Written circa 2004, I think.
The witch watched Carina through a pair of binoculars.
The dew was heavy in the early morning, and soaked through the witch's jeans as she stared across the road, the tile roof of a suburban garage cold beneath her.
In her kitchen, Carina twirled and sang, with a batch of cookies browning in the oven behind her and a pair of merry bluebirds twittering outside her window.
"Unnatural," the witch muttered crossly beneath her breath, watching the carefree smile fluttering at the corners of Carina's mouth, and put the binoculars into the pocket of her oil slicker. Casting a dark eye at the dawning horizon, she pulled out her wooden spoon with a sad face on the bowl, and conjured herself into the air and away.
Behind her, hypothermic in the winter air, one bluebird fell off the windowsill.
The witch crept up to Carina's front door at midnight, feet crunching on frost, the gelled black spikes of her hair and pale narrow face hidden beneath a knitted balaclava. Her pockets rattled and clunked softly with each step, filled with trinkets and charms.
Reaching the door, she ran her hands over the painted surface, feeling carefully for wards and spells, before scowling suspiciously and ringing the bell.
Carina opened the door almost instantly. "Hello," she said, as if it was perfectly normal.
"Silence," the witch said sternly, and rapped her on the head with her wooden spoon. Carina slid gracefully to the floor, eyes fluttering shut.
The witch looked down at her, gripping her spoon tightly, chest throbbing with nerves — had Carina known she was coming?
With a flourish of cutlery, she made Carina tiny, then picked her up and kept her in her pocket while she hitchhiked to Mexico, cursing twelve men and two dogs along the way.
The witch finally made Carina the right size again on a Mexican beach, and paddled quietly in the shallows as she woke up and sat with her head between her knees until she felt better. Squinting out to sea, the witch wriggled her toes in the sand, listening to Carina's small whimpers and occasional dry heaving, until she got her feet under her and took a few unsteady steps.
"Hello?" Carina said, sounding feeble and unhappy.
"We're walking the last mile," the witch told her over her shoulder. "You may as well sit back down for now. My feet are tired."
Carina shuffled in the sand, heaved a little but deeply felt sigh, and sank back down to wrap her arms around her knees and watch the sunset, making no effort to get away.
They walked along the beach in silence, until they reached the witch's house — a driftwood cottage looking half as old as time. It had once stood on chicken legs, but they were splayed flat and half-buried in the beach, which seemed likely to be the house's last resting place.
"It's retired," the witch said crossly as she fumbled with the stiff door, deliberately not looking to see what Carina thought, then managed to wrestle it open. She turned, fixed Carina with a hard stare, and pointed imperiously in.
The days settled into a regular pattern. The witch woke early and Carina woke late to an empty house. The witch came home past noon, smelling of tequila, to a house that smelled of baking.
Every evening, the witch would corner Carina in the living room — usually between the bookcase and the table of knickknacks, depending how fast Carina sidled away — and begin a suspicious, belligerent and incoherent interrogation until she confused herself or fell asleep on her feet.
"Why are you magic?" the witch demanded. "How are you magic?"
Carina examined the knickknacks minutely, one by one, and occasionally gave the witch puzzled and somewhat anxious looks from under her lashes.
If the witch didn't fall asleep, she'd eventually change her approach and go to the room in the front where she kept the sideboard full of faces, and put on a smiling one, or a sad one or an angry one. Most nights, Carina would still not have sidled as far as the door when she got back, and the witch would shove her to the collapsing sofa, match her voice to her face, and try some more.
When the witch dropped off and started swaying, Carina would take her arm and gently put her to bed.
It was nearly spring when Charming showed up, slogging through the sand with a smile that could sell God or used cars. Marching up to the cottage, he rapped firmly on the door.
Carina opened it almost at once. "The witch isn't here," she said. "Come back later."
"I've come to release you from her clutches," Charming said, head turned to catch the sun dramatically.
"Come back later." Carina shut the door on him.
When the witch returned an hour later, wandering unsteadily along the path between the dunes and snivelling to herself over a bottle of mezcal, Charming was attempting to climb the side of the house to reach the dormer window at the back, shouting heartily about rescues.
The witch wandered round the corner of the house to throw the bottle at his head before bolting to the front door and slamming it behind her. She found Carina sitting under the stairs with her fingers in her ears.
"Where did he come from?" the witch demanded, aggrieved.
Carina gave her a shrug that could have meant anything.
"Well, I hope you're happy," the witch told her bitterly, and went to sit in the kitchen with her head in her hands.
Outside, Charming yelled something about vanquishing evil.
Charming was noisy outside all night, and when Carina went into the kitchen in the morning, the witch was still in the house for once, looking pale and sick and annoyed.
"Good morning," Carina said, and hummed around the kitchen, making breakfast and setting the table. The witch tried to watch her, but got dizzy and had to put a hand over her eyes so she wouldn't fall off her stool.
"Your boyfriend's got his nose pressed to the window," she sneered. Carina didn't look.
"I expect so," she said. "How do you want your eggs?"
The witch lapsed into sulky silence for a few minutes, while Carina scrambled the eggs and put bread in the toaster. "How did you bring him here?" she demanded eventually.
"I didn't." Carina put a glass of milk in front of her.
"Charmings don't come out of nowhere to take people away," the witch informed her, pushing the glass away slightly.
