Disclaimer - I don't own The Worst Witch or Jumanji. Just to let you know.
Feedback... would be appreciated since I am trying to do something different here.
The Curse of Jumanji.
Bella and Miranda screamed as they were lifted off of the ground, both preteen girls were taken by surprise when they were suddenly lifted up away from the bear. As they were raised higher into the air, both girls suddenly lost their breath, and they realised whatever had caught them both was holding onto them by using the hoops of their gymslips!
"Calm down, the pair of you!" Bella frowned when she heard the voice as it called out. It was the voice of a woman. There was a trace of the same southern accent in the voice, much like her own or her aunts….
She was broken out of her thoughts when she felt whatever was holding onto her shake. "No," another voice groaned, also a woman, this time with an accent that was northern instead of southern, "the brooms, they're starting to shake themselves to pieces again, just like the others."
"Do you think we're gonna make it?"
"I don't know. We always had time before they fell apart before."
"Yeah, but we never had two girls flying with us before," the woman with the southern accent pointed out..
"We've got spares back at the place," the woman with the northern accent said.
The other woman sighed. Miranda took the opportunity to take a look at her rescuer. The woman had long, messy, unkempt hair that was brownish in colour, but it was so matted with dirt it was virtually impossible for her to tell what colour it was. But as she looked closer Miranda could see lighter strands here and there. Blonde hair. There were a few traces of this blonde hair everywhere, but they were overtaken by the darker shading.
Miranda took a look at the woman's clothes. They were a curious mix of animal skins, leathers and rags that were held together by crude stitch work, but the broomstick they were riding because it was a broomstick, of sorts, but it was shaking so badly she couldn't tell what it was made from.
Bella, meanwhile, was also paying attention to the woman who'd rescued her. This woman had much darker skin and hair that looked so messy it looked like she had never seen a comb or a brush in ages, but as Bella looked closer she could see for herself this woman's skin actually had dirt ingrained into her face, like she had been wallowing and rolling around in wet soil for ages.
She had only one question on her mind. "Who are you?" she asked the dark haired woman.
The woman glanced down at her, and Bella saw her eyes crinkle for a moment before she looked straight up again when the broom shook itself a little more violently than it had done before. "We'll tell you in a bit," she replied, her voice brisk as though she didn't think it mattered. But Bella could tell the woman had other things on her mind than to answer questions.
Miranda, however, had other questions on her mind. "How did you know we were down there?" she asked.
The woman with the southern accent replied in a way that sounded to Bella she was trying very hard to get annoyed but was holding herself back. "We heard you scream," she replied like it was obvious. "No-one in this place would scream like that, well no-one from around here that is."
Miranda frowned when the implication hit home. "You mean…. you're not from here?"
"No," the lighter woman sighed sadly, her eyes so drawn out with pain and grief Miranda almost cried at how much it affected her. "We're not."
The other woman spoke up - Bella was the only one of the two younger girls who noticed the dark-haired woman glance over at her companion with a look of the kind of sympathy that only hoped whenever you met someone suffering from the same pain and grief you were.
With that in mind, Bella asked her rescuer. "How long have you been here?"
The dark haired woman spared her a look, and Bella could see clearly the woman's dark eyes set in a moonlike face, highlighted by dozens of small cuts and scars attained by a long life of hardship. "Too long," the woman said shortly, her voice quiet and upset as her eyes took on a haunted expression, and she went silent after that when the broomstick shuddered all the way.
Thanks to the instability of the broomsticks, which were quite crudely made, the journey to wherever the women were heading for was a long one. The constant jarring and shaking of the broomsticks made it hard for the two women to handle them. More than once both Bella and Miranda felt they were going to fall to their deaths, and even the two women were cursing in annoyance whenever the brooms shook.
All four females were more than relieved when they, at last, arrived at their destination. It was a small cave hacked into the side of a rocky mountain that overlooked the valley. Miranda studied the entrance to the cave and the mountain itself, and apart from the bits of vine and plant-life that clung to the side of the rock walls, she could see the face of the cliff was extremely steep and it didn't look like there was any way an animal could climb up unless they were well adapted for that type of work.
In layman's terms, this place was the perfect place for anyone to live, especially if you had magic.
The thought of magic made Miranda frown as she remembered how they'd arrived and their magic had failed to really make a difference; Miranda knew if they had used that spell on any other animal, there would have been major effects but the bear had shaken it off like the spell was just a bothersome rash.
The two adult witches landed their broomsticks slowly, allowing the younger girls the chance to feel solid ground beneath their feet. When they were released Miranda and Bella looked around the cave. The first impression on their minds was this place was more like a camp; these witches clearly had no plan to remain here for too long. There was no furniture besides a couple of logs the witches had brought up here to make this place more comfortable, and there was no sign of a table. In a corner was a small cave opening that led to another part of the mountain, and as she listened closely she could hear the sound of running water.
