Water Witch

by R. J. Blain

  I shuddered at the thought of being forever stuck in the devil’s hands. “Please, no.”

  The doctor chuckled. “I thought you’d say something like that. Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to be left to your own devices to get back on your feet. You’ve already been disconnected from all of the machines; I did that before I injected the stimulant to reverse your comatose state. You will have some muscle degradation, although I did what I could to mitigate the damage from inactivity. There’s a shower, and go ahead and run the water supply dry if it helps you get grounded and start centering yourself. Think of some places you want to go, and I’ll see about making sure you can get there or somewhere similar.”

  “I know someone in Malibu who surfs,” I admitted, wishing I could go back to how I’d been then, when I’d been able to surf, feel the sharks in the water, and not worry about the dragon my magic had become.

  “As I know full well your father would go find you in Malibu and drag you home, as that’s what idiot wolves do, I can’t send you there, but tell me about your surfer friend. The Inquisition will have no issues footing the bill for someone to join you while you recover. Sometimes, the most important part of healing is something as simple as having a friend. One without reservations.”

  Dan met that criteria; like the devil, I figured the Fenerec was too stupid to fear me—or liked surfing good waves more than he worried about death at my hands. I could work with that, however idiotic it seemed. “His name is Dan, he’s a wolf, and he has a surf shop in Malibu.”

  “I’ll find him and see what I can do about sending him your way. If surfing is what you want, surfing is what you’ll get. It’s good therapy for a water witch, too. The desert is a terrible place for a water witch, Dustin. You need your element. Hell, I expect you’re as strong as you are because your witchcraft is as stubborn as you are and continuously seeks out water sources in a place lacking water. It’s a thought. You get yourself up and on the move. You’re going to feel weak and unsteady, but it’ll ease soon enough. Take your time. You’ll be back on the mend in a few days, and while you shouldn’t push hard for the sake of your heart, you’ll be fine. We don’t heal like Fenerec do, but it’s hard to keep a strong witch down. If you need help, give a shout. There’ll be someone on the other side of the door. But, I’ve met young men like you before. I think the last thing you want is help. I think you need a chance to prove you can do something on your own—even if it’s as minor as taking a shower. And in your current physical condition? Taking a shower on your own will be an accomplishment. Take it one step at a time, do your best to keep your chin up, and try not to give up hope. I get that’s hard, especially for your current situation. I’ll do my best to find good people who can help you find the secret to controlling your witchcraft, and if we all do our best and can’t find a way, I am not against doing whatever is necessary to help you. But I think we’ll be able to find a way without drastic measures. And well, if we have to take drastic measures, there are ways to burn out even the strongest of witchcraft talents, and I know those ways.”

  I frowned. “There are ways to burn out a talent other than using witchbane?”

  “Witchbane is child’s play, comparatively. Yes, there are ways to kill your witchcraft, but it would leave you scarred. But, with the strength of your magic? Scarred might be better than the alternative.”

  As the alternative involved killing everyone I loved with a single uncontrolled thought, I believed I would much prefer the scars. “Options are good,” I finally said after the silence dragged on.

  “Especially for someone who had thought he’d run out of them, like you.”

  “Can I ask a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why aren’t you afraid of me?”

  The doctor smiled, and I wondered at the gentleness of his expression. “I’ve seen true evil in this world, Dustin, and you aren’t it. I think your problem is simpler than you think.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your magic is a reflection of you, and it manifests as such. You care about others so much that your witchcraft is constantly on the search of those you can help. It doesn’t understand you can’t help everyone. It doesn’t understand you are human with human limitations, so it’s constantly searching and touching everyone around you to help you accomplish what you want to do, which is to help. Sensors are usually caring people. Empathic people. People who have more heart than sense. From everything I’ve heard about you, you’re more heart than sense, Dustin Walker. And that’s not a bad thing. You just have to learn to temper it, control the magic your heart made, and find a new way to live in the world. But when you do, I think you’ll find you’ll be able to do all you wanted and even more—just not in the ways you expected. But I do have one piece of advice.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t become a doctor. Learn how the body works, learn how to help people when you can, but don’t become a doctor. It would break you.”

  I considered his words, wondering why I wouldn’t do well at becoming a doctor. I could tell when someone had cancer. I knew when people were dying. Wouldn’t I excel at such a thing?

  Then, I realized a cold, harsh truth.

  Sensing cancer, sensing the approach of death, and even sensing the presence of new life didn’t mean I could do anything about it. That burden had been part of what had broken me in the first place.

  “Oh.”

  The doctor headed for the door. “Now that you understand, I’ll leave you to your thoughts and your shower. Shout if you need someone, otherwise, take your time.”

  I watched the doctor leave, and while distant, likely thanks to some drug or another, I sensed no fear from those around me, and the steady beating of hearts seemed just a little easier to cope with, despite everything.

  It offered a flicker of hope for the first time in a long time.

  Eight

  Recovery

  At not quite nineteen, I should’ve had at least fifteen more years before dealing with my first mid-life crisis. Every one of my proposed locations for an escape fell through, thanks to nosy Fenerec. The trio of wolves I could tolerate helped make a mess of my plans, as my father was onto who they were and kept a close eye for any unusual activity. He pissed me off, and my doctors, all six of them, kept telling me it was to be expected.

