"Curious, I said I'm sorry," Marvela mewled, peering into the dark crevice beneath a bookshelf where the rat was hiding. "Please forgive me."
Ever since they had returned to the silent solitude of the empty Vigilance Library, the rat had sulked as he struggled to process Branwenn's warnings to Marvela in the tree. He had heard everything the crow had said about Asra's plan and the true fate of Marvela's witch. It had been a shock to find that the world of witchcraft hadn't been as whimsical as he had originally thought. He was shaken to discover that it had hidden dark secrets from him.
Just like Marvela had done.
In the blackness beneath the bookshelf, a white shape finally stirred. "Just because you owe me an apology," Marvela heard a shaky voice squeak. "That doesn't mean I owe you my forgiveness."
The kitten retreated from the shelf with her head hanging. She regretted not telling Curious the true origin of her powers and the wicked plot that she was entwined in. But how could she possibly explain her situation to him when she barely understood it herself? She hadn't wanted to scare him away. She had needed a friend.
Now, more than ever, she needed a friend.
A little white pointed snout peered out at the cat. Black eyes glistened warmly behind raised whiskers. "But..." Curious said. "I do forgive you."
Marvela's tiny heart fluttered like a butterfly. She padded back to her rat and scooped him up in the tightest of hugs.
"Yeah," the rat said, wheezing, as he struggled for breath in her embrace. "You got me out of the hole in the ground for good and gave me some of your magic, so I guess I still owe you one." He wriggled free from Marvela and plopped down on the floor next to her with a grunt. "And honestly," he continued, dusting off his fur. "It's been fun hanging out with you. So, if you're involved in some evil control-of-all-magic-in-Vigilance plot, then tell me what I can do to help you. I'm still your familiar after all!"
The rat beamed up at Marvela, and the cat couldn't help but smile back.
"Thank you, Curious," she purred. "But first things first. Let's get this potion made."
Her fur prickled more than ever after their shenanigans at the pumpkin patch. Marvela prodded at the chewed-up bone they had brought with them. With a snap of his fingers, the rat took off in search of the remaining ingredients. It wasn't long before Curious returned with a flowerpot in tow.
"Excellent work, Curious!" Marvela cheered on the grinning rat as she gazed into the water sloshing inside the pot. A short length of an uprooted clematis vine floated inside the vessel. A single purple flower gazed up at the cat and the rat as if it were an intrigued eyeball.
Marvela gathered her spellbook from its hiding place and opened it to the desired spell. Following the instructions, she removed the dripping vine from the water and wrapped it around the bone. She returned the bone and the vine to the pot, where it floated in the crystal-clear water like a boat in a still pond.
"And now the last ingredient..." Marvela said as she gripped the edges of the flowerpot with her paws. "The magic."
She summoned her magic like a person would beckon a skittish animal from the woods. She softly called to it in her mind and let it come to her. She couldn't help feeling relieved as her magic slunk out of the shadows to obey her. Under her control, orange wisps of light left her paws and spilled into the pot like a heavy mist. At the magic's touch, the vine blossomed with more flowers, and the water took on a shimmering iridescent sheen.
Cautiously, Marvela dipped a paw into the opalescent potion.
A cold shiver ran down her body. Spectral wind swept through the room like a sigh, stirring books on the shelves and lifting stray papers into the air as if they were moths. And Marvela sighed, too, as instantly the annoying stinging pain that had plagued her evaporated. She removed her paw from the potion to admire her now lush and silky midnight-black coat. Her white star almost seemed to shine.
Curious whistled. "Wow! Lookin' good!"
"Ha!" the kitten said. "We did it!"
Curious marveled at the still swirling potion at their feet. "All that time I lived in the dark," he whispered. "I've heard many wonderful things. But I had no idea that magic existed..."
His eyes reflected the glowing light of the potion as they widened.
Marvela scratched at an ear with a hind-paw. "Magic hasn't always existed in this world," she explained absent-mindedly.
