They could not make trips to the outside world often, but Karl did get to see Cintia again on a number of occasions, when he and his mother visited the marketplace.

As he entered puberty, Karl began to think of Cintia differently and to dream about her too and more. There were certain changes in his body... Sitting with his mother on the bench near the mouth of her cave one bright summer day, he decided to ask her about them. The weather was unusually warm and even though Lee did not seem to mind extremes of heat and cold, today she was wearing a low cut, one-piece dress made of purple fabric and they were drinking purp juice. A purp is a kind of purple citrus fruit of Lee’s own cultivation. It tastes a bit like sour plums. She set her beaker down and listened as he told her what he experienced. Her expression was hard to read. The sunlight glinted off her red hair and shone off her green nose and cheeks.

“You’re growing up, darling.” She smiled, but was there a trace of sadness in her voice? “My precious boy is becoming a strong and handsome man.” She gently touched his cheek with her cold fingers. “All this is normal for a mortal boy becoming a man. You’ve grown so fast. I still remember the day, as if it were yesterday, when we were at your first meeting of the hags and I told Ulva that you were not alone, that you had me, and then when you put your spindly little arms around me and hugged so tight… then I knew my heart will always be yours.” Her blue eyes shimmered as though with tears. “Just think how little and fragile you used to be. All those little shoes and little clothes I made.” She smiled at the clothes of his hanging out on the line to dry. “It seems I make you bigger and bigger clothes and shoes all the time, hey? And your necklace … That’s finished.”

Lee had reshaped every one of his baby teeth into little toys and then strung them together in a necklace which she presented to him on his thirteenth birthday. Now he had a full set of adult teeth and a necklace of his milk teeth as well.

Karl leaned against her big, cold body. Her heart beat was slower than that of a mortal woman. “I’ve been so lucky.” He sighed. “But my royal family weren’t.” He thought with sadness about his sisters, his human mother who were lost forever and his father who had lost an entire kingdom.

Lee put her arms around him and he clambered onto her knee. She was so big that he still had no trouble fitting on her lap, and her lap was where he felt safest. Karl needed to talk again about his first mother, the Queen. Lee had heard it all before of course, but no matter…

“One of my last memories of my royal mother was that she was unhappy, and it was about me. The doctors said that I was ill and there was no cure, so she had what father called a ‘fit of hysterics.’”

Lee tutted. “The poor thing. It must have been terrifying for her. Human doctors are so insular. They’re only mortal, but they think they know everything.”

Karl scrambled into a kneeling position on her lap, so that he could look her in the face. The cold tip of her long nose brushed his cheek as he turned himself round to clutch her clammy shoulders. “But you’ve cured me, mum?”

Her unblinking blue eyes gazed into his. “I certainly hope so, dearest. What you needed was a night-hag’s constant care. I bet no doctor would admit that.”

Karl smirked. “One of them called night-hags a myth.”

Lee grinned. “In that case, I must have flown out of a storybook to rescue you! That really made Steel jump, didn’t it?”

They rubbed their noses together as they always did when feeling silly. That at least had not changed.

00O00

The next day, they went with Aila to the sandy shores of the lake in the cavern. They were playing a game of Lee’s invention. She had created a frog made of a vivid pink, slimy stuff. The idea was that they had to hold the frog and direct it to hop to someone else. Karl found this a lot easier than playing ball games, due to his poor coordination. Perhaps that was why Lee had invented this new game.

“To me, Aila!” said Lee, her powerful voice ringing throughout the cavern.

“OK… how does this work…? Hop towards Lee.” The frog slid out of Aila’s grasp and took a long, lolloping hop over the sand, but not towards Lee. It hopped towards Karl instead, splashing against his leg.

“Aw, it loves Karl,” said Lee.

“You made it,” said Aila. “Isn’t it amateurish to make characters that are just copies of you?”

“I’d say the frog just has good taste,” said Lee and Karl picked up the slimy thing in both hands.

“Hop towards mum,” he told it. The frog lolloped across the sand towards Lee.

