It had been a week since the witch and her son met with Hex. And he'd been in a constant bad mood ever since. He stormed up and down the vast corridors of his home, slamming doors and using words Cathy had never heard.

She was cleaning silver candlesticks in the parlour when Hex marched in.

"Catch children, they said... create a trap, they said..." He stomped over to the sideboard and swept his arm along the surface, knocking the two vases of flowers to the ground.

Cathy flinched as they shattered and splinters of glass bounced across the floor.

It was time she left. With Hex in such a terrible mood, he was capable of anything. She put down her cloth, slipped from her seat, and crept towards the door.

"Where do you think you're going?" Hex growled, whirling around on his heels so he could glare at her.

"To empty your chamber pot."

"Stay where you are," he ordered, pacing backwards and forwards across the room.

"As you like." Cathy stood rigid, with her hands behind her back.

"You're a child?"

"Yes."

"Not a very intelligent child, but a child nonetheless. So, what would lure you? How could I trap a creature like you?"

"Well, I don't know." Cathy shrugged her shoulders. She didn't know how to lure fairy children. And even if she did, she wouldn't tell him.

"You fool. Get out of my sight." Hex flicked his fingers, creating a sudden flash of yellow-gold light.

At first, she twitched, then she tingled, and then the room expanded. The chairs and tables were enormous, the doorway vast, and Hex grew to the size of a troll.

The gigantic sorcerer stepped closer to her and, bending down, he hissed, "How do you like being a cockroach?"

Cathy gasped as she caught sight of her reflection in the shiny table leg. She had two long antennae sticking out from her head, and a sudden, unexpected urge to eat the silver polish she'd left on the table above her.

Appalled by herself and her strange food craving, she scurried under the door and out into the hallway. She could hear Hex's maniacal laughter as she skittered towards the kitchen.

Making it into the room, she wriggled through the gap between the sink and the stove and hid.

Cathy prayed the transformation magic would wear off and she wouldn't stay a bug. Being a cockroach was nasty. To keep herself from crying, she thought long and hard about Hex's question. What would tempt a fairy child? Her mind was blank.

Her antennae wiggled as she felt her way through the dark gap until she stepped in something sticky. She lifted her leg and popped it into her mouth. The sticky substance tasted familiar... she licked it again... it reminded her of the fair. Of... toffee apples and candyfloss. It reminded her of a book. A story Flo had read to her many, many times. And then an idea landed in her brain with a thud. Cathy knew what to do. She squeezed out from her hiding place.

As she flopped into the daylight, she fell on her back with her many legs twitching and grinned to herself. This would show Hex.

*

The transformation spell had worn off and Cathy lay on her bed, staring at the attic rafters. She ran through her plan again, to the last detail. She had one chance to impress Hex, and she needed to make her presentation flawless.

It was a shame she didn't have any stationary—So she could write out flashcards. That way, she wouldn't forget anything important. There was always paper in Hex's study.

Cathy opened the door to her bedroom, and creeping through the corridor and down the stairs, she counted the doors. The hall was in darkness, but she was too afraid to light a candle. She navigated her way by touch alone, sliding along the walls... one... two... three... she kept counting, nine... ten... eleven doors she slid past, and then she took a deep breath. At the twelfth door, she crept in without a sound.

A silver candlestick glinted in the moonlight that streamed in through the window. Cathy tip-toed to the fireplace and picked up the box of matches. When the candles were lit, she searched through Hex's drawers.

She pulled out a handful of documents and, spreading them across the desk, she squinted in the dim light. Each one was a carefully worded contract. There were hundreds of signatures from fairies and goblins who had unwittingly signed their lives away to Hex. All for a true love potion, or a spell to create wealth and power, or a mean curse for a bad goblin neighbour. She could tell, not one of them bothered to read the small print where it stated...

In payment for the said enchantment, the beneficiary... Joe Bloggs...

will give... Their Magic In Its Entirety... to the benefactor... Hex (sorcerer)... after the term of... Fifty... years.

Cathy shuddered. She'd make sure never to be tricked into signing a magical contract. She placed the contracts back in the drawers and found some paper. Sitting at the desk, she dipped Hex's peacock feather quill into the ink and wrote. She wrote throughout the night, making small sketches and mathematical calculations. The candles burned to stubs; the wax dripping onto the mahogany wood of the desk.

As the light in the room grew dimmer, her eyelids weighed heavier. Until she drifted off to sleep with ink smears covering her fingers.