Affinity Witch

Chapter 22: Meeting with Heloise

The next day found Sabrina pacing impatiently back and forth across the orchard, glancing up every time she heard a voice. She had sent a note to Heloise via the Helferin as soon as she'd woken that morning, asking her to come to the orchard at noon. Sabrina hoped the other girl would show, saving her the trouble of tracking her down, but one way or another, Sabrina would find the Seer and secure her assistance.

The sound of approaching footsteps made Sabrina raise her head yet again, and this time, she smiled...Heloise was walking towards her.

"I received your note," the other witch said, no small amount of caution in her eyes. "You said you needed to talk with me about something important?"

She stopped a few feet away, as if ensuring herself an escape route, which Sabrina found quite rude, and she pursed her lips in displeasure.

Heloise gulped and looked like she was considering hurrying away, so Sabrina took a deep breath and tried to appear more pleasant.

"I'd like to talk to you about your affinity," she said.

Heloise blinked a few times, clearly not having expected her affinity to be the topic of conversation.

"I want to know what my future holds," continued Sabrina. "You're a Seer, so I need you to look into it and tell me what's going to happen."

Heloise hesitated before reaching up and nervously twirling a stand of dark blonde hair around her finger. "It doesn't exactly work like that."

"Then how does it work?" asked Sabrina, her eagerness to learn something about an affinity other than her own overriding her innate dislike of the other girl.

"The future isn't fixed," explained Heloise. "It's not static or still or laid out in a straightforward fashion. It's far more complicated than that."

Sabrina nodded. Affinities were always more complicated than they initially seemed.

"Well, however you do it, I want to set up a time for you to look into my future," she said. "If you need supplies or if I need to pay you, just let me know."

Heloise made a face. "I would never charge a fellow Hexen for using my affinity." Her expression turned worried, and she ventured a glance at Sabrina. "Are you sure about this? I just never expected you, of all witches, to ask me to look into your future. You used to make fun of me in school."

"I didn't make fun of you," clarified Sabrina. "I simply offered to read out loud whenever it was your turn because it was so obvious you hated it, and it was torturous for the rest of us."

"You mean it was torturous for you," grumbled Heloise. "You also pitched a fit any time we were paired together and refused to work with me because you said I'd only slow you down. You ended up doing group projects on your own because the teachers were afraid of you and always gave in."

Her teachers hadn't been afraid of her...they'd just been wise enough to agree with the convincing arguments Sabrina had made. But regardless, none of this had any bearing on what she needed from Heloise.

"Is this your way of saying you're not capable of looking into my future?" Sabrina challenged the other girl, changing the subject. "Because I can always ask another Seer. You were just the first one who came to mind."

"I'm more than capable!" replied Heloise indignantly. "I just think you might not like what you see, and I don't want to be blamed if that turns out to be the case."

That was fair.

"I won't blame you," assured Sabrina. "I understand Seers have no control over what they see. You're not creating the future...I just want you to describe it to me exactly as you see it."