“You’re becoming a man, Karl,” called Aila. “You’ll soon grow up, move on and break your mother’s heart by leaving her.”

“Leave her? Really, Aila? Why would I do that?” Did Aila really think he’d be safe from PLATs and Gut Hounds away from his mother?

Lee grinned widely at him as the frog leapt into her hands.

“I was right in the first place,” said Aila. “You remember how Ulva had her doubts, but I said it from the very beginning, that Lee should be your mother and then you clung to her so tight? You were made for each other like…” Aila smirked “… like a prince and a night-hag.”

Lee nodded and her long red hair rippled and bounced. “Yes. You could see it, Aila. Karl and I are both outcasts. It is only right that we support each other.”

The frog hopped towards Aila, but then paused and turned to hop to Karl again.

Aila swiped at the frog with a clawed hand as it lolloped in Karl’s direction. “To think it’s been seven years already and you’re not that delicate little boy anymore. Time sure means a lot to a mortal. Time is different for us. We live forever.” She grinned at Lee, her black eyes glittering. “How does the prospect of eternity feel? That you’ll outlive the stars themselves?”

“Ask that question in a million years. I’m going to focus on the here and now. And now I’m happy and Karl is happy and that’s what really matters.”

But Karl wondered about his mother’s immortality as he lay back in his bed of furs that night. Aila’s choice of imagery was a little disturbing… Outlive the stars? What would that even be like? Lee was lying on her bed nearby. He felt he should ask her.

“Mum?”

“Yes, darling?”

“Does it frighten you, living forever? Would it help to talk about it?”

Lee sat up. From side on, her face looked like a green, sickle moon rising in the near darkness. She leaned over him, her smile reassuring.

“Aila was just winding me up. Maybe it would seem fresher if she only said that once a century.”

“Living forever though… longer than the stars… it’s strange to think about.”

She leaned close, her cold breath tickling his cheek. “You are right. It is strange. We don’t really know how long night-hags live. Aila made up the part about outliving the stars. Immortality and eternity are concepts that get thrown around a lot by authors who don’t know what they mean.”

Lee was talking about writing again… she tended to talk about art, whether writing or carving, when trying to describe the supernatural.

“So, you just live a long time because you’re a magical being? You don’t know how long?”

“That’s right.” She gave a small smile. “But that means I can care for you your entire life, hey?”

“Did it make you sad? Not knowing how long you live…?”

“That part didn’t. But I have found life as a recluse hard and lonely. I thought often, why do I have to be a creature of the night? Ulva, Aila and I have pledged sisterhood, so that we have emotional support and my sisters are content with that, but I needed more…” Her blue eyes were wide. She was doing that staring expression. The one that meant she was emotional.

“You needed me,” said Karl giggling.

She grinned and touched his cheek with her clammy fingers. “I saved you from Steel, but you saved me from loneliness. You have been the light of my life… my life as a creature of the night needed light.”

Steel … and her loneliness. Two quite different things. Lee’s loneliness did not conjure up the terrifying spectre in his mind that Steel did. Suddenly, he vividly recalled that terrible midwinter night and Steel’s mad eyes glaring at him with murderous intent… He shuffled over to Lee and she placed her strong, cold arms around him.

“It is only right that you should be mine,” she murmured. More to herself that to him, he thought. “I waited so long to be a mother. It’s only fair. For both of us.”

Karl should have realised that their happiness could not last…

00O00

When Karl was sixteen, Ulva arrived at the meeting of the hags looking very grave.

“It is as I feared,” she told them, her voice trembling. “Steel has taken over. He staged a coup to overthrow the old PLAT commander and brutally purged his opponents in the party… Well… there is another thing. The Wall of Death has begun to fail. It is possible that his arch-rival, Trot, has escaped past it.” She drew a deep, shuddering breath. “This is dire for the entire realm and beyond. The village of Candlewood that you visit, Lee… he has confiscated their harvest and wiped out most of the villagers when they protested.”

