The shadow passed. That was her movement. The creaking and hissing of the old stairs at night. That was her search for me. I had robbed her, and now I would have to pay. It wasn’t my fault that her house had stood so innocently, waiting and calling for my sister and me to come. We were innocent, but she showed no mercy. We had wronged her, and now we would pay. The little house stood on top of the dining room chest like a castle on top of a hill. The fortress guards were my parents, who patrolled the dining room and kitchen halls obediently, following The Witch’s orders and making sure Ester and Anita Kriz, the Robin Hoods of the century, wouldn’t touch her precious house. This castle, however sweet and sugary on the outside, was the home of a Witch. She sat inside, lurking through her home’s halls and trying to lure Anita and me into steeling from her, which we gladly did. Quietly, we sneaked into the room, and while one of us remained as the lookout for the parents, the other twin ran to the looming castle, grabbed a few gumdrops, and ran. Smiling slyly at our victory, we went on with our day, until it was night. This was when the witch came out of her house to look for us. Every shadow that crawled on the wall, every sound the house made, that was The Witch looking for our room. We both sat awake at night, not making a sound, not moving a muscle, until daybreak, when the witch was forced back into her house.
Later in our childhood, we figured out that there couldn’t possibly be a witch inside the ginger bread house. The reason our parents had told us there was one was because they wanted to keep us from eating all the candy that decorated the walls of our imagine castle. Our belief of the witch disappeared from our minds like a fog lifting from the ground. We no longer had to sit at night, blinded by the mist that veiled the hidden witch in order to avoid the death that clearly awaited us. Our vision was cleaned and the haze cleared and moved on to someone else’s mind. The shadows were only the trees outside and the creaks were only the complaints of the old house. A witch didn’t exist, and now I could eat the ginger bread house whenever I wanted.