Nota bene: the chapter features mature content!
Walking through the mirror wasn't all that pleasant: I have the feeling that Hebe and I are squeezing between two tightly pressed sofa cushions.
When we are breathing heavily and rubbing our faces somewhere outside, we are met by two absolutely identical women in their mid-thirties. Their distinctive feature is eyes. As if the maker set ambers in the healers' eyepits: there is no life in them just like in fossilized tree resin. The women wear long black dresses with slits on the sides that expose their nicely thick hips. Behind their backs, I can see someone flickering like a restless animal.
"Mistress! Mistress!" I hear a familiar voice. It's Mika, and the girl is really excited. Lord, only she is missing here! Hebe's student immediately falls silent as soon as she notices me in the arms of her dear teacher. Mika's lips are puffed-up; she's wrinkling her small forehead.
"Let us take her," one of the women says calmly. "She's so unusual! Smells like a witch, and there's no witch weaves like of a newborn." I don't know if fatigue finally affects me, but it seems to me that her hair, which is almost two centimeters short, is moving. I put my hand around Hebe's neck not wanting to go anywhere with them.
"Don't even dare to touch my Pythia!" Hebe hisses through her teeth.
"You need a healer's help. Your mother ordered us to take care of you," insists her replica.
"Take care of us in my room. We're not dying, for Hecate's sake! I don't want to scare Velia with your creepy 'doctor's office'! The sight of your ugly homunculi in the jars make me sick. But... You can't scare Velia with such bullshit, you're the bravest one," Hebe suddenly winks at me, probably hinting at my fungus in a jar.
"We'll have to report this to Queen Angerona. Your room doesn't have all the potions we might need! Stop being stubborn, Princess. You are as naughty as you were as a child," one of the women says irritably. I'm already confused which one of them is who, since they look like two peas in a pod.
"Sure, sure!" Hebe turns around and walks somewhere in the opposite direction from them. "Those stubborn old crones! The hell if they think I'm going with them."
I can hear footsteps behind us. Everyone has obeyed my capricious witch, and, apparently, they are following us. As we walk, I gently stroke her bad shoulder, and she finds my lips several times, but she does not kiss, more likely barely touching them, causing the sensation of a kiss with a petal of wild rugosa rose.
In the long hall, it is rather dark and scary, only the light of the wane moon, that has not yet disappeared, illuminates the cold stone decoration of the medieval hall. Several lamps are burning with a pale blue fire; they remind me of old ussr kerosene lamps with iron round stands and elongated, slightly puffy glass domes.
Everything seems like a dream: two women in black dresses, Mika in a new sports jacket, and my Hebe whose marble eyes reflect the bluish lamp flames.
The witch tenderly places me on the big bed. The whole room is illuminated with amber shine, but I have no strength to examine the interior decoration. As soon as my head touches the pillow, I feel uncomfortable: the figures of women standing by the bed look bizarre and grotesque. Their lacy snakes move slowly over the skin; their shadows on the walls flutter to the beat of the flickering flame. It seems to me that I do not exist at all; I am just a shadow, an imprint that was left on the wall after the hellfire.
"This is so amazing! A young Pythia! Hard to believe. Glory to Hecate, the mages didn't get her, and she did not die among the mere people," the healer witch says in amazement after she touched my wrist as if checking my pulse.
"It looks like classic devastation after a vision. Is this her first vision?" asks her twin.
"The second one," the witch whispers.
"Why did the visions come to her so late? She is, of course, a very little girl, but why did the powers manifest only now?"
"She's, probably, a foundling," Mika says, and everyone turns in her direction. "Well, what else?" embarrassed, she continues. "Her powers had been sealed until something or someone awakened them... Her witch mother or someone else really wanted to hide her from us."
"Give it to me," Hebe snorts irritably, grabbing a bottle from the healer's hands. "I can give it to her myself. Don't you dare touch her!"
"We need to heal the wound on your shoulder," says the women in black. Her voice isn't placid or appeased.
"She's right, Mistress! You need to take care of yourself!" Mika whines plaintively.
"Just leave me the ointment and leave me alone! Here, Velia, come on, take a sip. It will help you to get better," she tells me tenderly, supporting my head while my lips gently touch the mouth of the bottle.
***
The door slammed, and I woke up; I can hear someone curse. Hebe. Now I can hear the sound of water.
Here I am, finally in her house, in her room, in her bed, and, of course, I'm wearing her T-shirt, the one with Warhol's can. I'm like the tenth child from a very poor family who wears her older siblings' clothes.
Comforting creative chaos reigns everywhere. There are books on the old writing table; books on the shelves; books on the floor. On the highest pile of books sits an eerie skull with suspiciously pointed teeth and one horn; another horn, that was broken off, is lost. The blue lights in its empty eye sockets, that are winking at me, serve as a reading-lamp light. I can swear this monster is staring right at me and nothing else.
