Chapter 2: The Witch and the Mysterious Visitor

 

 

 

Chapter 2: The Witch and the Mysterious Visitor

 

THE lake didn’t dry up just because Rose had changed. It was still the same forest—none of the animals died off, nor did the trees stop producing fruit because she was gone.

The same, however, could not be said of Rose. To her, the lake was her precious childhood home, and the forest was vital to her work. If either changed, she wouldn’t be able to continue serving as a witch in the same capacity as before. For Mother Nature, a witch is but a tiny speck of existence.

One such trivial witch arrived at the forest first thing in the morning. The fog hovering over the lake dispersed through the trees as if blowing away with the dawn light.

Flowers that had been in bloom not too long ago dropped their petals, their time having come to an end. With firm footsteps, Rose walked on the trail strewn with scattered petals. The dewy leaf mold tried to swallow her feet with every step, so it took a certain level of skill to glide over it without losing a shoe.

She filled her basket with the fallen petals, selecting only the prettiest ones with little to no fading—as the ingredients for a potion, of course.

Bending over every time was arduous work. Her lower back was already aching in protest. “Mm!” She stretched as she rubbed the throbbing area.

Right at that moment, she heard a faint voice carried to her on the forest’s breeze. Assuming it was a beast’s cry, she lowered her hood, cupped her hands over her ears, and carefully swept her gaze over her surroundings.

Judging by the rhythm of the sound, it seemed to be human. Their words grew clearer as she moved toward the voice.

“Is anyone there?! Somebody help me!”

They sounded awfully panicked, though their voice was muffled, so it was hard to discern where they were.

Rose warily looked around until she found the speaker. The voice was coming from a gaping hole in the middle of the forest. It was a trapping pit used for hunting big game.

The person seemed to have fallen into the hole because it was hidden under layers and layers of dead leaves. Someone must have forgotten to fill the pit once they were done with it.

I have this old memory of Grandmother using it… Nah, it can’t be. Surely Rose had remembered wrong.

“Is…someone up there?” the person asked from the pit after hearing the leaves and twigs snapping under Rose’s feet.

Rose peered into the hole. Sunlight barely reached the forest depths, rendering it impossible to see the speaker at the bottom of the pitch-black pit. But, judging by the voice, it sounded like a young girl.

“I’m saved…”

The girl’s tone instantly changed from distressed to hopeful. The pit was dug at a steep angle to prevent animals from climbing out, which meant it was too difficult for the young girl to scale without help.

If by any chance—one in a billion chance—this was indeed dug up by Grandmother, then it’s potentially my responsibility.

Believing it to be her problem, Rose reluctantly removed her robe and placed her hand on the edge of the pit. She dangled her robe over the side with her free hand, careful not slip in herself. The robe would have to do since she didn’t have any rope on hand. Understanding Rose’s intentions, the girl firmly grabbed the fabric.

“Thank you! You can pull me up now!”

“I can’t. I don’t have the strength to pull you up, so you will have to climb up on your own.”

“Climb up…on my own? Me? There isn’t anywhere to place my feet.”

“Why don’t you kick the wall and create a gap where you can stick in your foot?”

The girl seemed dismayed by Rose’s suggestion at first, but she began kicking regardless of any misgivings. Rose was worried the pit might collapse on her if she kicked the loose forest-dirt wall too hard, but telling her would only frighten the girl into doing nothing at all.

After some struggle, the girl managed to climb out. Rose’s energy for the day was totally drained after supporting the girl’s weight with the robe. She flopped back on the leafy ground with the girl and caught her breath.

“Why…is there a hole in…such a place? Why did this happen to me…?” Chagrin filled the girl’s voice now that she no longer had to despair about being in the pit.

Sludge dripped in globs from the girl’s fancy cloak and dainty shoes. The bug slime and sap would never come out no matter how hard she scrubbed those clothes. So much mud had caked in her hair, it was impossible to tell what color it used to be. Her muddy tresses were a tangled mess that looked more like a baking accident than hair, and it absolutely needed to be combed out before it hardened.

