Page 21 of The Powerless Witch
Dawn was nearing already and with it, the sky bled into a beautiful shade of purple and pink. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I let my legs guide me, searching for the stairs. The room we were given was somewhere in the middle of the tower, ifmy calculations were right, but there was still a long way down. And I needed to feel the earth beneath my feet, not just that endless stone.
I tried to keep my head empty until I reached the base of the stairs, letting myself out through a small door set between two wide-arched windows. I met several witches on the way—and a few other creatures—but nobody stopped me. A curt nod or a smile was usually what I got before they continued with their business. I wasn’t sure if it was the magic I was warned about, but nobody seemed wary of me. It was strange—when I faced witches, the usual response was a look of disgust or disdain—mutual, of course. But there was something uncomfortable about baring my teeth at a woman who was treating me with nothing but kindness.
Stepping out in the open, I shuddered in the chilly weather, instantly regretting not putting something over my shirt. My body temperature was higher than a human’s, but it was November and we were high in the mountains. Still, the room was too far up for me to summon the strength to return, so I just wrapped my arms around myself and kept going.
The cold helped with the burning under my skin, the darkness calming my mind to the point where I considered going back to sleep. But then I remembered Celeste was in that room, so decided against it. If I wanted to think straight, it had to be away from her. I couldn’t trust myself with her at a touching distance.
I looked around, barely noticing the trees and bushes that had taken the place of the stone paths and arches. I wasn’t sure where the garden had appeared, but when I looked back, I no longer saw the base of the castle.
The deep green of the leaves slowly paled as the sun rose higher and higher.
A movement caught my attention, and I froze, preparing for an incoming assault. My eyes narrowed at two figures that approached at a speed too slow for any kind of attack. A quick sniff told me they were both witches—an older woman and a little girl with her right leg replaced by a prosthetic. She limped heavily, but the metal bent and twisted almost like the real thing. The older witch walked with a hand around her shoulders, whispering encouraging words. Her eyes shot to me when she noticed me, but just like the others, she just nodded, leading her charge along the path.
I watched them disappear behind a bulk of bushes, then continued on my way, wondering if this place was just too different from the real world or if maybe something in me had changedsince we came here.
Rubbing my arms again, I continued onward, but I had barely walked for a minute when I heard voices again. They didn’t seem to be moving, and the path led right toward them with no forks or bends in sight. Before long, I was passing by another pair—a witch with short brown hair was sitting with her back to me, her magic shimmering around her fingers as it sunk into the chest of a man twice her size. He watched her calmly, face twisted uncomfortably, but without hostility. As the wind blew their scents my way, I tripped when I realized he was a wolf shifter.
There was a bandage running from his throat to his torso, a loose jacket hanging over his wide shoulders as he sat, completely unbothered by the witch’s proximity. He nodded in greeting before replying to the witch’s question about the pain in his body. The woman didn’t even look at me, as if my presence at her back didn’t scare her one bit.
Shaking the strange feeling amassing in my stomach, I moved on, no longer fazed by the cold. I was just thinking about going back when a familiar scent caught my attention. I followed it until I spotted Alice hunched over a bed of herbs, her long brown hair pinned back by a headband. She wore a thick jacket and winter boots, but her hands were bare and looked painfully pale from the cold.
She turned before I could speak, staring at me with surprise that soon became a taunting smile.
“You look like crap,” she scoffed, turning back to the ground. “What did she do to you, make you kneel on the floor all night while you begged for forgiveness?”
I scratched the back of my head, not especially eager to repeat to mysisterall the things we had both done in the last few hours. Luckily, she didn’t push, seemingly taken by checking the herbs growing before her. She moved confidently, poking a finger in the soil here and there and plucking a leaf or a root from time to time.
“What are you doing?” I asked, crouching beside her while she dusted her hands.
“Weeding and gathering today. Some herbs need to be plucked at sunrise, so I had been doing my rounds early.” She pushed herself up and picked up her basket.
“Is that what you do here?” I asked when she gave me a sign to follow her. My legs felt like lead, but I did as I was told, catching up when she swerved away from the path, walking between the trees until we reached another greensward with more neatly arranged rolls of herbs.
“Some days I work in the gardens, others I do the laundry. Occasionally, I’ll help with the post-healing care when magic is not required,” she replied, kneeling byanother roll full of wide-leafed yellow flowers. “I’m pretty good with that now, even the Head Witch said so. I can’t heal with magic, but I’m as good at sewing wounds and setting bones as any of the sisters here. Better even, since they rarely need to do it and some of them lack the strength—or the stomach.”
She grinned at me over her shoulder as if she was especially proud of her achievement and I couldn’t help but smile even as my chest tightened.
“You have been doing this all this time?” I asked quietly, watching her remove a few shriveled leaves. She nodded without looking up, then moved to the next bush.
“It took me a long time to get better,” she said quietly, entirely focused on her hands. “My physical wounds healed mostly by themselves, but my mind…” She paused, her hand balling into a fist. It felt like her fingers were squeezing my heart. I couldn’t even imagine the horrors she must have been through. She couldn’t even properly mourn the loss of her family because, to her, they were the reason for her pain. “Once I was better, I was given the choice—stay here and earn my keep or go back into the world out there.”
She added a few more herbs into her basket, then turned to face me. Her smile was light and bright, but her eyes were way too serious to match.
“I chose to stay.”
Shrugging, she patted my arm and walked past me. I followed.
“So you have never gone back to the outside world?” I asked as I caught up with her.
“Sure I have.” She gave me an amused look. “I’ve accompanied some of the sisters on errands for the Coven. We might live secluded out here, but we like nice things, too. Clothes, supplies, amenities, books. I even attended a seminar with the Second once. She specializes in healing spells related to regeneration, restoration, and the connection between body and soul. Fascinating things, really. Did you know that a witch can take a soul out of a body and transfer it to another? They need to have solid experience and a deep understanding of necromancy, but it’s possible. The Second is one of the few alive today who is believed to be able to do this, but she said she’d never attempt it because it was unnatural.”
I stared at her with fascination, baffled at how happy and excited she looked when she spoke about magic. When we were children, all we knew of witches was that they were dangerous and brought only misfortune to those who angered them.Now it seemed that this was just one of the many things we should have questioned from the start. ThatIshould have questioned.
It felt like my whole life, everything I knew and believed in, was unraveling in front of my very eyes. I shook my head before I succumbed to the terrifying feeling of desperation that was squeezing my throat, changing the subject instead.
“Alice, I know you have been here all this time, but…I want you in my life. I have been dreaming of the day when I would find you again, and now that it’s happened…even if it’s not permanent, I want you to visit as often as you want, and be part of my…”
She stopped, putting her hand on my shoulder. Her eyes shone like she was holding back tears, but she had a smile on her face.