Elise Runs and Dorothy Falls

Chapter 3

Dorothy Blainwick was agitated her entire ride home. Although she had found a few stones malleable for her enchantments and done away with a pest in the process, she could not help but think about the girl she scared away. Why should she care if she tormented, even accidentally, one of these humans, though? They certainly hadn't been kind to her. It should have been a good day.

When Dorothy arrived back in Mirborne Harbor, she hopped off her bune wand (a collection of long sticks bound together) and onto the roof of her small home. There, she could see the town proper, which lay in the river valley but not oh so far. Civilization today would not have tolerated a witch anywhere except in sight, close enough to be both watched and useful.

The little homes and shops of Mirborne Harbor were close together, packed against the edge of a huge river, and on that bright day startlingly white. The cobblestone streets, although lined with beautiful bushes and flowers, hadn't any moss or ugliness coloring their faces. A far cry from the rotting shrine she had just reconnoitered. She smarted at how well these humans kept their own properties, while letting history—her history—sink into obscurity.

Her home was the opposite of white and tidy. Nailed together from stray pieces of driftwood, she had pieced together the three-story shanty herself. As a witch, she had to be able to do things on her own. She made her own food, did her own housework, and most importantly made her own money. That's where the stones came in.

Ker-leek! Opening the hatch on her roof, Dorothy climbed inside and promptly set her kettle to work with a wave of her hand. Rattling down the slanted stairs toward the brick fire pit on the first level, it began to fill itself with water from a pump. Avoiding a few choice traps she'd laid, she then clambered the rest of the way inside and plopped down on the massive, shredded armchair that occupied almost the entire third story. From this spot (her favorite spot), she could see into each of the other two levels of her three-room, three-story house.

Setting aside her bune wand, which she primarily used to conduct her magic and herself around town, she threw her own legs up onto a levitating cushion and grabbed a book off the nearby chest of drawers. Dozens of books sat up there precariously, and seldom did a day or even an hour pass in which one or two did not fall. High in a windy place, the shanty succumbed to some woozy trembles here and there.

"Could have," she began in her low voice, in her customary manner to herself as she flipped the pages, "a nice ollifont stew..."

She stared at the words, but that girl from earlier seemed to appear there instead. What had she been doing in that grotto, anyway?

Dorothy put her feet back on the ground. The girl had seemed not merely surprised, but astonished to see her. Was it true that some northern communities didn't understand magic?

If the girl had been unfamiliar with witches, she had probably wondered how she'd crushed her crab familiar in the first place, particularly without shoes. It was outlawed for witches to wear shoes, which explained that much, but as for their ability to act like shoes, Dorothy, not being one to levitate and further debase herself, had enchanted her pair of stockings to protect and provide better comfort than any human shoe.

Then of course, she had little else to compare them to, because she only had one pair of stockings. She only had one piece of each article of clothing, all self-made, because witches could only wear one set of clothes. Witches also had to wear a hat. All of this made it easier for the simpletons to recognize the magicians among them, which were also all, memorably, female.

As for her strength, Dorothy did more than just cast spells, but more on that later. That part had nothing to do with being a witch.

Again on the matter of witches, though, Dorothy had grown up uncommonly pretty like the rest of her kind, although perhaps she more so. She had a particularly fair face, whose vibrant red eyes glowed overtop a small, sharp nose and delicate lips, and below a lofty splay of orange'a'gold bangs. Over her shoulders she kept coils of hair the color same, loosely braided and a general mess.