Addison rolled her eyes and walked over to the old witch. “Where is the pouch?”

Matilda glanced up from her wrinkled, yellow book, and let out a short cackle. “You mean the gold pouch?”

The question hung in the air, oddly heavy and pointed.

“Yes,” Addison said, at last, breaking the tension before it became a solid mass. “The gold pouch. It’s not like I have enough time in one area to get a job, even if the village-folk trusted me.”

“They don’t trust me either, Child. That’s why I needed you in the first place,” Matilda winked and then turned her attention downward once more. “The pouch is in the cauldron.”

Addison hesitated. It was an odd place to keep the entire supply of gold, considering how acidic some of the potion ingredients were. It felt like a trap of some sort, although she couldn’t figure out what the end game would be.

“Go on. We aren’t getting any younger while you dawdle,” the witch taunted, her voice jovial yet scratchy.

A low huff left Addison's mouth, and she clenched her fists. She wanted nothing more in the world than shove the witches jokes back in her face or throw one of the dirty vials across the room. Despite her abnormal upbringing, normal hormones raged through her body. She took a deep to calm herself and released her fists.

Both of her palms had little indents from her fingernails. “Yes, Ma’am.”

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Turning in small degrees, she faced the middle of the table, and the large iron beast. Her feet inched forward, a lump forming in her throat. If the pouch was a trap than the whole thing would be. The witch had a temper that didn’t quit and was quite vengeful in her old age.

What felt like moments later, she reached the middle of the table and stared at the cauldron face to face.

Her hand stretched up and away from her body, shaking slightly as it went.

“Addison…It’s not going to bite. I had to make more coins today.”

The truth collided with Addison, and cause her cheeks to flare with heat. “Of course,” she said, her arm freezing in midair.

“You are always twitchy when I get you back from the Fae.”

Letting out an exaggerated sigh, Addison let the insult to die out on its own. She never won when she chose to banter, and she was embarrassed enough as it was. In one swift movement, she lifted on her toes and plunged her arm into the cauldron. At the very edge of her reach was a string made of rough material. Her fingers pulled and managed to pull the burlap pouch out on her first attempt.

Grateful for the little things, she chucked the little pouch slightly in the air and caught it with both hands.

“I expect change,” Matilda said as Addison turned toward the door.

“You…” Addison started to make a joke, then thought better of it. She was in a strange defiant mood and pushing her luck with the witch rarely got her anywhere. “Will get the change. Let’s just hope I’m back before the demons summon me.”

Without waiting for a response, she pushed her way out of the creaky front door. She wished the witch would come into modern times, and move out of the damn shack. It might make her go from ‘not to the worst’, to a tolerable parent.

They both knew it would be several days before she was sent into the third realm. Despite the odd disparities of her caretakers, they seemed to respect the arrangement well enough. What she knew even in moments like these where that even the worst of them was better than the person her birth-mother would have been.