Rebecca of the Wood

Once upon a time in Illiodd,
(where thick is the air and damp is the sod),
Rebecca of the Wood
refused perfectly good
black pea pie.

Her mother and father
declared her a bother;
they turned up turnip eyes
and warned her of the wood.
It did no good.

Rebecca said she’d rather run away
into the woods that very day
than ever, ever eat another
yucky pie made by her mother.

Past mother ever dishing black pea pie,
past father’s never watchful eye,
Rebecca crept through the hedge
to the edge of the wood.

Rebecca assumed she’d be ok.
The opposite was the case.
Whoever enters the wood forgets
all hopes, fears, sorrows and regrets.

They say you even forget your name
and never again are quite the same;
that’s what mother and father
told her when she said she’d rather
take her chances with the wood
than be good.

The woods were winding, a maze that led
to a center house of gingerbread.
There a witch waited to catch and bake
children into gingerbread cake.
(She used the cake to make her walls;
oh! Her delicious smelling halls!)

The witch had been there, legend told
since time began – extremely old
and wicked was she they said
Rebecca soon got lost in there
and wandered to the witches’ lair.

Rebecca met the witch in a briary ditch.
With lemon pie eyes that mesmerized,
witchie lured Rebecca in, grinning a walnut grin.
If you met a witch in a briar ditch would you gamble with the bramble?

Rebecca gave the witch the benefit of the doubt
and soon saw what her parents were talking about.

The witch led her through woods outside of time
till they reached the part where no birdsongs chime.
There, in the center, a small house stood
upon 4 chicken legs, smelling quite good.

The shingles were made of gingerbread cake
still warm from the oven; freshly baked!
Rock candy served for windowpanes,
a gingerbread boy for the weathervane.

Thick vanilla frosting made up layers of trim
and gumdrops encircled a cookie roof’s rim.
The porch posts were made of candy canes
and wound all around was a butterscotch lane.

The door was a giant chocolate bar
with a licorice knob in the shape of a star.
The hedges were made of popcorn balls,
“Inside,” witchie said, “there are cookie walls.”
Lollipop flowers dotted marshmallow grass
And ‘round back a sugar lake glistened like glass.

“Come in my dear, come, come, come,
the furniture’s made of bubble gum.”
Witchie pulled Rebecca in,
grinning a walnut grin.

She sat Rebecca on a bubblegum chair,
muttering a spell to keep her there.
She waved her willow wand in the air:
“Higgledy, piggledly, tiggledy, pine,
Rebecca will stay a long, long time.”

When she woke, Rebecca found
a table laid all around
with mounds and mounds of gingerbread
and candies white, blue, yellow and red.

With a cry of delight
she ate everything in sight
then was given a caramel colored gown ,
led to a bed made of soft swans down
and tucked under a coverlet, gingerbread brown.

Yes, Rebecca thought she was safe,
but, in truth, narrowly escaped.
The witch chose not to make
Rebecca into gingerbread cake.

She was lonely and, what’s more,
she had several reasons for the gingerbread door.
The witch had been searching for years and years
for the right child to frighten to tears
then keep instead of eat.

Although the inhabitants of the town
(encircled by the wood on three sides ‘round),
believed there to be one everlasting witch
who lurked with lemon pie eyes in the ditch,
They were mistaken.
The witch was faking.

Witches die just like everyone,
(but live longer and have more fun).
Though each witch of the wood, (quite a long line),
pretended they lived till the end of time,
it was a game, lending their wickedness weight.
Each knew she would be replaced.
Each one chose the next to come
a hundred days before her life was done.

The witch knew Rebecca would succeed
if asked to follow her wicked lead.
She could tell by smell that, not only bad,
the girl was the very worst she’d had.
She tested Rebecca, nonetheless
to confirm her suspicion that she was the best.

When Rebecca woke, the walls were bare.
There wasn’t a sweet to be found anywhere!
The witch made her shell five thousand peas
and scrub the whole house on her hands and knees;
then doled out endless, horrible tasks,
each more dull and grueling than the last.

Every day there was water to fetch,
the garden to weed and dinner to catch.
Each night, the witch made Rebecca spin, then
unraveled her cloth again and again.
She had nothing to eat but black pea pie
and put was put in a cage each time she cried.

“If you do exactly as I ask
and don’t complain of any task
in a hundred days you’ll get a surprise.”,
the old witch said with blazing eyes.

Rebecca knew there was no way
she’d ever, ever get away.
So she did what the old witch said
and remained very, extremely afraid.

Children came but not to play,
(they never were children for more than a day).
The witch turned each into gingerbread
with raisin eyes and icing on its head.

After some time, Rebecca laid down
then woke once again in a bed of swans down
so found the house in its’ previous state,
all cookies and icing with a sugar lake.
To her surprise, she wasn’t asked
to perform a single impossible task.

“Now you’ll replace me,” said the witch with a grin,
“it’s the reason, you see, that I lured you in.
I knew you were the one.
Sorry it hasn’t been more fun,
but all good things come with a price
what’s worthwhile often isn’t nice.

Rebecca didn’t know what to say.
She thought and thought and thought that day.
As the witch she’d be hated, even feared.
She’d likely be lonely for hundreds of years
but she’d have magic and could finally do
whatever she chose or liked to do.
She could change any fortune or circumstance.

She took the chance.
For years and years she got to stay
in the cookie house eating gingerbread all day.

Her dry-eyed mother and father insisted they missed the little bother.
They said they never meant to harm her but still they didn’t warn her
of gambles with brambles bringing girls no good,
they only warned her of the wood.

They too ended as they deserved,
so spent their lives with pea pie served
as a daily routine.

Occasionally it seemed
they heard a witches cry
or saw, way up in the sky
a girl , something like Rebecca, fly
across the waxing moon.

Poor father and mother
cry a little then recover

What happened then?
That’s another tale, this one’s reached its end.