Miranda wondered how these two witches spent their time. It must be driving them mad to live like this; she had heard stories about people who were stranded on desert islands or in jungles found something creative to take their minds off of their isolation. A bit of woodwork here and there, some cave art or something along those lines, but in this cave, there was nothing here to show any signs of that. But as she looked around, Miranda blinked in horror when she saw twin piles of matted long grass heaped untidily on the ground.
She swallowed when she realised what those piles were. They were clearly used as beds for the two women. How had they come to live like this?
"Thank you for saving us," Bella said to the witches.
The dark-haired woman smiled at her kindly. "You're welcome," she replied generously, but her face crinkled into a frown as she took in the young blonde girl's uniform. Her eyes widened when she locked eyes onto the Cackle's badge. But before she could say anything Miranda's voice caught her attention.
Miranda had just wandered over to a corner of the cave where there were long thick lengths of bamboo, piled next to a small number of twigs and rushes. "What's all this?" she asked.
The lighter haired witch walked over. "This is what we make our broomsticks out of," she said.
"There's so much," Bella noted when she walked over, putting aside her questions about these two women out of her mind for the moment, though she was curious about the attention the dark-haired woman had shown to her uniform.
"That's because everything in Jumanji is, at different levels, resilient to magic," the lighter witch with the southern accent said.
"What?" Miranda gasped, though she kicked herself for her reaction. Resistant to magic, now it made sense…
The dark-haired witch sent her a look of surprise. "You must have worked that out after you encountered the bear. We saw you both from above, but we were too high up to shout at you."
"So you saw what we tried to do?" Bella asked.
The dark-haired witch nodded. "Everything was going by so fast," she said, "when we realised what you were trying to do, it was too late to let you know it wouldn't have worked. It was a shock to us," she gestured to her friend, "when we arrived in this hell hole we couldn't use magic."
"How long have you been here?" Miranda whispered shyly, afraid of the answer.
"We don't know," the witch with the southern accent whispered, and the pain in her eyes was terrible to see.
"We tried to keep a count of the days, hoping someone else would play the game, get us out….," the dark-haired witch trailed off, looking down sadly. "But with so much happening, we lost count of the days, and we couldn't restart writing a chart because we'd lost the old one."
"The game?" Miranda repeated. "We were playing a game called-,"
"Jumanji?" the dark-haired woman repeated, her dark eyes flashing dangerously at the name, hatred flashing over her face. "We're inside Jumanji right this minute. We couldn't keep count of how many days we've been trapped here simply because we lost track of the days; that's what happens when you're under constant attack from different animals."
Bella visibly shook and the other adult witch noticed the tears rolling down the young blonde girl's face. "Don't worry, as long as you two stay with us, you'll be okay," she said as reassuringly as she could, but Bella could tell that despite her doing her best this adult witch was really sensitive but clearly didn't know how to get it just right…
"So Jumanji is still in Cackles?" the dark-haired witch suddenly asked, turning her attention over to Miranda.
Miranda looked at her sharply. "You know about Cackles?"
The dark-haired witch smiled and gestured between herself and her friend. "We were students there. Third years," she reached inside her clothes and pulled out a small metallic object. Miranda looked at it closely. It was a Cackle's badge, it was tarnished, battered and scratched and some of the colour had faded, but she recognised the red belonging to the red house.
Miranda looked up at the witch. A suspicion was blooming in her mind at who these two women were, but she needed to know. "Who are you?" she asked.
The dark-haired witch smiled. "My name is-,"
"Mildred Hubble?" Bella whispered, looking at the dark-haired with growing amazement. "You're Mildred Hubble, aren't you?"
The dark-haired witch blinked at her in surprise. "You know who I am?"
Miranda nodded, but before she could say anything Bella's whisper. "If you're Mildred then that means….. you're Auntie Ethie!" she said, looking at the woman with the southern accent.
Hearing that made the lighter haired woman jump and look at the younger blonde in surprise. "What? What did you say?" she whispered.
Tears were streaming down Bella's face in rivers. "It is you, Auntie?" she said, her voice thick with tears. "I'm Bella…..Esmerelda Hallow's daughter!"
Ethel gasped and she put her hand over her mouth at the mention of her elder sister. "Esm-Esmerelda's daughter?" she repeated before she began to cry. Before Miranda or Mildred could say anything, Ethel grabbed Bella and wrapped her in her arms, and both Hallows began to cry. It was a very strange act, given the Hallows constantly preached to themselves Hallows did not cry but neither of them cared or gave it much thought.
"Thirty years?" Mildred repeated later as she and Ethel handed the two younger girls some freshly cooked meat and some vegetables and fruit. Both girls accepted the food dubiously because they had no idea what the meat was, or even how they got it. Miranda had spotted a crudely made bow and a set of arrows nearby, but she wasn't going to say anything.
