Witch Doctors Inc: SEASON ONE (Completed!)

Part 4.10

When I get out of the consultation room I find it hard to breathe. It's not that I'm short of breath. It's like there isn't any air for me. Like I'm underwater, drowning.

"Lily, are you okay?" Addy's face is clouded with worry.

"I," I gasp, "I'm fine...I just..."

Turquoise ringlets and dying eyes.

Hands reaching, but not for me.

I force my eyes open. I feel cold, wet. Like I've been drenched with dreamwater.

"Do you need to go to sick bay? You don't look so well."

I gasp again, and air rushed into my lungs. "I was..." I fumble for the words. "Drowning."

"Drowning?" Addy lowers her voice. "Is this a, you know? Memory?"

I drop my voice too. "No, it's different. The dolls are a memory. This is more like...an echo."

Addy wants me to get checked out, but I take a few sips of water and tell her I'm fine. I'm not, actually. Those blithering dolls won't leave my mind. They tug at me with their monstrous smiles, and I can't let them go.

The answer, I know, lies in the attic of Tyfyr House.

I'm taking the day off tomorrow. Ruby can have my clients if she wants. I need to do a bit of travelling, and I'll need the full day for it.

I'm taking a haunted house tour.

*

Me and Addy take a quartz-powered cart out of Zilitron. Onyx ducked out the first chance he got. I have business to attend to, he told me. The griffin king is expecting me.

I don't buy it for a second.

Griffin king indeed.

We're not going as far north as we did last time, which I'm grateful for. The heat does not do me well. Neither do rainforests.

South of the Equine Hills there are meadows and meadows of warm grass swaying in the wind, a slow burn of dream-blue sky, and the curious twitching ears of wild rabbits. Zilitron is a moon-pale glare on the horizon behind us.

If you travel further north, and manage not to get trampled by wild horses, you'll eventually come to Aberdeen, the village where Bethany lived many centuries ago. Bethany being the girl who grew up to be the Dark Witch.

I clutch my knapsack tightly, thinking of all the secrets Onyx has kept from me. I met Bethany in the Forest of Sorrows, or what was left of her. She'd given her heart to the heart keeper, Rikamu, and that was all that survived of her. Everything that had once been good about the Dark Witch drifted among rainforest leaves for five centuries, waiting for her to return.

Onyx must have known Bethany. He sought out all the reincarnations of the First Witch in his bid to save her, so he must have. He must have known her heart still beat in the rainforest.

Addy murmurs in her sleep.

Amanda Hannigan is being monitored at Witch Doctors Inc. They're trying all sorts of curse antidotes, but I don't think they'll work. If the Dark Witch cast this curse, it's going to take a whole lot more than some fire quartz and cottonwood to reverse it.

Addy's mother is looking after Ara. Amanda wasn't thrilled with the arrangement. If she'd had her way, Ara would be strapped to her hospital bed. She left Queen Irine a list of allergies, groceries and toiletries that went down to the floor.

We've taken a public cart, and everyone's going to Tyfyr House, so I'm surrounded by chatter about the Dark Witch. I've had to charm myself a disguise too. The Mamauri, Addy's tribe, know I'm a witch. They think I'm dead, and they don't usually venture out of the rainforest, but if perchance they caught sight of me they wouldn't hesitate to raise the alarm that the witch had resurrected herself.

I gave myself golden hair and orange lollipop eyes.

"You look lovely," Addy had gushed. "Maya Cerberus wore this look when she played Esmeralda Rain in A Phoenix Too Many."

"I look like I belong in a candy store," I grumbled.

At least I don't look like a witch, I suppose. Bethany had her hair charmed auburn. With her wide eyes and timid demeanour, she didn't look like a murderer.

Then again, neither do I.

A searing pain shoots through my head.

"Ow," I yelp, but it's gone as soon as it came.

Addy jerks awake. "Are you okay, Lil?" She peers at me with concern.

"I'm fine," I assure her. "It's just a headache."

We stop at a small lake with water the colour of blue-powdered clouds. Wyvern's Lake, the driver tells us. After the amphibious dragon that once supposedly guarded it.

Addy picks some wildflowers. A few people have set out picnic blankets. I wander to the lake's edge, where someone is launching a small rowboat. There's a pile of reeds that resemble a cushion. I plonk myself down and dip my toes into the water. Nice and cool.

My breath catches.

Water, water in my lungs.

In my nose.

In my ears.

Turquoise ringlets.

Hands reaching, reaching, but not for me.

I yank my feet out of the water, gasping up newfound air. Addy drops a handful of wildflowers and runs over to me.

"Lily, what happened? Is it the headache again?"

"No," I reply, my voice still hoarse. The lake is deadly still.

"Addy," I say. "Someone drowned here."

*

"Are you sure?"

Yes, I'm sure. I saw it. I felt it.

"It's such a calm lake." Addy scratches her chin. "I can't imagine someone drowning in it. Were you the Dark Witch when you saw it?"

I shake my head. "It wasn't my memory, Addy."

I know what Addy's about to say. If it isn't my memory, how could I see it? I don't know the answer to that question. All I know is that a boy of about four, with hair of turquoise ringlets, met his death here.

I glance at the driver, who's tapping his fingers against the wheel.

Maybe I'll get some answers at Tyfyr house, because I'm all full up on questions.