Hexia

Dear reader.

A while ago I started drawing. It's been about 3 or 4 weeks now. I'm not yet good at it, but you have to start somewhere, right?

One of the characters I came up with is Hexia. A young witch. Of course, a bunch of ideas came up, and I started writing. I got up to some 800 words now, and I want to share them here. I wonder what you think of this start.

And here is the first bit of Hexia.

"Hey, you. What's your name? I'm Hexia. Actually I'm Hexietta, but mama always called me Hexia. Or 'trouble on legs', but I don't use that. That's too long."

The young witch sits on a wobbly chair at her table. The chair is wobbly because one leg is broken off. Hexia fixed that somewhat, but shoving a book under that leg. It's not a perfect fit, but good enough to sit on the chair again.

She'd love to have another chair, but she only has this one, so she has to be happy with it for now.

"I love alone in this house," Hexia says. "I used to live with papa and mama, but they got blown away. I tried to find them, but the storm was very strong. It took them with it on their brooms. Further than I can walk. Otherwise I'd have found them."

The little house she lives in, isn't actually hers. Her parents' house was blown down by the storm, and she wasn't able to fix that. This little house, in the forest, was still there, and it was empty. Apart from the chair and the table, of course.

But who is Hexia talking to? It's a frog she found in the forest. There are people living near her little house, but she doesn't talk to them very often. These people think she's a bit weird, and they know she's a witch child.

"Croak." That's all the frog has to say to her, but it's enough for Hexia.

She rocks her chair a bit. "You probably don't know how to fix this chair, do you?" She takes the frog and puts it on the ground. "There. You can see it better this way."

Hexia sits down cross-legged and waits. Maybe frogs are a bit slow in thinking up ways to fix broken chair legs.

After quite a while, when her behind gets cold and her legs start to ache, Hexia decides to get up again. She groans, and says, "I'm getting old." Papa always said that too, after sitting on the floor for a long time.

The frog is put on the table again, but by the time she climbed back on the chair, it disappeared.

"Hey! Where are you?" Hexia calls out loud.

"Croak," the frog replies, as he hops out the door. "Crooaaaak," is the last she hears of it.

"Too bad..." Hexia shrugs. "Oh well, you couldn't fix the chair anyway."

Then a voice asks, "Hexia? Are you in there?" The voice sounds far away, but Hexia recognizes Mrs Hollowbeaker's voice. Mrs Hollowbeaker lives closest to Hexia, and tries to take care of the girl as much as she can.

"Mrs Hollowbeakerrrrrr!" Hexia loves how the 'r' keeps rolling. "Yes. I'm here. And it's safe to come inside."

The sound of footsteps on the short staircase outside bounce through the room. Depite Hexia's words, Mrs Hollowbeaker peers inside the room first. "Good. This does look safe."

The kind lady has gotten scared a few times. During previous visits, long ago, when Hexia was still practicing with her magic wand. That sometimes had some very strange effects. These days, that could happen too, but not so often.

"Did you see my frog?" Hexia asks the woman.

"Your frog?" This is a sign for Mrs Hollowbeaker to look scared. "Don't tell me you changed someone into a frog."

"No. I found it in the woods," Hexia said, "but he couldn't repair chairs, so he went home."

"Repair... chairs..." Mrs Hollowbeaker needed some time for that to make sense, which it would never do. "You said *frog*, didn't you?"

"Yes." Hexia didn't understand her question. She always talked loud and clear. "You know. An animal that..." She gets down from the chair, squats down, and hops through the room like a real frog. She even croaks like one a few times. "Like that," Hexia says, after standing up.

"Yes, yes..." Mrs Hollowbeaker looks at the young witch again. "Actually, I came here to tell you dinner's almost ready."

Hexia has dinner with Mr and Mrs Hollowbeaker almost every day. Her own house has no kitchen. She also doesn't know how to cook, so a kitchen isn't necessary.

Mrs Hollowbeaker doesn't agree with that. She says it works the other way around. "If you have a kitchen, you will learn how to cook almost automatically."

She's probably right, but the young witch likes this arrangement. It's nice and easy.

"Oh, good! I think." Hexia wants to know what Mrs Hollowbeaker has made.

"Cabbage and potatoes, and a fish Mr Hollowbeaker caught," is the answer.

"What? He went fishing without me?" Hexia is really surprised. She loves going out to catch fish with the man. With her around, he can really catch fish. Getting them from the river with a fishing rod is boring. Hexia will make the fish fly out of the water, straight at Mr Hollowbeaker. Usually he catches them, but sometimes he misses. Luckily he only got hit so hard, he fell over.

"He... didn't want to disturb you," says Mrs Hollowbeaker.