Aaand there is a shift in gravity and the dark closet spins around her and it feels like falling...

...and she finds herself on a forest floor. The trees are very tall and the sky is a purple-ish twilight with very bright stars but no discernible setting sun.

...that makes her actually stop crying. She's still sniffling a bit but now she's just—confused, curious, scared. She looks around.

It looks like a relatively normal forest with tall trees. Maybe a bit too quiet.

She stands up and dusts herself. Is there a path she can follow?

Maybe if she follows that way.

She spots a bunny, a huge bunny, peeking out of the bushes before hopping away.

...is she in Wonderland?

She follows the bunny.

It vanishes quickly out of sight. But it leads her down a beaten path. She can spot what looks like a thin column of smoke in the distance.

...okay, she can go there.

It's a nice cottage sort of place. Rather pretty and well kept considering it's in the middle of the woods. She can spot a couple of probably-not-albino kids working on a vegetable garden.

Oh, oh good. Okay. People. She walks up to them.

It's hard to tell their gender under that baggy clothing. One drops their basket and runs off. The other approaches; they are taller than her and say something inquisitive in another language.

"...I don't understand that."

They prod her in the shoulder and frown.

"...what?"

Unintelligible speech.

The other brings an adult woman, rather good-looking, wearing a dress that doesn't really belong in a country house. She greets Sadde with a smile.

...she doesn't smile back. Just looks up and says, "Do you speak English?"

She says something vaguely comforting and then tries different languages until. "English?"

"...that's what I said, yeah."

"From England?" she tries.

"Yeah?"

Smile. "Where is your... father and mother?"

"I dunno."

"Is they in the wood?"

"Are they," she corrects. "And no, I don't think so. I didn't see them anyway."

"You," she mimes, "showed up quickly?"

"...what? Quickly?"

"Did not walk. Found Elsewhere."

"...found what elsewhere?"

"Found Elsewhere. Here is the Elsewhere."

"...you mean this place is called Elsewhere? That's weird. How come you're learning English this fast?"

Smile. "Good learner."

"Right but how."

She just taps her forehead and repeats, "Good learner." Smile.

"I don't get it."

Smile. She scrutinizes Sadde. "Hungry?"

Headshake.

"Need..." She frowns. "Want something?"

"Yes, I want to know how you're doing that."

The woman looks up and down, then at the other child.

The other child looks away. The woman turns back and smiles. "Refreshed my memory."

"Do I look stupid to you? I was home then I was in a forest with a woman who didn't speak English and then she did. Are you a witch? You're a witch aren't you."

Her smile drops. "Be respect, young woman."

"No."

And she turns and runs away.

The woods are there waiting for her.

Yeah she will run for a while. Bad witch.

Run for how long?

Until she gets very tired.

Alright.

A few minutes later the witch shows up.

She screams and starts running away again.

She finds herself back at the house. That really wasn't the direction she was going.

Okay so she's gonna run in yet another direction.

Doesn't work. One of the other kids sees her and runs towards her.

No no no more running away—

Well, the other kid is far less tired and tackles her to the ground.

The other kid doesn't know how to fight as much as she can; she is vicious. She will kick and scratch and bite and scream and spit and punch and—

The other kid isn't that keen on fighting but that bought time for the witch to show up. She runs toward Sadde.

After Sadde has managed to disentangle herself from the evil witch kid she's going to run from the evil witch again she's tired but she's not going down like that.

Then Sadde can be hit by something on the back. It causes her to feel very heavy.

And she falls and starts crying.

She is grabbed by the witch to be carried slash dragged away.

No no no she's going to kick and bite and scratch and hit and—

Slump over too weak to move a muscle.

She just cries then.

She is taken back to the cottage and placed inside a cushioned closet thing. Slowly she regains her strength and can move around.

She curls up and continues to cry.

And if the witch opens the door again a few hours later?

She's startled awake and huddles away from the witch.

She throws a small cloth sack at Sadde. It doesn't even hit her, it hits the wall and then the floor, but it releases a blue cloud that disappears after a few seconds.

Sadde can't move. Even her eyelids feel like they're made of stone.

"Listen," the witch says. "You behave or you pay. If you misbehave, you lose meals, you get the closet, you get curses. I will let you think for a while and then you can have dinner. Or misbehave and stay hungry."

