Grumpy Enciana was the first to realize that something was wrong.
What kind of trouble it was, she did not yet know.
Frosty-Eye Kate had barely mounted her broom to fly after Frosty Ivan, to ruin the hermit's dawn with a seasoning of insults, when Grumpy Enciana's broom bucked, landed on the ground, and did not move again. The Wednesday witch was almost home.
"This has never happened before!" complained the Wednesday witch.
She tried to take off for a while, but after the seventh attempt she gave up. Tucking her broom under her right arm, she tried to continue home on foot.
"What will I tell the others? Such a disgrace—no witch has ever been abandoned by her broom like this," Grumpy Enciana blushed and sulked.
She did not blush and sulk for long. She took two more steps toward home, then it was as if her feet were glued to the ground. She could not move forward at all. She tried two steps backward. Her legs did not fail her in that direction. Her broom also calmed down the moment she changed direction.
"It can only be the work of the Thursday witches!" she thought angrily.
She looked around carefully, but apart from a curious squirrel she saw nothing nearby. No Monday witch, no Tuesday witch, no witch of any other day passed this way.
The sight in the other direction was even stranger.
Frosty Ivan, the hermit, was sitting on the ground, rubbing his knees. Both wheels of his wheelbarrow spun upward toward the sky, still creaking. The empty water barrels had fallen off and were slowly rolling toward Frosty-Eye Kate. First the green one, then the white one, in the same order Frosty Ivan always placed them on the wheelbarrow every Monday and Thursday.
The Saturday witch tried to step forward to avoid the barrels. She could not move at all. Both barrels rolled over her feet without stopping, all the way into the ditch by the road. Luckily, they were still empty.
Frosty-Eye Kate's broom lay beside her, motionless on the ground.
"It must be the Wednesday witches—their curse from yesterday's meeting," Grumpy Enciana concluded correctly.
She could not get home, so she flew back to Frosty-Eye Kate, since they were both in the same mess. Both of their brooms and both of their legs had failed them on this Thursday dawn.
"We must find out what the witches cooked up around the cauldron last night," Enciana murmured softly into her ear so the hermit would not hear.
At that very moment, the two witches rose into the air and landed beside Frosty Ivan. Both of them hit their backsides hard. They only held back their cries so the hermit would not laugh at them.
Frosty Ivan did not feel like laughing at the unlucky hags. He was still rubbing his aching knees.
"Creeek! Creeeeek!" creaked the still-spinning wheels of the overturned wheelbarrow, providing fitting sound effects for this pitiful scene.
The hermit was used to insults and to Frosty-Eye Kate's Saturday curses and spells. But to be struck by a curse on Thursday as well? That was unheard of! In all his long centuries, nothing like this had ever happened to Frosty Ivan.
He glanced furtively at Frosty-Eye Kate, the Saturday witch.
"It wasn't her," he thought in amazement.
Whatever had happened, he asked nothing. He did not want to look more foolish than the two hags sitting on the ground.
Whatever had happened, the two hags had landed hard on their backsides. That alone brightened Frosty Ivan's day.
With great effort, the hermit got to his feet and turned the overturned wheelbarrow upright.
He secretly touched his aching knees once more before leaving the witches behind without a word.
The hermit thought the wheel had caught on a stone, which was why he had fallen with barrels and wheelbarrow alike.
Whatever had happened to Frosty-Eye Kate and the Wednesday witch, he hoped the two hags would not be able to solve the problem.
By the time he reloaded the water barrels from the ditch onto the wheelbarrow, the witches had also scrambled up from the ground. Grumbling and scowling, they brushed the dust from their nightclothes.
The hermit could not resist insulting Frosty-Eye Kate and Grumpy Enciana one last time before setting off for the spring.
"Enjoy yourselves, you shameless, lazy hags!" he said goodbye gleefully to the Saturday and Wednesday witches.
The hags did not even dignify him with a reply; they continued discussing their problem.
"Let's go and ask Bubble-Bib Purple what they brewed in the cauldron last night," Grumpy Enciana suggested.
Now she no longer cared if the hermit heard her.
"We have to find out what happened at the meeting, why so much strangeness surrounds us," the Wednesday witch chattered on casually.
Frosty-Eye Kate nodded silently, then cast one more ominous glance at Frosty Ivan.
"On Sssaturday, we settle accounts," she hissed at the hermit, hands on her hips, brow furrowed, nose thrust forward.
This posture was reserved only for Frosty Ivan, the hermit.