Rose stared idly at the girl. Chubby cheeks with big, round eyes. Each of the girl’s features was defined to perfection, so much so that even though she was caked in mud, Rose could still marvel at her beauty.

“Aaah! I went through so much trouble to have it prepared, too…!”

The girl had clung dearly to something wrapped in an extravagant cloth the entire time she had struggled her way out of the pit, so when she saw it crushed flat, she buried her face in her hands and lamented.

Judging from her speech and mannerisms, she sounded more like a noble than one of the local children. And if she was of the aristocracy, she might have been accompanying a client. All the aristocrats who ventured this deep into the forest had business with the Witch.

“…I cannot go through with it looking like this…”

Disheartened, the girl stared down at her attire and tried wiping off the clumps of filth. She was bound to be scolded by her parents for looking as if she’d just had a mud bath.

She must’ve been afraid of earning their ire, as she grew even more depressed and began searching her person to see if anything was out of place.

When her fingers brushed over one particular location, she let out a high-pitched shriek.

“I-It’s gone!”

Rose was startled by the desperation in her strangled voice. The girl looked as if she might faint as she checked her body again for the missing item.

“Oh no… It couldn’t have…?”

Without worrying about soiling her gorgeous cloak, the girl kneeled on the dirt and craned her neck to peer into the hole. Rose stood behind her, since she couldn’t bear to see the child fall back in after all the energy it took to pull her out.

“I can’t believe it… How could I have left it down there…?” the girl muttered into the pit, appalled.

Rose peered over her but couldn’t make anything out. She strained her eyes until she glimpsed something small reflecting a shaft of sunlight spilling through the trees.

With no one else to look to, the girl turned her troubled face toward Rose. “Help me retrieve it?”

Her plea was so genuine and her face the poster child for adorableness that it would surely incite any human to do her bidding with a salute.

Rose, however, was a witch.

“Why? I don’t want to.”

The girl was stumped by her curt answer. She never expected to be refused.

“I will be…in ever so much trouble without it.”

“And I will be in even greater trouble if I can’t climb back out of the pit.”

“I will reward you handsomely.”

“No can do.”

“I’m doomed…”

Tears welled in the girl’s grass-green eyes.

Is she going to cry? Rose backed away from her. It might have been her first time witnessing someone cry.

She felt restless for reasons she didn’t understand. She was worried about how to handle the situation if the girl broke down in tears, and that surprised her. Rose was a witch—it mattered not who wept or raged.

Fortunately, her worries were unfounded. The girl lifted her chin and closed her eyes; the next moment, she opened them, and not a trace of tears could be seen.

“I will come back another day,” the girl announced, pangs of disappointment in her determined voice. She wrenched her gaze from the pit and her lingering regrets, and faced Rose. “You helped me at your own expense. I have to thank you. What do they call you?”

“I am the Good Witch of the Lake.”

When Rose introduced herself, however, the girl’s eyes bulged and her face stiffened as she was trying to pull a reward from her pocket.

“Wha?!”

Astonishment washed over every feature of her face.

She did all right conversing with a stranger, but she seemed paralyzed with fear to discover said stranger was a witch. It was foolish to expect such a young girl not to judge a book by its cover, even if she was nobility.

W-W-Wi-Wi-Witch…!”

The leather bag slipped from her hand, but she didn’t seem to notice. Her hands trembled over her mouth, and tears misted her eyes once more.

Depression hit Rose a little harder this time because this reaction was becoming the norm of late. Knowing that just because Harij accepted her didn’t mean the rest of the world would didn’t make it any easier on her.

Rose was proud to be a witch, but she mustn’t ever forget that her race was viewed as a threat to humans. She pulled away from the girl, drawing an “Ah!” from her. Rose tilted her head, unsure of what was wrong, but only got a string of incoherent noises from the girl. She thought she heard “Real one” somewhere in there.