And without even waiting for a reply, the witch closes the door.

Movement slowly returns to Sadde's limbs.

She cries more and scrunches her eyes shut and tries to wake up from the bad, bad dream. Why is she having this dream. She hates it.

One of the kids opens the door.

She startles but doesn't scream.

Kid, not the one she had a fight with, motions for Sadde to stand up.

...she does.

Here is the kitchen. The witch is seated at a tall chair, pretending not to be looking at them. There are three plates. Some kind of meat gruel and vegetables. It smells good to her hungry stomach.

...fine. She'll eat.

Nom. The two kids look at her with eyes that look both empty and hungry. The one she fought against has a black eye. Their food is gone in a minute and they look between her plate and the witch.

Omnom. She finishes eating, mechanically.

They sit quietly while she finishes it and after a second the witch says something. One of the kids picks up the dishes and takes them to a bucket to clean.

The witch approaches, looks at Sadde and just says, "You go to bed," followed by another string of words.

The other kid pulls the hem of Sadde's shirt.

Sure. Sadde follows.

Here is what must be their bedroom. No proper beds, just very fluffy furs piled on the floor. The kid disrobes and (apparently, Sadde would know it isn't conclusive evidence) turns out to be a girl. She creates a third fur pile with her feet, her hands clenched tight and her eyes angry, but she doesn't say or do anything.

Once that's done she buries herself in the fur pile without a word.

Yeah.

She lies on the fur pile, still wearing her clothes, and tries to get to sleep.

The other girl soon joins them.

The witch wakes them up way too early. The sky is... the same. But she couldn't possibly have gotten enough sleep.

That's okay. She doesn't need much sleep anyway.

The witch sends the girls to tend to the vegetable garden.

Hup.

They work at it for a looong time.

Meanwhile, she watches—watches the kids, watches the house, watches the plants and the surrounding vegetation. She needs to find a way out but just running won't work; she needs to learn more, then.

The kids are finding and removing bugs from plants. The plants are weird, but in a looks-from-another-part-of-the-world sort of weird. The kids keep poking her to work harder.

The witch moves about the house, but mostly keeps to a study where she can watch the garden through a window.

What about escape avenues?

There are bits of terrain that are not immediately visible and there is a direction where there is no obvious way for the witch to see from the inside.

Hmm. Can she actually go check that direction, without it looking suspicious if the witch can see?

In theory she could be tending some of the plants over that direction?

Yeah she can do that just to check. She won't try to run now.

Then she can pretend to tend to that area until one of the other kids tries to pull her by the wrist. The kid looks alarmed.

...okay she'll follow.

Back to bug picking.

.......okay but why.

The kid is not immediately elaborating.

The plants in the area are a bit different though.

Different how?

They often have a darker color scheme with bold color accents.

"What happened?" she asks one of the other kids, pointing at them.

The child looks at the window; the witch is not watching, but she still goes back to picking off bugs.

She says something and mimes. She picks up a leaf, points at the plants in the forbidden area and then mimes the leaf touching her other hand. The hand goes limp.

"...I have no idea w—oh. Oh do you mean those leaves make my hands numb?"

Well, the language barrier works in both directions, but the kid gestures again.

"Okay..." She'll stay away from those leaves for now, then.

Does she keep working until it's lunch time?

Yes, she does.

Then they can lunch, ideally without any disruptions.

And lunch is presumably the gruel again.

Sadde thinks. The witch has magic plants that make you go limp. And she thinks the kid meant that she could also see that way? Maybe. And running away sometimes takes her back even though it makes no sense.

She's not going to try to run away soon, not again. There is too much she needs to know. She'll stay, and watch, and learn.

The lunch is gruel again! She was right. Her reward is eating gruel.

No one talks during it. The witch watches them the entire time. Apparently not moving much, just watching them eat.

They were sent back to the garden again. The gruel shows itself to be not enough for Sadde's little stomach.

Then she guesses she is going to lose some weight isn't she.

She tries not to think too much about how this will affect her growth. There's magic, presumably there will be some way to fix it in the future.

She is definitely doing a lot of physical activity without much nourishment to back it up. After several hours they are finally called for dinner.

Dinner is slightly better, more meat. Which is good after such a tiring day.

Yay. She's so happy.

God she hopes this was all a nightmare and when she sleeps she'll wake up.