Snitch Witch

by J L Collins

  Thin white threads of magic shot out of my wand, attaching themselves to the space above his eyebrows, we Witches knew as the third eye. His gaze remained the same until his eyes shut, his body heavily slouching back against Erie behind him. She grunted with effort at trying to keep him somewhat upright.

  “What happened?” Marina came careening back into the alcove, looking down at her uncle with terror in her eyes.

  “Oh my god!” Fiona-Leigh shouted, running up behind her.

  Erie was quicker on her feet than I was this time, she pulled out her thin wand, speaking the incantation directly into Marina’s pale face until she had the same unsteady look. I caught Marina as she collapsed forward.

  Fiona-Leigh gasped, her head whipping between me and Erie. “Mom?”

  “Forget the images, forget the memories. Hear only my words as I speak to thee . . . Marina, when you fully awake, you will be in your bed after a day at the mall with Fiona-Leigh. Your Uncle Sully made dinner for you after you got back. You never saw me or my cousin today. I never introduced you to my cousin. Everything that happened after 11:00 AM this morning did not happen—you did not see, hear, or experience any of it. Forget the images, forget the memories. You’ve heard only my words as I’ve spoken to thee. Okay, here we go,” I said, carefully picking her up. Luckily, she was a tiny thing, but Erie was definitely going to need some help with Sully.

  “What am I supposed to do with him?” she hissed, still trying to keep him semi-upright.

  I frantically looked around, trying to think on my toes. “Oh! Aunt Bee has one of those dumpster bins! It’s big enough that we can fit them both in it and move it through the forest without too much hassle . . .”

  “A garbage bin?” Fiona-Leigh whispered.

  “Without too much hassle? Are you kidding me, Gwen? That’s going to be a huge hassle! Really thought this one through, have you?” Erie said sarcastically.

  “What? What else was I supposed to do? We can’t have them remembering what happened with my wand, and it’s not like we could just perform the memory redactor spells there in his house! I had to convince them to come all the way out there somehow.”

  Fiona-Leigh slid down against one of the large boulders making up the alcove. “I can’t believe this. After all of that . . .”

  I knew I shouldn’t, but I looked at her standing there. Her eyes were full of tears threatening to fall and her face was screwed up in a quiet sort of anger as she stared straight ahead.

  So much for winning her trust back.

  14

  Memories of the Hiker

  The door nearly slammed in my face. I growled, pulling out the foot I’d shoved in between the door and threshold before Fiona-Leigh could shut it all the way behind her.

  “That was unnecessary,” I called out.

  Fiery red bits of hair trailed behind her as she rounded the corner heading straight for her room. I swore softly, wishing I could think of something better to say on the spot. Jax, whom I took back home before we left for the gateway earlier, whined at my feet.

  “It’s okay, buddy. She’ll come out. Eventually.”

  I bent down to pick him, needing a little love myself. Oisín was nowhere to be found and for once I didn’t care. He knew how to take care of himself, even with his penchant for dramatics. He’d come back home for breakfast at least.

  I scrolled through what felt like an endless, monotonous list of movies on Netflix, nothing really catching my interest. Even the bowl of oatmeal with a coma-inducing amount of sugar had no taste. I slumped back on the couch, feeling just like the oatmeal sliding down my gullet.

  It wasn’t like I meant to get her hopes up about telling Marina the truth. I didn’t really have time to tell her what my plan was and I wasn’t sure she would’ve reacted so positively to it even if I had. What Fiona-Leigh wanted more than anything—aside from being able to do magic herself, of course—was to spill the beans about Spell Haven to her best friend. And I completely understood where she was coming from. I wished I had someone I could tell about Spell Haven the entire time I was here in Midnight Pitch before she found out.

  The door to Fiona-Leigh’s bedroom creaked open and she was quietly sliding out to go into the bathroom. I turned when I didn’t hear the bathroom door shut, and found her standing halfway between the living room and the kitchen, gripping the wall of the hallway.

  Her eyes were red. “Mama.”

  I twisted until I was all the way facing her. “Yes?”

  “That was a terrible thing to do to them.”

  Straightening my posture, I prepared for whatever words she was ready to hurl my way. “No. It was the right thing to do, Fi. I have a duty to protect those here in the Human Realm from finding out about the Other Realm. Spell Haven is no place for humans.”

  She pulled herself away from the wall. “I’m a human.”

  “I know, sweetheart. That was why I kept it all from you for so long. I did it to protect you. But bringing in others . . . that’s not only against Spell Haven laws, but it’s dangerous to the town. Humans have a long history of punishing what they do not understand.” My stomach was heavy at the thought of all the years of human history I’d read up on. Genocide. Wars. Religious uprisings pinning one group of beliefs against another… It was a bloody thing to read about, much less experience.

  And the idea of Witches in the Human Realm (at least those enlightened individuals who practiced a form of energy manipulation, anyway) wasn’t welcome throughout most of history, either.

