Book 6 – A Witch Hunter’s Daughter

Year 8

A Witch Called Hushpuppy

“Hey… Hushpuppy… Wait up!” I paused in the middle of the dirt path that I had been walking on, chain in hand anchoring the floating armoire next to me. Looking back down the path from whence we came, the little girl who was my only employee trotted along sweatily a couple dozen meters behind me. Her stride length was just… so short, but if I let her get completely out of sight then some wandering Fae would definitely snatch her up and eat her. And this little one didn’t seem like she had it in her to turn that kind of situation around on her own.

Little humans are just soooo helpless. It’s a wonder the species has persisted as long as it has.

“Shouldn’t you be like, Reinforcing or something to take bigger steps?” I asked her as she caught up to me.

“I can’t… do that… for hours straight!” She was bent over, hands on knees while she caught her breath.

“Sounds like excuses to me!”

“Why don’t you… charm another big bird!?” Woooow so greedy.

“Eh, that doesn’t always work.”

“Why not!?”

“It just doesn’t! Besides, I don’t see you using any Magic to solve your problems!”

“I’m. Eight!” Uggghhhh she always plays the ‘Oh-Hushpuppy-I’m-just-a-barely-formed-entity’ card whenever we’ve been walking awhile. “I wanna sit up there!” She pointed to the floating armoire.

“Huh… but…” That seemed unfair to me.

“It would be faster for you!” Hmm.

“…I guess it would be, wouldn’t it? Kay… HUP!” I grabbed Nova by the bottom of her weird sleeveless shirt-thing and the waist of her trousers and tossed her up on top of the armoire; a sort of modified scruffing. She cackled gleefully as she flew up through the air; she really weighed nothing at all. “Now sit up there and consider what we will be having for dinner. I want to eat food tonight!”

“Kaaay,” she drawled from above me, heels banging against the wardrobe’s door as she settled into her preferred seat. It was one of her many little habits that rarely failed to irritate after some time. I’d tell her to stop, but she’s a precocious child and would probably call me out on the same in the future. As I have come to understand: children – unlike immortals – do not forget. I gave the chain a little shake and softened the door of the armoire a little bit, which hopefully wouldn’t result in the whole lot of something inside of it spilling out before we reached the town that used to be called Kerisvale.

The plan was the usual: roll into the town and set up shop either inside or just outside. Unfortunately not all places are like Deurmont, putting aside plots of land for me and having amazing local cuisine. Sometimes you just had to deal with milquetoast regional dishes. In the past, those always resulted in my premature exodus from various locations. After all, why should I bother sticking around and contributing my phenomenal Magics and completely amazing business acumen to a town or city that can’t even scrape together one solid dish?

Although I suppose that has not really been a problem lately.

Why was this no longer a problem?

For the same reason that this little girl gets to sit while I have to walk; which is to say that Nova is actually an extremely useful asset when all is said and done. She’s pretty efficient at dusting and sweeping, which are my second and third least favourite things just below interrupted meals and just above those useless glowing flowers and Moonlighters. On the subject of meals, she has become quite the chef; no doubt due to my excellent oversight and my advanced child-rearing techniques.

For example, I found out just within the first week(?) after acquiring her that Human children function far better when they have soft bedding! After I brought her home, since she was going to be working in the storefront, I figured she oughta just sleep there. Obviously since she had brought a blanket and a stuffed animal, it seemed like she understood this too! But to my surprise, after a while, she came to my room and crawled into my bed. And that’s when it hit me: Nova needed her own bed to crawl into! So I thought long and hard as I fell asleep, because we couldn’t just put a bed in the storefront; Humans would get the wrong idea about the store’s purpose and then who KNOWS what might’ve happened?!

But then I had an epiphany! You see, I live in this house and I have a room! So obviously if she lives here, then she must have a room too! So the next-ish morning, I started exploring, and lo and behold, there was a door that wasn’t there before! Behind it I found Nova’s room, complete with a bed and dozens of blankets and stuffed cats. Much like her mother when she realized she was doomed, the little girl had a simply delightful look on her face when I showed her that she had a room! Truly I should have little portraits made of those moments! Anyhow, I knew it wouldn’t have made sense for me to be so unprepared! Obviously I would have planned for exactly this particular thing to happen!

Obviously.

But yeah, child-rearing is really easy.

Like, really really easy.

Honestly, I don’t get what all the fuss is about.

Ah. We’ve finally arrived at the critical part of this leg of the journey.

“Off.” I commanded her.

“Awww, can’t I get off at the top of the hill?” Ugh such a whiner.

“Definitely not, that will mean we have to backtrack.”

“…What?”

“Nova, do you trust me?”

“…Eh…?” Brat. She hopped off, landing with a louder crash than her size would indicate. She must have Reinforced herself somewhat, but I couldn’t really be sure. I can’t use PsyEn anymore; once the Changes started occurring, that capacity was lost to me. Not that I particularly missed it; Magic was waaaay cooler than PsyEn.

“Hmm. Well tough. This next part is really, really important: Once we get to the top of this hill, do not – under any circumstances – look anywhere but straight up in the air. Understood?”

“Yeah but like… Why?”

“See it’s also super-duper important that I don’t tell you that either. It’ll screw the whole thing up, trust me. Just know that this is the shortest possible route to our destination. If you do as I say, we will be there in like… soon.”

“…Kaaay.” She’s totally gonna look down, isn’t she? This is about to be a problem. I looked up at the sky; there was naught but a scattering of clouds lazily drifting amongst the blue. If only the sky were as interesting as the ocean, then she’d have no problem keeping her eyes-

“Uh… Ah! Nova! Look! Sky Cat!”

“Hushpuppy I’m not a baby! That’s not gonna-” Despite her vocalized skepticism, she couldn’t help but glance up. Her eyes nearly popped out of her tiny little head as she gazed upon the giant kitten made of clouds batting around another ball of clouds with a yarn-esque texture. Her eyes sparkled as she walked along, exactly as planned. For myself, I kept myself focused on the task above, adding some fluffy butterflies and bouncy bunnies to the mix to keep her occupied. She giggled and clapped her hands as more animals began to interact. The kitten pounced at the butterflies in a savage display of predatory prowess and the bunny jumped over the kitten to show off its mad hops. The meteorological display persisted for a short while longer before I suddenly noticed a treetop in my peripheral vision. Once the treetop impeded our view of the clouds, I felt satisfied with our position.

“Alright, we’re good now. You can look around again.” The clouds snapped back into their previous positions, shapes, and trajectories. I let out a deep breath and wiped my brow; I don’t normally use Magic on such a large scale and so… Specifically.

“Huh? Oh! Wow you tricked me into looking up! Can you tell me why now?”

“Yeah sure, that’s why.” She turned around to follow my pointed finger behind us and her tiny little jaw dropped as she gazed across the massive canyon we just finished walking over the top of.

“I… But- You- When?! I mean… HOW?!” Such a smol, excitable child.

“As long as you don’t know exactly when you leave the land and go over the edge of the cliff, there’s no reason at all why you should fall!”

“…But- bu-”

“AND look there’s The Town That Was Once Called Kerisvale! Let’s go get set up! I want food!”

***

A Chore Girl Called Nova

I am the greatest Chore Girl in the whole-wide-world.

How do I know this? Well I’ve been doing it for a quarter of my life now, so I know a thing or two! Sure, there are plenty of Chore Girls out there in the world – not that I’ve met any of them – but how many of them can say that they work for a Witch?

None. None that I’ve met anyway.

But you only have to look at all the things I do to know that I must be the best Chore Girl! My day goes like this: I wake up and I see if Hushpuppy is around. She says that she should be called ‘A Witch Called Hushpuppy’, but that’s waaaay too long to have to say every time. Anyways if she isn’t around – which is like half the time – then I wear whatever I want to wear, then make whatever I want us to eat for breakfast, then I clean up after myself and tidy up the storefront in whatever order I want. Finally, I knock on the inside of the Main Door twice and once, open it, then flip the sign around to “Welcome!” Then I get to do whatever I want until lunchtime!

During my downtime, I like to read books of all sorts and I’m pretty good at reading! I don’t see other kids my age in the various towns we’ve been in reading nearly as big of books as I do! There are just so many books out there! I definitely want to read all of them, which is why I always take any spare time I have to read! I sometimes wish that I could just snap my fingers and get rid of all the dust in the room; I don’t actually like cleaning that much. But since it is part of my job and since I am the greatest Chore Girl in the world, I always make sure to get it done as soon as possible in a week. Though you’d be surprised at how quickly it gets dusty in this house! I think it’s because of how good I am at my job that Hushpuppy buys me as many books as I want, even though they are pretty expensive. As long as I finish a book and tell her what it was about, she’ll let me take money for a new one. Lately she’s been complaining that there isn’t enough space in the house for all the books I’ve been getting, but that’s a lie for sure. Since I’m always cleaning the house, I know for a fact that the house just keeps getting bigger on the inside the more stuff we put in it. The bookshelf keeps getting longer and the walls push out a little bit more to make room for it!

Anyhow, lunch is more interesting because Hushpuppy never misses lunch. So I have to be extra sure that the food is suuuuper good! So I go get some money from the box that only I can open for some reason and I walk around whatever town we are in and start buying ingredients. Since the box is never empty, I always get to buy all the best-looking stuff! Then I come home and cook them! Hushpuppy tends to prefer meat, which makes sense since her teeth are so sharp and pointy. But in the last couple of years, I’ve gotten good enough at cooking that she’ll eat any dish I make. When I’m not making one of her favourite dishes, Hushpuppy will watch me cook from the ceiling of the kitchen. This used to be a problem since her kitchen was so small, but it’s gotten muuuch bigger over the years since she first killed my mom and brought me here.

