How to Stop a Witch by Bill Allen

couple of hours, darkness settled in, and Greg found that keeping his eyes open for danger had little effect. He wondered if Mordred planned to continue walking blindly through the dark, or worse yet, if he planned to camp within the forest.
    “We don’t have time to stop,” announced Mordred.
    Greg couldn’t say the announcement disappointed him.
    The magician held up his staff and stared at it. Greg and the others stared too. For a moment, the darkness of the forest seemed to press in on them. Greg was straining so hard to see that he nearly jumped into Lucky when the tip of Mordred’s staff burst into flame, illuminating the trail around them.
    Priscilla looked horrified. “Nathan said you’re not supposed to use magic.”
    “This is one time where urgency overrides precaution,” said Mordred. “If the monsters in this forest saw us wandering about without light, they might question whether I was able to use my power. Believe me, it’s better for us all if they maintain their fear. Come. We still have far to travel.”
    Greg hadn’t eaten since sharing a few nibbles of stale bread with young Nate and his father in Gyrth. “Do you think we could stop for dinner?” he asked.
    “Certainly,” said Mordred, “but you probably won’t make much of a meal.”
    “Oh,” said Greg, “maybe we should just keep moving.”
    Mordred chuckled. “Maybe so.”
    “I’m hungry too,” announced Kristin.
    “Me too,” said Lucky, though he was always hungry and probably didn’t need to tell anyone.
    Princess Priscilla slipped her knapsack off and dug around inside while she walked. She pulled out some finger sandwiches she’d taken from the kitchen and offered them to the others, but clearly the tiny morsels were designed more for display than for satisfying hunger.
    “I have some chewing gum,” Kristin said. “Sorry I don’t have more, but I’ve been watching my figure lately.”
    “Watching it do what?” asked Lucky.
    Kristin frowned at the remark, but Greg knew Lucky wasn’t joking. He probably had just never heard the expression.
    “How much farther?” Kristin asked Mordred.
    “A couple hundred miles. Don’t worry,” he said, after seeing her reaction. “The magic of the woods will make it feel much shorter. We should be out soon.”
    Greg grunted. He doubted they’d be out of the woods at all, as long as they were on Myrth.
    As the minutes ticked away, and the southwestern edge drew near, Greg became more and more concerned about the ogre he and Lucky had run into the first time they attempted to pass this way. But as Mordred predicted, they saw no monsters of any kind the entire way. Eventually Greg noticed stars above and realized they had emerged from the forest.
    “We made it,” said Priscilla.
    “Of course,” Lucky said, obviously believing himself responsible.
    “It didn’t seem that bad to me,” said Kristin. “So the trees moved around a little. I don’t see what the big deal was.”
    “Be thankful for that,” Greg told her.
    “It was nothing,” Lucky told them both.
    “You’re slowing down,” Mordred called over his shoulder.
    Greg spotted the glow of Mordred’s staff outlining his black form and rushed to keep up. He didn’t mind the harried pace. He was plenty anxious to leave the Enchanted Forest behind, and just as anxious to see the Greathearts—well, all except Norman, anyway. The retired dragonslayer had a dreadful habit of sharing one gruesome story after the next, and each one alone was enough to leave Greg afraid to so much as walk outside.
    Come to think of it, Norman’s eldest son’s continual boasting over his successes as the greatest dragonslayer who ever lived could get quite annoying too. And the best thing Greg could say about Norman’s youngest son, Melvin, was that recently the boy had stopped trying to kill him.
    So really Greg was just anxious to see Edna Greatheart, Norman’s wife. Her role as a mother to Marvin and Melvin seemed to spill over