Stepping over several books from which pink and green bookmarks stick out, I go to the sound of pouring water. The door to her private bathroom is ajar.
Perhaps, I should say that I've just woke up and really hungry. Speechlessly I peep inside. Hebe is taking a shower in a large round bathtub. The room is lit only by thick candles that are burning like small round cranberries strangely dissolving their light into misty water vapour.
She doesn't see me, or pretends not to see, exposing her face to streams of water that pour on her straight from the ceiling like summer rain. Her skin is smooth, moist, and dark. Pinkish soap foam is still visible on her firm thighs.
I don't know if I should join her or wait outside. Unable to enter or leave, I just remain where I am. Hebe runs her hands over her face and hair, slightly parting her mouth licking the lips. Firmly gripping the patina doorknob with my hand, I bite my lower lip. I'm ready to look forever at her naked body caressed by water trickles. My breathing quickens. I know for sure that she hears me: she has a cat's hearing!
With smooth movements, the witch begins to caress her breasts and ideal dark nipples. My thighs are shaking, and it becomes certainly wet between my legs (she put her T-shirt on me, but, of course, she was too lazy to put her panties too). Hebe gets her long leg up on the edge of the bathtub. Her two weaselly fingers easily slip inside. A soft moan escapes both my lips and hers. She opens her eyes, piercing me as always with the coldness of her marble. Like a frightened bird, I flit in, stumblingly pull her sweatpants up, that was left on the floor, and run out of her room.
***
I lean back against the door breathing heavily.
She didn't think I was peeping on her, did she? Yeahhh, and I moaned just because I liked her bathroom so much! Of course, of course, that's what she thought...
She almost died, then we both died, and then everything turned out to be a vision, and then you just kept on standing and drooling there, peeping on the naked woman.
Grand idiot Velia!
When I finished my classic self-whipping, I finally look at the hall. Inside the castle there's an open yard planted with tall trees that stretch their arms through the railing. They are so tall that they reach the sixth floor. Leaning over the bannisters, I can see other floors and witches who are elegantly walking on lower passages.
Fascinated by small lights playing in the branches of the trees, I walk along the stone columns and oak bannisters.
"Hi!"
"Hello," I say modestly.
A red-haired witch in a thin and very short white dress sits on the bannisters, "Are you new here? I've never seen you before. May I know which clan you grew up in? And how were you able hide your weaves?" (Too many questions! What did I do to deserve this? I don't even know what to say! Hi, my name is Velia, and I'm Princess's sex toy, oh, and by the way, I'm maybe-Pythia...)
She jumps off the banisters, standing in my way. Her smile isn't malicious or haughty, but I don't want to make new acquaintances before learning the ropes in the witches' residence.
"Excuse me, I'll probably go back to... ehmm!" I'm snapping my fingers, forgetting the word 'bedchamber'.
"You won't be allowed in - this is the Crown Princess's room. What are you doing upstairs anyway?" She is examining my clothes carefully. "To tell the truth, I shouldn't come here either... Better come with me! Do you want to have fun in the world of mere people? Do you like to have fun in their stupid world?" The redhead tries to keep her arms around my waist. "If I didn't know all the Pythias like the back of my hand, I would have thought that you were one of them. So tender, so fragile, and so beautiful..."
"And so MINE! Hardly had you step out of the door, then you found another witch to flirt with, Velia?" poisonously blurts out Hebe.
"Princess Hebe!" gasps the red-haired.
"I haven't flirted with anyone, Hebe!" Her unreasonable jealousy begins to piss me off. Is it not enough that I told her in a cute "bahay sa dagat"*?
"You come with me!" She painfully grabs my wrist. The witch practically treats me like I'm her naughty child, obviously, mimicking her mother's domineering behaviour. As if she's not my girlfriend, but my sexy boss.
"What if I don't want to, uh?" I can't take my eyes off her. It's exciting me madly and pleasantly at the same time. "Don't be like a jealous fool, Hebe! (I can hear the red-haired moan behind my back. It feels no one but her mother dares to mess with Hebe, but I, a humble bug, decided to argue with her Highness) You saw yourself that there was nothing between us!"
I want to step back and chill out a little, but Hebe won't let go of me. I jerk my hand again, and Hebe unexpectedly lets me go showing me her back, but I don't expect to release so easily, therefore, my ankle (that same treacherous ankle!) twists, and I'm almost looking with stupid surprise as the floor is approaching my face. Hebe grabs me under the chest right in time, snuggling up with me. I can hear her heart beating fast. She's breathing so nervously as if she has nearly dropped her golden egg.**
* house by the sea
** Velia refers to the fairytale about "Ryaba the hen" (speckled hen) where a broken golden egg brings multiple troubles to an old man and an old woman; this is just one of the interpretations of the tale (Eastern Slavic folktale)