Toil and Trouble
"Oh crap!"
The words left Harper's mouth before he could stop them, which really wasn't such a good thing. And "witch" being the key problem.
Yes, that's right. Witch. As in the long black dress, pointy hat, greasy hair, wart-on-the-end-of-the-nose kind.
He'd had a bad feeling about this mission ever since Dylan and Beka had dragged him down to this blackened lump of a planet and told him to search for survivors, and now he knew why. His guts had been screaming at him to just stay out from the moment he'd seen the entrance to the cave, but had he listened? Nooooo, of course not! He, Harper-the-not-so-genius-right-now, just had to know what was behind black, gaping hole in the rock number one, and of course he hadn't bothered to wait for the others or tell them where he was going. No, that would be the smart thing to do, and at the moment, Harper was feeling anything but smart.
And, if he'd just managed to keep his big mouth shut, he might have been able to back out of said cave before said witch lady saw him.
Of course, he hadn't been expecting to see a woman in a long back dress and pointy hat stirring a big, black cauldron over the fire either, so maybe the slip was excusable.
Who was he kidding? He was in a room with an honest to goodness witch, who was looking at him like he was chocolate cake, and he was worried about what he had or hadn't said? Oh, he was so dead…
"Um, look, um…ma'am," Harper said shakily, holding up his hands and backing slowly toward the cave entrance, "I'm really, really sorry to have bothered you. You don't know how sorry I am that I've bothered you. And now, if you don't mind, I think I'll just be on my merry little way! You know, things to do, places to go, people to see…"
He moved to turn and run like the devil but found his feet were frozen to the floor. Actually, make that everything frozen, except his head.
"Oh, don't go, dearie!" the woman croaked in a syrupy voice that sent shivers up the engineer's spine. "It's been so long since I've had visitors! You really must stay for a bit." She circled him, looking him up and down, running a long, black fingernail through his hair and across his cheeks.
Harper gulped.
"Look, Ms. Witch-lady," Harper started talking fast. He had a habit of doing that when panicking. "You really should let me go because, well, my friends are out there and they are gonna wonder what's happened to me and they won't like it if you eat me or turn me into a piece of furniture or something, and besides I'm really stringy and tough and I wouldn't taste good and I'm sure I'd give you indigestion and you really don't want that, do you…" Her fingernail slid down under his chin and across his throat just as some manure-green bubbles jumped from her boiling pot and Harper trailed off, his face paling.
"Hush, boy," she whispered in his ear. "Who said I was gonna eat you?" she asked with an evil grin, even as she continued to pat his cheeks and pinch his arms, testing their fatness.
Harper seriously considered crying.
"Too scrawny and thin," she finally said to herself. "Wouldn't be more than a bite. Shame, though. If I had time, I'd keep you and fatten you up, but that's too much of a bother. So what am I going to do with you…?"
"Um, let me go?" Harper asked hopefully, putting on his best behavior face.
"Why the rush to leave, little one? Don't you enjoy my company?"
"Oh, um…yes!" Harper frantically gushed, still wishing he could just move. "Lovely place you've got here! Nice and um…retro, in an evil, witchy kind of way!"
"You're lying," the witch purred, tracing her fingernails down his neck. "I can see it in your scared little eyes. I don't like liars."
Harper gulped again and clamped his mouth shut. All it seemed to be doing was getting him deeper in trouble anyway.
"You come into my home without permission, and now you have lied to me?" she continued, circling him again. "Not only is that wrong, it's also bad manners. Tsk, tsk, I shall have to teach you better."
Now, Harper liked learning. He crammed all sorts of useful - and not so useful - information into his brain at every opportunity. However, he was quite sure this was something he did NOT want to learn, especially from the hag in front of him.
"Are you sure we can't just re-examine the 'letting him go' option?"
"I'm afraid not, dearie," she smiled, showing off her teeth, all four of them.
"Um…why?" Maybe he was being petulant and annoying, but it was his last moments, he figured he was allowed.
"Why, because I say so, of course!"
"Oh…" This was so not his day.
"Now, we've got that out of the way, we're back to the original question. What shall I do with you?" She walked back to stir her caldron, still speaking to herself. Harper, of course, stayed where he was. "I could freeze him, but the cold storage's quite full. And I really don't need any more potted plants…" Harper suddenly noticed the pitiful, droopy potted plants that decorated the room. He tried to imagine life as a potted plant. He felt rather sick. "Annabel probably wouldn't mind a new mouse to play with, but then, she always leaves the heads on the bedroom rug…"
She glanced back at him and Harper squeaked.
