“One drop of dwindling. Two blurps of belittling. A smidgeon of minikin. A half teaspoon of twurp. A shift of shortening. And then one pinch of kapoot should do it.”
“He was sure the crafty old witch planned to fix him for good. If she could shrink him down to a runt of a thing she could turn him into a tadpole, or into a flea, or make him disappear altogether.”
“Did the slave-woman dream (asks the cat) or did a witch truly take her baby? And, if a witch truly came, did the witch tell the truth, or did she take the baby, roast it, and eat it at a witches picnic?”
It begins with a slave-woman giving birth to a daughter in the frozen depths of winter. A witch appears, asking for the child, promising to raise it as a shaman.