I already saved her from the pit. She should be done with me. Nothing good will come of us staying together any longer. Drawing that conclusion, Rose picked up her soiled robe and shook out the dirt. Then she slid it on and was trying to leave when she heard an unintelligible voice mumbling, “Ah! Uh! Wai—”

“What is it?” Rose asked, curious why the girl seemed to be calling her back.

“Ah, uh, no way, Witch, like, the real thing—? I’m meeting you here…?! Um!”

“…?”

“Ah! Um, er, uh… I’m a fan!”

“…A fan?”

Fan of what? Rose repeated in her heart.

She knew what the word meant but wasn’t confident it coincided with how the girl intended it. After all, people were only a fan of things or people they had positive feelings toward.

“Um, um! I never, ever dreamed I’d run into you before visiting the hermitage— Aaah! What an unthinkable occurrence!”

The girl pulled out a dainty handkerchief and began diligently wiping her hands clean as Rose stared at her in utter confusion. She turned redder than a tomato under Rose’s watchful eye and frantically tried to string her words into a coherent sentence.

“I…I’ve…always longed to meet you s-since I was little girl…”

“You’ve longed to…”

“Y-Yes! T-To meet a real, almighty witch!”

“Almighty witch…”

“Aww, shucks. I wish it hadn’t happened while I look like this! I w-was really planning to come back later, after I cleaned up! Even my present for you got ruined…”

“Present for me?”

“P-Please won’t you, um, er, well, sh-shake…shake my hand!”

Two hands were vigorously thrust before Rose.

“…Handshake.”

Those hands were shaking so badly it was nerve-racking just looking at them, so Rose took hold of them, though she didn’t really follow what was happening.

“I-I will never wash my hands again!!!”

A tear spilled from the girl’s grass-green eyes. Once one fell, the dam broke, and she couldn’t hold the rest in anymore. She cried with trembling shoulders.

Rose had been concerned that she wouldn’t know what to do if the girl started weeping, but she couldn’t afford to pay her any attention now. For Rose was more dismayed than the girl overcome by her emotions.

Up until this moment, Rose had never met anyone who had stammered and tripped over their words in excitement, sought to shake her hand, or declared they would never wash their hands again after touching her.

Something beyond her imagination was happening here. Rose embraced an unknown sensation.

“…Did you need something from me?” Rose asked, battling with an uneasiness she couldn’t put her finger on.

Rose had assumed she was a client’s child, but seeing as no one had come looking for her yet and the way she was behaving, she might have been the actual client.

The girl clicked her toes together and stood up straight and tall to answer. “I c-came here today for…no other r-reason than to…” She placed a hand on her chest as if to calm the raging waves inside. After taking a deep breath, she rushed out the rest of her sentence in a voice loud enough to shake the trees: “…ask you to please make me your a-apprentice!”

Startled by the noise, the birds loudly took flight. Rose stared up at them as she answered. “I can’t.”

“O-Of course you can’t… Not someone like me who suddenly showed up out of the blue, looking like a mud monster…without a proper present…and after I dropped the potion I made imitating the great witches, hoping to prove my worth to you… It was a pipe dream, trying to convince an almighty witch to make me their apprentice…”

“No, it has nothing to do with any of that. If you aren’t born a witch, you can’t become one. I have no intentions of taking on an apprentice who can never become a witch.”

Being a witch was more than a title or a job—it had to be in your blood. Humans gave birth to humans, witches gave birth to witches.

Rose suddenly stopped speaking when she realized there was a chance the girl might have actually been born a witch. If she was, then she would be the first witch Rose had seen since her grandmother.

“Or were you born into a witch’s bloodline?” Rose asked, careful to keep her face straight and her mounting excitement in check.

“…N-No, I am actually…” The girl chewed on her words, hesitant to answer. She looked aggrieved, as if admitting her lineage would dash her last ray of hope.

