"All Europe was a cloud of witches' smoke.
Their judges often bound and burnt with them
For what? A joke!
"Until: 'all men are spoiled with guilt!
All sin, all lie!'
So, what to do?
Why, everyone must die!"
Smoke churned the sky. At every crossroads, witches hung, crows
gathered in a feathered darkness.
The boys hung from their brooms in the sky, eyes popped, mouths wide.
"Anyone want to be a witch?" asked Moundshroud, at last.
"Er," said Henry-Hank, shivering in his witch's rags, "N-not me!"
"No fun, eh, boy?"
"No fun."
The brooms flew them off through chars and smokes.
They landed on an empty street, in an open place, in Paris.
Their brooms fell over, dead.
"Well, now, boys, what should we do to scare the scarers, frighten the frighteners, shiver the shiverers?" called Moundshroud inside a cloud. "What's bigger than demons and witches?"
"Bigger gods?"
"Bigger witches?"
"Bigger churches?" guessed Tom Skelton.
"Bless you, Tom, right! An idea gets big, yes? A religion gets big! How. With buildings large enough to cast shadows across an entire land. Build buildings you can see for a hundred miles. Build one so tall and famous it has a hunchback in it, ringing bells. So now, boys, help me build it brick by brick, flying buttress by flying buttress. Let's build--"
"Notre-Dame!" shouted eight boys.
"And all the more reason to build Notre-Dame because--" said Moundshroud. "Listen--"
Bong!
A bell tolled in the sky.
Bong!
"...help...!" whispered a voice when the sound had died.
Bong!
The boys looked and saw a kind of scaffolding reared up in half a belfry-keep upon the moon. At the very top hung a huge bronze bell that was tolling now.