Far in the lands to the south, long before the first age of machines, the desert was speckled with the tiny villages of men. Between the sun and the unforgiving face of the desert, these men would somehow find a tiny handhold of life, and here they would cling for many generations, thanking the desert for her rare moments of generosity, and ever respectful of the great furnace of the gods as it made its way overhead.

In one such village as this there lived a boy named Twigby, and everyone thought him to be a simpleton. He would never harm any living creatures, and when he found one of the desert’s denizens within his small home - be it a mouse, a snake, or an spider - he would always carefully transport it outside and gently chastise it. He seemed not to care how often the creatures would follow him directly back inside, and perhaps it was this patience that others mistook for a simple mind.

Whatever else might be thought of the boy, the townsfolk had grudgingly to confess that his small garden was rarely (if ever) beset by pests, and the little subsistence he eked out of his small plot of land was generous for the desert. They might have been jealous of Twigby, but he was as generous with his desert boon as the harsh earth was to him, and so others never wanted for the sake of his own comfort.

Now, he never concerned himself with what manner of creature he might remove from his home, and so Twigby was used to carrying out and about all the poisoned hunters the desert had to offer. He would pick up rattlesnakes, black widows, and wasps with the same phlegmatic serenity and never did any of them spill so much as a drop of venom on his skin. For this reason, he was not mindful of the large black scorpion he found upon his wall one blazing afternoon. As he had done on many other occasions, he cupped one hand before the scorpion, placed the other behind it, and it scuttled onto his palm, where he cradled it carefully between both hands.

Twigby placed the scorpion on the earth and chastised it, “Go now, and sin no more. Men’s dwellings are not safe for you, and you are not safe for them.” Then he went back inside. Moments later he found the scorpion climbing his walls again, and so Twigby once more caught it between his hands, and gently placed it outside, chastising it. However, when he went back inside for a second time, the scorpion was climbing his walls yet again. Twigby was used to this behavior, and was no less patient carrying the scorpion out of doors for a third time.

Thus a third time he placed the scorpion on the sand, but he did not chastise it for, before he could speak, the scorpion grew to twice the size of a man. Though it had the body of a scorpion, and a scorpion’s terrible stinger, where its claws and head should have been was the body of a beautiful woman.

“Twigby,” she said, “yours is the gentlest soul to walk these harsh sands. You bring no harm to my subjects and you do not fear their stings or bites. My spiders have eaten the insects that would plague your small garden, and spoken highly of your gentle fingers. My snakes catch the vermin which would despoil the roots of your garden and have praised your careful hands. Thus I, the scorpion queen, have come to see what manner of man you are. You are a good man, Twigby, and know this: In your most desperate hours you may call for to me, and all the venomous creatures that slither and crawl will give you whatever aid they are able.”

The scorpion queen bowed to Twigby and with a toss of her hair she was a scorpion again, which scuttled away into his garden. Twigby accepted this as he accepted all things, for though in those days animals rarely spoke with men, it was still known that they could, and there were many tales of shamans who spoke with birds. He did not dwell on her words overmuch, and went on with his life as it had been for as many years as he had lived.

As it happened, a witch also lived in the desert. Her adobe house had the leg of a giant eagle and the wings of a vulture, and it would hop into the air, flying from one small village to another. The witch was a vain and spiteful woman, and she took the youngest and most beautiful men and women from every town and flensed the beauty from their bodies. She drank it down and left them old and withered, and in this way she had lived for hundreds of years, and remained as youthful as ever.

The people of Twigby’s village learned that the witch was soon to visit, and the desert was filled with their moans. No one wanted to be carried off by the witch and left as a husk, but they had nowhere they could go, and so they had no choice but to wait for the witch and for each man, woman, and child to hope they might be spared.

Twigby treated this as he did any other pest, and thus he alone was not filled with terror as the witch’s home flapped overhead and landed in the town, sending black feathers all across the sands. The witch stuck her head out of her window and sniffed the air. “Come out, come out, my beauty, there’s no use shuttering yourself away. My nose can smell a drop of innocence in the ocean and my eyes can see where all souls hide. Hop, house, hop, I smell beauty and I won’t be delayed.”

Her house hopped around town on its eagle’s foot and it was not long before she stood at Twigby’s doorstep. “Ahh,” said Twigby to himself. “Well, I suppose she means to carry me off. Then there is nothing for it but to ask the scorpion queen for her aid.” As the witch knocked on his door Twigby said, “Scorpion queen, this witch would flense my life from my bones and leave me a dried up husk. I beg of you to help me if you can.”

Quick as a flash, a spider hopped up on Twigby’s shoulder and said, “Swallow me, and she won’t have the life out of you.” And so Twigby swallowed the spider. Then a snake slithered up and said, “Put me around your waist and she won’t have a hope of flensing you.” And so Twigby picked up the snake and wrapped it around his waist like a belt. Finally a scorpion appeared and said, “Set me on your shoulder and I will send her far away.” And so Twigby picked up the scorpion and set it on his shoulder.

The witch was in quite a fury now, pounding at Twigby’s door. “Let me in, little one, I can smell your fear. The sooner I’m done the sooner I’m gone and you can all scratch back to your miserable lives.” At this, Twigby opened the door, and the witch immediately snatched him up by the collar and pulled him into her house.

“First things first,” said the witch, “and let’s get that skin off you, for I’ll wear it better than you would!” She took her flensing knife and tried to flense the skin from Twigby. But no matter how she tried, all she got was snakeskins, dried and wrinkled and worn. She cast them aside, one after the other until her flensing knife was dull and, in frustration, she dashed it into a million pieces.

“Very well, so your skin will stay on, that’s fine,” said the witch, “I’d not want that worn out husk anyway. The soul’s all that matters and I’ll have that straightaway!” She took him by the collar and placed her lips on his and tried furiously to suck out his soul. But no matter how she tried, it wouldn’t come free, for while she’d been busily flensing, the spider had woven a web all inside of Twigby and his soul was caught fast inside his body. Still, she tried and she tried and before she knew it, she had sucked the spider out of Twigby. Right away it built a web in her throat so she couldn’t eat anymore souls.

The witch coughed and sputtered and tried to curse Twigby’s name a hundred times over, but all her curses were caught in the spider’s web, and stuck fast inside her. All she spit out was the spider itself, which Twigby caught and carefully set on his shoulder. “Well if I can’t have you, I’ll have someone else,” said the witch, and a third time she grabbed Twigby by the collar to hurl him from her house. But at that moment the scorpion leapt off Twigby’s shoulders and grew to twice the size of a man, with a woman’s body in place of her head and claws.

“Leave my lands,” said the scorpion queen. “Never trouble them again.” And with these words she took the witch’s head in her hands, and kissed the witch’s forehead with her poison lips until all the youth faded from her body and she aged a hundred years. The scorpion queen set Twigby outside the witch’s house as gently as he ever set any of her subjects. The witch, reduced to a hag, spat and choked on more curses, her body twisted and warped by the hundred and more caught inside her throat. But there was nothing she could do. The scorpion queen hopped from the witch’s house with its eagle’s leg and vulture’s wings and give it such a sting that it leapt into the air and didn’t come down for a hundred years.

The scorpion queen turned back into a scorpion and scuttled away, and the spider hopped off Twigby’s shoulders and the snake slithered from Twigby’s waist. Twigby thanked the scorpion queen for her help, even though she had scuttled away, and he returned to his home. There he lived out a long life, and was always as generous to others as the desert was to him.