For a witch living alone in the woods, I really expected Arantia to be a lot more… wizened. Instead, she looked to be about my age only a thousand times more beautiful.

Earlier, Elsie had led me a short ways into the forest where we stopped at a massive tree which towered above the rest. A piece of the trunk was carved into the shape of a door, and I expected it to lead to some underground house. Instead, Elsie knocked and opened the door to reveal a large living room that could not fit inside any tree, no matter how big. What's more, hallways branched off and implied that I was only seeing a fraction of the house. I stepped back and walked around the tree, making sure it was not an illusion. I shrugged and followed Elsie inside. I guess if this was a magic teacher’s house I shouldn’t have expected normality.

“Lovere! Gotevex’veth lok os his!” A melodic voice seemed to echo all around me, not coming from any specific location. I blinked and a woman was suddenly in front of me.

"Come in! I will be there in a second!"

Long black hair hung, interwoven with white flowers in twin braids that reached down to her knees. She had olive skin which allowed her rosy red lips to stand out in sharp contrast. Her dark brown eyes twinkled with mischief, and her thin white dress left little to the imagination, splitting down the front in a v that reached to her waist to reveal a perfectly fit body.

“Elsie!” She giggled and hugged the child to spin her around. She then turned to me with delight. “Takitin’vath lamam! Gotunt’veth Arantiam. Gotunt’vath?”

"You brought a friend! I'm Arantia. You are?"

She bowed her head, and I was unsure what to do. I understood her name at least so I bowed my head in reply and gave an awkward smile, “um, hello. I’m Anna, nice to meet you.”

“Gotunt’vith Anna. Losunt’vith xi Xamxam,” Elsie explained, and Arantia snapped her fingers.

"She's Anna. She doesn't speak Xamxa."

“Ah! I am sorry about that! I am Arantia,” she smiled again, and I was momentarily blinded by her pearly white teeth. I could spend an eternity just staring at her without growing bored as she looked like a piece of art.

“Hi Arantia, I’m Anna,” is what I intended to say, relieved she spoke English, but my words instead came out as “Eva Arantia, gotunt’veth Annam.”

I clasped my hand over my mouth in confusion, and Arantia chuckled. “It is an advanced translator spell. You talk in the language most comfortable to your audience. Very useful. It is doubly useful that Elsie here knows Xamxa and your language so we can switch between them.”

I eyed the five-year old with newfound respect. She could cast magic and knew two languages? This child was a third of my age and three times as learned as me. Still, something about Arantia’s magic was different from Elsie’s.

“But… you didn’t say anything. Elsie needed magic to cast a spell,” I said in her language, Xamxa.

She smiled and walked backwards, arms open and eyes up. Suddenly she was not walking on the ground but upwards, into the air, “Elsie can only use structured magic for now. I teach her spells, but it is different for me. I am one with the mana. It knows my wishes, so I have only to will it and it will be.”

“Yeah yeah you are so cool now get down we need your help,” Elsie said. It was spoken both in English and in Xamxa at once. My ears registered only the English words, but I could feel that they were only partial words, incomplete without the magic that entwined them to the other language.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Of course you do,” she sighed. “No one visits me for me anymore. What a bother. At least let me make us some tea before we talk.”

As she hurried away and down a hallway, her feet barely seemed to brush the ground. Every movement she made was like a dance, every step choreographed.

“Is she even human?” I wondered aloud.

“Probably not,” Elsie answered. “At least not fully. Most humans don’t live for hundreds of years.”

“Hundreds of— how old is she?”

“It’s hard to say. Still, she is the only thing that stays the same every time I come back.”

“Then time moves faster here?”

“I guess. I don’t know,” she plopped down on one of Arantia’s couches.

“So when Carter vanished for a few hours…?”

“It could have been minutes, weeks, or years for him.”

“Well… duck. Your parents are going to return and their son is going to be older than them. I hope they still tip well.”

“Nah don’t worry we don’t age here. I don’t know how it’ll be for you, but Carter and I can only grow back home.”

