DIZZY AND BRUISED, covered in soot, Andy gingerly rolled to his back, holding his broken glasses up to his eyes.
His vision was still hazy, but judging from the silence of his surroundings, he was entirely alone. But where he was, he had no idea.
Still on his back, Andy wiped the grime and dirt away from his cracked glasses and put them back on. He strained to focus his vision amidst the looming shadows of the place. There was a little grace of light streaming from the gap between the door and the floor in that cold lonely place.
Other than that, he was thankful for the additional light cast by a bright red crystal over his face. But when it blinked, he realized those were someone else's eyes.
Eyes?
He reached his hand up and groped around the air. Andy poked on something soft and squishy. He pinched it a lot more times before a soft giggle bounced in the silence, the eyes growing bigger and more prominent at the sight of him.
"Hi! I'm Elsie Rainwater. What's your name?" it said.
Andy bawled in fear. He scrambled away from the owner of those crystal amber eyes and scratched the stone material of the chimney box.
"Get me out of here! Get me out of here! Aunt Carol!" He continued his assault, resulting from his nails bleeding and fingers having cuts.
"Oh, no, stop! You're hurting yourself," the voice, which belonged to a girl, said.
But that didn't stop Andy from desperately seeking his way back. He was simply trapped in an unknown place with a person he didn't even know.
A flash of blinding light exploded in the entire room. His attempt to find an exit ceased and instead covered his whole face. He groaned as the searing sensation enveloped his body. Its brightness stung his eyes, rendering him motionless for what felt like seconds.
It took moments before he felt the brightness die down into comfortable warmth. Soothing licks crawled on his skin. Someone poked him on the shoulder, making him turn around to see. With his hands still concealing his tired and scared face, he parted his fingers slightly to take a peek, and that's when another hysterical scream rushed out from his throat.
"W-What's that thing floating beside you? Go away!"
Elsie puffed her chubby cheeks and rolled her eyes. She rested her palms on her hips and looked at him pointedly. "Why are you being so scared? It's just fire."
"Just fire?" he whimpered. "But it's floating."
"Hmph, such a baby."
"I-I'm not a baby!"
"Then prove it." She squinted her eyes at him, molding a challenging grin.
"I'M. NOT. AFRAID," Andy said sharply. He stood up, ignoring the wobbling of his knees. His hand no longer concealed his face. It finally revealed a pale skinny face of a four-eyed kid.
Andy stood up to the girl's challenge. What baffled him was her shaking form, pursed lips, and puffed cheeks. That was when it slowly dawned on him that this girl was holding back her laughter.
For a moment, he forgot he was scared and asked, "What's so funny?"
Elsie collapsed on the creaky floorboard, hugging her stomach, as she shook with too much laughter when she wasn't able to take it anymore.
Now that he had calmed down a bit, Andy could freely peruse at the little girl thanks to the little blue fireball still hovering in the air.
The girl's upturned eyes spelled trouble and mischief, and her full bangs failed to conceal it; she was one of those troublesome kids in his neighborhood he wanted to steer clear of. Her rosy chubby cheeks jiggled in every laughter, and even her small button nose would turn bright pink along with the smiles that reached the tip of her ears. She looked... normal.
But Andy thought this girl was too early for the Halloween party. She was dressed in a complete black witch's robe in the middle of the summer! A pointed hat with a large, round, flat rim; a capelet tied to the center of her chest with a red satin ribbon; a winklepicker; and a black dress that reached her calf.
"You're so funny," Elsie said, snapping Andy out of his profound analysis of the strange girl.
"What?" he snapped, glaring.
"You look like you'll piss yourself earlier. You must be so scared. Awoo!" She extended her arms forward and walked towards Andy into what he could discern as a zombie imitation.
"Quit it." Andy swatted her arms back to her side. "It's not funny."
But Elsie resumed laughing. She even pretended to be wiping tears in her eyes.
"Where am I anyway?"
All he could tell was he was standing by a stone fireplace of what looked like an abandoned house. It was so small that the living room, kitchen, and bedrooms were all in one cramped space. Some of the wooden chairs either had a broken leg. Some furniture were covered entirely with a dirty white cloth, which accumulated dust from the long time this house was unoccupied.
Elsie leaned her head to the side and frowned. "You're here, yet you don't know which place is this?"
She skipped towards Andy and raised his arms just like how a seamstress would have done it.
"Uh, what are you doing?"
"Shh," Elsie said. She proceeded with checking his ears and then the night pajamas he was wearing. "Hm, what kind of witch are you? And where is your wand?"
"What?" Andy shuffled backward away from her reach, horror-stricken. "Witches aren't real!"
He wished he could have said it gently, especially when Elsie's face fell. She seemed so upset by Andy's insensitive claim.
But slowly, realization dawned on her, which could be the only explanation in all of this. "You're an Outlander!"
"An outlan— what?"
"An Outlander! It means you're someone not originally from here." Elsie tilted her chin upward as if she had just answered a tricky question in Math.
