The moment they entered the old woman’s house, a steamy disgusting smell hit them in the face. The table was decked with two infants, about the same age as William. Both of them was in the middle of getting changed out of their dirty cloth-diapers.

An 8 year old child was busy in front of the fireplace. He was washing laundry on a washboard inside a wooden bucket.

When he heard the woman come in he turned to sneer at her. Seeing this ungrateful expression, the old lady scolded him with a harsh tone “I hope you have been keeping yourself busy while I was out! Remember! No stopping before those clothes are spotless! Or I’ll be forced to turn your back into rib roast!”.

The boy didn’t seem too intimidated by that sentence and snapped back “Hrmf! Just wait until father gets home! Then it’ll be you who gets the whiplashes!”.

The woman threw the trotash onto the table along with William. Her veins protruded as she complained “What can he do!? You shut up! Work or we’ll all be lying dead on the floor when he comes back!”.

This household isn’t normal, William thought… It wasn’t that the beating and mistreatment of the children were out of place. Rather, the odd thing was that according to the book’s logic, only girls would be treated this way…

Boys were valuable and thus seldom worked to the bone or punished with whip and stones…

William had a quick glance at the infants on the table. They were both males. The young child washing laundry was too. And the kid on the old woman’s back was likely also a boy… 

William could guess the reason why this strange phenomenon took place. It was a household filled to the brim with boys. With no girls to serve them… The gender ratio was too screwed. Thus someone had to take the place of the missing girl...

The old lady went over to pull at the boy’s ear while grumbling. This woman was really scary… The boy yelped “Stop it mother!”. The scene displayed before William made him want to slip out of this body and go back to the fire in his old house. It would be far better than watching this kind of abuse…

The lady monster that had popped out so many boys was tired. Yet she still continued to work. The pair of twin brothers were changed into new diapers and put down on a sheep’s pelt beside the fireplace.

The abused boy was ordered to clean the trotash from feathers and scales, while she herself hung the clothes and prepared what little dried herbs they had left. The trotash was a great gift for this woman. Her family was beginning to starve and the winter season had just begun. If she didn’t steal from here and there, her two infants would be the first ones to go…

William was left alone on the hard wooden table. He didn’t dare utter a single sound, even if he was extremely uncomfortable! But such an effort was useless...

The old woman didn’t forget about him like his parents had done and soon approached him. When William could see her face up close he trembled slightly. She was bearing a heartless smile on her lips.

Her intention was to change his diaper. Yes… He was a baby and thus he had to do his business right then and there, when his little stomach demanded it. Being with Vanessa he didn’t find it shameful, but in front of this witch he could barely stand the idea of her touching him!

When the woman’s hand reached his small legs he kicked after it. This action was futile and only made the old woman happy.

She showed her teeth and said “What a healthy child… Even after being out in the cold for so long, you are still full of life”. The woman removed William’s diaper and saw what was hiding underneath…

She stood dazed for a few seconds. Lost in thought. Then before William struggled too much, she changed his diaper and went back to the pot boiling the trotash meat…

She stared at the pot. Inside her mind a horrible scheme brewed. She muttered yet again to herself “No wonder they left this baby behind… So it was a little girl, huh?.. Hmm… If her parents doesn’t want her, then maybe… We can make a deal...”.

William heard this sentence through the noise of crackling fire and woodchopping outside…

Though the lady didn’t mention exactly what the deal would entail, he could phantom its horror. He shouted inside his head with panic: NO, No, no!!! I don’t want to be left in this crazy woman’s care! Please! Mother! Father! Don’t give me away!

When the trotash stew was ready for consumption, 5 hours had gone by. The lady sat down her children to feed. All of them were hungry and gulped down their stew like starved wolves. The small ones were also accustomed to more solid food and was helped by their older brother to gulp down the feast. The old lady was proud to be able to provide for her family, whereas her useless husband still hadn’t returned from his hunt…

William was also fed a little amount. Just enough for him to live by. Then the old woman stashed his body inside her clothes before heading out. She wanted to see if his family had returned from the castle.

****

The old lady returned to the crime scene. Small puddles of blood had soaked the snow outside the entrance. The door was wide open, left unguarded in the middle of panic. So she invited herself in. Looking around she noticed that something had gone berserk in their home. Trinkets and tableware was strewn across the wooden boards…

The shrewd lady closed the door to the cold weather outside and sat down in front of the fireplace. While sobering up with the heat she noticed oval shaped objects lying in the embers.

It was the trotash’s eggs.

Greed filled her eyes as she found the fire iron and began poking and stirring up the coals surrounding the eggs. She wanted to take them home as well. The nest was already resembling burnt twigs. That stupid pair won’t notice if she steals these eggs, that should have perished in the flames as well.

The eggs were the size of an adult’s hand. The shell was a faint turquoise color, with small dark spots sprayed all over the surface. As the thief admired these eggs she was suddenly interrupted by noise outside the house.

William’s parents had returned…

The lady hid the eggs, fast as a snake, in her bosom. She threw away the fire iron and sat down, pretending to have been nuzzling with William the whole time.

If William could speak, he would yell that this woman was an evil wretch and they should all dump her into the ice lake!