  I carried a lot of resentment and unhappiness with me. My father wanted to apply a Band Aid and make everything better.

  A Band Aid wouldn’t fix anything, and I appreciated that my doctors understood that.

  To add to my fun, Dan’s pack needed him, and if Dan came out too soon to keep me company, I’d potentially be forced to interact with my father before I was ready, a concern that drove everyone crazy, myself included.

  I needed time to recover.

  He needed to get his head out of his furry ass and leave me alone.

  While I thought not knowing my doctor’s names to be a little strange, I accepted their explanation readily enough.

  Names could be burdens, and I didn’t need any more burdens. When I was ready for the intimacy that something as simple as a name brought with it, I could ask them for their name, and they would give it to me. Not knowing, in their opinion, became a wall I could maintain or break down at any point, restoring control to me in the simplest of fashions.

  Normal hadn’t worked with me, so they’d decided to take a different approach.

  I wondered if I would find the courage to break down that wall. Not knowing did help, though. Between the witchbane and the boundaries, I could withstand my doctors’ presences. While aware of their heartbeats, something I couldn’t quiet no matter how hard I tried, their emotions remained dull and almost lifeless. I could work with dull and almost lifeless. Small distractions could remove my awareness of them, save for their ever-beating hearts.

  They told me a simple truth, which made things easier on me: no one could figure out how to make my witchcraft live in harmony with me. />
  Some journeys in life needed to be traveled alone. Either I would emerge from the crucible reforged, or I would remain fragile and broken. For me, for a witch with my strength of magic, it was all or nothing. Confessing my fears to all six of them—two men, three women, and one who simply grinned when I asked what they identified as—had helped some. They had listened without judgment.

  They left me to decide if I wanted their help.

  It had taken me a few days to work up the courage to ask for help. What I had asked for hadn’t pleased any of them, but it was mine to make: I would put in a genuine effort to find a solution, but if I couldn’t find a way to control my magic, they would help me find a peaceful and permanent escape before I killed someone—or worse.

  Their hesitant sincerity made all the difference in the world to me.

  They had kept their first words.

  The choice was mine.

  We cut a deal, one I thought we could all live with at the end of the road. I would do everything I could to survive. They would accept whatever came at the end of that road. Two weeks after waking up in a hospital, the Inquisition gave me a ticket to Jeffrey’s Bay in South Africa, and they promised good surfing gear would be waiting for me. The order to exhaust myself daily playing in the ocean for a minimum of two weeks amused me.

  Some orders I could obey without question. If the Inquisition wanted me to surf for a minimum of two weeks, I’d surf for three weeks because I could.

  Then I’d start working on the next order, which involved finding some way to control my witchcraft so it wouldn’t finish destroying me.

  In what I viewed as a landslide victory, all six of my doctors believed my lack of exposure to my element hurt my ability to learn how to control and use my witchcraft. During a good week, I could make a jaunt to the beach for some surfing. Most weeks weren’t good weeks. Most witches sought out their element while I was forced to avoid mine. If a few weeks in the ocean didn’t help, they believed nothing would.

  I wasn’t sure how surfing for a few weeks could make such a difference, but I wasn’t going to say no to a chance to catch some of the best waves in the world. Even at the tail end of the surfing season, Jeffrey’s Bay would produce monster waves. My witchcraft would help it produce monster waves consistently, and my magic would let me withstand the colder waters that drove people away from the area in the off season.

  Where I went, the waves followed. I’d be scolded for transforming the bay into my paradise while there, but it wasn’t exactly my fault. I didn’t usually summon the waves on purpose.

  The ocean liked me, and it did its best to make me happy, even if it was only for long enough for a wave to pummel me into the shore.

  While I dealt with airport security, I found comfort in the oddest of places: the other surfers brave enough to challenge the waves would love me and the trouble I brought with me.

  I escaped Las Vegas and made it to South Africa without incident. True to the doctors’ word, everything I needed to surf waited for me at a hotel a hop, skip, and a jump away from where the waves pounded the rocky shore. Sharks hunted beyond where the waves broke and crested, and I found it curious they had no interest in the few braving the waters to surf, especially the great white female with a serious case of grouchy.

  If she left me alone, I’d leave her alone. I found the arrangement suitable, and after consideration, she agreed, although she kept an eye on me.

  If I pounded myself into the rocks and contracted a serious case of dead, she’d be happy to help with the corpse disposal.

  I discovered the hard way that my failing heart had taken its toll, and I admired my doctors’ ruthless cunning. A single run wiped me out in all ways, and if I wanted to surf the monster waves rather than roll to shore, I’d have to get back into shape first. After my first attempt, I questioned if two weeks would be enough to ride a single wave.

  I’d find out one way or another. If two weeks wasn’t enough time to get back into surfing shape, I’d coerce the doctors into adding more time to my stay abroad. Conquering my little stretch of heaven would be my top priority until I succeeded, and I’d fight the Inquisition over it if necessary.

