Once upon a time, some six hundred years ago or so, a reclusive witch lived right in the centre of Brussels. She was known as Adelphine, and she had a cosy house at the corner of rue de l’Etuve and rue du Chêne where she led a happy life brewing potions, healing minor ailments and minding her own business. And while the neighbours didn’t like her much with her fancy foreign ways, all was well until the fateful day when her menopause set in.
She really struggled with the mood swings. Eventually, as her hormone levels stabilised and her body adjusted, those would abate, but her reputation would never recover. Curse one little kid while you’re wrestling with your first hot flush and that’s all the neighbours remember, no matter how many fevers you’d nursed their brats through over the years or how many boils you’d periodically lanced on their revolting derrières.
Who could honestly deny that the kid had it coming? For weeks he’d peed against her front door twice per day without fail, on his way to the market and back. She’d asked him nicely to please pick someone else’s threshold, ideally that of the annoying do-gooder next door. In fact, if she’d asked him once she’d asked him a thousand times.
And still, it’s her beautiful wooden door he chose. Which had begun to warp.
Unsurprisingly, one day, she just snapped. Have you ever done something impulsive while realising half a breath later that it really, really wasn’t a good idea? And your body’s on a roll, and your mind can’t make it stop?
As she grabbed the door handle with both hands, propped her feet squarely against the frame on either side and heaved, it occurred to her that a nice warm glass of beetroot juice would be much the wiser way forward. But then, the door popped open, and the last dribbles of the child’s piddling performance hit her favourite skirt, and… well. Instinct prevailed.
She’d unleashed a spell so fast that the conscious part of her brain only realised with a split-second delay. Out shot her hands, tracing the arcane patterns that bend the rules of space and time. Off went the spell, towards the grinning, gap-toothed target it simply couldn’t miss at such close quarters.
And yet. Out of the blue, bloody Josse of the bleeding heart leapt out of his front door and into the trajectory of the hurtling spell with a block of sandstone in his arms, pushing the offending infant out of harm’s way. And so it was that he was hit with the “you-will-live-forever-and-ever-and-ever…” arm of the spell, whose “…in precisely this position” part transferred to the stone.
An irritating git he surely was, old love-they-neighbour over there, but give him his due. How he’d clocked the situation, found a suitable stone, picked it up and then managed to time his jump perfectly despite his creaking joints within the half-minute it had taken her to hurl a hex, we’ll never know.
Mission accomplished, though. The child was safe; the stone – now reshaped into a peeing putto – would supply the neighbourhood with water for centuries to come and turn into a much-loved landmark, and the hero seemed unhurt. It would take him years to figure out the immortality part.
And yet, the neighbours were up in arms. There’s just no pleasing some people. It simply wasn’t a good time to be a witch, and a foreign one at that, and as usual people were quick to quash what they didn’t understand. The bystanders, all of whom had so far been about as useful as a cornmeal clog, were advancing towards her wielding whatever heavy object they’d found in arm’s reach.
As she backed into her gaping doorway, her energy temporarily depleted, all that stood between her and a sticky fate was that sanctimonious prat. Luckily, Saint Josse the Stone Thrower had got his wind back after his earlier exertions, and he quickly seized a further chance to polish his halo. He turned to face the crowd and, as menacingly as he could, growled “Leave her to me”.
“Fine,” said the crowd, dispersing to deal with whatever mundane errand the little peestravaganza had delayed.
“You’ll have to go into hiding,” he whispered, as he pushed into the doorway behind her. “And I know just the place.”