So she’s not a witch. Rose pretended not to notice her disappointment. But it was a potion that she dropped? She looked into the hole. It had no way of becoming a true “witch’s secret potion,” but she had to admire the girl’s dedication to becoming her apprentice by bringing an already completed attempt.

Rose wished she could have taken her on, but a person didn’t become a witch just because they wanted to, nor could a witch stop being one on a whim. After all, witches were vague entities that drifted through the generations.

“How did you manage to come this far?”

“Oh…with the assistance of my attendant…”

“And where might that person be now?”

“Waiting at the forest entrance.”

“I see. You can return by yourself, yes?” Rose asked to confirm. The girl slightly bobbed her head in response. “Then this is where I take my leave… If you have business with a witch, I suggest you ask your parents to buy you a witch’s secret potion.”

Rose pulled her hood deep over her face, lightly bowed her head, and walked away.

∴ ∵ ∴

“MY head’s…killing me…”

An inebriated man staggered and swayed.

“You drank too much. It’s not much further. You can make it.”

Three men were walking through the quiet palace grounds enshrouded in shallow darkness. Two knights with swords followed behind the man who was in a drunken stupor.

“Neither of you are kind enough to carry me?”

The staggering man—Yašm, the second prince of Marjan—glared back at them. Disgruntled jade eyes peeked out from beneath his jet-black bangs.

The palace grounds were so enormous they seemed to go on forever. The palace itself, which served as a symbol of power, was made up of several dozen large buildings. Each one had a separate function, from political affairs to living quarters.

Although Yašm managed to drag his intoxicated body to the royal residences, the wing with his quarters was still a distance away. He tottered over to the fountain in the middle of the courtyard and crouched down, leaning against the edge.

Standing on guard behind him as he bathed in the water spray were Harij and Geones.

They had both served as Crown Princess Billaura’s personal guards until a few months ago, when her marriage resulted in them being reassigned to Yašm.

“You were the one who bluntly turned down Lord Wahash’s kind suggestion to rest a little longer.”

Yašm had attended the Wahash family banquet last evening as just one of his many duties as the second prince. Since the dinner had gone on late into the night, the Wahashs had even prepared sleeping quarters for his guards, but Yašm started throwing a fit, saying he would return home before dawn. So Harij and Geones quickly woke the coachman, apologized to the Wahashs for putting them out, and raced the carriage home.

“Bah! Harij, you saw it, too! That nobleman’s wife was waiting in my bed wearing only a chemise! Fully caked in powder and reeking of perfume, too! With that hamlike body!” Yašm shouted, blue in the face.

His rant was immediately followed by an “Ulp.” Shouting had brought up bile from his nauseated stomach. No one would think it seeing him puking into the fountain, but Prince Yašm, with his androgynous beauty, was lauded as a handsome young man with irresistible sex appeal by both the aristocracy and the commoners. He was one of the most popular men in the land.

“Are you vomiting, Your Highness?” Geones asked gently, but he only received a slight shake of the head in response.

It was not entirely unexpected for a host to cling to the possibility that the prince might succumb to his carnal desires during his one-night stay, and try to get him to make a mistress out of their daughter. Plenty of lords had sneaked their daughters of marriageable age into his bedchambers before. However, it was rare for a man to have his wife entertain the prince from the same bed.

Even more so when she was the kind of woman everyone felt a little sympathy for and whom, upon opening the door to his chambers for the night, Yašm pretended not to see and promptly declared, “I’m going home.”

“It is because you keep fleeing from women who make a move on you that there are rumors of you being gay.”

“HMPH! I almost want to commend Lord Wahash for sticking his fork in that ham.”

After biting out that sarcastic curse, Yašm doubled over the side of the fountain, surpassing his limit. Despite his sorry state, he wouldn’t let anyone touch him or rub his back as he vomited. Harij and Geones respected his wishes and concentrated on guarding him.