Ah.

I probably should have started with that last part.

Hushpuppy said it’s a very boring story and that she doesn’t really remember the context. I guess she was sitting in the store a couple years ago ‘minding her own business’ – which seems unlikely – when my mother – A Woman Called Jasmin Stellana – walked through the front door of this house and tried to slice Hushpuppy’s head off. Hushpuppy likes to point out that this was a bad plan and that my mother’s tendency to plan things badly is what got her killed. But yeah, Hushpuppy walked through our front door from… somewhere with my mom’s body apparently at my mom’s request. She didn’t give a lot of details about the whole thing, probably since I was crying at the time and she’s never been good at dealing with that… But I was super scared; I couldn’t help it! So back then I thought maybe if I gave her a snack then she wouldn’t hurt me or get mad at me, because when I don’t have snacks I get pretty mad too. Then she asked me if I knew how to cook and I said “Yes!”.

That was a lie though, ssshhh!

But apparently Hushpuppy was SO bad at cooking that she never even noticed that I didn’t know what I was doing! I think she was just happy to have someone to do ‘the boring stuff’ for her. But anyhow the reason I don’t start with that part is because whenever I tell people about how she killed my mom they always try to take me away from Hushpuppy, which is a super bad idea. In the last couple years or so, I’ve seen a bunch of people try to take things that belong to Hushpuppy and they always end up ‘Elsewhere’ and never seen again.

So a few months ago we set up our shop on a hilltop outside of a pretty big town called Onyrus. Hushpuppy said that last time she was here, it was called Kerisvale. So that’s what she calls it, but I try to call things by their actual current names, unlike Hushpuppy! It’s not famous for much at all – at least according to her – but it’s one of those pretty big crossroads-type towns that get a lot of traffic, so it was good for business. Hushpuppy also said something about its specific location and some Magic nonsense that – as always – she never actually explains. There’s probably a Fairy Mound or something nearby that she wants to pick at for a while. If that’s the case, we might actually stay put for more than a year!

It was just about lunchtime when – as usual – Hushpuppy walked in from the door that normally leads to the washroom. I put the fancy bookmark that Hushpuppy made for me in the book I had been reading and closed it. I guess since the bookmark is made using my hair, it makes whatever book I put it into hang out near the hair on my head. It’s pretty useful because then I never lose either my place in the book, nor the book itself. I can always count on it to be in arm’s reach!

“Welcome home, Hushpuppy.”

“Hey. What’s for lunch?”

“Leftover stew, I’ll go warm it up real quick since you’re home!” Gotta love back-up stew for when I get distracted by reading! I took a small pot out of the Time-Out Box where time is weird on the inside. Reaching in there always makes my Coating tingle a bit, so I try to be as fast as I can when taking things out or putting things in. I put it on the stove and Hushpuppy rekindled one of the flames from across the room. “Thanks.”

“Ah excellent… Stew is the best.” She’s weirdly easy to please, except when she’s not. I poked around the kitchen, searching for some bowls and spoons to use.

“I wonder how many people in this town will try to convince me that you’re dangerous and I should go live with them,” I wondered out loud; Hushpuppy really needed to stop talking about how we met at bars. People usually ended up coming in here all shady like for weeks afterwards, offering me ‘safety’.

“I mean. Nothing is keeping you here. Maybe I should have had you sign a contract? But it seems a bit late for that now. If you want to leave, I’m not gonna chase you; I’ve got better things to do.”

Things?! What things?! You don’t do things!

“Like I’d just leave! Where would I even go? I don’t even remember the name of the town I’m from. And I don’t think I have any other family, so…” I ladled some warmed stew into two bowls, placed spoons in them, and held one up in the air.

She snatched the bowl from my hand from across the room and began devouring it. “I mean… presumably with whoever… is offering you asylum… from the evil–evil Witch you live with,” she suggested between mouths full of stew.

“Yuck. Why would I go with some rando I don’t even know? No. You did this to both of us. You always tell me about taking responsibility for stuff. So you have to take responsibility for me! Speaking of which, I need clothes.”

“What!? I bought you clothes last week!”

“Last year.”

“…And???”

“Uh… Human children grow fast.”

“They can’t grow THAT fast.” Ugghhh we do this every time.

“We can and do. See?!”

I set my bowl down on the front desk and walked over to a shelf that faced the inside of the store where I had been making height marks the last few years for this exact situation. “See? I’m already five centimeters taller than last time we had this exact conversation.”

“…Huh. I guess you are bigger now than when I first got you.”

“You mean when you killed my-”

“Murdered your mother. Her own sw-”

“YEAH HER OWN SWORD KILLED HER AND YOU MURDERED HER! I GET IT!” It’s just a super weird thing to get hung up on.

“Ugh can’t you take a joke?”

…

“Just eat your stew.” I told her, hopping up on the front desk and eating the delicious meal that I made.

***

Year 9

Hushpuppy

I had a completely genius idea recently.

You see, Nova is always asking sooo many damn questions. Not just questions about Magic or running a business, but things that only Humans care about like, “What is the Sun made of?” (Light, obviously) or “Why does drinking saltwater make you sick?” (It doesn’t though??) or “Why does my Coating look so dense?” (‘Cause you hang out around Magic all day, duh). So I was thinking, I would have a lot more time on my hands if she had some kind of Human consultant to teach her about all these useless things that Humans concern themselves with.

Nova needs to go to a Human school for Humans so that she can be better at being a Human!

So I told her to go out and find a school to go to recently and she came back and said that they needed to meet her parents. This put me in a pretty awkward spot, since I murdered her mother and all. So I told her to let them know that she has no parents, but they insisted that she must have something called a ‘guardian’, as if I were paying for body guards for her or something. That’s when I learned that a ‘guardian’ can also mean “someone who buys your clothes and food and keeps you safe.” Which I guess describes the nature of our interactions indirectly; though I just give her the money and then she buys food and clothes.

Wait. If she’s doing the purchasing, doesn’t that make her my guardian?

Huh.

Anyhow today I’m supposed to go over to this school in Kerisvale and meet the teachers. Nova – being a clever child – set up some contraption that dripped water onto a plate that would eventually over-balance it, sending it falling off the table and crashing on the ground. That is supposed to be my cue to go over.

Very clever, since I would never remember to check an hourglass or something like that.

As expected, a plate crashed to the floor in the other room and I knocked on the front door of the store with a little charm I had made out of a piece of Nova’s blanket, a bit of fluff from her stuffed cat, four actual cats, and one of her teeth that fell out for some reason a few years back. This ‘key’ was pretty good at getting me to a door in the general vicinity of Nova’s location. I opened the door and stepped through into what appeared to be a small waiting room. There was Nova sitting in a little chair across from two adult humans who were standing in front of their chairs, staring at me in disbelief. Uh oh! Did I use the wrong door? I turned to close the door to the… broom closet?! Damn. I was off by one entrance, no wonder they’re surprised!

“Hi Hushpuppy. You really came!” She seemed genuinely surprised.

“Well you made the plate-crashy-thingy so it was hard to forget.”

“Huh, I’ll remember that.”

“So… I guess I’m Nova’s guardian, though I’m no shield bearer.”

“I-I-I-you!” The Basic-Looking Man looked back and forth between Nova and myself, “You were telling the truth?! You didn’t mean ‘The lady taking care of me is a Witch’ figuratively?!”

“Well… I don’t know what fig-er-a-tiv-ly means, but I don’t lie!” Ehhhh she definitely lies about stuff sometimes, but I let the comment slide for the time being.

“Moving on,” I began and the two of them jumped and faced me, “I’m assuming you need some kinda tuition or something?”

“Um. Ah, I mean- well, for members of the community it’s a public service paid for by portions of regional tax-revenue so-”

“Hmm, do we count as members of the community. Nova you’re human, do we count?”

“Uh…”

“I’m- I’m sure you count.”

“…I don’t like that.”

“What?! Why?”

“There needs to be an exchange of some kind. Otherwise we can’t have a deal. So I will give some money to this establishment monthly – Nova, make note of that – and you will train her in things that concern Humans. Like PsyEn and stuff. It’s not fair if you just train her and I don’t have to give you anything.”

The two of them looked at each other with sort of dumb, spacey looks on their faces. They both seemed to mutually decide on something and finally gestured towards a seat next to Nova. I sat down and decided to play along with whatever little charade they felt the need to put us through; this was an investment, after all.

“So, um, A Witch Called Hushpuppy. Obviously, you are known to us. We apologize for taking your time, so we’ll make this quick. What would you say Nova’s reading comprehension level is at?”

I shrugged and looked at Nova. “I dunno. Do you know how to read?”

“Of course I know how to read!” Nova’s face reddened somewhat. “I literally read and write invoices for you every day.”

“Oh, well there you go then.”

“What about books, like fiction-”

“Oi, if she says she can read and write, then she can read and write. Why are we still talking about this?” Seriously. Can’t they just throw some stuff at her and see how she responds? That’s what I always did with her.

“Okay okay please it’s fine we just need to know for placement purposes! What about her PsyEn?”

“You tell me. I have no frame of reference for that sort of thing.” They regarded me quizzically for a moment before turning to look at her – presumably with their Third Eyes – and studied her. It was such a strange thing that Humans did, just staring at you with their PsyEn-enhanced vision and trying to rob you of your secrets.