"Oh, you mean an intruder? Encroacher? Foreigner?"
Elsie looked at him like he was a complex puzzle to solve. "Whatever those are, yes."
The sooner he got out of here, the better. Andy made his way swiftly towards the door and pulled it open, but before he'd got two steps outside the abandoned house, what greeted him made his breath get stuck in his throat.
Three boys zoomed just mere inches away from him. They were riding flying brooms, shooting each other beams of red, blue, and green glittery lights with the help of a wand. It wasn't just the three boys, but almost everyone outside used brooms for transportation. A witch passed by overhead with floating baskets trailing behind her.
Andy wished he had about eight more eyes to see if he was hallucinating. He turned his head in every direction, trying to look at everything at once: the cobbled streets, the houses and buildings made of stones and tiled roofs, the shops, the things outside them, and the people doing their shopping.
The things he believed were only a product of imagination stood as a reality before him. However, it was also possible that he was still dreaming.
Still, he needed to get out of here fast, dreaming or not.
"Where's Chip? Where's my dog?"
"Oh, that dog. He's yours?" Elsie said as she checked out Andy's brown frizzy curls this time.
"Yes. Where is he?" Andy said and swatted Elsie's hand just when she was about to touch his hair.
"Oh." She smiled and clasped her hands behind her as she rocked on her heels. "I brought him to my house. Would you like to come with me?"
Andy inched a few steps away from her, eyes squinting in suspicion. "How should I trust you?" He pointed one finger at her. "S-So, are you one of them? A w-witch? No! I won't let you eat me."
Elsie belched, clutching her stomach. "Eww! That's gross. I'm not a monster. Just come with me if you want to see, uh... Chip!"
ANDY COULDN'T BELIEVE there was something that existed which could hurt his head more than math problems.
"You haven't told me your name. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me." Elsie relentlessly poked his cheek as they walked towards the house she told him about. In the end, he still followed her. "Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell—"
"No! I don't want to." Andy's lips puckered. He crossed his arms, and his walks turned into angry, annoyed stomps.
"Oh, okay!" Elsie whirled around and jumped in front of him. She was now walking backward, making Andy hiss at her. "Since you don't want to tell me your name, I'll just ask another question."
He ran a hand over his face and answered in a grunt. "What?"
"What kind of witch do you think I am?" She smiled so wide that her eyes were almost hiding under her lids.
"Hm, a fire witch?"
Please, let her shut up. Let her shut up. Let her shut up, Andy chanted inside his head.
He almost jumped out of his wits when Elsie squealed and hugged him unceremoniously. "How did you know?" She poked his bony cheek once more, which Andy noticed she loved to do.
He shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe because I saw you conjure a fire earlier?" he said, although he found it hard to admit that everything he was seeing right now was all real.
As they walked up the streets, Andy tried to take everything at once. Several boys who were a little bit older than him had their noses pressed on the shop's window, with cakes and other sweets displayed behind it. There were shops selling fashionable witch garbs and shops selling various strange silver instruments Andy had never seen before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels' eyes and tottering piles of ancient books.
"Miss Rainwater!" a plump woman manning a fruit and vegetable stand waved at them.
Elsie pulled Andy with her while her other hand clutched a woven basket tightly. She hopped her way towards the kind-faced vendor, extending her hand with the basket.
"Can you fill my basket with your apples, Mrs. Shackleton?"
The woman tittered. "Of course, young miss. The Elder Miss ordered a basketful from me yesterday. I assume she asked for you to collect it?"
Elsie posed a stiff smile that turned out to be a grimace. "Oh, yes, Mrs. Shackleton."
The woman took Elsie's basket gleefully to fill it up with the apples, and Andy took this opportunity to lean in and whisper.
"Are you sure you're telling the truth?"
Her eyes widened, but her lips remained shut when the woman returned her basket. It was Andy's turn to grimace as the woman looked at him from head to foot. "And who is this young man, young miss? I believe that in all the years I have lived here in Hearthstone, this is the first time I have seen his face."
"Don't worry, Mrs. Shackleton. He's my friend from the Eclipse Village. He'll be staying here for, um..." Elsie counted on her fingers. "Ten days!"
"Oh, well, that's good." Mrs. Shackleton laughed heartily. "Eclipse Village is Hearthstone's friend! I guess there's no reason to worry. Although..."
Fear wrapped the woman's being as she looked to their left. Andy followed her line of sight. Not far from where they stood was a large hill overlooking the Hearthstone Village. It was the only part of their town with looming thick dark clouds when the rest of the town had been basking in a ray of clear sunshine.
"Might I ask Miss Rainwater, what will be the Chief's action about—about that thing?" the woman said, her whole body trembling.
"Oh, nothing to worry about, Mrs. Shackleton." She giggled—the kind that was creepy and dark for Andy. "My father may already have a solution for that."
The woman's face lit up with hope. "Really?"
"Yes," Elsie said as she looked at Andy knowingly.