She doesn’t wait on any kind of response at all, so sure of herself and our need of her, and walks off into the darkening wood to seemingly disappear. We hesitate. All three standing firm and throwing glances to one another, expressions ashen, faces pale, before Meadow shoves me forward to follow.
Leyanne
“We’re here… may as well. Just don’t let your guard down and don’t hesitate to use your gifts.” Meadow hisses under her breath, and I scoot up right behind Carmen to fall back in line. Flanked by two femmes and still unsure this witch is a friend at all. Sierra told us she was, but this doesn’t feel like someone who is willing to bend over backwards to do anything for anyone except herself.
We make quick work of following close to her, aware of the pitch darkness and I start to wonder how the hell we’re meant to stay out here if she ups and leaves us now. We don’t know this terrain. The truck is far enough away that we’ll encounter a fight if vampires come upon us, and I have no mental space, or physical energy, for any of that. My adrenaline is firing high and I’m already exhausted.
Missing Colton has become the biggest drain on my soul, craving him, needing his touch, his presence, and I seem to start off the day already fatigued, no matter how much I sleep.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Carmen’s haughty tone cuts into my thoughts and I blink up and look over her shoulder as a tiny derelict cottage comes into view. Offering little to no protection from any outside invasion, and a fire burning within its tumble-down walls. Smoke trickling through the hole of the disintegrating roof, glowing from inside and highlight the lack of solid foundations or full walls. I realize this is where she wanted us to go. Exposed at night, sat around a campfire in a strange place of a ruined building, with only a witch we don’t know. Not a good move and I glance skywards and pray the fates know what they’re doing this time.
“What? Afraid of things that go bump in the night? I thought you were big bad lycanthrope… never took you for being afraid of the dark. Don’t worry, wee lassies, the scariest thing out here is me.” Leyanne mocks us from her slight distance ahead with an amused tone and wanders into the cottage casually. Using the completely absent side wall as her path in to go perch herself on some chunky logs settled around the glowing flames. It seems this is her resting place and is already set up to sit by the fire to see the darkness out.
She watches with amusement as we three follow slowly, glancing around in high alert, and timidly place ourselves close together on the other side away from her. We keep our backs close but spread so we take in three angles to keep watch through the fallen stones, aware, and looking around with caution.
“Aren’t you afraid of being out here?” Carmen is the one to question it, always so verbal with her thoughts, but Leyanne shrugs nonchalantly. She relaxes onto her makeshift seat and stretches out her legs, exposing laced up knee high Victorian boots and adjusts her skirts.
“Why would I be? Any creature stupid enough to tackle me deserves what they get. Who should I be afraid of? Nothing can kill me! I know because they’ve all tried.” She kicks up some dirt at the flames with her heel, causing instant green sparks and crackles to ring through and I jump, on edge and antsy. “This is just a temporary resting spot for you wee fellows to rest. I have something I was doing before I intercepted Sierra trying to locate me. Needless to say, I like solitary abodes and I only had short notice to detour.” She picks up a large black kettle that has been nestled beside her feet and hangs it up on a metal bar sticking out across the fire at an angle. Seemingly not fazed at all and making boiled water, while we gawp and sit stiff as rods observing her.
“So that’s how you knew about us? Sierra somehow alerted you with the locator spell?” my interest is piqued as I home in on that detail and she nods. Remembering I was meant to give her the vial around my neck, but it seems she doesn’t need the proof of my connection at all.
“When you try to use magic to find someone like me…. I know about it. Especially when you use the spell I wrote for the purpose. So then, naturally, I had to investigate the why, with the help of my birds. I may know a lot about who you are and why you’re here, but I don’t have all the details. My little gossip mongers are only good for Chinese whispers of things they actually witness. It’s a long trek from your mountain to here and ears and mouths of passing crows are not always reliable.”
I glance around at the birds flocking the trees to watch us and squint at her term for them. A visual of birds enjoying drama and storytelling and spreading it through flocks across the land. I guess mine and Carmen’s conversation by the trees that day was reported along the line, with every single time we spoke freely in the grounds of the homestead. It’s weird and makes me feel we should be watching all those innocent creatures back home if this is the truth of what they do for witches. If it is, then Tawna running, they would have known fast that she did if the birds were messengers. Our forest is teaming with them, and they are always around, day and night.
“What do you want to know?” Meadow interjects, ignoring what she probably mentally summarized about the birds too and Leyanne ponders her for a long moment, quietly.
“Everything, but that takes time, and I can’t linger for long. So maybe I can see for myself with your permission. Condense, rapidly learn, and extract what is necessary from all the other boring tidbits of life.” Her words bring my eyes back to her in wide surprise, my mouth falling open, guessing she’s hinting at being able to pass mentally, like we can.
“You can mind link?” I’m awed, unsure I have ever heard of any other species apart from ours that can even do that, but she just looks at me with a ‘please’ of sarcasm across her face. That air of boredom that we really seem to underestimate her at every turn. Just who the hell is this witch?
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