I always found it uncomfortable, to say the least.

Finally they began talking amongst themselves while Nova and I watched on kinda just bored. “It’s… really, really dense.”
“Nearly opaque even…”
“It must be from Magic exposure, right?!”
“Just constant-”

“Ahem.” Both of us vocalized in unison; we were done listening to them.

“Right. Of course. We will test her application of PsyEn Basics and place her accordingly. Any scheduling-”

“Ask her, not me.” Seriously, why do they keep talking to me like I’m the one who’s going to school. There’s no reason for me to know ANY of this garbage. I reached into my purse, pulled out a coin pouch, and tossed it to Nova. “Negotiate something appropriate, I’m out of here.”

With that, I exited through the proper door and entered back into my shop.

Man… That was exhausting.

***

Nova

“…And so then, Hushpuppy said if we were going to sneak up on a Fae, we were going to need a sneakier pond to fly in! So we ended up hiking through a mountain until we found a little pond hidden by a bunch of trees and covered with fallen leaves! Hushpuppy then grabbed a bunch of branches and small trees and turned them into a boat… Then put the boat in the pond, then got into the boat! Then Hushpuppy was like ‘Okay Nova, row.’ and I’m like ‘Fine’ and then I started rowing and then get this: the whole pond starts flying into the sky. And so I just rowed the pond and we flew with the clouds for a while in the sneaky pond!”

I ended my story triumphantly; other kids in school were always asking me to tell them about my adventures with ‘The Witch’, and I’ve gotta correct them and remind them that she’s just ‘A Witch’, since there’s waaaaay more than one Witch out there.

“I don’t buy it.” Ugh. Kendrick – the butcher’s son – always doubting the logic behind Hushpuppy’s Magic… as if logic mattered to her.

“What part of my story is doubtful to you this time, Kendrick.”

“If the pond is flying, then why do you have to row the boat to make it move!”

“Well… because rowing makes a boat move, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, there you go!”

…

“…What?!”

“The boat is on the water. And for the boat to move, the water needs to move out of its way. But since there is nowhere for the water to go, then water comes back around. So therefore you have to row to make the pond move. See?”

“…I-I guess that makes sense.” HAH! Finally! I’ve conquered Kendrick! I’ve gotta tell Hushpuppy about this.

“Well, like. What else can Hushpuppy do?! She can open doors to anywhere and make ponds fly and charm animals and stuff – or so you say – so like… can Magic really do anything?”

“I mean… probably? It must be able to, right? Or else why would anyone use it over PsyEn?” I had been attending this school for a few months now. My PsyEn was a lot slower at doing what I wanted it to than other kids. They say it’s because my Coating is like liquid, while everyone else’s is like gas. They say that that is Hushpuppy’s fault, since she’s always using Magic around me. I guess that could be true, though everyone looks at me like they feel sorry for me and that I just don’t get. My life is sooooo much cooler than everyone else’s! People write books about the type of stuff Hushpuppy and I do during our travels! So I just laugh at them and tell even cooler stories than they could ever come up with!

“I don’t really understand the mechanics of her Magic, or how much she can really do. I’ll ask her when I go home later!”

***

“Hey Hushpuppy, what kind of stuff can you do with Magic?” We were both in the front of the store; she was actually going through some paperwork herself for a change and I was finishing up with some sweeping.

She stopped and glanced up at me. “…That… is quite the question, little one.”

“And…?” I challenged her; she was always so dodgy on the subject of Magic. I wondered if she was purposefully keeping it a secret. Maybe it was a Witch thing?

“Well, Magic… can do a whole bunch of things, a whole bunch. It can – for example – change where a door leads-”

“Yeah I know about Threshold Magic. But that’s most of what I see you do. What else?”

“Well everything in this shop is the result of Magic to some degree or another. Whether they can be made or not is super contextual, obviously. Magic only does what it does when the conditions are right and you accept that that is that. Make sense?”

“Nope! Could you walk on water with Magic?”

“Probably. As long as it was raining.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why would it need to be raining?”

“‘Cause then there’s no difference between the Earth or the Water; everything is just wet. Duh.”

…

“That doesn’t-”

“Oh don’t be childish, Nova. Why are you being so picky about this?”

“Because it’s all around me all the time and so of course I want to know what it is and how it works!”

“Well I can tell you a whole bunch of things that Magic isn’t. It isn’t Psychic Energy or Elemental Manipulation. It isn’t strictly controlled or highly definable. It just Is. Magic is Magic because Magic is Magic; this tautology is what establishes Magic as an existence. If Magic were anything definably something, then it wouldn’t and couldn’t be what it is, instead it wouldn’t couldn’t not.”

“But that-”

“Oh just go buy ingredients, child.” She ended our talk dismissively.

“Fine.” I grabbed a large, empty burlap sack with two shoulder straps sewed on the sides, stepped in front of the door and huffed a strong breath; the door swung open as had recently started happening for no good reason. She’s so frustrating! With how powerful she is, she definitely knows! It’s not like she hangs out with anyone else, so why won’t she tell me?! I didn’t pay too much attention to my transit from the outskirts of town into the middle, too mad to care that I was rudely ignoring other people’s greetings.

I went and visited one of the fruit vendors because I decided that we were doing breakfast for dinner because I wanted it! And then I went to get some flour and sugar and chicken eggs because we’re gonna have cake too. Oh! There should be strawberries on the cake! I should go back to the fruit vendor and get some of those. I reached into the little purse that I had bought with some of my wage; still plenty left! I returned to the fruit vendor with another handful of coins and feeling way happier because of my plan! There were three more adults hanging out near the fruit vendor, talking and laughing and being the cool sort of adults you see outside of taverns at night.

“Hey there girlie, you’re back! Forget something?” All the vendors I’ve ever encountered are so nice to me! Maybe being in the food business just makes people nicer? Maybe Hushpuppy should start selling food!

“Hi! Yeah I forgot strawberries! Can I get um… one small box! I want to put strawberries all over a cake I’m gonna make!”

“Oh? Ye’ bakin’ a cake for the Witch then?” Oh wow, the vendors don’t usually try to talk to me about Hushpuppy!

“Yeah! I’m mad at her so I’m making breakfast for dinner! She’ll never see that coming!”

“…Uh… Sure? She sure sends you out ‘n’ about with a lot of coin!” He seemed confused while he dug around for a particularly nice-looking box of strawberries to trade to me. The trio off to the side watched curiously as I dug around in my purse; I bet they’ve never seen a nine-year-old with so many coins!

“Ha-ha!~ It’s no big deal! With all the cooking and cleaning and stuff I do, I’m the most valuable thing in that shop! I am – after all – the greatest Chore Girl in the world!”

I puffed my chest out as I bragged to the fruit vendor, who shook his head and laughed. Clearly he didn’t get it! I shrugged my bag off and set it down before giving him coins in exchange for the pretty red strawberries he’d picked out for me. I accepted them with a ‘Thank you!’ like a good Chore Girl and put them in my bag with all my other ingredients. I closed my eyes and concentrated on pulling my Coating into my body; at school the teacher said we should always practice Reinforcing whenever we have to lift something even a little bit heavy off the ground. After what felt like forever my body started to feel lighter, so I picked up my bag and headed home.

I waved to the guards as I passed through the front gate; they don’t ask me anything anymore about my ‘business’ when I pass through. It wasn’t a very long walk to get to the hilltop where Hushpuppy decided to set up the shop-house, but it wasn’t a super fast walk either since I’m so small. I was just about at the part of the path where Hushpuppy had carved a chunk of the earth out as a marker when I noticed that I totally heard footsteps behind me. I looked behind me and saw the three adults who were near the fruit stand not too far behind me and looking preeeeetty creepy, all following me without saying ‘Hi!’ or anything! Even creepier than that though was when I looked back at them, they all jumped really fast and were all around me in an instant.

“…Hi… Um, can I… help you?” I thought it might be best to be polite in this situation. Sometimes bratty kids get punched in books with creepy adults.

“You’ll be coming with us quietly, little girl, and no one will get hurt,” the really, really tall woman with long hair said quietly.

“Oh wow! Um, but, you do know that I work for A Witch Called Hushpuppy, right? Dinner time is really soon, so I don’t think delaying that is a good idea.”

“Why don’t you let us be the judge of that.” Uh-oh.

“Oookay. Um, can I bring this bag with me? Hushpuppy won’t be happy if I come back without the ingredients.”

“Just come.” One of them gave me a little push away from the hilltop and towards the forest. We all started walking along and I couldn’t help but be a little worried.

***

So I kinda got kidnapped.

It wasn’t my fault though!

Okay maybe this was a little bit my fault! But how was I supposed to know that the greatest Chore Girl in the whole wide world was worth kidnapping?! I guess their plan is that they are going to send Hushpuppy a note saying, “Pay us in money and Magic items or the girl dies!” or something mean like that. Which I guess is… A plan, but I’ve never, ever, EVER seen someone successfully TAKE something from Hushpuppy, which wouldn’t really bother me if they had like… hit me or something. But they’ve actually been pretty nice. This is easily up in the top three kidnappings I’ve ever read about: just below the Drax that chose a human commoner as his Queen and just above the huntress who raised the Wolf-type Fekthal boy.

“You guys don’t understand. This is a really, REALLY bad idea. You are all in a lot of trouble!” We were pretty deep into the woods at this point and my legs were getting pretty tired. Also I don’t like Reinforcing for this long, it makes my head hurt.

