Chapter 4
Chapter 4
She had lost her appetite and cleared away her bowl without even finishing it.
“It’s dangerous to wander the forest now that the sun has set. I’ll take you to the village tomorrow morning, so stay here tonight.”
She then prepared a spot on the sofa for the child. Receiving a thick blanket, Luke lay down quietly on the sofa and covered himself. The blanket, which seemed to have been well aired out and dried under the sun, smelled pleasant.
As he touched the soft fur of the blanket, he stole a glance at the witch. It kept weighing on his mind that her face was still dark because of what he had said earlier.
She sat in front of the fire doing something quietly, but it was hard to see what it was as she blocked the view with her body. Crackle crackle. Only the sound of firewood burning spread through the cozy house.
Luke, who had been moving his lips for a while, mustered up the courage to ask her.
“What’s noona’s name?”
Come to think of it, he had never heard the name of the witch of the Black Forest from his grandfather.
The witch looked surprised when the child she thought was asleep because it had been so quiet asked a question. Thanks to her body shifting slightly, the orange pumpkin and spoon in her hands came into view. He had wondered what she was doing, and she had been scooping out the inside of a pumpkin with a spoon.
“My name is Luke. What’s noona’s name?”
“Candice.”
Candy? A name fitting for a person living in a house made of sweets. So thinking, Luke pulled his arm out from over the blanket and began his questions in earnest.
“Did noona build this house?”
“That’s right. It’s a house I built.”
“Then did noona make all those sweets too?”
“I did.”
Wow. A sincere admiration burst out from Luke’s mouth.
Luke began praising the sweets with reverence. He said they were far more delicious than any sweets he had ever tasted. The sweets sold at Mr. Creven’s shop were delicious too, but they were so expensive that his father rarely bought them for him.
“Why would you spend expensive money to buy something like cookies that are done once you take the dough and bake it? I’ll just make them for you.”
His overconfident father had valiantly challenged cookie-making and failed spectacularly. The cookies, burnt on the outside but raw and claggy on the inside, were undeniably the worst cookies Luke had ever tasted.
Mr. Creven’s shop cookies are the best after all. When I grow up and earn money, I’ll buy up all the cookies from the shop and eat them.
So Luke had thought, but after tasting Candice’s sweets today, he felt as if his world had changed. Rather than earning money and eating Mr. Creven’s cookies, eating Candice’s cookies was far better.
But did this noona even sell cookies? This wasn’t a shop?
“So noona can just make and eat sweets like those herself every day?”
When he said he was really envious, Candice’s sullen expression from having been hurt brightened. She smiled and asked if it was really that delicious, and that smile was so pretty that Luke’s cheeks flushed pink.
He was glad she wasn’t sad anymore, but he felt embarrassed for no reason. Luke rolled his lips inward and bit them. He had never been like this in front of any girl before, so he was flustered.
“Hey, Candice noona. Is it okay if I watch what you’re doing next to you?”
Once permission was granted, he quickly pushed the blanket aside and went to sit beside her. Candice scraped the inside of the pumpkin smoothly and put the contents into a separate bowl.
“What are you making?”
“A lantern. It gets really dark around here when night comes.”
Luke couldn’t take his eyes off Candice’s face as she laughed, saying it was originally dark anyway. He had said he wanted to watch what she was doing, but the pumpkin was an afterthought. He observed Candice’s profile in detail and engraved it into his eyes. It was a face he hadn’t noticed when he was scared, but it was really pretty.
“Noona.”
“What?”
“Are all witches pretty like noona normally?”
Candice, who had been putting strength into the spoon and scraping out the inside of the pumpkin, slipped. Her face went bright red as she stammered all over the place, asking what he was suddenly saying.
It was funny how she couldn’t speak properly from being flustered and embarrassed.
“Can I kiss noona?”
“Y-You, you, you, you, don’t tease me. You shouldn’t tease adults!”
Candice frowned after seeing the child’s playful eyes. Even though she was scolding him, Luke wasn’t scared of her at all. Even if she seemed a bit older than him, it was hard to see her as an “adult.”
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