Closer! he thought.
But, careful, she circled her craft, scenting the sharp adrenalin wafted from his pores. He wheeled, following as the balloon spun, and him reeling. You! he thought, you want me sick! Spin me, will you? Make me dizzy?
There was one last thing to try.
He stood very still with his back to the balloon.
Witch, he thought, you can't resist.
He felt the sound of the green slime cloud, the kept bag of sour air, the squeal and stir of mouse-wicker on wicker as the shadow cooled his legs, his spine, his neck.
Close!
The Witch took air, weight, night burden, star-and-cold-wind ballast.
Closer!
Elephant shadow stroked his ears.
He nudged his weapons.
The shadow engulfed him.
A spider flicked his hair--her hand?
Choking a scream, he spun.
The witch, leaned out, was mere foot away.
He bent. He snatched.
The Witch tried to scream out breath when she smelled, felt, knew what he held tight.
But, in reaction, horrified, she seized a breath, sucked weight, burdened the balloon. It dragged the roof.
Will pulled the bowstring back, freighted with single destruction.
The bow broke in two pieces. He stared at the unshot arrow in his hands.
The Witch let out her breath in one great sigh of relief and triumph.
The balloon swung up. It struck him with its dry rattle-chuckling heavy-laden basket.
The Witch shouted again with insane happiness.
Clutched to the basket rim, Will with one free hand drew back and with all his strength threw the arrowhead flint up at the balloon flesh.
The Witch gagged. She tore at his face.
Then the arrow, a long hour it seemed in flight, razored a small vent in the balloon. Rapidly the shaft sank as if cutting a vast green cheese. The surface slit itself further in a wide ripping smile across the entire surface of the gigantic pear, as the blind Witch gabbled, moaned, blistered her lips, shrieked in protest, and Will hung fast, hands gripped to wicker, kicking legs, as the balloon wailed, whiffled, guzzled, mourned its own swift gaseous death, as dungeon air raved out, as dragon breath gushed forth and the bag, thus driven, retreated up.
Will let go. Space whistled about him. He turned, hit shingles, fell skidding down the inclined ancient roof, over down to rim, to rainspout where, feet first, he spilled into further emptiness, yelling, clawed at the rain gutter, held, felt it groan, give way, as he swept the sky to see the balloon whistling, wrinkling, flying up like a wounded beast to evacuate its terrified exhalations in the clouds; a gunshot mammoth, not wanting to expire, yet in terrible flux coughing out its stinking winds.
All this in a flash. Then Will flailed into space, with no time to be glad for a tree beneath when it netted him, cut him, but broke his fall with mattress twig, branch and limb. Like a kite he was held face up to the moon where, at his exhausted leisure, he might hear the last Witch lamentations for a wake in progress as the balloon spiraled her away from house, street, town with in-human mourns.
The balloon smile, the balloon rip was all-encompassing now as it wandered in deliriums to die in the meadows from which it had come, sinking down now beyond all the sleeping, ignorant and un-knowing houses.
For a long while Will could not move. Buoyed in the tree branches, afraid he might slip through and kill himself on the black earth below, he waited for the sledge hammer to subside in his head.