“This isn’t the type of situation you can just talk your way out of, Nova.” I told them my name since they kept calling me little girl; they don’t have to rub it in!

“Fine. But can like, one of you carry this bag? I’m tired and my head hurts and-”

“What?! No we-”

“Jack just take her fucking bag, she’s slowing us down. Devon, scoop her up and let’s get her tied up back at the base.”

“Fine.” ‘Jack’ grabbed the top of my bag with one hand and I wriggled out of the shoulder loops. Then ‘Devon’ picked me up by my waist and held me under his arm. Woooow that’s so much better; I was very done with walking and carrying that bag and Reinforcing myself. I let my Coating return to its normal state and tried to relax as best I could for the rest of the journey.

But still these people are like… super in danger! Hushpuppy is probably gonna come looking for dinner, take me and the bag and then dump them through some door into a room with nothing to eat forever. All of that seems like a lot, but Hushpuppy doesn’t really measure her punishments against crimes committed. Throwing everything through a door to nowhere is how she deals with all of her problems… and all of her inconveniences… and everything in-between.

“There it is. Now let’s get her secured inside and we can get the ransom note delivered.” We exited the thicket into a small clearing that had a small cabin in the middle. It was a cute hideout and I had to wonder if the three of them all lived there too. Oh man, who was dating who? Or maybe all three of them were like, a thing! Or maybe there are more people inside?

‘Devon’ gave me a small shake. “You gon’ behave? If you do we won’t have to tie you up too tight. Don’t wanna damage the goods and have the Witch come for revenge.”

“I’ll be good. And I’ll do everything I can to make sure you guys don’t get murdered.” They all stopped in front of the door when I said that for some reason and just sort of looked at me. I looked at each of them in turn, confused.

“That was creepy… Anyhow we’re…here?” The really tall lady opened the door to their hideout and took a few steps in before stopping. Unfortunately for ‘Devon’ and ‘Jack’, they’d followed her closely. We were suddenly back in Hushpuppy’s Traveling House of Strange and Wonderful and Terrible and Useful Goods.

And the door just closed behind us.

“Ah. Took you all long enough.” Hushpuppy was sitting on the front desk – which she always told me not to do – gripping the edge with her hands on either side of her butt. She was definitely maaad; she didn’t sound like she was a child pretending to be a grown-up like she normally did. Her voice was flat and a little shaky.

Hushpuppy sounded hungry.

“Thank you for returning my wandering employee. She can be absent-minded sometimes, wandering off and getting lost like that.” Hey! I totally got kidnapped! She should be nicer about her comments right now!

“What?! I mean, how… or when-”

“Shut up. Return the child and the bag.” The tall lady was a stuttering mess; I guess even creepy adults are creeped out by Hushpuppy when she’s mad. ‘Jack’ and ‘Devon’ didn’t speak, but they set both me and the bag down. I walked over to the bag to pick it up but then the tall lady put a hand on my head, stopping me in my tracks.

“…If we return her, then you’ll let us go?” Definitely not.

“Of course.” Uh oh. She’s totally gonna send them to The Slaughterhouse. That place is really creepy; she’s brought me there once or twice for… actually I’m not sure why. Slowly, the woman released my head and I just kinda dragged the bag over across the store front towards Hushpuppy. She looked down and me and I looked up at her; I couldn’t tell what she was thinking and just before I could tell her what was for dinner, she asked, “Are you damaged.”

“Uhh nope. I was gonna talk to you about that. They were actually pretty nice about this whole thing. They even carried me when I was tired. So I was thinking that maybe feeding them to the other Witches might be a bit too much.”

“…I don’t follow.” Ugh of course she didn’t.

“So like-” I started.

“We gave her back. Now-”

“Your mouth moves too much.” Hushpuppy interrupted the tall lady, whose lips suddenly folded into her mouth, trapped by Hushpuppy’s unspoken command. Cause and effect was always super weird around Hushpuppy and I could never tell if what was happening because of Magic was intentional or not. She started to grunt quietly and probably would have screamed if she could have, so I just continued talking.

“So like, they brought me back home, right?”

“Not on purpose. Anyhow, they stole from me in the first place.”

“Yeah but I’m back with the ingredients, so what did they really even take from you?” Hushpuppy seemed to actually think this through seriously for a few moments.

“My peace of mind! The confidence I had that I could just send you out to take care of shopping and stuff by yourself.” That… was actually kinda nice? I didn’t realize she was putting so much trust in me.

“Okay… well since they took your ‘peace of mind’… how about instead of kill-murdering them, you just take their ‘peace of mind’ instead?” Hah! I’m so smart. Hushpuppy loves deals and ‘equivalent exchange’. Value as a concept was soooo abstract with her that you could pretty easily convince her that any exchange of services or money could be equal.

“…Hmm. Aren’t you a clever child? Must come from whoever your father is, cause you certainly don’t get your smarts from your mother, that’s for sure.” …She sure brings up my dead mom a lot. “Alright you three! Because Nova is weirdly merciful to complete strangers, you three will not be dying… Today.” They had started to look relieved until Hushpuppy’s final word.

“Some day, in the future, perhaps decades from now, or maybe just before the next Full Moon… You all and anyone else associated with your little gang are going to open a door. That door is going to drop you in a place from which you will never, ever, ever be able to escape. So then…” Hushpuppy willed the door behind them open, “Bye!~” The three of them were shoved by an invisible force as they tried to protest Hushpuppy’s verdict and the door slammed after them. Hah! I got to be a hero today! None of them had to die today, so I bet they’re super thankful.

***

Year 10

Nova

My PsyEn Ability developed!!!

Even though I’m only ten!

…

It’s a pretty lame Ability though, not gonna lie.

It was just after breakfast one day and there was like… a LOT of tidying to do. Seriously, I don’t understand how this place can get so dusty so quickly. Anyhow, I was sitting at the front desk glaring at the increasingly large room, trying to wrack my brain for some way… ANY way to do the sweeping and dusting in particular faster. Over the last four years I’ve come to understand Hushpuppy’s distaste for those two specific methods of cleaning. General tidying of shelves and goods is a lot of fun! It’s sort of like fashion: you’re trying to make everything look as good as possible. But dusting and sweeping is like having to wash your hair every day: a big pain in the butt!

But yeah so I was trying really really hard to figure out an easier way to take care of all the dust and dirt and stuff when It happened. I felt a weird stillness of my own thoughts and suddenly a big pulse of PsyEn shot out across the room from my head. As the pulse moved through space, I was suddenly very – annoyingly – aware of all the dust and dirt in the room. While I was trying to make sense of the highlighted gunk that I was seeing  – even through solid objects – I rubbed my eyes with my left forearm, with my hand open and then SHOOMP! All of the dust and dirt I had ‘detected’ with the initial PsyEn pulse was pulled into a nasty ball floating just a few centimeters from my hand.

What.

What what?!

I ran around the room checking on top of shelves and underneath products.

All gone!

I PULLED IN ALL OF THE DUST!

INSTANTLY!

WOAH!

FINALLY! DUSTING AND SWEEPING HAVE BEEN CONQUERED!

I threw open the front door without knocking on it so that the door would open to the Sepulcher. I kept my left hand on the house-side of the threshold, but pointed my open palm where the ball of nastiness was floating and tried to will it away from me. As I expected, the dust ball shot away from me as quickly as it had gathered. Uwaaa! That’s so cool! I shut the door and turned back towards the shop. I looked at a book on the shelf and reached out my left hand and-

Nothing.

Maybe it’s too big?

Tea cup?

Nope.

Spoon?

No.

Chopstick?

Big No.

Maybe I’m doing it wrong? I knocked on the door and went outside. Okay… dust and dirt are pretty much the same thing, so then… I guess I need to detect first?

OW.

OW! OW! OW! OW! OW! OW!

Turns out there is a LOT of dirt outdoors. My head was reeling from the amount of stuff I’d just become aware of. I scooped up a handful of dirt and brought it inside with me. I’d have to make sure to practice this Ability indoors until I got the hang of limiting the range of detection. Anyhow, I tried it all again:

Book? Nope. Teacup? Nope. Spoon? Nope. Chopsticks? Nope.

I dumped the handful of dirt I brought inside on the floor and held out my left hand and-

SHOOMP!

Once more, all the collected dirt floated in a little ball a few centimeters from my left palm.

…

And so I discovered that I have Dust-Based Telekinesis.

…

I sighed long and loud.

I’d always read about such cool, super specific Abilities that people in both fiction and in real life have demonstrated. I was really hoping it would be something neat like an elemental manipulation type or one of those weird reality-warping ones that super obsessed people develop.

That’d have been really cool.

Boo…

Oh well. I took the test dirt-ball back outside and SHOOMP’d it away off the hilltop. I’ll have to tell Hushpuppy about this occasion. Maybe she’d be willing to celebrate in a big way or something.

As if.

Returning back inside I saw something quite creepy: Hushpuppy had two outfits draped over the front desk. She seemed to be considering them long and hard, despite them looking pretty much the same to me.

That’s just weird.

