The old woman nodded once more, then gently set the string down onto the sleeping boy. It writhed to an uncanny life, and Laurinda screeched in horror. The witch put up a silencing hand, and Douglas caught Laurinda in his arms before she could rush to her son's side. "Hush, you'll wake the girls," he mumured.
"Mama? What's wrong?" a small voice asked, still filled with sleep.
Lucy, seven years old and still half asleep, knelt beside the bannister of the cottage's loft. She held the hand of four year old Rosalind tightly enough that Rosalind whined and tried to pull away.
"Everything's fine, girls," Douglas said firmly.
"Mama?" Lucy repeated uncertainly.
"Yes, everything's fine. Go back to bed. It's late," Laurinda murmured, entranced by the writhing string making it's way towards her beloved boy's nostrils. She gasped and flinched when the string wormed its way up his nose and slipped out of view into Pieder's insides. Lucy and Rosalind stared unabashedly and the old woman in their home, but obeyed their parents and went back to lay in bed. They whispered together, Lucy shushing Rosalind and providing the comfort that her parents were too terrified to offer.
1,700 words out of 50,000 total.
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