Bella nodded. "After you went missing there was a massive crackdown on Cackles while the Magic Council organised searches for you both, but they found nothing."
Mildred glanced over at Ethel and saw the blonde woman's face look as stricken as she herself thought, though truthfully Mildred genuinely didn't really care what had happened at Cackles since they'd been sucked into the game. Thirty years? What had been happening for thirty years? Both witches had always regretted losing track of that part of the jungle where they'd made note of how many days they'd been trapped in Jumanji, but thanks to being driven out by Van Pelt it wasn't as if they could stroll back.
Bella had already told her aunt what had been happening with the family, how Sybil had won a number of magical musical competitions and had gone on to become a very successful musician though she was only being encouraged by her grandmother and Esmerelda to succeed. Nothing new there; Mildred knew only too well how detached Mr and Mrs Hallow were.
But Mildred was trying her best to tune out the family chatter because it brought back her own fears about her mother. Thoughts of how her mother was coping were never far from Mildred's mind. When she had first noticed the uniforms the two girls were wearing, she had recognised them instantly but after spending thirty years trapped in a hellish magical game with someone like Ethel Hallow for company, Mildred had learnt to close her emotions off. Wishing for her mother would not magically make her appear but right here and now were two people who might know what had happened to her mum…
No. There was a chance they didn't know, and even if they did know it wouldn't help them right now.
Although she wanted to find out what had happened to Julie, she didn't know if these two girls knew it….
"Don't you want to hear about your mother, Mildred?" Miranda suddenly asked her.
Mildred would dearly love to hear about her mother. Indeed she was genuinely surprised these girls seemed to know about her mum, but after her resolve not to find out…. In the end, she shook her head in the negative at the girl. "No, thank you Miranda," she smiled, wondering if the smile was as fake as it felt but she genuinely didn't care since the fact she had a chance to know what had happened to her mother and how she was doing was causing more pain for her now because these two probably did know, though how she didn't know. "I don't want to know," Mildred felt she needed to get out before she lost her bottle and turned around and begged the girls into telling her what was going on back home, "I don't want to spend my time feeling bad my mother has been suffering for thirty years."
With that, she stood up and walked over to the entrance of the cave that overlooked the valley. Miranda and Bella watched her leave worriedly, and they turned to Ethel.
"I didn't mean to upset her," Miranda whispered, feeling guilty.
Ethel sighed. "No, you didn't do anything wrong," she said feeling worried about her friend herself but knowing the girls needed to understand what was wrong with Mildred. "It's just we've spent thirty years trapped in this place, and now she has the chance to hear about her mother. I can tell you, we've both been worried about our loved ones since we were trapped here. Mildred just doesn't want to feel bad, even if it wasn't her fault we're trapped here."
Ethel felt guilty that she had spent an hour pumping her niece for information about her sisters and their lives and more than once she had noticed Mildred's expression wishing to know how her mother was but was absolutely terrified to hear what had happened, what could have happened to her mother. Ethel had always been jealous because Mildred had a loving mother and it had taken a lot of time and more than one deadly experience in Jumanji where every single day was a struggle to survive that she had needed to learn to grow up enough to realise life did not revolve around her and what she wanted.
Mildred had been a big help especially since without each other they would probably have died a long time ago. But it was just so hard they had been trapped for thirty years.
Bella looked between her aunt and Mildred Hubble with confusion. She had lost track of how many stories her sisters had about the feud between her aunt and the brunette witch. While it was great the pair of them seemed to be friendly now, Bella just didn't have experience of the pair of them to know whether it was just a friendship of necessity rather than something genuine, but her aunt seemed to genuinely care about Mildred's feelings about her mother.
In the end, she decided to change the subject and find out what was going on - she would keep an eye on her aunt and Mildred to see if they were friends or not now - but her desire to escape from this place was overwhelming. "So, what is this place?" she asked, deciding to start small.
Ethel was surprised by the question and she looked in the direction Mildred had gone off in before she turned back to face her niece. "This is Jumanji," she began, "the magical game you were playing. When we first played it, the game was just that, an ordinary board game but when we first moved the pieces we found ourselves here."
"That's what happened with us," Miranda nodded, "and then we found out our magic doesn't work-."
"Oh it does work," Mildred interrupted the conversation as she came back, her dirty face drawn with something neither preteen could work out. "We're still witches, there's no doubt about that, but all the animals here are resistant to magic; well you've probably worked that out already after that bear."
"The broomsticks we've made are made from whatever we can find," Ethel added, "but they don't last as long as a good old broomstick. It's like this whole place drains the magic through the wood."