"Neither do witches," Carina said lightly, and pushed the milk back at her to make room on the table for the eggs and toast.
On the third day, they ran out of milk.
"I don't care," the witch said sulkily. "I have everything I need." She cradled a bottle against her chest. "Ask him to fetch some for you."
Carina gave her a hard look, and went to the front door. The witch fumbled and dropped her drink in outrage.
"Hello?" Carina called.
Charming rushed up to the door. "I'll free you from your captivity!"
"Do you think you could bring me some milk?" Carina suggested, and shut the door again.
"Bitch," the witch said softly, and went to the room in the front where she kept the faces, and put on a cruel one. When Carina saw it, she looked hard, pink lips parted and just the very tip of a tongue between her white teeth.
"Ye-es," she said, as if to herself, and smiled all day like it was a secret.
After a week of banging and yelling all through the night, the witch had had enough.
"Make him go away," she ordered Carina.
"How?"
"I don't care."
Carina sighed. "Oh, fine." She went to the front door and leaned out, calling, "Hello?"
Charming flung himself to his knees in front of her. "Come with me! Flee your durance while your vile captor's attention is elsewhere!"
She sighed again. "I might need a rescuer," she allowed. "Come in, and I'll audition you for the post."
She stood looking down at him while he thought about it.
"Audition?" he said finally, in puzzlement.
"Come in?" the witch said angrily.
"Take it or leave it," Carina said.
"That's mine," the witch said from the corner, where she was hunched defensively on her stool.
Carina ran her fingers over the dusty clipboard, covered in peeling stickers and schoolgirl graffiti, and gave her a thin, arch smile. "Let's start, shall we?" She smoothed her paper, and tapped the clipboard with a pencil that the witch had chewed ragged.
Charming fidgeted on the spare stool, seated in the centre of the kitchen.
"What qualifications have you got for this kind of work?" Carina said seriously.
He brightened. "A stout and valiant heart!"
"Um." The pencil tapped. "Anything else?"
His face fell, and he fidgeted a little more. "I — I used to be a volunteer lifeguard?"
The witch made a scornful noise. Carina thought for a second, then drew a tick on her paper. "Witches," she said. "What place do you think they have in modern society?"
"Vanquishment!"
Carina looked from the witch to her paper. "Anything else?"
Charming twitched, as though he'd just remembered the witch was there, and was trying not to look over his shoulder. "Rehabilitation?" he suggested quickly.
The witch growled. Carina frowned and sighed, and started to doodle flowers and smiling faces. "Tell us about your experience in the field."
The sun was setting by the time Carina opened the door and ushered Charming out of the house. "Thank you! We'll call and let you know!" she said, and firmly shut the door.
"You didn't get rid of him," the witch pointed out, sitting on the stairs.
"Yet," Carina told her. "What did you think?"
The witch looked at her, and ran a hand through her hair. "What?"
"What did you think? I thought he made a pretty good case."
The witch scoffed, and went upstairs with her head held high.
The witch sat stony-faced as Carina packed, and nodded stiffly when she peeked around the kitchen doorframe to say goodbye.
"Take him away," the witch said, and cracked open a lonely bottle.
Carina sighed and took Charming away.
It was turning autumn, and the witch sat on the beach in the morning sun, with a cold wet flannel over her face and a stack of empties by her hand, head tipped back to rest between two huge chicken claws. The footsteps on the sand were nearly soundless, but she wasn't a witch for nothing.
"Do you want the handbag you forgot, or have you come to watch while he burns the house down?" she said acidly.
"Neither," Carina said.
The witch pursed her lips and clenched her fingers in the sand. "What?" she said finally.
Carina sighed. "Come inside," she said. "You'll give yourself sunstroke."
The witch staggered to her feet and stumbled in, holding her head. Carina headed straight to the kitchen, and the witch bent over the toilet holding her stomach for a while, then went to the room in the front and put on a smiling face, even though it didn't fit very well.
"What's that for?" Carina said, when she joined her in the kitchen.
"It's malevolent glee," the witch said, squeezing her eyes shut against the light coming through the kitchen window.
Carina smiled and ruffled her hair until the smiling face came loose, leaving her cross and uncertain. "That's better," Carina said. "It was nice to see a happy face, but you don't really smile like that — you just go a little crooked when you think you're winning." She tweaked the witch's nose.
The witch scowled as Carina set the table.
"He wanted a fairytale wedding and a happy ever after," Carina said suddenly, looking at the salt pot as if it was interesting.
"I know," the witch said. "You tricked me into it. I never wanted to be party to a fairy story." She folded her arms.
Carina sighed. "I left him at the altar," she confessed, and arranged the salt and pepper pots neatly.
The witch said nothing, and reached for the unopened bottle of tequila on the draining board. Carina gave her a fierce look and took it away.
"Do they have Alcoholics Anonymous in Mexico?" she asked.
"You can't take that away!" the witch said plaintively, reaching for it.
Carina tipped it down the sink and threw the empty bottle out of the window. "What else are friends for?" she said brightly, and sized the witch up like she was planning to renovate.
The witch whimpered. "I should never have bothered with you," she said unhappily.
Carina smiled and took a wooden spoon with a happy face out of her handbag. Opening a drawer, she put it away with the witch's sad one.
"True," she said fondly.