I eyed the child sitting across from me. Was she… older than me? How old was she? I doubted that she really needed a babysitter, and I wondered how she had the energy to spend hours playing with barbies.

“Yeah, I’m pretty cool amn’t I? I should be babysitting you cause I am like a bajillion years old.”

“Oh bah! Ignore her!” Arantia appeared again, this time with a tea set hovering in the air around her.

She clicked her tongue and suddenly we were seated, upside down, hanging from the ceiling. The only reason I could tell, of course, was because everyone’s hair was hanging above their heads and if I looked up I could see couches and the ground I had just been standing on.

“Elsie and Carter pop in and cause a stir every now and then, but they haven’t spent that long here. Anyway, their brains don’t develop here either, so they won’t become adults even if they spend centuries here. How old are you now anyway? Five? Then she’s barely more than five years old mentally, she simply has a few more memories than most.”

“You’re one to judge,” Elsie harrumphed. “You don’t grow here either.”

“My outer body doesn’t grow anywhere, my dear, but my brain is constantly expanding. Still, don’t rush your life along.”

I was mesmerised by Arantia’s voice and the words themselves, but Elsie rolled her eyes and broke us off from the tangent.

“Yes, yes, you are amazing. Now we need your help.”

“And how may I assist you?” Arantia said as she began pouring the tea. While it was in her hands the tea behaved as it would on the ground, but as soon as I took my teacup bubbles started floating out of it and into the air around me.

“Carter’s gone missing and we have to find him. It’s dinner time and I don’t want his parents upset if I don’t get the kids to bed on time. Have you seen him recently?” I explained, occasionally growing distracted by the bubbles of tea around me. Elsie was chomping them out of the air with glee as Arantia added a sugar cube to her more well-behaved cup.

“Hmm… recently is an odd term for me. I don’t believe I have seen him since last he came by with Elsie, but it has been a few centuries and I am forgetful. You say he has been missing a few hours? In that case, he could have been in this world for minutes, days, or decades depending on the whims of the children.”

“The whims of… the children?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“Oh yes. Elsie and Carter are something of gods in this world, although it’s all very confusing. They have worshippers, which gives them a big head, but it’s their subconscious that dictates the laws of the world. They are not the first children to come here, those who made our worlds, but they are the current masters of the realm, not that it does them any good. I had to teach them magic since their conscious minds have no control over the world.”

That left me with way more questions, but Elsie once again interjected before I could ask. “What Miss Anna meant to ask is where he is, not if you have seen him.”

Um, no, that’s not what I meant to ask but okay.

“Oh, of course,” Arantia waved her hand and the tea disappeared, replaced with a map. She handed Elsie a needle, and before I could stop her Elsie pricked her finger with it.

“Stop!” I gasped, babysitter instincts kicking in. “That will hurt you! I need a bandaid.”

“Calm down it’s just a drop. We need her blood to find her brother,” Arantia said. She closed her eyes and a drop of blood floated from Elsie’s finger to the map. The droplet landed near a dot that read “Everglow,” and then was dragged forward towards what seemed to be a mountain range before the blood ran out. All that was left was a little red line.

“It seems he is moving, and rather quickly at that. You should probably ask around Everglow for clues. Good luck!” Arantia said, and we were back on the ground with the door open.

“Wait, how do we get to Everglow? Can’t you come with us?”

“It’s East. Here, have a compass and a map,” she dropped the map used earlier and a compass summoned from thin air into my hand. “Unfortunately, I am not destined to share this adventure with you.”

Elsie rolled her eyes, “it has nothing to do with destiny, you’re just too lazy to leave your home. At least teleport us to Everglow.”

Arantia narrowed her eyes at Elsie and stuck out her tongue. Before I could blink we were outside and Arantia was slamming the door in our faces. Perhaps earlier when she said her brain was ever-expanding she was just talking out of her ass, since her maturity seemed to be around Elsie’s level.