The Visit to Morrigan

Morrigan's cottage was exactly as uninviting as a witch's cottage ought to be.

It was small and slightly lopsided, with a garden so overgrown that the path to the front door required actual pushing through of branches. The roof had three separate weather vanes on it, all pointing in different directions. The windows were full of things, jars and bottles and bundles of dried plants pressed against the glass. A large black cat sat on the gatepost and watched them approach with the deeply judgmental expression that large black cats always have.

"Nice cat," Phineas said, reaching out to stroke it.

The cat looked at his hand and then looked at him with an expression that clearly said do not even think about it.

He withdrew his hand.

Rosa knocked on the door. This took some courage, Zeb thought, given that the last time Rosa had knocked on this door the result had been a tower appearing around her. Rosa did not seem to be a person who was easily discouraged, which was probably both her best quality and the reason she kept ending up in towers.

The door opened.

Morrigan was not what Zeb had been picturing. He had been picturing someone old and hunched and dramatically witchy. Morrigan was tall and upright and looked perhaps sixty, with sharp grey eyes and flour on her apron and the general air of someone who has been interrupted while baking and is mildly annoyed about it.

She looked at Rosa. Her eyes narrowed.

"You again," she said.

"Me again," Rosa agreed. She held out the bunch of herbs. "I brought these back. I am sorry I took them. I genuinely did not know they were magical."

"They are labelled," Morrigan said.

Rosa opened her mouth and then closed it again. "I did not see the labels," she said.

"They are on stakes in the ground next to each plant," Morrigan said. "Large stakes. Large labels."

"I was looking at the plants," Rosa said. "Not the ground."

Morrigan looked at the three of them standing at her door, then at the herbs in Rosa's hand, then back at Rosa. Something shifted in her expression that was not quite a smile but was perhaps in the same family as one.

"How did you get out of the tower?" she asked. "There is no door."

"My friends climbed my hair," Rosa said.

Morrigan looked at Zeb. "You climbed her hair."

"It was the only way up," Zeb said.

Morrigan was quiet for a moment. Then she said: "That is actually quite resourceful." She took the herbs from Rosa and looked at them. They straightened up in her hand immediately and the wilted look went out of them and they became fresh and dark green again. "They are fine," she said. "Herbs do not mind a tower."

"Will you lift the curse?" Cora asked.

"The curse lifted when she left the tower," Morrigan said. "That was always the condition. The tower was never meant to be permanent." She looked at Rosa. "The intention was that she would be stuck until someone helped her, which I assumed would teach her something about the consequences of taking things that do not belong to her."

"It has," Rosa said. "I am very sorry. I will not come into your garden again."

Morrigan studied her for a long moment. "You said that last time," she said.

"I mean it more this time," Rosa said.

"Hmm," said Morrigan, which was not yes but was also not no. She looked at all three of them standing on her path. "You had better come in," she said. "I have been baking and there is more than I need."

Phineas brightened immediately. Zeb felt fairly bright about it himself.

Even the cat moved aside to let them through, which Zeb suspected was the closest thing to a warm welcome that cat had ever given anyone.