“Talk about…something…”

“I can’t. I’m on duty,” Harij curtly refused.

“I beg of you,” Yašm responded, half in tears. “Be considerate enough to pick up on your lord’s desire for a distraction!”

Pitying his prince for continuing to be treated with disdain by Harij, Geones started up a conversation with the reticent knight standing at attention beside him.

“Azm, lately you’ve started taking time off like you should, huh?”

“Yeah, because they’re my days off.”

Harij gave a succinct reply in response.

“No matter how much we got on your case about taking a little break, you always came into work saying you had nothing better to do… Could it be you got yourself a woman?” Geones said teasingly.

“Yeah.”

“HUH?!” There was a pause before Geones repeated, “Huh?”

Even Yašm, looking awfully green, lifted his head from the water fountain and scrutinized Harij with wide, shocked eyes. “Hey…Harij! I’ve heard nothing of this.”

“You want me to invite you to the wedding ceremony?”

“What?! Your relationship is already that far along?! Of course I’m going!”

“I will invite you since you want to go, then. Please set aside time for it in your busy schedule.”

“Wait, wait! Does that mean you weren’t even planning on inviting me?! Aaah! How has it come to this between us? I have always viewed you as I would my own brother!”

Any more shouting and Yašm was bound to start hurling some real chunks. Harij answered his desperation with a face colder than the water spraying from the fountain.

“Could it be—that rumor about a witch is true?” Geones inquired with a dubious look.

“The truth probably isn’t so far off from what you’re thinking,” Harij confirmed.

Harij had given his name to the city guards at the Witch’s hermitage when he was under suspicion for being the thief they were pursuing. Moreover, Harij didn’t hide that he frequently visited the Witch’s dwelling or that he was currently living with her. Therefore, it wasn’t strange for Geones to have heard rumors about them somewhere along the way.

“HEY! What is this rumor you’re talking about? A witch? Why does Geones know about something that not even I know?”

“Why’re you so interested? It’s creepy for men to confide in each other about stuff like this.” Sick of keeping up the formalities for such a ridiculous topic, Harij gave it to him straight.

“Aren’t we closer than that, though?!”

“Drop it.”

“And here I thought you had finally come back to me after I lent you to Laura—but what’s this I hear? You went and found yourself a woman outside the palace?!”

“Drop it.”

Harij was emitting an aura cold enough to freeze over the fountain. The rumors that Yašm was into men were but a ruse of his own making, and Harij didn’t want any part in it. Nevertheless, 80 percent of the rumors named Harij as his partner.

“For that matter, you—”

“…Oh dear.”

“Don’t try so obviously to interrupt me when I’m speaking!”

“I am not, Your Highness,” Harij said, switching back into formal mode. “I was just trying to point out a person who absolutely shouldn’t be here.”

Following Harij’s gaze, Yašm turned toward the palace, where he, too, spotted the small figure clad in a dark cloak hiding behind one of the pillars that separated the corridor from the courtyard. Guessing who it was, he splashed his face with water from the fountain, though he knew it was bad manners, and rose to his feet.

“…You two were just talking about some witch, but don’t you dare utter a word of it in front of THAT person. That’s an order.”

“Affirmative.”

“As you command.”

Displeasure clear on his face, Yašm strictly ordered Harij and Geones’s silence. Then he stood tall and strode over to the hidden figure with such confidence no one would guess he had a hangover.

The figure shuddered when they realized Yašm had noticed their presence. But they were like a cat on a hot tin roof with nowhere to escape in this open area.

“Lulu, what are you doing here?”

The person went ramrod stiff before slowly turning around. Their expression was marked not by the despair of being discovered, but rather by a flowery smile.

“Hello. Welcome back. You returned earlier than usual today.”

“A lot of stuff happened.”

Harij and Geones bowed as decorum required. The girl, who seemed well accustomed to people paying their respects to her, tilted her hand in a gesture granting them permission to lift their heads.