“Soooo…” I started, but then Hushpuppy said something unexpected, as usual:

“It’s time for the Tea Party.” The Tea Party? Why does that sound familiar? Wait, wasn’t that…

“Wait that freaky invite we got three years ago?!?! That’s ACTUALLY happening?!” Three years ago, we were eating dinner in the kitchen when all of a sudden the table began pulsing and wriggling and twisting itself into the rough shape of a screaming man. I had thought about screaming or running, but Hushpuppy just looked sort of annoyed so I just kept eating. Anyhow, the twisted mass of man-shaped wood started talking in a super high-pitched voice – even though the mouth was stuck in a screaming position – and said, “A Witch Called Hushpuppy. You are invited to The Witch’s Tea Party three years hence at the Eye of the Storm.” Hushpuppy had just said, “Kay. Accepted. I’m eating. Give me back my table.” And like that, the table returned to normal. I thought that Witches inviting other Witches to events at specific times was like… sarcasm. I didn’t think that this was an actual thing. Wait-

“Were you planning on going to a meeting in one of those outfits??”

“Uhhh yeah?”

“…Noooooo. Come on Hushpuppy don’t go see important people looking like that.”

“They aren’t people, Nova. They’re Witches. Some of them don’t even have strong enough Substance to maintain a consistent physical form. The exact quality of the outfit doesn’t matter so much.”

“So then why are you fussing at all?”

She narrowed her eyes at me, but refused to respond.

“HAH! You do kinda care!”

“I don’t.”

“Well then you won’t care if we go buy something better.”

“I suppose that is true.”

“Yes! Come with me come on!” Woah! I get to dress Hushpuppy. Finally.

***

Hushpuppy

Today got weird.

Like really weird.

Nova got rather judgy about my choices of clothing and decided that we simply had to buy new clothing. This of course was on the tail of the monumental demonstration of her newly developed PsyEn Ability. As far as Abilities go, it may very well be the most amazing Ability I have ever witnessed in the last two-hundred-fiftyish years of my life. The power to instantly dust and sweep a room. Without even having to move, or bend, or anything of the sort. Zero Effort Dusting and Zero Effort Sweeping. Are you kidding me?! I couldn’t think of a more overpowered Ability. Am I raising the future Strongest Human?!

What a frightening child.

Anyhow, she made me come into town with her so that she could treat me like a marionette and dress me up in a way that was satisfying to her. She took it upon herself to make me look more ‘Witch-y’, since she figured if I was going to be around other Witches, I should show off my more Fae-adjacent features. Perhaps there was something to this… I had no clue whatsoever, really. But she picked out a black vest with yellow trim that left the small spikes protruding from the tips of both of my shoulders revealed. She also put me in a long black pleated skirt because I was getting impatient; she tried to pick shoes for me, which I vetoed because No. I do not now nor have I ever worn shoes. I put everything on along with my usual big, floppy hat and then told Nova to pick an outfit as well.

“Why? I bought clothes fairly recently.”

“No. If I have to have a new outfit for this Tea Party then so do you.”

“Wait a sec, I’m going?!”

I looked at her quizzically, “Uh… yes? I don’t see why you wouldn’t? You’re my one and only employee. And you are part of what I’ll be reporting on anyhow. This just simplifies things.”

“Reporting?? Won’t I be in like… a lot of danger?”

“Just a sharing of stuff that we’re able to remember since last meeting. Annnndd… yeah. So that’s why you’re going to hold onto this!” I took out my kama and pulled a length of ribbon made of my hair out from my hat. I tied the kama to her outer arm such that the blade was facing behind her. Yes, that should do the trick.

“…This is…?”

“The thing that is the most mine in the entirety of existence. And now it is tied to you with my own hair. No thing can possibly claim you while you’re wearing it. And no Witch strong enough to be at the Tea Party would steal from another who sits at that table. Now take that off and pick a new outfit so we can get going.”

She looked up at me with an unreadable expression before suddenly flushing and looking to the side and scampering away back into the store. I never know what this child is thinking. A short while later she came back in a long, form-fitting teal dress called a cheongsam that was apparently favoured amongst her mother’s people. It had a number of flowers patterned across it in a way that reminded me of those damn glowing flowers that Humans seem to like. Apparently she had settled our bill and we exited the shop we were in and emerged into our storefr-

Our?

Huh.

“Alright. Hold my hand for this part. The Eye of the Storm is unique in that there is no doorway directly to it. In order to get there we have to go through two doors: one to enter the Wrong Hallway and one to exit it into the Eye of the Storm. If we lose track of each other within the Wrong Hallway then I will not be able to find you again, probably ever.” I held my hand out and she took it with some hesitation, squeezing it tightly. Excellent.

I took a deep breath and opened our front door. There was a popping noise as Magic tried to make real the tenuous connection between a place and a Wrong Place. I stepped through the threshold and pulled Nova through with me. The door closed behind us immediately and we found ourselves in the Wrong Hallway. Wood-paneled walls and a checkered ceiling as ever; the carpet was still mostly hands and paws of many different varieties all interlocking and flinching underneath our feet. I felt Nova squeeze my hand even more tightly – good – we were secure. The entire hallway was quite bright – lit by an unknown source – so we could see that it was only a few meters wide and a few dozen meters deep. But this hallway was Wrong, so this part could take a little bit of time or a lot of a bit of time or even negative time.

We walked along slowly and I reminded Nova of the basics: “Remember. You are A Chore Girl Called Nova and I am a Witch Called Hushpuppy.” She seemed to startle when I spoke and looked up at me with wide, dark eyes.

“Y-yeah. I kn-know.” Hmm, maybe Human children are more susceptible to Wrong places than I thought.

“Cool. There should be nine to eleven other Witches there. They are an okay group and I believe I’m still the youngest attendee these days. They like me because I’ve found a few handy Wrong Places where they can gossip without being heard.”

“B-by other W-W-Witches?” Ah. Is this shivering? Is it cold in here? Whoops.

“No. By Gods. We’re here.” There was suddenly a door a few centimeters in front of me. I opened the door and we stepped through into a golden field of unknown plant life vaguely resembling grain, but seemed to have a fibrous texture more similar to Human hair. We were close to the exact center of the Eye, but in the distance you could see the swirling, cloud-like structures that surrounded this strange field. Despite the storm on all sides of this fifty-ish kilometer field, there was a quiet to the whole area that was certainly supernatural, but definitely not exactly Magical. I looked down at her holding my right hand; the kama was securely in place on her arm, so she should be safe.

“You can let go of my hand now.”

“I… No?”

“Uhh, alright then.” I picked a direction and began walking, expecting that we’d-

We were suddenly in a large patio floating some thousand or so kilometers above the rolling field. Nova yelped and barely managed to keep her footing. Maaan, that was a smooooooth teleportation and some very, very old Magic. I turned to the table at the center of the patio; there were six other Witches either ‘sitting’ at or vaguely existing near the table in various forms.

“Leave it to a Witch who can be anywhere she wants at any time to still show up late,” A Witch Called Meverastethin – the one who had shifted us from the entrance to here – commented with some amusement. A Fekthal Witch of some type, they were freaking ancient. You don’t see them all that often, since Fekthal are a lot more particular about rooting out monsters within their own species. But Fekthal have much MUCH stronger Substance than Humans, so they keep their shape a lot better even after close to a thousand years of consuming Fae.

“How rude, to bring a snack to a party like you wouldn’t be fed.” Felicity was one of those vain sorts of Witches that spent too much time and power trying to stave off the changes that accompany consuming Fae. As a result, their Soul outgrew their Substance, so now they were all droopy waaaay too early on in their immortal life. Their skin dripped like so much mud running down the side of a cliff and sometimes their arms would phase out of existence for a bit.

“Before everyone does their rounds of commentary let’s clear some things up. This is a Chore Girl Called Nova. She is not my emergency food or a snack. She is mine. And she will be making the tea today.”

“Wha-Hushpuppy!-” She started to whisper all aggressive-like.

“Show that you are useful to them and you will never be in danger again,” I whispered back. I thought it was way obvious that I had a plan here. But here she was panicking like that wasn’t the worst possible course of action. “She is quite good at all manners of kitchen stuff. Simply supply and she will create. That’s been my experience anyhow.”

There was a cackle of many voices and pitches from the corner; the pile of shadows known as Viktor raised several hands in amusement, “I had heard you had taken in a Human… How quaint.” He waved many hands and most of a kitchen appeared off to the side as the patio stretched to accommodate the new addition.

“Go ahead.” I snatched my hand from her sweaty grip. She moved slowly towards the kitchen setup, started to locate somewhat familiar implements, and quickly fell back into routine, “I’m bad at cooking, so she does all of it. And I hate cleaning, so she does all of that too. Cleaning though, am I right?” There was a general murmur of agreement, since obviously everyone hated cleaning. Especially when you will inevitably outlive all tidiness and watch all things returning to dust, ugh. Speaking of which…

“Whoops! Ooooh Noooo!~ I’ve spilled my pocket sand just everywhere!” Using some classic misdirection, I very deftly and convincingly ‘accidentally’ spilled a handful of sand I had brought with me for the final step of my master plan.

“Hey!”
“Bold of you in this company, you dunce!”
“A Witch Called Hushpuppy, remember how we all hate cleaning?!”
“Hup, there she goes again with some more bullshit.”
“Ahhh youth…”
“HAH! HAH! HAH! Clean that up.”

“Oh no! How could I have done such a thing!” My acting really is perfect. They don’t expect a thing. “Nova, would you kindly?” Nova looked back at me with a raised eyebrow then rolled her eyes. I guess since she’s been around me for like ten years now she can penetrate my brilliant acting.

Clever girl.

