As the seasons pass, young Hilda visits elderly witch Hazel. In the spring, she helps Hazel sweep her front porch; in summer, they air the music room; in fall, they clean cobwebs in Hazel’s parlor; and in winter, Hilda tidies Hazel’s room as Hazel is bedridden. Hazel reanimates past memories with her broomstick, and Hilda watches in wonder.
“Deep in the Kunlun Hills, there lived a mystical deer,” the Nine Color Deer, so called because of the varied colors in her fur. One day she saves a drowning man (by leaping from wave to wave and walking on water), and in return asks only that he not tell anyone where she is.