LILY
In my dreams I'm in the World Between Worlds. Someone calls to me with the voice of a hundred enemies.
"Amarat...Bethany...Lily..."
Amarat. Bethany. Lily. Was there a difference? So many memories, but all of them inconsequential, surely? Did it matter if I was someone else? Was I someone else?
Amarat. Bethany. Lily.
Lily had said once - I had said once - that I was not the First Witch. I was Lily from Witch Doctors Inc.
I was right, I decide. I'm not the others, though I have their memories. Though a part of them lives on in me. I'm just embracing the darkness that has always been a part of me.
Me. Lily. A better Lily.
Sometimes I don't know who I am. There are too many memories warring with each other. The girl in the spaceship who was betrayed by humans. The frightened girl who gave her heart away in the Forest of Sorrows. The Witch Doctor who just wanted to help people.
Sometimes I feel like I'm all of them at once. I want to sleep until my thoughts are rested. Until slumber untangles everything.
The cat will come after me, I'm sure of it. I have to be ready for him when he does. He once had powers much greater than mine. I would do well not to underestimate him.
The thought of his smug face stirs anger through my veins. When I was Bethany, struggling with attacks of fear, he could have helped me. He could have brought me the accursed stone. He could have brought me the accursed Ayrite.
The jewel had a sedative effect. It was found only on the outskirts of Lake Ayra, but was sold as a trinket all over Kadrea. The Aberdeen market sold them for as little as two silvers a piece. I'd seen them often, thinking they were nothing but pretty frosted stones. I didn't know they could calm me.
Onyx knew, which was something I found out after I gave my heart away. For all his talk about wanting to help me, he'd kept this cheap, effective jewel away from me.
I'd tracked down the one who sold the jewels and made him suffer. There was delight in it, sowing sorrow in that tiny inconsequential village. If only I could make the cat suffer too.
He's a fool for seeking me out. If he'd just let good enough be, I wouldn't have to kill the insufferable creature. Why couldn't he leave me alone?
Discomfort weaves itself into my bones. Let me be, Onyx. Then I don't have to hurt you. Because the thought of hurting you makes me...angry?
Why does it make me angry?
I rip daisies out of the ground by their roots and chuck them into an angry pile.
What is this weakness that comes upon me? I worms up through my resolve, unbidden and unwanted.
Amarat. Bethany. Lily.
I don't care about the cat. I can't care about the cat. It isn't who I am anymore. Love isn't who I am.
Yet it hasn't been extinguished completely. My dark part, my successful part, is smothering it nicely, but it isn't content to stay down.
I have to do something about that.
I really do.