  She bent her head forward, sighing. “I just hate keeping this from her so much. It’s not fair. She would keep the secret—I know she would! And look at how well Sully seemed to be taking it! What if we could try again, maybe this time—”

  I stood up. “No. We will do no such thing. You have to promise me that you will never tell them, or anyone, about me or about the Other Realm. We can’t risk the consequences,” I said firmly, wishing there wasn’t this huge wall between us. “You’re right. It isn’t fair. But I can’t very well erase your memories, nor would I want to. It’s something we’re both going to have to bear, living here in the Human Realm. It seriously sucks, yes, I know.”

  Fiona-Leigh slipped into the kitchen. Turning back to the Netflix queue, I tried to clear my own head.

  But she was back with a glass of water, staring at me as she took a seat on the recliner. Jax bounded up into her lap, oblivious to any tension in the house whatsoever. She scratched him behind his ears.

  “You want to help me find something to watch?” I asked, wondering if maybe a light-hearted comedy wouldn’t help diffuse the situation some. My skin itched at the thought of sitting here with Fi, neither of us talking.

  “No. Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something.” She stated this calmly, sipping her water as if she were another adult.

  Well. This is going to be a fun conversation. I turned the tv off, frowning as a small knot wound inside my stomach again. “What’s up?”

  “If we’re going to be these so-called crusaders of protecting magic or whatever,” she began, sounding more like herself, “then we have to be totally honest with each other, right?”

  I wasn’t liking where this was going… “Uh-huh. That was the deal.”

  She drew in a deep breath and I steeled myself for whatever was about to come out of her mouth. “Then I’d like you to tell me about my father. The whole story. You’ve been putting it off ever since I first found out about him.”

  That knot of dread spread out, thinning out into something more malleable, coating my insides. This was not what I was expecting her to say. She sat back easier in the chair.

  “Uh. I guess we could, um . . . talk about that.” Honestly, I’d rather be back in the woods than have this talk with Fi. No amount of waiting was ever truly going to prepare me. “What do you want to know?” I would’ve been fine with never having to talk about Adam again, quite honestly.

  She studied my face for a moment, placing Jax
back down on the ground. “The beginning, I guess. How did you two meet? I mean, it was here in the Human Realm, right?”

  A memory is a funny thing. One tiny thought you pull from the past is like the seed that shoots up and instantly blooms into all these other thoughts, pictures, experiences. Sort of like a budding flower. For me, it was sitting on the bank of Rickshaw Lake, watching my reflection in the water ripple outward.

  “It was one of my first real missions as part of the Shadow Hands. I graduated from the academy a couple of months prior, top of my class. I was anxious to prove myself to Uncle Gardner, even though I didn’t know that it wasn’t necessary. As soon as he brought up there being a possible CHARM coming up, my hand was the first one in the air to volunteer for it.”

  “What’s a CHARM?”

  “C.H.A.R.M. It stands for Classified Human and Related Mission. It’s pretty common for us to check into the Human Realm to keep an eye on things. Sometimes things pop up that we need to investigate. Since we don’t want to draw any attention to ourselves, we go in pairs instead of larger groups.”

  “So, what was going on? Another magic leak?”

  I shook my head. “No. It was a disturbance at the gateway. We weren’t sure at first. Uncle Gardner thought it might be something like a stray animal accidentally going through the gateway. We have charms in place to stop that, but every now and then one of the smaller ones sneak through so we have to be careful.”

  “Keeping control of the ecological system. Gotcha.”

  “My partner was late the morning we were heading out to conduct the scouting. I was getting pretty impatient and he wasn’t responding to my fire message, so I decided to go on alone. I had my briefing anyway, and part of your Shadow Hand training is to spend several days in the field so to speak. In the Human Realm—to check out how they live without magic, observe but never initiate contact. I figured I had all that in my back pocket and I should just go ahead and handle things myself. Plus, I wanted to impress Uncle Gardner.”

  She nodded, keeping up. “I can see that.”

  “It was a humid day and even though I brought water with me I was still thirsty once I got through the gateway and downed my canteen. I remember looking for the nearest river source and feeling like an idiot for forgetting to bring my map with me. Mistake number one.

  The day was dragging on, and we were only supposed to be scouting around the gateway itself for signs of potential tampering. But I had wandered way off to find some water, and without the map and ability to use magic, I was kind of screwed. Then I heard it. Something big was making its way through the forest way too close for comfort. I don’t know if Erie ever mentioned this or not, but we don’t have bears in the Other Realm. I’d heard about them and the fear of the unknown creature was really starting to get under my skin. It was embarrassing to say the least, since I didn’t want to seem weak. I hid behind a fallen log, hoping whatever it was would just keep going.”

  Fiona-Leigh was leaning forward, listening intently.

  “But I heard this sound of trickling water and was confused. I wasn’t at the river . . . so what was it? I looked back over the log and saw a guy standing there, pouring water over his head to cool off. He was hiking and must have stopped to take a break.” I took in another deep breath, the image of dark red hair curling at the nape of his neck sinking me back into the moment. “He leaned against a tree, looking over a map and checking his compass. We were taught how to use compasses too in training, and I thought maybe if I talked to him, he could let me take a look at his map, and I could be on my way. It was breaking the number one rule of a CHARM, but I didn’t see any other way to get back on track.”

