Witch Doctors Inc: SEASON TWO (Ongoing)

Part 1.3

Bethany's glow-worm eyes seem to warm by the fireside. Her hands are clasped in her lap, over the creases of her plain black dress. The heart-shaped pendant rests against my chest, now devoid of its ruby glow.

"These flames," Bethany murmurs. "I cannot stand the heat, but these flames call to my very soul. How can it be?"

"The First Witch was killed by fire," I explain. "And she killed by fire. Her curse became the world's curse."

Bethany holds one pale hand over the flames. She flinches as they lick upwards, hungry for her skin. "If they had not betrayed her," she says sadly. "Things would have been different for us. I would not have been trapped in the Forest of Sorrows for six hundred years."

I smile. My coolness charm titters at my side. "Bethany, if they hadn't betrayed her, we wouldn't be here. It was the fire that chained her to an eternal cycle of reincarnation."

The First Witch had crash-landed on this planet a thousand years ago. Her home planet Phaedra, for whatever reason, was doomed. She lived among humankind for years, taking their form and growing to love them. But when they found out what she was, they had no mercy for her. The people she loved killed her without a second thought.

The part of me that is the First Witch Amarat wishes she could talk to her stepfather Arti. She wants to ask him one question: why.

The girl who sits by my fireside now is not a whole person. She is the heart that the Dark Witch, an earlier reincarnation of the First Witch, gave to the heart-keeper Rikamu before unleashing her wrath on this world. She keeps me whole now, and I her.

I'm the latest reincarnation of the First Witch. Every time she has returned she has wreaked suffering upon humankind. Every time, her fate mirrors that which happened a thousand years ago.

But that won't be me. I won't turn to darkness, no matter what the world has in store for me.

My hummingbird glares at the flames. It puffs itself up, releases a squeaky humph, and charges right at them.

"No, you idiot!" I shout, but the bird's gone and done it now. It disappears in a poof of peppermint smoke. The flames crackle, devouring the magic like fuel.

Great. Now I'll have to make a new charm. Maybe Ruby was right. Too many fish scales.

"Why must we keep the fire burning?" Bethany enquires. She looks down at her hands in her lap. "It reminds me of bad things."

I sigh. "That frogbrained cat likes it. If I turn it off and it's cold when he gets back, he'll whine like a baby kitten."

Bethany moves away from the flames, which soar higher now, thanks to the added magic. "Why does he not prefer the cold, like us? Is he not also a Phaedrean?"

"I don't know what he is, Bethany."

It's true. I have no clue. He might have told Bethany once, but her memory is like a fog that blazes in and out of existence.

Bethany fiddles with the hem of her dress. "I should like to see him," she says. "I miss him greatly."

"I...he's had a lot to do lately. You know how he is."

How do I tell the poor girl that Onyx doesn't want to see her? That whenever my pendant gives that telltale shake, he bolts out of the room like a little black comet?

Now that Bethany is no longer the heart-keeper's charge, she should be able to interact with other people. I haven't introduced her to the others though. Bethany lived in the world of 600 years ago. This new world is going to be a shock for her. Zilitron, the great Mirror City, is something she'd only ever dreamed of.

Onyx ought to see Bethany. I know he can make the time, and they were close once. He waited up all last night for Addy. When she finally walked into the Witch Doctors Inc lobby, the shimmering hearts of her rose-pink dress stamped against the night sky like a shifting collage, he bounced over to her, mewing pitifully. She scooped him up in her arms and kissed his nose.

"I'm so sorry, Onyx," she'd purred. "I know I was supposed to play with you tonight. But I caught so many jewels, they kept giving us more turns..."

It makes me a bit angry, to be honest. How dare he ignore the girl he once loved more than anything else? One day karma will teach that cat a lesson.

Bethany moves to the window now. "This city is beautiful," she murmurs. "I would dream of crystal cities, but they told me it was silly. Now everything is silly." She giggles.

I join her at the window, ready to tell her how our great Mirror City was built, but a shadow has darkened the emerald of her eyes.

"Bethany, what is it?"

Her fingers curl into her dress. "Something is coming," she whispers. "It is coming for us."

I look at her sharply. "You sense it too?"

Bethany nods. "Oh, Lily. It's awful."

Surprise loosens my jaw. "Awful? What I felt was a gentle presence. Something that wanted to - I don't know, it sounds silly. But I felt like it wanted to reach out and embrace me."

Bethany backs away from the window. Her voice is low and steady. "No, Lily. It does not want to embrace. It wants to harm. It wants to harm its children."

"What?"

Is Bethany okay? Maybe she needs a break. All this crystal city stuff must be messing with her head.

"It's okay," I tell her firmly. "Nothing scary is coming for us."

Those gloworm eyes, once warm with comfort, are now cold and sharp. Not gloworms anymore, but chiselled emeralds. Witch eyes.

I blink. I don't know where that thought came from. An old fairytale maybe.

I lead Bethany back to my bed and tuck her in under the covers. When sleep takes her, her essence will essence will automatically return to the pendant. I don't want her exerting any effort.

The milky glow of sleep dulls her eyes. "Thank you, Lily," she says, as if she were a child, and I her mother.

"It's fine," I assure her. "We're two halves of a whole, remember? Whatever helps you, helps me."

Bethany murmurs happily. "I am glad I have you, Lily."

I get up to find the mini cauldron and brew another coolness charm, but Bethany tugs at my sleeve. "Lily?"

Her form is fading now, and she's like a ghost lying there, holding onto the fraying edges of its reality.

"Yes?"

"Lily, I know it. The thing that is coming for us. I have seen it before." She closes her eyes, and her breath pours out of her, slow and steady as mist. "I know it loved me once."