Her rat's whiskers quivered at that. "It hasn't? Then where did it come from?"
The kitten's heart skipped as another wave of nostalgia swept over her. In her first days as a familiar, her witch had taken her in her arms and read to her from one of the many hefty books that lined the shelves in their cottage, teaching her all about the origin of magic. Marvela remembered a toothy grin spreading across her muzzle as she took in the beautifully illustrated drawings of the mysterious inhabitants of the spirit world.
The kitten searched her familiar's eager face. She must have looked just like that when she first learned about how witchcraft first came to be. Just as Sable had told her this story, so would she tell her own familiar—something she had never imagined she would do one day.
She currently lacked the illustrated encyclopedic tome Sable had possessed, so she needed another visual method to begin her tale. Remembering her witch's words from so long ago, Marvela outstretched her paws. Golden sparkles crackled at her claw-tips. Curious rolled back on his haunches; his paws pressed to his cheeks in excitement.
"Long ago, the world was changed by a single human. A young girl," began Marvela. The spectral glitter that fell from her outstretched paws formed a shape. Concentrating on recalling the illustrations of Sable's old book, Marvela molded her magic into the shape of a tiny young human at Curious' feet.
"This young girl was like a candle in a dark room. Despite the darkness and cruelty of the world back then, she was full of life and joy. She had an adventurous streak and loved to explore her village and the woods that surrounded it. She was always looking for something new—something else to bring light to the world."
The cat and the rat watched, enamored, as the glowing young girl playfully searched a sparkling rendering of a forest the cat had conjured. The girl skipped merrily between the trees, greeting every woodland creature she passed.
"Until one day... She fell."
A void of pure light opened beneath the girl. She vanished from sight within it.
"Fell?" squeaked Curious, as he clutched his tail. "Fell where?"
Marvela smiled. "There are two realms that we know of, Curious," she purred. "Ours. And the Realm of the Spirits. Until then, no creature had ever crossed the threshold from either realm. The girl had fallen into a strange, wonderful place. A place of magic."
Ghostly orange moths fluttered into existence as the girl reappeared. Entranced, she chased after the cloud of moths in a foreign land, until Marvela summoned sparkling shadowy figures to surround her. The girl cowered before the creatures. Each one varied in size and shape. But all of them possessed an eerie animal skull for a head.
Marvela frowned at her renderings of the spirits, unsure if she had given their appearances justice.
"Spirits are shy creatures. Despite the... unique forms they take, most of them are peaceful. But," the kitten explained to her familiar. "They do not like unexpected guests. The girl was frightened at first. But then she grew curious, for it seemed that the spirits were just as intrigued by her as she was by them. To calm her fears, the spirits showed her their magic and then... Um. Curious? Why is there a caterpillar in my presentation?"
"I'm helping!" the rat squeaked proudly, as his conjured caterpillar joined the ranks of Marvela's tiny, summoned spirits.
Marvela simply smiled and shook her head before continuing her tale. "Alright, then. Well. Anyway. The spirits took pity on the child and led her back to the portal between realms she had found. But the girl was so enchanted by their powers and wanted to stay. Charmed by the girl and her curiosity and the good they sensed within her, the spirits sent her back home with a gift."
An ethereal wisp of shimmering lights left the spirits and swirled within the girl. Marvela felt that swirling sensation within her own chest at the sight.
"The spirits gave her some of their magic so that she could learn to spread joy in her world. Our world. It was a temporary spell that she could only use once."
Cat and rat both watched as the shimmering girl bid farewell to her new friends and their chubby caterpillar companion and dove back into the light.
"She returned home to a world that, compared to the peaceful Spirit Realm, now looked dull, colorless, and full of hatred and malice—"
The white rat raised a paw into the air. "What does malice mean?"
"Uh. Bad stuff."
"Got it."
"She told stories of what she had discovered, but everyone assumed she was just imaginative. She could have used her gift to prove them all wrong, but she held onto it. Her world was cruel. And she wanted to change that.
