Ivy lay frozen amongst the mess of her tent. If she just waited it out with her eyes closed, it would go away. It had to. It had done so all by itself last time. This should be no different. Just breathe. In, out. In, out. Everything would be okay.

Except, her eyelids flicked open, unbidden. Just as it had been one year ago, a messy overload of incomprehensible shapes and angles slammed into her head. It was like she had gained a new sensory organ, but lacked the proper tools in her mind to process it. She imagined a blind person seeing for the first time through some miracle. Although in her case it was more like a nightmare.

Her witch's curse rendered the interior of her little hideout into colorless unrecognizable chaos. Lines and objects that she should be able to understand on an instinctual level had turned and twisted into constructs that gave her a pounding headache just by looking at them. Where she thought the tent opening should be, the outline of the flap was somehow endlessly extending in a curve far off into the distance. It was not only impossible, but made no sense.

And everything wiggled with a nearly imperceptible vibration, but just enough to make it seem like she had lost her mind. It added to the nausea and dizziness from the poisonous wine. How stupid of an idea that had been. She tried to stand on wobbly legs, not sure if it was the alcohol or her accursed vision that was making the world spin around her.

"Just get drunk," she said to herself, "that'll make things better."

Maybe the problem was she hadn't guzzled down enough. She had seen many a drunkard passed out in an alley or ditch. That was what she needed right now, poison or no. So where was that second jug—

When she tried to look down at the ground—where the ground should exist—it just wasn't there. Well, something was, but what it might actually be definitely had nothing to do with the packed dirt that had been there before. Instead, a writhing, squirming mass of tiny faceless tentacles held her weight. She forced her eyelids shut tight. There was no way that could be real. Right? Oh god. What if they started crawling up her leg? Should she take a peak to make sure they were staying put? Probably, but...

Her whole face scrunched up, she slowly let one eye open, her whole body trembling at the thought of what she might uncover. Please. Please just let this be the one thing she did not have to endure. Half an eye open, the achromatic world came back into view, and finally Ivy had caught a break. The sickening ground she stood on was still there, but blessedly keeping to itself. It wasn't much, but she would take whatever blessings she could find tonight.

How had she managed to survive this last time? She had run through the city like this! At the moment she wasn't sure if she could take a single step. What if the ground started moving more than it already was? She eyed it again, cringing at the sight. No. she couldn't take that chance. Besides, where would she go? She hadn't the foggiest sense of direction now, or before. She had ended up in the richest part of the city purely by accident back then.

Right. the safest course of action was to just stay put. Stay put and wait. Yet every moment that passed, the world around her taunted her with the unknown. Her body would not let her keep her eyes closed for very long. Branching out from her in all directions rested countless, unfathomable twisting pathways leading further into the beyond. She couldn't help but study them, wondering where they led. Nowhere good, for certain. So why...why did she want to go exploring?

"Stop," she cried out, "stop it! Why is this happening to me? What did I do to deserve any of it?!"

She covered her face with both hands, blocking everything out. It couldn't hurt her if she couldn't see it. Probably. She did her best to slow her breathing, focusing on the beat of her heart. There, she discovered something unknown to her up until that very moment. Deep within herself, a trickle of darkness bottled up at her core was slowly draining away. Instinct alone told her what it meant. If she just kept calm, kept sane, nothing could take her from her hideaway, and this would all end without incident. All she had to do was keep her eyes covered. But alas she could not accomplish the feat. A part of her—the dark part dripping down from her heart—yearned to understand this world. To conquer it.

Against all of the little sense she still possessed, she rose one foot, sending dizzying waves through her whole body. Thankfully, none of the disgusting ground came up with her boot. When she placed her foot back down, the strange mass of worm-like entities continued to hold her steady, not reacting in the slightest. The impossible space bent around her with the slight change of perspective, and even more lines blurred into existence.

She stood there surveying the alien world, trying to draw some sort of picture in her head of what this place represented. All models she tried to build fell apart almost right away. It felt like these shapes weren’t supposed to be understood by human minds or seen by human eyes.

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But was she still just a human? As far as she knew most people on the continent believed in the church’s teachings regarding anything witch or demon related. If she were to still subscribe to that doctrine—which she had her whole life so far—she could interpret witches as an entirely different species. What was it they called women like her? Hellspawn? Could a hellspawn figure out this distorted, broken world? It had to be so. Why else would the darkness bestow upon her such a power? The only question that remained was if she desired to learn more about the witch world.

