Hara and the Witch

Chapter 5: Can a Foe be Invisible?

'Plim, I'm more worried about the fact you don't want to tell me than anything else. What's going on?' She stretched out a hand and reluctantly Plim stepped onto it, her eyes still avoiding Hara's.

'It's nothing,' Plim whispered. Hara raised an eyebrow but didn't speak. She didn't need to tell Plim the obvious, even if waiting this out - whatever this was - was making her itch. 'I can't tell you,' Plim said next, sounding so unlike herself.

'Why not?'

'I'm scared. I don't want you to get hurt again.'

Hara smiled sadly, moving to sit in a patch of sunny grass. 'Uh-huh. Me, too. But... Plim, I don't want fear to stop me or... whatever's going to happen, you know I wouldn't ask you-'

'We're a team, aren't we, Hara?'

'We are. But Plim-'

'Then we do it together. I'm not saying it's a good idea or that I condone it or even that we'll win whatever this is, but we're in it together.' There was a long pause before Plim spoke next, but Hara let her have all the time she needed. It was the least she could give. 'There was no troll, Hara.'

Her eyes fell on the scattered flowers over the grass, Marigold standing in her doorway watching them. She couldn't find the words for a second, couldn't do anything other than flush a frightened shade of rhubarb.

'There was. You saw, Plim, you saw-' but Plim shook her head and Hara couldn't think of anything to do other than collect the discarded flowers. As she picked up roses, blossom, ivy and lilac, Plim continued, trying to explain something that seemed beyond comprehension.

'In the forest we were running and there was that sound, there was the sound of something coming, but when we stopped and you fell - were grabbed - there was no one there. I saw it get you, I could even see the indents where it was holding you, but I couldn't see anything. Not even a glimmer. It was like... it was like I was imagining the whole thing.'

'Flew all the way to me, by the look of her,' Marigold said, placing her hand on her hip and examining her garden, the flowers her guests had uncovered and the piles of grass wild geese were even now feasting on. 'By the time we got back there was just a trail.'

'Everything was just like it was before the... it. The birds, the animals - it was like nothing had ever happened,' Plim said. 'But you were gone and there was this horrible trail, the ground raked up from where you'd- you'd-'

'Held on,' Hara said. She was still finding dirt clinging to her, refusing to be cleaned from grazes on her palms or beneath her torn up nails.

'Which made you easy to find,' Marigold said, sounding complimentary.

'Why would anything leave a trail, though? Why would it let me do that?'

Marigold shrugged, bending to sniff a rose. She looked on with surprise as a bee flew onto the bloom, claiming it for its own. 'Multiple reasons. But I'd say-' the bee walked from the rose onto the witch's outstretched finger slowly, ponderously, before flying away '-it was because you were being warned.'

'Pretty big warning,' Hara muttered, thinking of the tender wound in her gut, still red and swollen when she'd carefully examined it that morning.

Marigold hmm'd. 'You could be dead. I'm surprised you're not,' she said bluntly. Hara couldn't help but bristle. 'I imagine you thought it was me,' she added tonelessly.

'I did,' Hara agreed; Plim made a horrified sound.

'I would have, too.' The witch shrugged, seeming not to mind much. 'I wouldn't ask you to trust me, but I do want you to believe-'

'I think you're clever, Marigold. I don't think you're cruel.'

The witch didn't seem to know what exactly to say to this, so she stared blankly at Hara for a full minute. 'I think my revenge quest is going to be shelved for a while. We've got more important things to deal with now,' she said in the end, swearing. 'I really wanted those spells back.'

'It spoke to me.'

'What?' Marigold and Plim said at the same time; Marigold eyed Plim skeptically, still put out about the whole you can talk thing.

'It said... told me not to struggle. Knew I would come back. They were in the room with me, I heard-'

'We're going to find them,' Plim said fiercely, her bright feathers puffing up to make her appear twice her actual size.

'Wait-' Hara looked from Plim to the witch, the witch to Plim '-wait.'

'She's coming,' Plim said.

'I'm coming,' Marigold said.

Hara blinked. 'Those flowers were for you, anyway.'

Marigold took the bunch and looked them over curiously. 'Where are they from? They're... lovely.'

Plim and Hara exchanged a look. They were a good team, but neither had intended to team up before they met. Yet here they were, inseparable. So what was to say Marigold's joining them wouldn't be for the best?

And besides, Hara could no longer think of a reason she shouldn't.

Not recognising her own flowers didn't count.