Story Contest 2017 #1 - Outstanding Stories » The Web of the Witch

“The Web of the Witch” is one of the outstanding stories of the first biannual International Short Story Contest 2017 written by Md. Ali Raza Khan, India.

The Web of the Witch

Life in Emma's village was all peace and quiet, and great fun. She fooled the villagers including her parents by impersonating her twin sister, Lily.

In the village, there was a mansion that was said to be haunted and legend goes that a witch called Enchantress resided there. The legend has it that whosoever wanders into the mansion, comes out as an animal! No one in the village dared to enter the mansion.

Things were going fine for Emma until the day one of her pranks got quite out of hand. Emma, her sister and her friend Harry are constantly at the odds with the local butcher, Joy. Once Joy chased Lily, Emma's docile twin, to the mansion (mistaking her for Emma) in a fit of rage.

As a result of this, Lily entered the mansion, where presumably the witch turned the little girl into a hen. Emma was hysteric when she heard about this. She ran from pillar to post to get help, but her credibility is at an all-time low and the entire village refuses to believe her, so Emma finally enters the haunted mansion alone to search for her sister.

In the mansion, she comes face to face with the witch, she pleads with the witch to let her poor little sister go, as it was no fault of hers. But the witch asks her to strike a deal. She will turn Lily back into a human only if Emma could bring her a hundred hens in exchange.

All of a sudden, Emma is confronted with the biggest challenge of her life.

Emma's school master visits the mansion but a small puppy is seen exiting the mansion and people presume the witch has turned him into a puppy. Harry after spotting the puppy realizes it is his pet dog that had entered the mansion and has disappeared ever since.

Its then that Emma realizes that all this was just a ruse. Is not a witch and she does not really turn humans into animals; she merely locks them up and has some plans of her own. All the people locked up are finally freed and the village finds a new hero in Emma.