Author's Note: Wizard and Glass
Susan Delgado is just arriving at the witch's (Rhea of the Coos) house to be proven "honest" enough to bear the Mayor's child.
"Now she walked to the end of the path, singing the chorus of "Careless Love". A cat - a hideous thing with two extra legs sticking out of its sides like toasting forks - came to the doorway first.
It looked up at her, seemed to measure her, then screwed its face up in a look that was eerily human: contempt. It hissed at her, then flashed away into the night.
Well good evening to you, too, Susan thought.
Through the window, Susan could see the old woman. Her face was flooded with a soft pink radiance, and Susan gasped. For one moment it was the face of a young girl - but one filled with cruelty as well as youth, the face of a self-willed child determined to learn all the wrong things for all the wrong reasons. The face of the girl this hag once had been, mayhap. The light appeared to be coming from some sort of glass ball."
I took some liberties with the text. Hope my competitor forgives me. :)
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Sources
Thank you to [url="http://wild-stock.deviantart.com/"]Wild Stoc... for my Susan.