  Without being totally weird, I slowly stand up, making sure my wand is tucked safely away. He doesn’t notice me right away which is good. It gives me enough time to make it look like I’m coming from another direction and not lurking behind a log.

  The guy flips his shaggy red hair back, taking a swig from his own canteen. It’s pretty flat from this angle—he probably needs more water, too.

  I clear my throat, jumping back a little when he goes for whatever he has in one of the many pockets in his shorts. “Sorry,” I say, throwing my hands up like I was taught to do. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  He’s looking at me like I’ve grown another limb. I almost want to check to make sure I haven’t accidentally knocked into some dublach mums on my way to the gateway. I glance down at myself anyway.

  The guy pulls himself away from the tree, still staring. “Uh, hi. I didn’t know anyone else was out here.”

  His eyes. I’ve seen plenty of Witches and other creatures with brown eyes… but his are different. The warm brown of Aunt Bee’s toffees in the shop. Darker around the edges, lighter closer to his pupil. Lashes that would put anyone to shame.

  I stumble to reply, my cheeks burning as I’m searching for whatever it is I’m about to say. “I was um, looking for the river and must have lost my map along the way. Do you think I could take a look at yours?” There were plenty of other questions I wanted to ask him—how is your hair the exact color of the leaves on the redbud trees during the cooler months when the Fae change the weather to let old plant life die away? Do you train in a special academy too? Is that how your arms and legs are in perfect muscular shape?

  The guy is still staring. Did he hear me? Is this someone who has trouble with their hearing? I’ve read in some texts that there are many humans that are ‘disabled’ though really they are able to carry on with their lives all the same. There is some kind of hand language involved here… but I have no idea how to use it.

  He shakes his head. A smile starts from one end of his mouth, slowly crossing to the other. I didn’t think it was possible for someone’s lips to be so soft-looking.

  “Sorry. I’m just . . . I’ve never seen someone with purple hair like that before. I mean, maybe some of the goth chicks at school. But you don’t strike me as the angsty type.”

  I’m running my hands through the sweaty, lilac mess toward the front of my face. “Oh. Yeah, um. That’s just my hair.” Not at all what I was hoping he’d say. What am I hoping he’ll say? ‘Fair maiden, you are the most beautiful in all the land?’ Hardly. He definitely isn’t some fancy-pants Fairy prince from the olden days.

  He laughs and something rises through my chest, lighter than air.

  “To answer your question, yes. You can check out the map if you need to. The river isn’t for another twelve miles that way, though,” he says, pointing behind me. Completely off course from where I’ve been going. “There’s a small lake though a couple of miles this way. I was actually headed there myself. Did you need to refill?”

  He’s looking at the canteen hanging off my backpack. A hiker with some smarts about him, too.

  “Yes. I made the mistake of drinking it too quickly, I guess. It’s not usually this humid where I’m from.” Beads of sweat roll down my back and chest as if further proving my point.

  His eyebrows knit together, creating this cute little line between them. “Are you sure you’re okay to keep going? I could go fill up your canteen and bring it back if you want. We don’t want you passing out almost forty miles from the nearest hospital.”

  Oh wow. We were taught a lot of things about humans and their ways of life, but I never thought I’d meet one so caring like this one. I adjust the straps on my backpack and start walking in the direction he pointed, toward the lake. “I’m fine, thanks. Let’s get going then.” It never occurs to me that I should separate myself from him, but it does occur to me that I should probably introduce myself so as not to be rude.

  “I’m Adam, by the way,” he says, butting ahead of me. “Do you go to Mitchell University too?”

  Adam. Simple. And pretty ironic, considering he was the first human I’d ever met. I remembered reading about the myths in the Human Realm. One surfaced in my mind, about the first human man on Earth.

  “No, I’m just visiting from somewhere else.” Why
am I smiling like an idiot? “And I’m Gwendolyn.” Inwardly, I want to smack myself for using my whole name. I never go by it except by my elders or on formal occasions.

  “Gwendolyn? I like that. It’s different. Like your hair,” he says, shortening his long strides to stay on par with me.

  Fiona-Leigh shushed Jax as he started to whine at her feet, bringing me back to the present. “You met while he was hiking? Is that something he liked to do? He sounds . . . really nice.”

  “He was. He was very much into being outdoors, learning about nature. For a human he was very aware of the world around him, and really saw the beauty in it. He was studying to become some kind of environmental engineer.”

  “And you two got to the lake finally?”

  I nodded. “We spent the rest of the day there, actually. I thought it wouldn’t hurt. Just one day. But then once I was back home, I found myself wanting to go back. And with the tongue-lashing I got for going and doing scouting on my own, I wasn’t sure I was going to be allowed to. But I begged Uncle Gardner to let me continue. I knew it was unlikely I’d see Adam again. He was on his way down to Georgia after all, and who knew how far he’d gotten while I was gone?”

  “It was like the planets and the moon had aligned or something. I got far enough away from my partner, and started sweeping the area like I was supposed to. But I kept hoping I’d see the little blue tent he brought with him. I lost my mind when I saw it, this time keeping an eye on the map so I’d remember the location. And he was there. It was perfect. After that . . . well. It was hard to be away from him.”