Swamp witch squinted.
"Annabel?" she called.
"Yes'm."
From around the top corner of the doorframe, Annabel Balchy's little face peered at her.
"You come on out," said swamp witch.
Annabel frowned. "You ain't going to transform me into nothing Satanic, are you?"
"When have I ever done that?"
"Papa says - "
"Papa says a lot of things," said swamp witch. "Now come on out."
Annabel's face disappeared for a moment, there were a couple more thump-thumps, and the girl teetered into the worship hall, atop a pair of hazelwood stilts that swamp witch thought she recognized.
"Those you're brother's?"
Annabel thrust her chin out. "I grew into them."
"You're growing into more than those stilts," said swamp witch. Like the rest of the Balchies, Annabel was a blonde-haired specimen of loveliness whose green eyes held a sheen of wisdom. Looking at her, swamp witch thought her brother Tommy would no longer hold title as the family's number-one heartbreaker. Not in another year or two.
"We got your dragonfly," said Annabel, teetering over a little slithering pond of shadow. "He brung you here, in case you didn't know."
"I didn't know," said swamp witch. "I'm not surprised, though. He's a good dragonfly. Is he all right?"
"Uh huh. We got him at the house. Figured you could take care of yourself, big old swamp witch that you are. But we didn't think he'd be safe among the Blessed Serpents of Eden."
"They're just plain corner rattlers, hon, and I'm no safer than anyone else when one decides to bite. But thank you for protecting dragonfly. Did he say why he brung - brought me here?"
"Figured it'd be the one place where the angel couldn't come."
"The angel."
"In the yellow suit," said Annabel. "With a vest underneath black as all damnation."
"Him. Huh. He's no angel."
"That's what you say. He's huntin' you, and you're a swamp witch - "
"- so it follows he's got to be an angel." Swamp witch sighed. "I see."
"Papa said you'd probably be wondering why we didn't give you up to that angel."
"Your papa's a bright man," said swamp witch. "The thought did cross my mind."
"Papa said to tell you he don't like the competition," said Annabel.
Swamp witch laughed out loud at that one. "I believe it," she said. "Oh, yes."
Laughing felt good. It may not be the antidote to regret, but it sure helped the symptoms fine. All the same, she took a breath and put it away.
"He sent you to see if I was dead, didn't he?"
Annabel looked down and shook off a rattler that was spiraling up toward her heel. "Yes, ma'am," she said, a little ashamedly. "But he said you might not be. If, I mean, you was righteous."
"So I'm righteous then?"
Annabel crooked her head like she was thinking about it.
"I expect," she said. "Yeah, good chance you are."
"All right," said swamp witch. "But if you don't mind, I'll take no more chances. You still got that spare set of bamboo stilts I know Reverend used to use in back?" Annabel said she did, so swamp witch held out her hand. "Think you could toss 'em my way? I'd like to go see my dragonfly and maybe your Papa too."