, that's more superstitious nonsense from you," he said, quoting Ulva when she had been talking about rumours around night-hags and pulling a funny face as he put his arms around Lee. Feeling silly they rubbed their noses together.

"You called it, my little love," she said softly.

At that moment Aila arrived. "It's almost time for the solstice meeting. If we're a moment late, Ulva gets to act all superior."

Aila led the way to the cavern. Lee held herself back to Karl's pace, smiling down at him every time he looked up at her.

Ulva greeted them cordially, patting Karl on the arm as she always did when greeting him these days. She stood as they sat down, her piercing blue eyes scanning the three of them. "OK, sisters, do you have any important news before we start?"

"Yes! My boy's lost his first tooth," said Lee, her green face split in a wide grin. Karl grinned as well, trying to show it off.

"Can you compete with that, Ulva?" asked Aila.

Ulva gave her that severe look that she gave Karl sometimes when tutoring him in languages or runes when he was not quick enough on the uptake… she did not have his mother's patience… "The news I have is very grave. Now that the PLATs have consolidated their power they are sending scouts to the remote places. Not all these scouts are human. The PLAT mages have press-ganged the guardians of the wall of death into their service. Supernatural hounds. Beasts with awful barks that sound like evil laughter. The Gut Hounds. Their rightful place was the magical boundary, but the PLATs are always determined to interfere with the natural order of things."

Lee nodded, looking grim. "Well if the PLATs or their Gut Hounds come here, they'll be sorry."

"Would they take the trouble to climb so high?" asked Aila.

"One of our own is among their most wanted. The rightful prince of the realm," said Ulva, her blue-eyed gaze steely. "We must be prepared for anything."

Karl felt very uncomfortable. Lee put an arm around his shoulders. "They'll never get my son while I live."

At that moment, there came a terrible barking echoing from down the corridors. Barking with a sound like evil laughter…