The Hag, the Beauty and the Foreigner

Churning in a seething pit of bedrock and drowning cliffs, the sea smashed and spat at the earth. Do you see, it hissed a warning, those sinister silhouettes sliding along the rocks? Let us smite the demons down whence they were summoned.
Wait, no it is a triplet of men. The sea chuckled and bubbled, frothing like a village’s aged wise-woman.
The trio made the excruciatingly suspenseful journey around and up the slippery treacherous cliff-face, the sea grabbed wildly for them like a sadistic trickster. Finally, though, the bedraggled men finally reached the top, sodden heavy clothes hanging like elephant skin/jowls, fingers as shrivelled, cold and stiff as a corpse. Their exhausted minds sought only to find shelter and fix a fire, so that they could fill their gurgling bellies with hot food in this autumnal night.
The shadows from the men stretched like ghouls in the flat plain as the looked around at their new scenery. The craggy mountains split the onyx sky far in the distance. In the desecrated light the landscape was barren and bruised purple. The serrated cliffs gaped and grinned like an unwilling silver skeleton, it’s jagged eye-socket caves stared unseeing. Suspended in the sky, the crystal moon was invisible, only a legend in the great abyss of the sky.
The man in the centre, a bearded chap, grunted. In their depleted state, they all recognised that it was equivalent to a hoot of joy and grunted back.
Just a hundred yards away, there was a hut. Not the most extravagant an accommodation, no hotel in Beverly Hills, but to them it had the swimming pools, fine women and of course a chihuahua.
They hobbled over to it as fast as they could, clearing their throats of phlegm and shifting their clothes around, trying to look presentable for their unwitting hosts. In all honesty, it merely made them seem like old grandpas, but effort was always appreciated.
So, a few minutes later the zombie-travellers rapped excitedly on the door.
It was unlucky that the moon was not shining bright that day to illuminate this hut.
The door creaked open.
“Come in.”
The doorway was empty, the house hollow.
It was probably for the best that no one greeted them, they thought. Who in their right mind would permit entry to men in their state. Best go in quickly before they have a chance to refuse and deny them a bowl of soup.
However, as the door swung shut behind them, their water-logged ears heard eachother’s audible gasps as they glanced around.
The first man’s eyes saw the dim lighting, and they saw sprigs of dried strangled herbs hanging upside down, totems dangling from the rafters made from stones, bones and probably other crones, and the small bubbling cauldron over the small fire in the corner.
The second man’s eyes took in the candles and the dried flowers for perfume, the soup brewing on a stove, and a warm comfortable bed in the corner of the room on which to lie.
The third man, on the other hand, glared at the strange markings and patterns around the small hut, a burning herb wafting curls of smoke and a gagging scent that stuck to his throat, and a small shrine in the corner with a devilish figurine pulling a face at them.
Which of them is them was delusional from exhaustion? Who was the most observant or realistic/afraid? Who was right?
“Welcome.”
The first man turned to look at a woman. Unkempt hair fell like withered tentacles hiding a hideous hag face. The hand she extended towards him resembled a ginger root, from the soiled wrinkled appearance to the additional thumb. Thankfully tatty, ratty rags obscured any other disfigurements as it fell to the floor, and the man could have sworn that he saw flies buzzing around this ghoulish peasant. Hand on his sword for comfort, he looked into her face and almost recoiled. Her face reminded the man of a dried fig, and eyes were crusted with a milky substance like caustic sap or pus.
“You want help, my dear?” she wheezed and croaked.
The first man hid his disgust ill, grimacing and trying not to breathe her fumes.
The second man however jumped at the chance to reply. For his eyes were on the woman with sleek dark hair and hooded eyes that held a deep passion. Though on the small side and wearing a bedgown that had enough material for a marquee, she had one eye-catching figure. Her beautiful heart-shaped face was turned up towards his, her smile wild.
“We’re looking for shelter, miss?” he bowed his head, never letting his eyes slip from hers, waiting for her to clasp his hand.
“If you could direct us elsewhere, where we can pay for our lodgings?” the third man interrupted, clearing his throat imperiously.  His lip was curled, eyes filled with disdain. His gaze lingered momentarily on the servant who wore a long trailing scarf, odd trousers and a tunic. Really, though she could do nothing about her unkempt monkey appearance or that disconcerting gaze, she really should not wear such alarming eye-make-up, nor those obscene clothes. She should care about society and the norm. He scoured her form to see if she was holding a weapon or poison.
She raised a violent eyebrow. “Stay here. No problem I have with that.”
The third man winced and craned his neck forward. “WHAT DID YOU SAY?” Her accent was funny and thick, twisting her words in a tortuous manner. He would be damned, literally, if she started reciting some ritual to summon her demon gods.
The foreign woman blinked and grinned.
The first man shuddered as he watched the crone smile too, flashing dirty, grey, chipped teeth. He could almost see the critters crawling around and dying in that dry throat. The second man was almost drooling at the beautiful woman, quite at ease and oblivious to the distress around him.
“Hospitality,” the foreign woman said in her thick accent to the third man. “I show you hospitality.” She smiled widely, and it struck fear and anger into the man’s heart. He turned to the door. He would not stand for this.
“Of course, it is not normal,” the hag wheezed to the first man. “Three men turning up in the middle of the night. That is… dangerous.”
The first man felt a stone drop in his stomach, bands constrict his chest and his legs turn to lead with fear at her words. This was a trap, why else would the hag live so far from the civilisation.
The beautiful lady turned to the second man in the centre and smiled suggestively. “Yet I will make an exception, for you.”
