Trees whizzed by, obscured by the red rain and mist. Mena focused on aiming for the clearing, hoping she would not crash into anything.

The fog was so thick she could not see in front of her. When a thick pine tree appeared out of nowhere, all she could do was scream loudly and veer as far to the right as she could. Losing her balance as she shot out of the grove of trees, Mena tumbled off Straw-Woman, rolling down the hill by her house and face planting in a puddle of mud. Normally, Mena would curse her luck for getting her clothes dirty two days in a row, but after shaking the dizziness out of her head, she got up, gathered her mushrooms and ran inside.

As she dripped sopping wet in the foyer, Auntie Grizabella approached Mena with a frantic look on her face. “Auntie, I saw the witches again…” she panted, “and they were with something called… Anguish…and…”

“Mena,” Grizebella said, “I want you to gather your most important things from upstairs.”

“But who’s Anguish?” Mena asked. “What’s going on…Please tell me!”

“I will…” Grizabella said, taking the mushrooms out of her niece’s dripping hands. “But first, I have a job to do. Gather your things, Mena. Things you can’t possibly bear to live without.”

Mena climbed the stairs to her room. She grabbed the red knapsack that her auntie laid on her bed and immediately headed over to her bookshelf. She had spent her whole allowance from Grizabella on these books. How could she possibly leave them? She even saved the hand wrapped, heavily stamped parcels from the wizard city of Wormwood. Realizing the knapsack could only hold one or two, Mena spun around and theatrically moaned.

"Oh Fabias,” she exclaimed in a sudden outburst. “If only you could whisk me away on your Nightrider, away from all this…”

But as she turned around, she remembered her nightstand and what lay on top of it. Repeating endlessly was the same happy memory of her parents by the lake. Mena gazed forlornly at the picture and quickly realized that it was worth more than every jem she saved for those romance novels. She wrapped it up gently in her knapsack and saw the thirteenth volume of Love In The Days Of Magic, lying next to where the portrait was. It had only arrived a few days ago and was the only volume she hadn’t committed to memory yet. She added it into the knapsack. Mena now had all the things that mattered most to her, but she remained in her cozy room for a moment longer, wondering when she would ever see it again.

Heading downstairs, her auntie awaited her with a freshly brewed bottle of reddish liquid.

“Please auntie,” Mena begged. “Tell me who Anguish is.”

Her auntie closed her eyes like she didn’t want to tell her, but at last, she opened them. Her tone was frank and matter of fact.

“Anguish the Blood Siren is a demon witch who I imprisoned with my magic. For years, she terrorized this land, mass murdering innocents. She killed them in front of their loved ones and bewitched their friends and families to cry until they begged for death.”

Mena turned pale and swallowed hard, watching her aunt tell her harrowing tale.

“The king begged me to stop her and after a terrible magical duel, I imprisoned her and her followers in an endless vortex in Lantern Valley.”

“So, you’re a hero?” Mena asked, surprised her aunt was capable of such great feats. “You stopped her? So why do we live so far away from everyone else?”

Grizabella paused until the curiosity in her niece’s eyes got the best of her. “Because your mother and I are responsible for bringing her into this world.”

There was a blood red flash followed by an ear-piercing shriek; and before Mena could ask any further questions, her aunt pulled her close, embracing Mena for what might be the last time. “They’re here,” she whispered. “Mena, it’s time for you to go.”

She kissed her niece on the forehead and held her by the shoulders with a look of urgency in her eyes.

Mena nodded silently as Grizabella looked bravely away from her niece. “I made a vow to your parents I’d protect you, even if it’s the last thing I do.”

Grizabella released Mena but looked at her with great intent. “Now go Mena! Find the Dream Castle and learn to be a better witch than I could ever instruct you to be.”

“But auntie…” Mena said as she backed away. “Where is the Dream Castle? You never told me!”

“I’m sure if you think hard enough, Mena, you’ll find it,” her auntie said cryptically.

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Another blood red flash and shriek occurred. “Go!” Grizabella shouted and Mena ran through the back door onto the wooden steps. She gave one last glance through the small backdoor window, realizing she did not get to say goodbye, but her auntie had already turned her back, wolfing down the beverage she concocted. “Whatever you do…” her auntie’s words rang in her head. “Don’t look back.”

She headed down the steps where Straw-Woman awaited her. “You know,” she said irately. “I don’t appreciate being used as a broomstick, but your auntie filled me in on what’s happening. Let’s get out of here!”

Mena quickly chanted a levitation spell to get her and Straw-Woman to the top of the hill which was now turning the colors of reddish-brown clay. She was about to run when her aunt’s voice caught her ear. She hid behind a tree at the edge of the hill so she would not be seen. As if she could not look away, Mena watched her aunt confront the three witches.

“Uh, Mena,” Straw-Woman said in her high, girlish voice. “Shouldn’t we be going?”

But Mena raised her hand to shush Straw-Woman and hear what the witches said.

All three cackled madly (except Karen who did it politely) as they stalked around their prey. “I bet you never expected to see us again,” Bubbel said, as her face broadened wider with a haggard smile.