"But try as she might, the girl could not spread the message of peace throughout her people without the use of magic. The other humans couldn't be persuaded. They were too set in their ways. Too opposed to change and people who were not the same as them."
One day, the girl returned to the forest once more and once again... She found that portal of light and leaped inside, planning to stay in the Realm of the Spirits forever where everything was different from her cruel world.
"She told the spirits of her struggles, and to her surprise, they reacted in fear. They whispered to her they no longer wanted to keep the portal open if the world of humans was as cruel as she said. They wanted to leave humankind to their own doing. They wanted to separate the two realms permanently.
"You see, the spirits were well aware of the darker nature of humankind. From their mysterious realm, they could see into ours through magic. They hoped that humanity would change with the help of the girl, but they were left disappointed."
At Marvela and her familiar's paws, a glowing rendering of a skull-headed spirit pointed a finger down through the portal, giving the girl a glimpse of the world she wanted to leave behind.
She saw another village was attacking her home. A war was on the verge of erupting.
"The spirits gave her a choice," Marvela said, before pausing for breath. Her familiar was captivated. "Either way, they were going to close the portal for good. She could get what she wanted and stay with the spirits forever. But at the cost of her home and its inhabitants.
"She could've run into the Spirit Realm and left behind the people that were cruel to her, Curious. But she didn't. She couldn't. Not when she had magic. Despite everything, she used her gift to save the people that had disregarded her. She returned to her realm and finally used her gifted magic to cast a light across the land. And with that light, came peace. Some things in our world still retain a bit of that light. We use them as potion ingredients to enhance our magic. Her magic ended the war.
"The spirits, impressed that such a young girl would be willing to use up her magical gift for the sake of people they had previously believed were beyond help, allowed her to keep her magic. And she became the First Witch. And as a show of goodwill, they made it so that other people, women just like the girl, would be born with the gift every generation. The craft has been passed down for centuries since then."
The ethereal figure of the First Witch, standing and haloed by radiant mystical sunbeams, faded into dust. Marvela cleared her throat and met her familiar's eyes. "But the spirits don't give gifts without expecting something in return," she told him. "Magic is a promise, Curious. It's a promise we made to the spirits long ago. And to ourselves. A promise to better the world."
A pair of nefarious green eyes flashed in Marvela's mind. Again, she saw Asra's smirk as she announced her plan to steal the magic gifted to other witches and to go back on her deal with the spirit Slight.
Unfortunately, some witches out there seem all too eager to betray the spirits, Marvela thought to herself.
"Magic shouldn't... It shouldn't be used to control those that are weaker than us," the kitten concluded. "It shouldn't be used how Asra intends to use it."
Marvela's ears burned. It shouldn't be used selfishly.
A tiny round of applause followed her words. "Great!" Curious cheered, shoving the flowerpot that now overflowed with purple flowers to the side. "Now, let's make the spirits proud and figure out how to stop an evil, all-powerful sorceress from destroying the other witches hiding in this town!"
The kitten's tail swished across the floor. "Oh... Right... That." Now that she healed her coat, she had nothing left to procrastinate with. It was time to face the music. Just like the girl in the story, the very first witch, Marvela had found herself bestowed with a gift.
And a responsibility.
A weight sank in her stomach.
Her rat bounced on his heels. "So, what's the plan?"
"Um. The plan is..." Marvela hesitated. For some reason, her voice was caught in her throat.
Curious held up his paws to her. "Stop. Lemme guess. There is no plan."
"...Yup. Sorry."
Curious sat back on his haunches. He ran his fingers through his whiskers as he thought. "Well, if Asra's goal is to find all the witches... Then maybe..."
Marvela grinned at the rat, following his train of thought. The crow said Asra was still healing after Marvela fought her the night before. Perhaps that would buy them some time... She threw open the cover of her spellbook and searched the pages. "Maybe we just have to find the witches of Vigilance first!"