"I once flew to Cackles Academy on an ordinary non-magical mop, but it lasted longer than what we've had to cope with," Mildred added at this point, "I didn't have my own broomstick, it had been reduced to dust at the time, but the mop was a good, brief replacement. But here…. our broomsticks are as good as we can get them to be, but they come from Jumanji. We think the bamboo canes and the rushes of grass and twigs we use to make the broomsticks are like the animals; while our magic does work on them they eventually stop working after a while."
"When did you start making broomsticks?" Miranda asked, knowing like all witches that a broomstick was just basically a piece of wood with branches and imbued with a few spells to keep the rider safe and secure, but also knew it was possible for a witch or wizard to grab a large enough branch and use that as a crude broomstick.
She could understand why these two would rig up broomsticks to travel on since a broom was faster and probably safer, especially after she and Bella had experienced what it was like to walk in the jungle for themselves.
"Not long after we arrived," Ethel replied, "though we do sometimes move about on foot since its a good idea of knowing where all the trouble is, we need to find fresh food and water, not to mention other places to live."
"What do you mean, other places to live?" Bella asked.
Mildred gestured around the cave with her hands. "You two must have worked out already we haven't been here long," she said, gesturing to the crude furniture she and Ethel had in the cave, "we've only been here for a few weeks."
Bella frowned, "Where were you before?"
"Close to a waterfall," Ethel replied.
"Why did you leave?"
Miranda glanced at Bella in rising terror when she saw the worry cross Mildred and Ethel's faces. Mildred sighed. "We were driven out," she whispered, "by a pride of lions. They attacked us after they tracked us down, drove us out of the camp we'd set up. We had both assumed the waterfall would have been perfect, it was in a part of the jungle that was hard to reach on foot, but the lions tracked us down. By the time we realised they were there, it was almost too late."
Ethel nodded, grimacing as she did. "I got slashed on my back," she added for the benefit of her horrified listeners. Bella even had tears running down her face at how her aunt had been injured.
But both Mildred and Ethel were trying to sugarcoat their experiences of that nightmare to show both girls they needed to be careful without going into too much depth about what had happened on that awful night. They didn't want to tell either girl of what had happened, but they needed to make it clear to both Bella and Miranda Jumanji was not a place to wander around.
"We're used to a nomadic life," Ethel whispered, remembering how she had once gone off in a strop because Mildred hadn't done something, it was so long ago she couldn't remember the details, and she almost got them both killed because her stupid bloody temper and selfish attitude made it hard for her to see the bigger picture. "We once lived in a large tree, but we were driven out by monkeys. The animals here are nightmares."
"What do you mean?" Miranda leaned forward, though she privately wondered why she was asking that after what happened with the bear, but she just wanted to hear more about what was out there so they could avoid it.
Mildred sighed and paused as if she was thinking about the best way to approach this though she must have known it would have come up. Meanwhile, Ethel was content to watch and speak up if she felt the need, but she was happy for Mildred to do the talking.
"The animals here…. they're warped," Mildred said slowly, while she was trying to decide the best way to describe the animals, "you've already encountered a bear, but there's more out there. Much more…. All the animals in Jumanji may outwardly look like the animals we know of in the real world, and they share the same behaviour. But that's as far as it goes. The animals are faster, stronger, and more vicious. In the real world, if you keep a respectful distance from them, they will leave you alone, but if you bother them, they will attack you. Here, it is the other way around; the animals here will go for you even if you're not a threat to them."
Bella shivered, this was worse than she'd imagined. Ethel noticed her niece's fears and got up and walked over to her and wrapped Bella in a hug, making Miranda look envious until the blonde woman wrapped another arm around her so she wouldn't feel left out.
Mildred smiled at the image, but she quickly got back on track. "The animals here are like the stereotypical image you have of them, sort of how like hunters from a hundred years back brought stories of man-eating leopards or tigers, though the reality is very different. But Jumanji is warped. This place, this jungle, the animals…. they're like the stereotypical image of a hostile tropical land, mixed with a dash of fantasy because there are things out there you'd only expect to see in your nightmares. There are things out there you can't imagine. We have to buckle down at night because there are things that hunt us in the night. Believe me, we know. Once Ethel nearly got killed by a plant-,"
"Oh, don't, please don't," Ethel interrupted, glaring at Mildred.
"Sorry," the brunette witch said, but she didn't sound it.
Bella and Miranda shared a look. "Mum and Aunt Sybil always said Mildred and Aunt Ethel fight a lot, looks like nothing has changed," Bella said.
Suddenly all the girls went still when they heard a sound, a loud barking sound that went through all the girls and the air of the jungle, overshadowing the sounds of the animals and the wind whistling in the humid air.
Miranda looked around fearfully. "W-what was that?" she asked the older witches.
But Mildred and Ethel were looking at each other with dread, not fear. "He's back," Mildred said, her voice grim.
Until the next time...