The second man’s heart skipped a beat, which was nothing to the first man’s. He was sweating, and gazing around wildly, like a scared horse. His heart was thundering in his chest, fear rampaging through his veins. He saw in the wicked hag’s eyes that she meant to use those clawed, crooked fingers to trap them, poison them, and them cut them up as meat for her stew.
“I can see things,” the hag wheezed, stumpy legs under the rags thudding loudly as she walked around the three men. “You were businessmen, now travellers lost on your way to the Moors, fugitives escaping the soldiers who search for thieves.”
The first man’s stomach sank. The third man was angry and afraid, throat drying further.
The second man blinked too, in surprise. “Wow, that is impressive.” The smile he directed at the beautiful lady was coy, “What woman can take of my pride and my body,” he sighed, enchanted. “You’re partner must be jealous of your attention.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Smooth words, sales representative. You seek knowledge if I am wed.”
“I am caught,” he grinned at her, sweeping back his hair from his face. “What are you going to do to me?”
The second man was quite oblivious that the first man who was sidling towards the door, but did notice the third man step forward and tower over the foreigner.
“What is this, who are you?” he roared at her, mouth close to her ear as he shoved his face into hers. This woman was a mistake of birth, he was convinced. She was a foreigner to reality, a messenger from hell. There was no mistake. This servant of all that was wrong had done something to his companion and now… they were done for.
“Excuse me?”
The third man would not tolerate such mock confusion. “How is it that you-” he jabbed the foreigner in the chest – “know who we are? Are you a spy?”
The second man stepped in front of the foreigner who stumbled back a bit, hands automatically going for the nearest weapon, a broom. “Let us hear what she has to say before you both draw,” he said, alarmed that both of his colleagues were already unsheathing glinting knives.
“Well, hag?” the first man asked the decrepit. “Explain yourself!” It felt good to shout, to expel his fear.
The crone tugged back those tentacles from her face, and looked up at him with glinting, shrewd eyes. The first man didn’t like that look, like she could see into his mind and was able to suss him out. “This is my home--”
“EXPLAIN YOURSELF, FOREIGNER!” the third man bellowed. The foreigner jumped and glanced warily at the man, however her smile was cunning and seem to understand him. “EXPLAIN!”
The second man found his colleagues attitude’s quite bizarre and frowned as he turned to appease the beauty. “I do apologise for my companions’ behaviour, we have had a long night. Might you prepare us food and beds and attend us during the night. I am sure that is no trouble for a lady such as yourself.” He licked his hand and slick back his hair again, but it flopped back and he gagged from the sea salt and grime that was now stuck in his throat. He didn’t like to think whatever else was in the sea and on his hands.
The beauty cocked her pretty head. “I think an explanation is needed. You, salesman and media representative, are a charmer. You attract clients with your expensive shirt and the comforts you crave – good food, accommodation, women to attend you. Your mind is clever to meek up social desires, yet your soft hands are marred with cuts, your designer boots scuffed and ripped. Why? Because, you do not miss an opportunity to find better prospects and break the façade of your life.”
The second man looking at the beauty anew. How… What was this power that glinted evilly in her eye? This was not natural, not normal, not right.
“You, are the accountant,” said the foreigner to the third man. “Your skin is pale, sun-less, from sitting in your room all day, working non-stop, which is why you dislike new environments. Your contact with the outside is via like-minded colleagues who see the world in terms of money. That is why you will not let go of the money you stole – the gold in your bag weighs down that bag far more than it should, and seems to have cut into your shoulders from your long journey.”
The man’s throat dried with fear as she watched the demon come out in this dark woman’s face.
“You,” the hag croaked to the first man, “are the brain. You were the vice-president of your former company, however, you decided that you could live a more comfortable life by becoming a competitor and sink your boss’s business. You had to steal the clients, so the salesman comes with you, and you need someone to handle finance, so the accountant gets to tag along like a dead duck. Then you may forget about all those that do not fit into your perfect, value-comparing life. I can tell because you went for your sword first, and then sought to protect yourself by putting others in the way of harm. Your hands are accustomed to the weapon of murder, your boots ready to run.”
The three men looked at each other, and then back at the woman.
They ran.
Though she knew their secret, they dared not cross her. She was unsettling; not sweet, lovable. She was not normal. Fear flooded them, more efficiently than a tsunami and a storm and rotted doors.
“Are you sure you do not wish to stay?” the woman called out after them, as the scarpered like rats to the hills. None them looked back, however. As fleetly as their tired legs would carry them, they expended the last of their energy.
Tired, confused and scared, they squatted in a faraway cave. As they swapped stories, teeth chattering, bodies trembling violently, they couldn’t believe the stories their companions told them. They were clever people, were they not, no woman could get the better of them.
What do the hag, the beauty and the foreigner all have in common? they wondered. They came easily to the conclusion. She was a witch. How else could she have realised all of those facts, realised so much about themselves in just a few moments?
So, just ten minutes later, they all remembered the cackling woman with warts and few teeth, croaking frogs, spewing gibberish spells with a bubbling cauldron filled with organs of the innocents. She had been dressed in rags, but she tricked the mind, enchanting one of them to see her as a beauty, frightening the others to see her as a hag and a foreigner. They had seen totems of babies skulls, rows of pickled organs, a shrine for the devil, a woman dressed in rags who channelled her energies to having extra hands, who had enchanted their companion to see her as a beauty. But he had broken out of it, the hero that he was.
That is what they told the soldiers who cornered them a few moments later, threatening their lives for their thievery. They relayed the skewed gory details of the heinous woman, and her wicked manipulation of them with her black magic. For all they knew, she had caused their behaviour. So, what was more important to you soldiers, they asked– a petty crime, or a witch in the way?