Chapter 3
Chapter 3
Potatoes, carrots, onions. It was a stew packed with all sorts of vegetables. Steam rose up from it since it had just been in the large pot, warming his hands and face.
“It’s hot, so eat carefully.”
She kindly told him not to eat in a rush and to let it cool properly.
Luke scooped up the stew and blew on it as she said. Once properly cooled, the stew he put in his mouth was incredibly wonderful. When he let out a “wow” of admiration, a smile spread across her lips.
“I’m glad it seems to suit your taste.”
Relieved, she cut a large loaf of bread and shared two slices with Luke. Luke readily ate up everything he was given. He felt sorry for his father, who always worked hard to cook so his son wouldn’t go hungry, but this stranger noona’s food was better than any dish his father made.
Once he had eaten his fill and his stomach was full, and the chill had left his frozen body, Luke finally became curious about this noona’s identity. From the looks of it, she seemed to be a noona living in this house, but there was more than one strange thing about her.
Just what kind of person was she to be living in this scary forest, in a strange house made of sweets at that?
The old tales his late grandfather used to tell him suddenly came to mind.
“My grandfather’s time, see. There was a witch living in our village. But she was chased out for doing bad things.”
“I know that too. She was chased out to the Black Forest, right? You’ve told me many times.”
“It’s an important story, so listen one more time. You keep asking your dad to take you to that forest. Absolutely not. That witch likes little kids! You know why? It’s so she can use that pointy nose to poke! at kids’ eyeballs and eat them!”
How could a person have a nose as pointy as a fork? Luke thought his grandfather was telling lies. But after seeing her, his thoughts changed a little.
Although this suspicious noona’s nose wasn’t pointy, her ears were pointy no matter who looked. Then he became suspicious that this noona might be being kind to him in order to eat him.
“Noona, are you the witch who lives in the Black Forest?”
Luke decided to first check whether his grandfather’s words were right and asked.
“You know about me? Yeah. That’s right. I’m a witch.”
She answered honestly, but he could feel tension starting to creep into her previously gentle expression. Was it because she felt like her ulterior motives had been exposed? Luke decided to confirm directly without beating around the bush.
“So are you going to use those pointy ears as a fork to eat me?”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Grandpa said so. That the witch living in the Black Forest pokes out kids’ eyeballs with her pointy nose and eats them. Noona, your nose isn’t pointy, but your ears are pointy.”
It seemed his grandfather had gotten that part wrong.
At the child’s unreserved question, her mouth fell wide open. It must have been quite a rude question. It was only much later, after he had grown quite a bit older, that Luke realized he might have hurt her in this moment.
But young Luke, who had yet to awaken to such consideration, opened his eyes wide and kept asking.
“You gave me food to fatten me up and eat me too, right?”
“I don’t do things like that! My ears are pointy… it’s just because I’m an elf.”
She wore a wronged expression. Luke, who had heard the word elf for the first time in his life, blinked his eyes.
“What’s an elf?”
“You don’t know elves? It refers to people with pointy ears like me.”
“I’ve never seen a person with pointy ears like noona. Noona is the first.”
“That’s because all the elves got on a boat together and left this land. I can understand why you’ve never seen one.”
“Got on a boat and left? Then why is noona an elf but that boat…”
Even a child still lacking in consideration could sense from her sad face that he had misspoken.
“But, Grandpa. What kind of bad things did that witch do to get chased out?”
“They say she hid the fact that she was a witch and made people eat food with curses in it. And sold it for a very high price at that! There was more than one or two people who got sick after eating the food that witch gave them.”
His grandfather had said that, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to believe it. To Luke’s eyes, the witch who had become dejected and had her shoulders shrunken just looked pitiful. He had just eaten her food, but he felt no sign of a stomachache at all.
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