When 12-year-old Naomi first helped create a fictional story about a witch in a housing estate, she could never have imagined the way it would connect to her real life years later. Now 23, Naomi and co host Phil reflect on how books and stories, like lives, are always connecting with each other. “The Witch” is a trip into childhood myths, cul-de-sac adventures, and how books and stories help us survive what hurts the most.

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Detailed Music Credits
"Fooling Around" by Tristan Noon, "Hurt theme" by Damian Mason and Phil Okerstrom, "Lockdown Rockdown", "Innocent Flute", "Cheeky", "Cheekee", "Sneaky", "Sustain Strings", and "Blue" by Philip Okerstrom, "Nostalgic Cinematic Piano" by Erick McNerney, "Kovd" by Blue Dot Sessions, "Harmonic Mist Strings Artistic" by Eric Sutherland, "Atmospheric Film Music cello" by Gestonwreen, "Ghost Dance", "Hall of the Mountain King Grieg", "Le Grand Chase", "The Path of the Goblin King", "Movement Proposition", "Plain Loafer", "Hamster March", "Sneaky", "Batty McFadden", "Welcome to Horrorland", "Too Cool", "Pensiv", "Ghost Story", and "Ghost Processional" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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Episode Detailed Description
Chapter 1. Introduction
The episode opens with Naomi (now 23) and Phil discussing how stories connect—books to books, lives to lives. They reference Wicked and The Wizard of Oz to illustrate how a one-dimensional character (the Wicked Witch) can be reimagined with depth and backstory. This sets up the theme of how books and stories, even playful childhood ones, can evolve and carry hidden truths.
Chapter 2. The Witch (Real Made Up Story) ((What starts as a spooky adventure in a cul-de-sac becomes a moving reflection on loss, empathy, and the ways children make sense of the world))
Naomi and Phil (with a little help) then tell the Real Made Up Story of The Witch. Victoria and her older sister Naomi live in a tight-knit, chaotic-but-safe public housing estate known as “Legoland.”
The story introduces the “Witch”—a figure of fun, fear, myth, and intrigue. Victoria loses the ball over the Witch’s fence. This innocent mistake raises the stakes. Victoria refuses to go in after the ball, playfully terrified. Naomi, older and grounded in logic (but possibly "brainwashed"), does go in. The girls watch with horror and awe… until...