ogress

Slapu, a 9-foot-tall ogress with long claws and sharp teeth, has one child in her basket, another in one hand — and the other is grasping for you.

The ogress and the orphans do the ridding, with cleareyed ingenuity.

The lace is sometimes vicious, the blood sometimes dainty, but everything is always graceful and pretty — even an ogress fantasizing about eating people is actually dreaming of marzipan and butter.

The panting ogress crawled and then scooted forward on her belly, wheezing and choking.

No, she had never been the ogress he had thought her a year ago.