Eric forgot all about being a prisoner, and forgot the little caged creatures around the wall. He was delighted with the frock being pushed down on Ivra's shoulders. "How beautiful you'll be!" he cried. But Ivra wriggled away from it and stood clear. Her rudely made brown frock and worn sandals looked odd in that satin room. "I didn't come to see the frock," she said, shaking her head till her pigtails bobbed. "I came to get Eric."
The Beautiful Wicked Witch laughed. "Get him if you can," she said. Then she turned her back on the children and began to braid her black hair among the mirrors.
They went to the window and waited there, watching her.
"The door doesn't open out,—only in, I think," Eric whispered. "So we can't get out."
"Mother has told me how it would be," Ivra whispered back. "We'll have to wait until she's asleep and then find a way."
Then Ivra sat down on the floor and began to rock back and forth and sing a lullaby. It was a lullaby her mother had sung to her all her babyhood, Ivra sang in a very little voice, almost a murmur only, but by listening Eric and the Beautiful Wicked Witch could catch the words. She sang the same words over and over and over.
Night is in the forest,
Tree Mother is nigh.
By-abye, by-abye-bye.
Sleep is in the forest—