“Why, I never anticipated being able to meet with my dear older brother this morning. What a lovely day this shall be.”

The girl speaking in a delicate voice like silver bells was Lulu, Marjan’s fourth princess, who had just recently turned eleven. She graced them with the smile considered a national treasure by the kingdom. Her milky-white hair shimmered like a pearl in the morning light.

“By the way, Lulu, you haven’t answered my question yet.”

“What question might that be?”

“I asked what you are doing here.”

“Oh, yes, so you did. But it was such a silly question I didn’t think it required an answer. The courtyard exists for people to take a stroll. Do you need a reason to go for a leisurely stroll in the morning?”

“You do if you hate mornings. It doesn’t look like you woke up early to welcome me home, either.”

Lulu held Yašm’s prodding gaze without letting her smile fall.

“No one keeps a close eye on you in the wee hours of the morning because it’s a struggle to wake you up as it is. What mischief got you out of bed? You better not tell me you have taken after your favorite sister Billaura’s habits and went traipsing around outside.”

“Mother will swoon if she heard you speaking about traipsing around.”

Yašm came close to succumbing to Lulu’s angelic smile. However, the whole thing smelled contrived, as they were far from her bedchambers, and she was concealing her identity underneath a dark cloak. It was obvious she was trying to sneak out of the palace. He also suspected it wasn’t her first time doing this, considering how smoothly she countered his questioning.

“Where’s Nana?”

“Her lower back has been hurting lately.” Lulu’s eyes grew misty, seemingly with concern over the elderly maid who constantly trailed after her.

“It appears serving you has become so much trouble it’s causing physical strain on the older woman. I will take over the responsibility of keeping an eye on you for the time being.”

“Oh my… I could never inconvenience you with such menial work, Brother. Worrying you is the last thing this sister of yours would want. I shall refrain from any outings for the time being so that you can set your mind at ease.”

“That’s a good attitude to have. But this brother of yours is worried. You understand what that means, yes?”

Yašm’s words implied that he was going to keep Lulu on a tighter leash than before.

Lulu realized she had failed in her attempt to get him to do the opposite by volunteering to stay home. In the blink of an eye, she wiped away the grim expression that had fallen over her face and replaced it with a smile capable of captivating anyone.

“On another note…” Lulu clapped her hands together. The crisp smack cracked through Yašm’s ability to suppress his hangover any longer. He tilted his head back and grimaced. “I heard you have invited a lady to stay at your residence, Harij. May I offer you my congratulations?”

“Even you know about it…?!” Yašm staggered from more than just his dizziness. But he barely managed to catch his balance because he couldn’t very well shame himself by keeling over in front of his younger sister. He shot Harij a look.

“Yes, you may. Thank you, Princess Lulu.”

“How wonderful! I just knew the rumors were true. What do you need to move things along? Advice? A celebratory party?”

“Your heartfelt words are enough.”

“How quaint! How could I not celebrate the happiness of the man both Big Sister Laura and Big Brother Yašm adore like a brother? What is the right gift…? Oh, I know!”

Anticipating she was going to clap her hands again, Yašm furtively turned his head away before the sharp sound could pierce his ears.

“How about I gift you with ‘the Witch’s Love Potion’?”

Harij’s ears perked up.

“There you go mentioning that nonsense again.”

“Hehehe. You are only upset because you need it, Brother.”

“Don’t be a brat, Lulu!”

“Harij, however, likely doesn’t need it. There isn’t a woman in this world who wouldn’t fall head over heels for you if you whispered sweet nothings in her ear with that handsome face of yours.”

The corner of Yašm’s lips quirked up in a wicked grin when he saw Harij struggling to respond. “What’s this? Your lady friend hasn’t fallen for you?”

“I exercise my right to remain silent.”

“My oh my!”

“Really now?”

The siblings’ eyes gleamed. Harij bowed and stepped back to express he wouldn’t explain further.