  One full run, from where the waves broke and crested at one end of Jeffrey’s Bay to the dangerous rocks at its rough conclusion, would serve as my first goal. Riding it in style would be my second.

  My third goal involved avoiding people as much as humanly possible. Keeping my distance would help.

  If no one knew me, no one would fear me.

  It took a week for me to be able to spend more than an hour in the water at a time. At first, my exhaustion and inability to regulate my body temperature frustrated the hell out of me, but I started tracking my time in the water and my reaction to the cold temperatures. It helped seeing improvement measured in minutes.

  My heart still struggled, but it struggled a little less each session.

  While I fought my latest battle, I avoided contact with everyone, including my doctors, who may have suggested I should check in with them daily.

  I should’ve known the Inquisition would send someone to confirm my whereabouts. After a blissful week of my witchcraft quiet and tamed, it flared to life. The curiosity of two people snagged my rogue magic’s attention and held it. My range extended all the way from the break in the waves to where the beach made way for land. Their interest partnered with amusement.

  From emotion alone, I worried one might be the devil, and he’d drag me out of the water by my ear because he could, and the bastard might make me like it.

  To delay the inevitable, I hid in the water, and the grumpy, old great white female kept me company, her dorsal slicing through the water. Her enjoyment of my company helped more than anything. She liked me, as I didn’t scream when she slid her rough body along my foot. Screaming annoyed her.

  Screaming annoyed me, too.

  Sometimes, when her old age didn’t hamper her too much, she enjoyed attention from me, allowing me to massage her sandpaper-rough skin, especially the itchy spot behind her fins. She wouldn’t live much longer, as time and polluted waters had taken their tolls, but she liked the bay despite the humans that might one day lead to her death if nature and humanity’s destructive influences didn’t kill her first.

  In the morning light, the two figures conversed, and my curiosity would be my undoing. They waited, and my witchcraft revealed their intent to stick around until they finished their business with me, as there was no one else stupid enough to brave Jeffrey’s Bay before day.

  It amused me neither had any interest in coming close enough to even stick a toe into the water.

  Fear didn’t hold them back, but something else. I thought about it, my rampaging curiosity demanding answers. I bobbed in the water, considering them while biding my time for the wave I wanted to grab a ride on. It occurred to me they avoided the water itself.

  South Africa got rather chilly in the autumn and winter.

  I considered making them wait, but a wave built behind me, the kind the ocean enjoyed tempting me with. Since I still had a few patches of unbruised skin, I took the bait. As expected, the sea rolled me, chewed for a while, and spit me out. In the deeper waters, the great white stuck around long enough to confirm she wasn’t getting a free meal before swimming away.

  Bitch.

  My surfboard jabbed me in the kidney with the help of a wave, and I considered breaking the damned thing in half. While I waged war between destroying my surfboard and picking my ass up and trying again, a familiar chuckle drew my attention to the pair, who’d decided to abandon the relative safety of land.

  “You’re crazy, kid,” Dan announced. “Did you bother checking the water temperature before trying the waves? You’re going to freeze to death.”

  Despite knowing what I could do, Dan refused to fear me. I figured he’d damaged his brain from a high number of wipeouts incurred through an obsessive-compulsive surfing disorder. “Oh, look. It’s Dan. Scared?” I taunted.

&n
bsp; “Only of what your frothing father will do if I don’t cater to his damned whining. He’s called me four times this week asking if I’d seen you. The Inquisition sent me over since I wasn’t likely to trip your witchy trigger. This is my brother, Marc, and he sinks better than he surfs, so he’s going to play our rescue tug if we need one.”

  “Didn’t you just say the water’s cold? You’ll just whine about the temperature. This beach was made for surfing, not for complaining about how cold the water is.”

  Dan snorted. “You’re joking, right? You better be joking, punk. You just got plowed by a thirty-foot barrel. I want a piece of that action, and I don’t care if I die from hypothermia. If I try to die from hypothermia, Marc will save me.”

  Dan’s brother also snorted. “Like hell I will, dude.”

  “Don’t be cruel to me, Marc. Some idiot is actually paying me to surf.”

  Marc seemed to have his brother’s general immunity to fear, and the water interested him far more than Dan’s commentary otherwise would’ve led me to believe. I rolled my shoulders and turned my attention to the sharks lurking in the Bay. “I’ll tell the sharks they can’t eat you.”

  The sharks found my request amusing, and as the waters had plenty of other food, they agreed to honor my request—for the moment.

  “Appreciated,” Dan replied. “Now, get your lanky ass out of there and spill, kid. They don’t send people like me to the other side of the planet just to get in some surfing, and they told me if I wanted to find out what was going on, I’d have to get the story from you. What’s going on?”

  I crawled out of the water and flopped onto my back. “My witchcraft is out of control, I killed six wolves, and I have stress-induced heart failure.”

  “Cardiomyopathy?”

  “You’re smart for a surfer.”

  “And you’re still a smartass. Sanctioned kills?”

  “A rogue pack got it into their heads to grab Dad. They’d gone mad.”