The witch would never remove her hat, not even to wash or sleep. Without it she was three foot four inches tall and with it five feet seven. Her neck had become more muscular from the wearing of such a hat. She had had to trade her kid sized broom for an adult model when she had started wearing it a few decades earlier. If her stature was short it was nothing as compared to her temper. Her last seven assistants had been reduced to piles of ash and used to fertilize the zucchini in the garden, now for some reason the eager supply of apprentices had dried up. She was a prolific inventor of spells; she had several volumes in print and several more in disorganized parchment piled high on her dining table. The only living being she willfully tolerated was her cat, Samson. He could dissolve into