She held out her left hand, palm open and facing outward. There was a brief tickling sensation that everyone bristled at as she released a small pulse of PsyEn, and then a moment later SHOOMP, there was a collective gasp as she collected all of the sand I had accidentally (totally on purpose) spilled on the patio floor. The gasp was followed by a long silence as Nova pointed her palm through a patio window and released the sand into the breeze, then continued working in the kitchen. She then walked over to the table with a tray that had three pots on it and set it down, taking a long, steadying breath.

“Um… Pot One has tea made up of small dried apricot-looking fruits and some green leaves I found in the back of a cabinet. Pot Two has a strong black tea with a bit of pepper in it. Pot Three has white tea leaves with some weird-looking lumpy fruit I found that kinda smelled like apples and some cinnamon-ish sticks. I don’t know what anyone likes, so just tell me wh- Oh!”

After she had finished describing what was in each pot, everyone just sort of Magic’d some out either into cups, directly into their mouths, or held a globe of it in the air in front of them, inspecting the craftsmanship on display.

“So as you all can see: good tea and she has conquered both dusting and sweeping as concepts.”

“By the Four…” Leave it to Meverastethin to be the first one to realize the magnitude of what they had just witnessed.

“Now since I am as magnanimous as I am a brilliant merchant, I am more than willing to bring Nova with me to visit some of your Domains… for a price!”

“Name your price.” Viktor demanded, as clearly excited as a pile of shadows can be.

“I’ll be in touch with each of you, there are different things I want from all of you, as I’m sure you can guess… No worries! Anyhow that’s most of what I’ve got. You all have received some treats from me here and there, so Humans and Moonlighters and Witch Hunters have kept me rather busy.”

“Noted. Have you encountered the Pale One again? You – I think – are the only one who has encountered them and lived to tell the tale.”

“Uhhh, the Pale… Oh. No – Why – is she a problem?”

“Two of the three missing from this meeting are dead. Like Dead-Dead. Slain by Her.”

“Wow. I don’t recall her being that powerful.”

“Well then, why don’t we start with that…”

***

The rest was a really boring discussion about the state of the world and the nature of Magic and mutual enemies and some notices of newly Blossomed Witches that no one was going to think about again for a number of years.

Just tedious stuff.

So it was after all of that that the day got really weird. Because after that I tried to open a door to the Wrong Hallway to go home, but we ended up straight back in the storefront instead. That was concerning and I vowed to look into why that happened later. Little Nova walked a few steps into the store and collapsed to the ground. I tilted my head at her questioningly, I mean I know that the rest of the meeting after I said my part was boring but I didn’t think it was that draining.

“That. Was a lot. My Coating,” She held up her hands in front of her face, “…is all worn out.” Oh. Yeah that makes sense. Kinda amazing that she could stand in the same room with all of those Witches. Must have built up something of a tolerance after living here for so many years. However, this was problematic: she didn’t look like she would be able to make dinner in this condition.

“Let’s go into the town for dinner. That seems like it’d be easier today.”

“…Are you sure?”

“Duh, I’m always sure.” That might be an exaggeration.

“I think I’d like that, then.” She pulled herself up to a seated position with some visible effort. She worked hard today as an employee and represented the store nicely. Not only that, every single Witch that sits at that table is about to owe me something important. I’ve heard employees do better with something called ‘Positive Reinforcement’ which – believe it or not – has nothing to do with PsyEn Reinforcement. I recalled something I saw many years ago in some town I had passed through.

I reached down with an open palm and tapped her head three times. “Good job.” Her eyes got super wide as her head bobbed up and down from the force of the palm-tap.

“I-I-yo-I mean- ah- Thank you!” She seemed to turn red again, so maybe she was getting sick? It did seem like she found it to be cold in the Wrong Hallway. She probably needs more blankets.

“Excellent.” I turned back towards the door. I was already hungry for some solid food after all that blasted tea. “Let’s go.”

“Yes, Mom!”

…

…

…

…

What.

I had frozen in my tracks and turned around with a grimace on my face, teeth clenched as if I held a dinner plate in my mouth. When I made eye contact with Nova, she had the same look on her face. I turned back around, opened the door, we both walked through it, and I never brought it up again.

Seriously. What a weird day.

***

Year 11

Nova

I was reading a book at the front desk just after breakfast at the time.

It had been close to a year, maybe a little more, since that extremely scary Tea Party we went to. My morning routine takes sooo much less time ever since I got the hang of my Ability. Wake up, wash up, out to the store front: PsyEn Pulse aaaaannnnndddd SHOOMP and all the detected dust and dirt is collected in my hand. These days I don’t even really need to move the products on the shelf at all. My Ability takes care of all the annoying parts of dusting and sweeping, after all.

Honestly? Most of my job is pretty much too easy now.

Ultimately, what this means is that I have a waaayyy more time to read books and don’t have to deal with-

“I’M NOT FUCKING SCARED OF YOU!!!” I flinched and leapt to my feet, whipping around towards a new side door. I’d never heard Hushpuppy raise her voice at all, let alone scream. She came storming out of the room with a scowl on her face… W-was she about to cry?!

“Uh… is everything okay?”

“YES. Everything is just fine.”

“Doesn’t sound fine to me.”

“Just… go and dispose of the bowl on the table and its contents in there. I can’t deal with that right now. I’ve gotta go prepare for a meeting.”

“A meeting?! You have meetings?! Are we going to another Tea Party?!” Do we have business partners? Woah. Maybe this is more of a legit business than I thought!

“Nova.”

“What?”

“Bowl. Dispose.”

“Okay but like how?”

“Just take it outside and burn it all.”

“Kaaayy, can I have some fire?”

“Make your own!” Wow, she’s testy. I peeked into the room, empty except for a table with a single bowl in it. There was no one else in there – no one obvious anyhow – so I took a few hesitant steps in and – since nothing bad immediately happened – I approached the table and took a look into the bowl. Sitting inside the bowl, totally unassuming, was – a single mushroom like one you’d find growing on any bit of decay in the woods.

…Okay?

I did as I was told and exited the shop-house with the bowl in hand. I grabbed up some dried tinder and stacked it on top of the mushroom, making sure never to completely take my eyes off of it. This was Hushpuppy we were talking about: this mushroom was liable to just get up and run away or something. I grabbed some flint and my steel pocketknife out of my bag and kindled a flame pretty quickly. I fed it some more grass from the general vicinity until the bowl itself cracked from the heat. The chitin of the damp mushroom took a bit to begin burning, but eventually it flared up too, and then-

Nothing.

Well that’s sort of disappointing. I thought this might be some obtuse test on Hushpuppy’s part, but I guess she’s afraid of uncooked mushrooms? After confirming its complete torching, I made sure the fire was doused, gathered up the ashes and other charred debris with my Ability – which I’ve started calling Dust Bunny – and poked my head back inside.

“Okay! It’s done! Do you want the ashes?”

“No! Cast them to the wind!”

“Kaaaay!” I held my right hand out to the sky and launched the gathered ball into the air, dispersing and becoming nothing more than yet another weird memory. “So, where is this ‘meeting’ of yours.”

“Apparently there is another Witch deep in a nearby forest.”

“Uh… Is there a territory problem?”

“Nothing like that. I was asked to check in on them.”

“Wait… Hushpuppy… Meverastethin asked you to do that like a year ago.” Come on Hushpuppy, we should try to do right by your seniors!

“Oh I’m sure they didn’t mean right away!” Ugh she’s waaaayyy too relaxed about these tasks. Then again, ever since that Tea Party, Hushpuppy had brought me to a few other Witches’ domains and they apparently owed her a great deal. Thus far, I haven’t met a limit with how much dust and debris my Dust Bunny can ‘shoomp’ up. But WOW, I’ve pulled up some insanely large spheres of grossness from these Domains. I can’t even put into words what centuries of accumulated filth looks like when packed into a single ball.

“So why now?”

“I’m in the mood.” Heh, she just wants to get away from the mushroom I just torched.

“Cool, can I come? I haven’t really been out of the store today.”

“Yeah sure if you want.”

With that, I made us some sandwiches and put some cold tea into some water skins to take with us on the trip. Apparently we wouldn’t be taking a door straight to this rando Witch’s forest. She claimed this was rude and might make them jumpy.

Whatever.

I’m thoroughly convinced Hushpuppy makes up the rules of Witchiness and Magic as she goes, and she’s just too powerful for most things out there to argue with her. I guess we’ll be able to take some bird or magi-irradiated monstrosity or giant lizard or some other impractical mount to the forest’s edge this time. Again, not sure why we can’t just always do this and why we have to walk places sometimes instead but HEY I don’t make the rules and I’m pretty sure nobody actually does.

“What we got?”

“Sandwiches and white tea.”

“Oh good. You’re good at those.” Whhaaaat is with her lately?! She’s actually been complimenting me lately and it’s really strange. I think ever since I manifested my Ability, she’s finally come to recognize how much I actually do for her. Or something like that. I don’t know exactly why, but even though it’s weird, I can’t say I hate it.

“T-thanks. Let’s just go okay!” I suggested awkwardly. I thought it would be best to get this trip over with and then maybe I would finally ask her where this new-found generosity with her compliments was coming from.

***

Hushpuppy

Hmm? I know this smell! Something is a little off about it, though.

“Stay close, child. We are rather close to the young Witch’s territory.”

“So she’s younger than you?” Ever the inquisitive child.

“By quite a bit, or so I’ve heard. They are rather new I think.”

“So like… What’s the problem then? Why would you be scared of a younger Witch.” Pfft.

