brief moment from my as-yet-titleless novel

"Through the mist-that-wasn’t, River Montijo heard the whooshing sound of a broom slicing through the air. For a moment he imagined the Bawler might be flying towards him, a bona fide witch about to snatch him up and carry him off to her underground castle and drop him in a big black cauldron that hadn’t originally been black, but after years of boiling young men and failing to scour the sides, had turned the color of death and cooked-on fat."