“You shouldn’t be happy to see me again, Bubbel,” Grizabella retorted and blasted a green burst of energy from her wand between Bubbel and Toila.

It illuminated the blood-red mist and collided with a pine, blasting a large chunk out of it and causing the tree to crash down loudly beside them.

Bubbel and Toila’s eyes bulged as smoke steamed from Grizabella’s wand. “Or perhaps, you have the ardent desire to join your sister, Trubba.”

Slowly but surely, the witches regained their confidence. “Heh heh,” Toila giggled, her pin-shaped head bobbled with laughter. “We’ve grown in power since our escape, and so has she.”

“Besides,” Bubbel said, her face darkening with sadism in the rain. “Our dear Trubba wasn’t the only one to perish…”

The look of confidence on her auntie’s face faltered into unbalanced anger.

“I remember it like a cold, black night,” Bubbel remarked fondly. “Pretty, little Arabella Willow. Weepy, weepy willow on the ground, writhing and screaming, waiting for Anguish to take her life. And she did. Poor weepy, weepy Willow.”

Mena’s face went cold. She finally knew how her mother died. Her auntie never spoke of it.

Wordlessly, but with gritted teeth, Grizabella fired a blast of magic at Bubbel’s leg. A ghostly, green hand seized Bubbel by the ankle and hoisted her up into the air. The witch dangled upside down giggling, even as Grizabella glared at her with a scowl that would frighten the most terrifying of demons. Silently, she pointed her magical finger in Bubbel’s laughing face. Mena’s fingers grasped tightly onto the edge of the tree with a look of pain that mirrored her aunt’s. “Do it…” Mena whispered as Grizabella prepared to blast Bubbel into oblivion. “For mom…”

But Bubbel kept laughing. “I’d love to reminisce about that wonderful night, but her Darkness doesn’t like to dwell on the past…Oh Anguish.”

The sound of someone crying filled the air, but it seemed to come from no one. The more Mena listened to the horrible crying, the less she could tell if it was crying or laughing. It sounded like someone on the brink of insanity.

The dark void that spoke to Bubbel earlier appeared like a blot of dark ink in a blood-red storm. It split into a jagged hemmed cape, and when it turned around, a living nightmare stood before Grizabella. Anguish’s face was a pale pink, like a cadaver that had passed away from intense frostbite. She had the most tearful, devastated looking purple eyes, but the tears she had once cried, looked frozen over in ice. Long locks of purple hair matched them and fell out of her dark hood. A pair of jet black heels adorned her feet, and they seemed to ooze with shadowy magic around them. She was as sinister as her green witch servants were goofy and the way her eyes seemed to encase themselves in an extra layer of ice when she saw Grizabella made Mena fear even more for her aunt’s life.

“Oh Grizabella,” the woman whined in a cold, and deep voice, mocking her. “Oh, how I missed you. I cried so much when you locked me away in a prison of your own device. But I’m sure my moans haunted your mind even as you kept us miles apart.”

Her voice rose extremely high and grew extremely tormented, but at the end of the sentence, it fell to icy depths with no emotion at all. “How could you do that to me when you knew it filled me with so much pain and…anguish?”

Grizabella was silent as Anguish mockingly wept, strolling around her imprisoner in dark heels. She threw her head back, her neck cracking and rolling without snapping. She then threw her head forward thrusting it even closer to Grizabella’s face. “It’s good to see you again…” she said breathlessly,” in spite of your cruelty.”

Grizabella lifted her wand between her and Anguish’s face. She was trembling, but Mena saw she was trying to remain strong.

“Anguish,” she said, her voice remaining emotionless and stolid. “I know all about your magic from the many times we’ve clashed. I know how you prey on our weakest emotions to tear us apart from the inside. I’ve long eliminated my fear of you.”

“I’m proud of you, Grizzy,” Anguish responded, lifting her forehead where her eyebrows should have been and giving a haughty smile. “Perhaps you’ve beaten me before we’ve even begun.”

She started laughing, but it sounded pained. Like she didn’t want to laugh but forced herself to do so. “Go ahead. Do me in.”

Anguish outstretched her robed arms with the same haughty smile and tearful eyes, continuing to probe her foe.

“Grizabella, you know so much,” she whined sounding both astounded and hurt at the same time. “You’re so much smarter than me. Kill me! Slay me with your inconceivable wit!”

A green light shone at the tip of Grizabella finger as she drew it back like a sword to decapitate her foe. But abruptly, Mena’s aunt gasped and wretched, clutching her stomach. She dropped to her knees as Anguish kept her hands out and threw her head back again, laughing the same pained, girlish laugh.

As Grizabella squirmed on the ground, Bubbel gave a happy cackle. “I told you, your Darkness. The child was her weakness. She stole those poison mushrooms and gave them straight to her aunt.”

Mena gasped, and pulled herself closely to the tree, fearing immensely for her aunt. Perhaps she should have learned to trace mushrooms after all.

Anguish stopped laughing, and her voice lost all theatricality. “Blood bonds. They make you weak in ways you’d never expect. I’m glad I don’t have any.”