Yes.

Her decision had come to her almost instantly. Huh. She exhaled a long breath, accepting that her mind had decided to betray her. It probably would have surprised her if anything could still surprise her at this point. Of all the things that had happened to her in the last year, this was the least shocking. And, really, given a moment to ponder it, the choice was the right one. Without a doubt, she knew that if she wanted to survive in a society that threatened to swallow her whole at every turn, she needed this. She needed to understand this terrible, deformed version of the world. Whether or not the darkness roiling within her had some sway over her didn't matter.

The church and everyone else could go to hell, which was supposedly where she came from, right? Maybe they thought she'd send them there. Maybe she would. In truth, she hoped nothing would ever force her to call upon this place, but there was no sense in not being ready. And if for nothing else, perhaps she could make these yearly torturings less confusing and painful.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed since the pain had stopped, but the power churning within her chest was maybe half gone by now. There should still be enough time to try and glean something out of the chaos. Or perhaps experiment a bit. She singled out one of the impossibly bending lines that extended into the distance and tried to trace it with her eyes to its limit. Failing that, there was only one thing left to do. Keeping her eye on that same line, she hesitated for a second, and then shrugged. She’d never learn anything unless she tried. Picking up her feet, she stepped along the pathway made by the faded, wiggling, path that she had chosen.

Immediately, her environment rewrote itself. It hadn’t just shifted or rearranged like when she had sat or stood up. She got the distinct feeling that she had left her tent entirely. In a single step. Without passing through the opening at all. When she spun in a circle, it was impossible to even identify where her tent might lay. Oh god.

She searched and searched in vain for the same curved pathway that she had followed, finding nothing and innumerable other similar paths all at once. More than that, she had almost exhausted the dark power in her heart with her latest maneuver. That single stride had taken most of what had remained. She had to make a decision, and fast.

Rather than sit and have her power abandon her in the middle of who knew where, she decided to pick another pathway and take another step. The world blurred, wiggled, and then color returned. Ivy gasped as the magic left her, and reason came back to her vision. The forest still surrounded her, so she had that much going for her, but where…

Oh thank god. Off in the distance maybe fifty or so paces, the light tan color of her canvas tent stood out amongst the trees. She had no clue whether her second movement in the witch world had helped her or made things worse, but she would be okay for now. Making her way back to her belongings, she recalled what had gone on inside just before her darkness took over. Ugh.

Her awakening had...destroyed the interior of the tent. Ruined it. She didn’t want to believe it had been her actions that had defiled her hideout so...thoroughly. The smell alone made her want to add more vomit to the already copious puddles of the stuff, but she just had no more left to give. Beyond that, another pool of wetness stank up the place, with a matching stain down the legs of her damp trousers. She picked at the clingy fabric and shuddered. Apparently she had also peed herself during the ordeal. So, so gross.

She wanted—needed—to dunk herself in water and burn this entire place down, but first, she retrieved her precious pouch of coins. Her heaving had blessedly spared it from the sick that covered the rest of the area, and Ivy had little motivation to save anything else other than the dagger.

Stopping only once to re-bury the coins and mark a new tree, she raced back to the farm, not able to reach the well fast enough. Light began to peak over the eastern horizon by the time she made it back, and it took ten pales of water dumped over her soiled body before she felt any level of cleanliness. Cold, wet, and still disgusting, she shuffled back to the farmhouse with a heavy weight on her shoulders. There was no more denying it. Ivy was a witch. And part of her wanted to embrace the darkness that powered the strange world she could not understand.

The door to her temporary home swung open at her touch, and she sat in silence at the supper table until Mister Josef came stomping down the stairs.

“Ivy?” he asked. “You’re up mighty early.”

“Yeah,” she said.

He made his way into the shared kitchen/eating nook and peered down at her.

“You look…exhausted.”

That was a nice way of putting it.

“Yeah.”

“Tell you what, girl. Just rest today. It seems whatever illness took you last night still lingers.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

How bad must she look if her hosts refused her free labor? Oh god. She just realized she must have looked this bad—worse probably—when she had bumped into the noble boy a year ago today. He had…hugged her. While blood and dirt and tears had covered nearly every part of her.

Why did this always happen? Why did things always get worse? She let her torso sag, and fell flat against the table, her forehead against the hard wood.