'Twas rather silly to be frightened of the old hag. But I was. She, with her cloudy eyes, watched our village from her hut on the hill. I knew not her name, for everyone referred to her as 'the witch'.

She would speak to no one when she came into town on the rare occasion. She would just walk, hunched over, through the middle of our town.

People would move out of her path. Children would hide behind their mothers' skirts. Mums would tell how the witch would steal naughty children and stifle their screams with an apple in their mouths. Then she would roast them over the flames in her fire pit.

My friends, John and Merwin, said it was all rubbish. John said she was no more than a miserable old woman.

It was one autumn day when they dared me to climb the hill and steal into her house.

"Why me?" I asked.

John looked at Merwin and winked.

"We've already done it. We've met the old witch."

Merwin looked down at the ground, as he dug his toe in the dirt.

"The place reeked of rotten meat."

"And if I do this?"

"You'll be known as the bravest in the land. You'll have your pick of any lass within fifty miles."

I eyed John warily. "If you've already done it, where are your lasses?"

John shook his head, his dark locks sliding into this eyes.

"I didn't do it for the lasses. Besides, my papa would skin me alive if he found out I had been there."

I waited until dusk before deciding to do this dare. I looked up at the house, stark against the scarlet sky. My palms were sweating and I wiped them on my breeches.

John and Merwin stayed at the base, watching, urging me on.

"Go 'round back," John had told me. But I had another idea. I rapped on the door.

"Aye?" the witch called.

"I am a stranger here. I was wondering if you would give me drink."

She shuffled towards the door and pushed it open. The warped wood groaning as she pushed on it.

"A stranger, you say?"

"Yes. I am so thirsty," I said, recoiling from the smell of rotten meat.

She smiled. Her teeth, what few there were, stood like brown stumps in withered gray gums.

The repulsive smell clung to me. I glanced back at John and Merwin. If I didn't go inside the witch's house this was all for naught.

"I will give you drink if you work for it."

"What would you have me do?"

"Gather wood for my fire pit," she said. A cunning smile settled on her weathered face. "Gather wood or our friends will know you failed."

"I am but a stranger-," I said, but she cut me off sharply.

"There are two who wait at the base of the hill."

When I looked back, night had covered the land and I could no longer see John and Merwin. My heart sank as I realized I was alone.

I worked steadily for an hour, until the moon had risen high in the darkened sky. I built the bed of sticks and kindling, and per her request, I lit the fire with her flint rock.

When I was done, she brought me a mug of mead.

"'Tis my special mead," she said.

I drank the thick brown mead and felt its warmth course through me. A veil of drunkenness washed over me, and as I closed my eyes I could see dozens of beautiful girls dancing around me.

I could smell the stench of the old woman as she moved close to me.

"No lasses for you, lad," she laughed. "Your friends have abandoned you. John and Merwin won't tell on me, they never have. They will just talk about the poor lad who disappeared without a trace."

I looked quickly at the mead. She had laced it. My eyelids grew heavy.

"Drink up my boy."

I dropped the mug, tried to stagger away.

"No, no, need to get you closer to the fire. Not as strong as I used to be."

I opened my mouth to let loose the scream building inside of me. The old witch shoved an apple in.

"There we go. No one wants to hear you scream."

The flames seemed to reach for me, dancing around me like the lasses in my head.