"Hmmm, I actually can't think of anything to do with you at the moment. You just don't inspire me, what can I say!" She shrugged. "I do wish you were just a tad bit plumper; I do so enjoy roast human when it's so young and tender, but oh well. Not much we can do. I suppose I shall just have to let you go."
Harper's brain derailed somewhere back around "roast human" and it took him a few minutes to arrive at and process the last line.
"L….let me go?" he stammered, hardly daring to hope.
She waved her arms dismissively, releasing the spell that held him to the cavern floor. "Yes, yes, child. Let you go."
Harper stared in shock, mouth gaping open.
"Well, get going, then! Shoo!"
The engineer's brain finally kicked into gear and sent the signal to his feet to get lost. He turned and ran for his life, boots pounding the rock so hard he never heard the words whispered after him or the soft cackles of laughter.
00000
"Beka, I ask you once again, what makes you think Harper came down this tunnel?"
"Dylan, does this tunnel look safe?" Beka shot back.
"Well, no…" Dylan replied, confused by the change of subject.
"And does this tunnel look like the place any sane person would want to spend time?"
"No…"
"Then I rest my case. He's here. Somewhere."
The light from their flashlights rounded the corner and lit up the pile of clothes moments before the two people saw it. Beka stopped dead in her tracks, mouth gapping in horror.
"Oh no…" she hissed, her eyes threatening to fill with tears as she knelt next to her best friend's empty clothes.
"Are those Harper's?" Dylan asked, his voice sad.
"Of course they're Harper's, who else would they belong to?"
Beka jumped back. That was Harper's voice! But she could have sworn it was coming from… No, it couldn't have… Why was there a frog sitting in the middle of Harper's empty clothes? And what did she eat for breakfast that could make her hallucinate bad enough to think the frog was talking?
"Harper?" Dylan called not having seen what she ha- hadn't seen, looking around the tunnel. "Where are you? Why are your clothes out here? Are you jacked in somewhere and need help?"
"Yo people! Down here, okay!" the…um…frog said. "And yeah, I could really use some help about now."
Dylan blinked. He looked down at the small, green frog sitting in the middle of his engineer's clothes. He blinked again. They didn't cover this in the High Guard Handbook. He made a mental note to suggest an updated version once they got done with this mission.
Meanwhile, Beka crouched down closer to her currently green friend. "So, um, Harper, that really you? Or should I call you Hopper now?"
"Ha, ha, very funny, Beka," Harper the frog answered, the nasal voice unmistakable. "And of course it's me! Now could we move onto the fixing this part!" He gave a small hop to emphasis his point.
"Um…Harper, you're a frog," Dylan said slowly.
"Wow! Fifty points to the big dude for that astounding observation! No joke I'm a frog!"
"You know Harper, this definitely beats that public lewdness charge, hands down," Beka couldn't resist.
"URGH! Beka! I'm two inches tall, slimy and green! Not to mention the witch that could be coming after us down this tunnel at any moment, and she's no Glenda if you catch my drift! So, could we save the wisecracks for later and just FIX THIS!"
"Witch?" Dylan asked.
"Glenda?" Beka asked.
The frog sighed. "Never mind."
"A witch did this to you?" Dylan asked again.
"Yes."
"Pointy hat, broomstick?"
"Yes, Captain Hunt."
"Oh dear."
"Well, maybe Trance can fix it. You get his clothes," she ordered Dylan, then turned back to Harper. "Come on Harper," she said, scooping the frog up and putting him gently in the back pocket of her pack. "Comfy?"
"Beka, I'm in your poncho-pocket. Can we just get this over with?" came the muffled voice.
"Yeah," Beka replied. "What a day…"
"You know, I just wish we'd brought one thing with us…" Dylan said thoughtfully.
"What?" Beka raised an eyebrow. "Soapy water?"
"No, a camera."
"I heard that big guy!" Harper's muffled shouts still managed to sound indignant.
"Well, I bet Rommie will take pictures, so don't worry," Beka smiled conspiratorially.
The backpack sighed.
They started walking, Beka carrying Harper the frog, and Dylan carrying Harper the person's clothes.
"You know," Harper's voice floated out, "I think I'm getting a little seasick back here…"
"Harper, if you puke in my pack, so help me I'll…"
"Then walk more like a person and less like a pack-horse!"
"Why you little rat! Fine, if you want to be that way, you can HOP all the way back to the Maru!" Beka started to take off the pack, but Dylan's hand on her arm stopped her.
"Beka."
"But he deserves it!"
"Beka, he's a frog. Cut him a little slack."
"Oh fine," Beka pouted. "But I swear he has it coming."
"Besides," Dylan added with a sly grin. "Think what Tyr's gonna say when he sees this."
Beka laughed.
Beka's backpack groaned. This was so the last time Harper helped Dylan and Beka with a mission.