Her laugh broke the silence, but it was forced, that I could tell. Her lips were pressed into a smile, although her eyes were flaring with anger.

"What an... Odd statement!" she exclaimed.

'Odd,' I thought, looking at my feet. 'That's all people think of me. Odd. Unusual. Not to bother with.' I had told her that she reminded me of somebody--no, of someTHING--the witches. She was exactly like them, with her changing personality, her cherry-red lips, and her eyes being a strange reddish color.

My blonde hair was starting to drip from the rain, although her auburn hair was perfectly dry. Her smile faded as she saw me staring. "What is it?" She asked sharply.

I gritted my teeth. "Your hair."

She flipped her hair back, almost teasingly, and cocked her head to one side. "My hair?"

"It's dry," I said. "And it's raining," I added.

She paused for a moment, as if searching for the right answer. Then she smiled again, and her hair was dripping, like mine was. "My hair? You call this dry?" She dismissed my question with another laugh, but it did't cut it.

"Your hair was dry," I pressed.

"How about we come inside?" She asked.

"Your hair-"

"COME INSIDE!" She roared, her red eyes flaring. For a moment, her hair was dry again, and it flew up from behind her as if there had been a big gust of wind.

There hadn't.

She glanced at my terrified face, and said more sweetly, "Come inside. It's too wet out here."

I tensed. Witches could not be trusted. They were unpredictable and, sometimes, murderous. But I slowly nodded.

"Okay," I said. "Sure. I'll come inside."

The house that she lived in was old--and when I say old, I don't mean one-hundred-years-ago-old, I mean that kind of old that dates back to--well, before time. The house was patchy--it looked like a quilt, having random colorful splashes all over it--and it smelled strongly of dust as I got closer to it.

She held out the door for me, which creaked like there was not tomorrow.

"You first," she said.

I glanced inside. The door led into a small room. There were jars full of who-knows-what on shelves, and, to my horror, a large cauldron in the middle of the room.

"N-no, you first,"I said, although my voice came out squeaky, not sounding like myself.

She sighed, and gave the door to me. "Okay. It's not like I had a trap set up or anything." But as she grinned a mossy smile at me and snapped her fingers, I got the feeling that that was exactly what she had in mind.

I followed her into the small room, and a feeling of dread started building a house in my stomach. Now I could see what were in the jars--there were labels. 'Eyeballs, pickled' said one. Another said, 'Junibigs, ready to brew'.

"Um, excuse me?" I asked.

She turned to me. "Is anything wrong?"

"What are Ju-ni-bigs?" I asked, but it was risky. Her being a witch was a touchy subject, it seemed.

Her eyes flared again for a moment, but they died down. "Ah, that's not how you pronounce it," she said. "It's pronounced JUH-NEYE-bigs. The middle part rhymes with 'eye', you see," she explained. "Junibigs are these strange animals that hu-" she paused. "That we have not found before. I actually just found the first one last week, and then soon found a whole nest of them. They taste delicious." She reached up and pulled down the jar. She stuck a hand in the jar, pulled a small animal-like-thing out, and handed it to me. "Try it," she instructed.

I slowly looked down at the animal. It was pale, and looked like a rat. "Uh, no thanks," I said.

"EAT!" She yelled.

"F-fine," I whimpered. I took a bite out of the Junibig. It actually tasted okay, so I finished it.

I glanced up at her face, which had broken into a grin. I started feeling dizzy, so I looked down at the ground, which was swooping beneath my feet.

"Sorry," she said. "I needed more human body parts. Never. Eat. Witches'. Food."

And that was the last thing I heard before my vision went black and I hit the ground with a THUD.