It was still raining, softly but steadily, when the sun rose the next morning. Cassie looked around at the unfamiliar trees and came back to herself with the realisation that she was barefoot, lost, and cold. Her tunic and shirt were covered in bloodstains, although at least the rain had washed her hands and face clean. She turned her face up to the rain, closing her eyes. Maybe the cultists had left the village? Maybe she could go back now, and explain. The village was... She turned around. That way, maybe? No, wait...

"We shouldn't go back in any case," a familiar voice said in her mind. She yelped. "Yes, yes, oh no, I'm still here, what a surprise," Angus said. "Kind of. This is more part of your mind trying to understand the power I gave you. But you cannot go back to your village, even if you managed to find it again."

"Yes," Cassie hissed. "Because you made me a murderer!"

"No," Angus said, "because the cultists will still be there, waiting. They know it is your home. They will lie in wait and catch you and rip our your heart and eat it."

"But why? You're already dead, can't they leave me alone?"

"I'm not dead, I'm just you now. So now they want your heart instead."

"Well, thank you very much for that!"

"Being me is a far better way to go. Would you prefer to have been--"

"Why are you talking to yourself, young witch?" a croaking voice asked. Cassie and Angus both squeaked, and turned around. An elderly lady dressed in black stood primly a little away from them. Unlike Gran Ira, who tended to look like she had just walked through a storm, this lady looked neat and tidy, and Cassie would have never suspected her for a witched if she hadn't been all alone in the middle of the forest, carrying a broom. The rain didn't seem to touch her, Cassie noted; the witch's hair was dry.

"Uh, good morning, kind lady, Cassie said. "I was... I was just talking to my familiar, that's all."

"Your familiar?" the witch asked, waiting patiently.

"Um, yes. Here familiar!" Cassie clicked her tongue, and held out her hand. A squirrel hopped into it. Cassie blinked, but recovered quickly. "Ah, there, you see?" she said brightly. "His name is Angus."

"How dare you..." Angus said.

"Shh, Angus, it's alright, I'll help you find your nuts soon," Cassie assured the squirrel, who looked blankly at her.

"I thought only Ira's lot had squirrel familiars," the witch said.

"Well, yes. I'm her great gran-niece," Cassie said.

"She said none of her relatives had any of the talent."

"Well... I'm not a very good witch," Cassie confessed. The witched looked at her for a long moment, then nodded.

"Well, don't let Ira push you out, you are welcome in the forest coven," the witch said. "But right you are in my territory, and I would rather you leave."

"Oh. My apologies, I got lost. I'll be on my way then," Cassie said.

"Goodbye, young witch," the lady said, and watched as Cassie walked out of sight.

"She can't see us any more," Angus said after a few minutes. Cassie let out a sigh of relief.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Sorry, you can go now," she said to the squirrel, shaking her hand. The squirrel chittered angrily at her, and ran up her arm to sit on her shoulder.

"It's probably best to leave it there, they have a fierce bite," Angus advised. Cassie grumbled a little, but continued on her way.

"Its all very well to get out of the witch's territory, but shouldn't we figure out somewhere to go to?" Cassie asked after a while.

"Maybe the Glade of the Gods would be best," Angus suggested. "It is pretty far away, but they could help you hide from the cultists."

"Isn't that the place where the actual Gods live?"

"Yeah, do you have a problem with that?"

"Yes, actually," Cassie said. "Do you really think that they would help me?"

Angus was silent for a moment, then, "Well, probably not. But there's plenty of villages on the way. If we find one you really like, we can settle down and hope the cultists don't find you. Or if not, we go to the Glade and ask politely for help. And if they say no, we can just continue on our way. It's not a bad piece of the forest, around there, very green, very full of people used to other people having powers."

"Did you live there?"

"I wanted to." Angus was silent for a long while. They passed through the increasingly dense forest carefully, treading lightly on the ground so as not to disturb the leaf litter. The forest grew cheerful in their presence, and quiet, peaceful place without the alarm calls of the birds. The air smelled sweetly of pine and clean, earthy rot. The squirrel chittered loudly at something in the undergrowth, which moved away while still out of sight, fern fronds shuddering as it scrambled beneath them. They came across a small stream, made wide and shallow in one section by the a great muddy mat of reeds. Cassie walked along to a narrower section, and leaped across. She then looked back.

"Are we out of that witch lady's territory yet? Cassie asked.

"I think so," Angus replied.

"Good, then," Cassie said, and walked back to the reeds. After much sloshing about in the mud, cursing, and two nasty cuts from the sharp reed stems, she managed to pull up a number of tubers.

"You know you can catch a rabbit to go with that," Angus said. "Just close your eyes and sing one up."

"Come to me, little rabbit, so juicy and tender," Cassie sang. "Come to my arms and let life's sorrows all disappear." She opened her eyes and stared at the baby rabbit in her hands for a moment.

"I don't have a knife for it," she said shakily, carefully putting the rabbit down. It twitched its ears once, then hopped away.

It took an hour before Cassie gave in and used Angus's magic to make a fire. The tubers she had mashed with a pair of rocks, and she added a few shrivelled berries she found on a blackberry bush to the mess. When cooked the tubers tasted pretty bad, sour from the berries and slightly bitter, but it was the first food she had eaten all day and she was grateful for it.

"If I am to travel we will need a kettle," she said.

"And a knife," Angus added.

"And boots." Cassie stared into the fire as she pondered her next steps.

"There might be a village a little further along," Angus said. "You might start to remember these things from tomorrow."

"Your power comes with memories?"

"And a handy, delightful interface while you assimilate them. That's me," Angus added.

"I understood that part. So," Cassie said, "Mister Delightful Interface, what are your powers?"

"I'm not going to tell you that."

"Why not?"

"Because the quicker you assimilate your powers, the quicker you assimilate me. I didn't want to die, you know? And while I may be just a ghost inside your head, I'm not in a hurry to have my personality absorbed into yours."

"Wait, hang on," Cassie said. "What does that mean?"

"It means what it sounds like. We'll be one person. Not quite you, not quite me. An amalgam of souls."

"How do we stop it?" Cassie asked.

"We can't, we can only slow it down by trying not to tell each other about ourselves. You already can use some of the powers, but I think I still have most of our knowledge. It will happen eventually though. Think of it this way: you are, for all intents and purposes, dead. You're just still walking around. We were both going to die anyway; this way we can live a half life together. Which, although not the ideal, is better than our alternative."

"I'm still not sure about that," Cassie muttered. She curled up near the fire, and tried to sleep.