"Kerr,.Katharine.&.Martin.H.Greenberg.-.Enchanted.Forests.V2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

Conrad shrugged. "I guess so. Doesn't matter. The only place
I can cut wood legally is Wild Wood over there." Conrad pointed
to the forest just across the meadow. "Except everyone knows
it's haunted, and filled with fairies and goblins." He paused,
looking at her. She was obviously enjoying this. "And witches.
And everyone told me the wood nymphs would turn me into a
tree if I dared to cut their woods, but I'd rather be a tree than
chop wood for the King. And there it is."

The witch chuckled and snorted. "Oh my," she said. "Oh dear.
I haven't heard anything so funny in quite a long time. You! A
tree!" She laughed until tears ran down her face, mice from her
skirts, rats from her hair, and what Conrad had taken for a tatty
black stole was revealed to be an even tattier black cat. "A tree!
You! Turned into a tree! By the wood nymphs!" The witch

"I'LL GIVE YOU THREE WISHES.. 23

laughed and pounded the ground, giggling like a village girl
who'd just seen a naked man for the first time.

Conrad exchanged glances with the mice and rats and the cat
and the pair of toads who had crawled out of her shoes. They all
looked embarrassed. The cat began washing one ear, pretending
not to notice her mistress* conniption fit.

Conrad decided to take the cat's attitude, because now that he
was actually looking at a toad, being one didn't seem quite so
preferable to just being an unemployed woodcutter.

The witch at last recovered, wiping the tears from her eyes
and collecting her retinue back into her skirts. "Oh my, young
sir. I haven't had so fine a laugh since my youth, and for that I
will reward you." She looked at him again, leering. "You don't
get the jest, do you?"

Conrad shrugged. "No."

"The wood nymphs," the witch explained, "only take the
handsomest young men. And youЧThat nose! Those teeth!"
The witch burst into renewed peals of laughter.

Conrad considered his ax and the helpless witch on the
ground, but the cat looked at him and her expression was clear:

Don't even think it. buster.

Conrad shrugged again. The witch reminded him even more of
the village girls, who had been the first to laugh at his nose and