“It’s not a matter of fear. Young Witches are unpredictable. The older ones aren’t going to bother with me or mine. Young ones are… Huh.” I stopped and pointed up at a charred skeleton with several severely warped punctures, as if space had twisted around the wounds.

Magic had collapsed in on itself in a local area.

“Dead, I suppose?” Nova finished for me.

“Very, it seems.”

“Ki-Murdered by another Witch?”

“Unlikely… See how everything is all twisty? Meteoric Iron was used on her while she was using Magic… This is the work of a real Witch Hunter.” I had thought I felt someone watching us since we entered this forest. I had assumed it was the young Witch that I had heard lived here at the last Tea Party. But they had been dead for some time now… so then someone was probably waiting and watching right now, waiting for me to be distracted by this-

“Down.” I commanded as I whipped around at the distant sense of bloodlust I had felt. I started to draw a door in the air in front of me as a precaution, but thought better of it and drew my kama instead. Nova dropped to the ground obediently, her head turning all about trying to identify the threat. My eyes picked up the slightest grey glint in the distant darkness and stepped to the side while sweeping my kama in the opposite direction. A very, very large bolt of Meteoric Iron scraped across the inner curve of the blade, deviating away from where my chest had been but a moment ago and burying into a tree behind us. If not for the sniper’s failure of emotional discipline, that might have done severe damage to me!

“Well now, that was rude. Normally when someone wants to kill me th-”

“Murder, you mean?”

“…Are you… Seriously? In front of the enemy?!” By the Four! This child!

“You do it in front of people all the time!”

“Yeah but this is a real Witch Hunter, I’m sure of it!”

“Well maybe you shouldn’t be monologuing then!”

“Uggghhhh- ANYHOW, we both know that if that little sneak attack failed, you’re not gonna get another shot off on me. You’re probably the one who pinned this one up there,” I jerked a thumb back at the corpse we had been investigating as I shouted into the darkness. Not even the crickets or the birds or the frogs spoke as I waited patiently for our would-be assailant to make their next move. Eventually, I heard surprisingly quiet footsteps moving through the forest towards the clearing where Nova and I stood.

Finally a man in a tan outfit entered the clearing. The air about him was laden with foreboding.

Oh? Oooh?!

This was definitely a real Witch Hunter. This is definitely the one who took down that little Witch. Weird, I’m surprised he actually obliged me and revealed himself. Then again, he waited until he had a near-perfect shot; left bait for us and everything. We were probably at a disadvantage here; I really oughta be careful.

***

Nova

“Fine then – A Witch Called Hushpuppy – if you’re willing to communicate for a minute, that simplifies things.” A man that looked ethnically similar to me and had a really scary aura walked out from the brush. He reached up with fitted brown leather gloves and pulled down a tan face mask that matched the rest of his outfit.

He looked like no sort of person I had ever seen before, which made it even more surprising when instead of talking to Hushpuppy, instead he turned to me and said, “It’s okay, Kalyani, you’re safe now.”

“Huh?!” Both Hushpuppy and I vocalized our surprise involuntarily; who could possibly know my true name at this point? And moreover, how is someone that just shot at us gonna tell me that ‘I’m safe now’?!

Hushpuppy glanced over her shoulder at me. “Nova, you know this guy?”

“Uhhh not even a little.”

“But you must, right?”

“Why is that? Just cause he knows me doesn’t mean I know him!”

“Hmm. Fair.”

“Enough. Witch, release your Magical charm over my daughter’s heart and prepare to die.”

“Magical what? Daughter?! Oh shit you have a Father?! Man yeah I guess that makes sense but still… what a twist!”

“A Dad, huh…?” I mean, I knew I had to have one, but wasn’t this a bit presumptuous of him?

“If you are no coward – and  you seem reasonable enough – I’d rather my child not be caught in the crossfire of this battle.” Wait.

“So you’re here to retrieve her?” What am I, a parcel? But surprisingly, Hushpuppy once again glanced back at me and asked the unthinkable. “Well then, do you want to go with him?”

She’s joking, right?

“What?! No!! How could you even ask that?! I don’t know this guy!” She wouldn’t just fold on taking care of me on a whim, would she?

“Ah excellent. Well, Mister Witch Hunter. She doesn’t want to go with you. So I guess there is no reason for us to fight, since surely your hunger was satiated by this nascent bud you plucked earlier.” Hushpuppy gestured over her shoulder to the charred corpse of the ‘young Witch’ we had been investigating earlier.

“You are a Witch: a cannibalistic Magician more monster than Human. That is more than enough reason for me to kill you.”

“Murder me, you mean. And how many times do I have to tell you people? I. Don’t. Eat. Humans.” Hushpuppy repeated the same refrain she always did every time this came up, but it seemed she also knew that time for discussion had ended. As she finished that familiar statement she removed her oversized floppy hat from her head, reached inside of it, and pulled out a short, roughly meter-long staff out from inside of it before tossing the hat to the side. She slammed the staff into the handle of her kama and gave a brief twist, locking the sickle in place at the end of the rod. It looked almost like a practical weapon in this form… I don’t think I’d ever seen Hushpuppy take anything other than sales this seriously before.

“You all go bad, sooner or later. Your hands are already stained enough without adding man-eating to your list of sins.” The Man Who Called Me His Daughter had a speckled black and grey sword in his hand faster than my eyes could register, but Hushpuppy simply giggled to herself, as if remembering something funny. She ran her long, dark fingers along the flat of her weapon and glanced slightly in my direction.

“Nova,”
“Kalyani,”

““This will be over soon.”” They both assured me.

***

Hushpuppy

The Witch Hunter’s arm raised in a flash and a hidden arm-mounted crossbow sprung to life, unloading two bolts at me in rapid succession. I side-stepped them easily enough – deciding to deal with them later – but he closed the gap between us breath-takingly fast and lunged in with a vicious thrust at my abdomen. I brought my staff across my body as I hopped back away from him, pushing his blade off to the side and reversing the grip of my upper hand such that I could pull the bottom of my staff whilst pushing the top, pecking at his exposed face with the sickle like a bird. But he was too fast for such a maneuver and simply leaned his head to the side before hopping backwards.

He really was quite fast.

I was going to need a bit better vision to deal with this foe. As he hit the ground I plucked my eye out and tossed it into the air so I could get a better look at things. Since my eye was above him, I was able to see more and the PsyEn that the two Humans below were Coated in became clear to me.

It was probable that he’d try to rob me of my high ground vantage point, so before he could try to shoot my eye, I leapt at him and took a couple swings with my sickle. Which he dodged easily and returned the favour, trying to decapitate me. I ducked under the swing, but as soon as I did his boot came up and cracked me in the jaw.

Oof, that was steel-toed. Rude.

A few things happened all at once: I started to fall backwards, the Witch Hunter lunged in for another thrust at my exposed belly, and something came flying from above and behind me in the woods.

“HUSH-” Nova tried to warn me, but from the vantage point my right eye had, everything was quite clear to me. I slammed the butt of my kama into the ground and released the two crossbow bolts that I had decided to ‘deal with later’ out of two small doors: one from a tree off to the side and one from right underneath me where our scuffle had traced a rough rectangle in the ground. The one that came out of the ground struck the man’s sword, deflecting its trajectory away from my body, and the other collided with the oncoming crossbow bolt, doing the same as its twin bolt.

I finished flipping over my kama-staff and landed deftly a few meters from the Witch Hunter. How had he triggered such an exact attack from far away? Did he have an ally? You don’t typically see Witch Hunters move in groups. They tend to be a pretty unsavory bunch with huge egos on top of their martyr complexes.

He exhaled loudly. “Witches who are all talk and Magic are a copper a dozen… But I can see why so many have fallen at your hands.” Aww a compliment?! For me? Nova! I think your dad is trying to flirt with me!

“Would you believe that my hands don’t end up killing most of them? Most of the time they just inadvisably follow me through doorways and then I just leave them on the other side.” I was using my aerial eye to survey the woods, trying to pierce the thick canopy and figure out how he was triggering precise shots while fighting.

“Poor souls. You don’t even give them the decency to die facing their enemies. Truly pitiful.” He was likely trying to keep this conversation going just long enough to set up his next trap. He would continue trying to hit me from multiple angles at once so that he could create an opening to stake me with some Meteoric Iron. How many bolts had been loaded in that arm crossbow of his? Ugh, his Coating was way too thick to risk a Cause/Effect reversal. As soon as he saw that kind of opening, it would be Meteoric Iron that plunged into me, nothing else.

Real Witch Hunters really made you think.

“Pitiful… Yes, on that I think we agree. They needed to think a little bit… outside of the box.” I drew a small rectangle in the air and smiled at him. Then I quickly palmed open the metaphorical door, which I opened into a mountaintop shrine… somewhere West, I think. His eyes widened as the air in the general vicinity violently flowed into the door and he reflexively jumped away from it. As soon as he did, I closed the door and leapt after him. The sudden lack of any pull behind him made him overshoot his jump and he tried desperately to rebalance in the air for his unexpected landing near the edge of the clearing we were in.

He’s mine.

Or so I thought, but another perfectly aimed heavy bolt came flying square at my head. I stopped my leap short and jumped backwards, focusing more of my attention on my distant eye. I saw where that one came from and followed it. As I thought, there was a heavy crossbow stationary turret of sorts set up in this tree. On the peripheral of that eye’s line of sight was a silvery flash of movement, when I turned to focus on it-

A floating, fully functional PsyEn arm. Complete with a gauntleted hand.

So this was his Ability.