Lee gasped and uttered a vehement exclamation, her blue eye so wide and panicked … Karl had never seen her affected like this. He felt an icy feeling of fear in his stomach… “What about Cintia… what happened to her?”

“I do not know, Karl,” said Ulva. “Let’s hope she was one of the lucky ones. But now we must think of ourselves. Steel won’t be content to let us live in peace. We already knew that he is paranoid and he knows night-hags exist…” she glanced meaningfully at Lee.

Aila looked uncharacteristically grave. “We’re among that maniac’s most wanted. At least the old Commander just didn’t care about us either way.”

Lee’s long green hands were trembling. Karl touched one of them. “Mum?”

She turned her blue eyes to his. Her grey lips formed a pained smile. She turned to Ulva. “I feared this day would come…” said Lee slowly. “But now the boundary is crumbling… my boy and I must flee. Dear sisters… I’m going to fulfil the vow I made, to bring comfort to Karl’s grandmother. We must leave you now. I cannot say how long it will be, but I will be back with you someday. Maybe in a hundred years, but someday. We all know that.”

Ulva and Aila nodded.

So, this was it. They were going to Grandmamma. Karl’s heart beat faster. How would she be after all this time? It had been ten years…

Lee hugged her sisters tightly, giving a weird little moan and then kissed them fiercely on both cheeks. Then Ulva wrapped her clammy arms around Karl and kissed him lightly on the forehead. “Travel safe, little Prince. Remember what I’ve taught you.”

He kissed her gingerly on her green cheek. “Always, Ulva. I’ll never forget you.” Were there tears in her eyes? Ulva never cried.

He took Aila’s clawed hands in both of his. Her flesh was as cold and greasy as his mother's.

“This is goodbye then, Karl.” She smiled, her black eyes gleaming. “But still, if all goes well for you, I will drop by to visit. Keep stocked up on raw meat.”

She sniffed as she turned away and hurried from the cavern.

Back in the cave, Lee unearthed the scary carved stick she had been working on so long. It seemed to squirm in her grip and the carved face leered. She had fastened a bundle of twigs to one end, so that it now resembled a broom, as much as anything else.

“Let’s hope you’re ready,” she said softly, bringing the tip of her long nose close to the ugly, carved face.

She turned to her son. “If I can fly, Karl, then all well and good. My solo test flight will have to be done sooner than I expected, hey?”

She was not a small woman. Far from it. She must be a lot heavier than Karl. Surely a stick could not support her weight? She cast off her cloak, donned an ugly pointed hat and straddled the broom. Then she ran to the mouth of the cave and with a cry, hurtled into the air, leaving Karl staring upwards. The twigs of the broom were burning! Or were they? There was some sort of magic involved. Perhaps that’s what made it fly. Lee came gliding back immediately after.

“It is ready. I didn’t even lose the hat.” She took the hat off and chucked it away. “Come, darling, now we fly together.” She took some time fussing over whether he was wrapped warmly enough and then strapped him to her with strong leather straps, making him straddle the broom as well. She had tied a leather bag to the wooden handle. Karl wondered when she had packed. Then she gave a cry and propelled them forwards out of the mouth of the cave.

Karl’s heart thudded in his breast. He gripped his mother’s shoulders tightly as they hurtled into the night. For a sickening moment it felt like they were dropping like stones, but then the broom rose higher and higher in the air and Karl felt the wind roaring in his ears.

Lee laughed in sheer delight, the sound cutting through the rushing wind. “We’re flying, my love, we’re really flying. It actually worked! Would you believe it?”

How reassuring to hear her ask that…

“Now we must go over the crumbling Wall of Death. Don’t look down. Just hold me tight.” He slipped his arms around her waist and held tight.

They hurtled towards the glowing lights of the wall, searing blue and purple lights, something like the Aurora Borealis, glowed all around them. Karl did not look down, but he could hear hollow voices resounding through the air.

“Hostile spirit voices,” muttered Lee. “Don’t listen to them, Karl. The Wall is a breach into the netherworld.”

The broom juddered.

Lee gave a little cry. “It’s too much. He can't make it. We’re going down!”