Such focus, to be able to fight me, manage this Psionic limb, AND line up these shots. Well then, we should make it harder for him to comprehend my exact position in space then. I took a deep breath and readied myself to use Magic specifically. I hadn’t really needed to do so since Nova and I first arrived in town and crossed that chasm, but desperate times and all. He began his approach again as I prepared myself and I put my kama-staff between my teeth. Just before he reached me with his vicious sword, I began crawling upwards on all fours upon invisible steps. Several meters up above him now, he simply-

Smiled?

He punched the pommel of his sword and there was an explosion of sparks as what I had thought was a normal, Meteoric Iron longsword flipped on many hinges into a weird geometric approximation of a curve. His hands moved in a blur as a grey sinew was drawn from the tip of one blade to another and he completed the transformation of his Bow-Blade.

A Bow-Blade?!?

How many decades has it been since I saw anyone utilize such a wildly impractical and impossibly awesome weapon?!

Unfortunately I was left with little time to admire the artifact as he immediately opened fire with arrow after oversized arrow. Every now and then, another click would occur in the woods from whatever canopy the PsyEn arm had floated over to. I barely managed to dance on the air, unable to freefall and unable to climb higher with the constant projectile pressure. Some of these arrows and bolts were starting to graze me and even draw some black blood from me.

“Well played, Witch Hunter!” I shouted down to him as I barely swiped both an arrow and a bolt out of the air in one sweep. “My turn,” I told him, closing my left eye so that my only perspective was from directly above me. From this point of view, it was difficult to tell the difference in height between me and the Witch Hunter. Thus, I was able to start slashing at him with my sickle’s extended reach from where I stood. I swiped at him, back and forth and back and forth then up and down and up and down repeatedly. He continued to dodge and dodge and dodge with a bit of a smirk on his face, I think. He was sure that after I finished this attack, that he would win.

Perfect.

I gave one last vertical slice and then opened my left eye back up. As I did so, I took a small leather bag I normally kept attached to my hip and threw it at the Witch Hunter as hard as I could. He shot it out of the air with an additional bolt he had loaded in his arm-mounted crossbow. The contents of the bag scattered through the air and fell to the ground.

“You have my thanks, Witch Hunter. For not underestimating me. For never pulling your eyes away from A Witch Called Hushpuppy for a single moment.” The bag’s contents suddenly spread unnaturally just before hitting the ground, positioning themselves such that they landed on the exact center of the numerous rectangles that I had carved into the ground with my attacks from the air.

A twenty by twenty grid of doors that were just knocked upon by the various ‘keys’ that I’d scattered from my punctured bag.

The Witch Hunter’s head whipped to and fro as he tried to comprehend what was about to happen to him, but it was much too late. The first door opened just underneath his right foot, and he had good enough reflexes to jump away as it opened into The Sepulcher. He jumped immediately upon landing as the ground gave way underneath him to a pool of magma. Another door opened three doors down and began taking air in from the surrounding area. He tried to get as far away from it as he could and almost landed straight into The Slaughterhouse.

Over and over he dodged and jumped and hopped amongst doors, unable to make it out of the grid – the outer doors being far too dangerous for him to jump over. He couldn’t even Reinforce his jump enough to make it up into the tree with the doors opening and closing so quickly beneath his feet. And all the while he never noticed that I was getting closer and closer and closer. And when he turned to jump away from one of the many hundred doors trying to swallow him, he jumped right towards me fully exposed and he knew it.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget that face.

His PsyEn limb came careening in from the woods, but it was sloppy in his panic and I easily dodged it. Retaliating with my kama-staff, his physical right arm flew through the air, spilling red blood everywhere. I twirled around him and neatly punctured the back of his right leg, then came around front and cracked him in the forehead with the butt of my staff. I left the door directly underneath him closed and let all the others go through their motions of opening then closing.

The One-Armed Witch Hunter fell to his knees, clutching his shoulder stump and his PsyEn limb dissipated as his focus finally broke. He would bleed out pretty much immediately if he tried to move or let go of his own shoulder. I wiped my sweaty brow and approached him – keeping my guard up – but he moved not at all. Wow though, that was rough. I could have died there if I had screwed up at all. I unhooked the staff from my Kama and tossed the stick aside.

“So… Nova… Got anymore relatives… I should know about?!” I asked her accusingly, catching my breath. I hadn’t worn myself out like this in a while.

“Uh… I dunno, maybe?” She had been keeping herself scarce and off to the side this whole time – a most intelligent move – and gave her non-answer as she sat down against a tree.

“Damn… Witch… It wasn’t enough… to kill Jasmin… you had to take Kalyani too… fucking monster.”

“Oh don’t write me into your narrative like some tragic backstory element, Witch Hunter. I didn’t take anything that belonged to you. You left and never came back. I acquired Nova like three years-”

“Six. Hushpuppy. Just wow-”

“-Six years ago. It’s not like I’ve been covering our tracks. How long did it take you, I wonder? To even come home and find the corpse? How decomposed was it? Did you even recognize her? Would you have? Actually. Nevermind. I don’t care.”

I swung my kama at his head, but I stopped the tip a hair’s breadth from his neck.

Maybe Nova cared?

“Well. I gave her Mother last rites. I suppose if I gave the courtesy to someone that useless, I may as well extend the same offer to the one she clearly got her brains from as well.” Fair is fair, after all.

He continued to glare up at me impassively and maintained his silence for a little while before growling, “Nothing.”

“Really? Not a thing to say to Nova? Don’t want to offer some advice? Or bequeath your possessions? Confess your love or something? Come now – Witch Hunter – do you truly have nothing of value to offer her other than your absence?” To his credit, he at least looked at Nova for the briefest of moments.

I sighed. “Well, Nova. I’m going to take his life now unless you’ve got a particularly good reason why I shouldn’t.” Maybe it’s mean to put it in her hands, but it’s not like she tried to help him or anything. However, I was a tad surprised when she quickly answered:

“Like I said before: I don’t know that guy. Do what you want.” I felt a grin spread across my face despite myself as his eyes widened in understanding.

“Oh yes – Witch Hunter – that is a good face.” I congratulated him as I brought my arm back and swung my kama mightily, taking his head clean off. His body flopped to the ground in a bloody heap. I turned to face Nova, who had been looking on impassively from her seated position.

“Well then, Nova. I don’t know about you but I’m starving. Still got those sandwiches?”

“I do…  but let’s bury him- both of them.”

“…Why?”

“It’s the right thing to do. Or we can cremate them. But we shouldn’t just leave them here to be picked at by bottom feeders.”

“Huh, alright if that’s what you want to do.”

“Also – Ugh – don’t forget your eye up there…”

“Oh yeah!”

***

Nova

We burned them, in the end.

It was less effort, overall. Hushpuppy convinced the tree that the young Witch had been staked against to twist itself into something resembling a pyre, then tossed The Witch Hunter Who Called Me His Daughter onto it. It seemed fitting that he should burn together with the Witch he murdered.

If he had beaten Hushpuppy, would he have burned her with Jasmin? I wonder.

Hushpuppy – in her post-patricidal glee – deigned to open a door to grab a ‘special flame’ that she wouldn’t give me the details on. As they burned, I stood by the pyre, thinking I should do something. I recited a little prayer that I learned in some Church of the Four text that I once read.

“Thank the Flame for consuming this flesh. Thank the Water for reclaiming this blood. Thank the Wind for scattering these ashes. Thank the Earth for giving life from this death.”

“A prayer to The Four, how quaint. You really are a learned, clever child. So many things you know.” Hushpuppy commented, doing that thing she sometimes does where she awkwardly pats my hair. I felt my face flush and my head steam regardless; she started doing that out of nowhere a year ago and I still wasn’t used to it. She had been very liberal with her compliments today and my heart was pounding from it.

“Um. Thanks. It’s ’cause you keep buying me books. Which I like. So don’t stop that.”

“Mmm, I don’t know about that, I don’t think there is room for many more.” Hushpuppy had shoved the sandwich that I’d made for her into her mouth with all the manners of a drowning coyote. She came over and broke a small stick off of the pyre and walked a little bit away to start drawing a door on the ground.

“Yeah you keep saying that but the house keeps getting bigger on the inside…” We went through the motions of our usual bit as she drew a door home and I watched the fire. I was in the weird position of feeling like I should be feeling something about this situation, anything in particular. But here I was, more concerned with whether or not the flames – as Hushpuppy had assured me – really wouldn’t spread.

“It’s nice to know,” Hushpuppy began (I jumped a little bit; I did not really expect her to speak again until we’d gotten back home), “That you really are a Witch Hunter’s daughter. It really makes a lot more sense of your intelligence. To think a Moonlighter and a Witch Hunter would have a child… Amazing…”

“I’m… glad you think that’s amazing? I guess? Would you really have let me go? If I had decided to go with him?”

“Of course. I told you before: you’re free to go when and where you please.”

“You really mean that, don’t you?” She stopped drawing her door and tilted her head at me.

“Do I speak lies to you, child?”

“Hmm, I wonder…”

“Brat.” I gave her a laugh and turned back towards the fire, but then snuck a glance over my shoulder back at the Witch in my life. Hushpuppy had said many nice things to me today, and I really appreciated that. But I had to wonder: if I had been the one who died today, would she bury me? Burn me? And would she cry afterwards?

I looked back at the pyre and tried to imagine if it had been Hushpuppy I was cremating here. I think – no – I know I would cry. I would definitely cry for Hushpuppy.

But I would never tell her that.