Master Garthis laid his hands over Kaitlyn’s and she took a deep breath to try to steady herself. She felt light headed, the world focused down to a few feet around her. When the light streaming in from the ceiling faded she mourned that she would die in darkness. She closed her eyes.

She felt like she was sinking. Pain faded as she felt like she floated on water. A memory of the pond at home came to her. Floating on the water with her brothers, their hands just barely touching each other. Only her hands separated from them, and she floated away by herself. She felt the swirl of water around her legs just before the turtle had swum up her skirt along her leg. She screamed.

Pain rolled from her arms as the sensation of chains being pulled tight and scraping through her wounds crashed into her.

Pain rolled through her spine as though a thousand nails drove against her back bone.

Pain crashed into her head as something tried to squeeze her skull.

She screamed.

The house roared.

Master Garthis was yanked away from her by invisible hands and thrown out of the house. Javorora vanished in a flutter of leaves. Kaitlyn was alone, the walls screaming around her. The blood on her arms no longer streamed, but showed as scars. She struggled and managed to sit up.

The hole in the ceiling was gone. The fire blazed high, practically jumping out of the fireplace. A noise like a thunderstorm echoed around the room, but nothing moved under the sound of the wind. Kaitlyn was too exhausted to be afraid, but she had no idea what to do.

She started when she heard a voice next to her ear, “Child. The house. It is fighting me. I think I can break through, but it might collapse. When it does… I don’t know if you’re strong enough to hold back the curse. I’m sorry… I will try…”

“What can I do?” Kaitlyn asked aloud, hoping Master Garthis could hear as well as speak to her.

“When you bled, you gave the house access to your life force, it’s fighting to keep you because you can feed it more through your magic,” he said.

“Magic?” Kaitlyn asked.

“Yes, the curse… to tie the curse and fuel it the unicorn bound it in your own magic,” the man said. “It meant unlocking your magic, which I had no idea was even possible like this.”

Kaitlyn felt some surprise. Her grandmother had joked the old women in thier family were witches, but their form of witches came in the form of useful tonics and healthy gardens. True magic, the kind of magic to control the weather or truly heal had been beyond them.

“Ok, take a deep breath,” Master Garthis’s voice said beside her ear, “You need to cut off the house.”

Kaitlyn took a deep breath as commanded. She could almost smell roasting meat, and she felt an overwhelming desire to rend flesh with her teeth. Only she knew the thought was somehow of eating human flesh. Her stomach roiled. She rejected the thought and instead imagined porridge with fresh strawberries and cream.

There was a wrenching sound like a rafter snapping and she winced. Master Garthis tried to speak, but she couldn’t hear him any more. She looked down and her legs were sinking into the floor like it was mud. She shook her head, “No.”

The entire house shook and she could feel the rage around her. A demand. She took another deep breath, but this time she didn’t try to push away the feeling of the house. She embraced it.

Darkness crawled over her skin again. Blood oozed from the walls like rivulets of tears. Loneliness and fear wrapped around Kaitlyn. She gasped slightly as a sense of betrayal bubbled up. Fear and anger. She was up to her waist now in the floor, and she spread her fingers on the boards which were around her waist.

“I know how you feel,” Kaitlyn whispered. “Claus did all of that to me in… a heart beat? A tiny piece of a heart beat?”

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The final beat of her heart.

“…left you alone,” Kaitlyn whispered.

Hungry. Alone. Scared. Lost.

“Me too.”

For the first time since she ran, hands and arms covered in the crystalline blood of a unicorn, Kaitlyn looked within herself to acknowledge her own losses. The loss of an innocence, the knowledge that Claus must be dead and despite everything… she loved him. She believed him and he hit her thighs with a club. He threatened to break her arms and legs. He had punched and pinched and hurt her.

She had just been told she would never see her family again. She was cursed for something she hadn’t wanted or willingly participated in. She was lost and far from anyone she knew or trusted. She was trapped and dying.

Anger. Pain. Loss. Loneliness. Fear.

“I don’t want to die.”

I don’t want to die.

Kaitlyn shivered as she felt the floor firming beneath her, forming boards again. She kept her eyes closed and felt the house around her. There was pain from neglect that began even before the old witch vanished one day. She had been old and sick for a long time. There was a sadness and loneliness that Kaitlyn felt was familiar.

“I won’t leave you,” she said softly, “but now I need that wizard’s help. I need Jarovora’s help. I need you to let them in.”

The house shuddered from floor to ceiling, but then the front door fell inwards. Kaitlyn managed to stay sitting upright until Jarovora came over to her, then Kaitlyn collapsed against the dryad. Jarovora held the girl as the wizard entered the house, looking nervously around.

“I didn’t think the house had that much power still,” Master Garthis said. “There might be a ley line or something underneath…. I can’t sense it, but the house may have a deep reach if the witch helped it.”

He shook his head slightly and gently sat next to Kaitlyn and spoke to her, “Alright, apparently I’m not going to be able to separate you from this house, I am sorry. I was going to offer to teach you to harness your magic. It’s extremely rare for a woman to come into her magic young, and if I had to guess the unicorn’s curse actually blew open all your magic. Or the house did when you bled here. Given what I just felt…”

“What do you mean?” Kaitlyn asked.

Master Garthis first looked at Jarovora and said, “My dear, if we are going to be here for a bit, could I ask you to make us some tea?”

“I have some mint and chamomile at home ,” Jarovora said and stood up. She half-skipped from the hut.

“I’ll have to fix that door,” Kaitlyn murmured. “I wonder where I can find new hinges.”

“So you are going to stay here?” he asked. “Do you know what that means?”

“The house is lonely,” Kaitlyn said. “The witch disappeared and left it, probably she died out there somewhere, but all the house knows is that she left.”

“She imbued a lot of evil into this house,” he said, “she lured children here when she could and ate them.”

“I know,” Kaitlyn said grimly. “The house remembers that. I won’t do that.”

Master Garthis looked at her intently and said, “She did it to prolong her life. The house will tempt you with that you know.”

Kaitlyn nodded silently. The mage settled back, leaning against the wall and took a long look at her, “You look educated, how much do you know of magic?”

“I know it can do things normal people can’t do?” Kaitlyn supplied. “I know it’s part of the world and ley lines are like rivers, following the land but differently. Only the fae see the magic ley lines, but wizards can tap into it. Um…. I know a bunch of stories and things, but some of them are just kids stuff.”

“Alright, you actually have the basics then,” he said, “you are right that ley lines are like rivers and cross our lands like rivers. We have one of the largest ley lines in the world in this forest, it’s why there are so many magical creatures here. Many of them come to this forest even just to have their babies in the high ambient magic.”

“Ambient?”

“It’s everywhere,” Master Garthis explained. “It’s a fancy word for just being in the earth, the air, and the water. If I had to guess the witch lived here so long because her well taps into that magic. As long as you drink that water, you will be getting magic into your body.”

“Is that bad?” Kaitlyn asked.

He didn’t reply instantly, but when he did he was thoughtful, “That depends. Your magic is currently wide open, I bet you feel raw inside and out.”

She nodded and he smirked, “I can only imagine. Most mages don’t reach the depth of magic you have for decades, and the only reason you aren’t dead or out of control is the house is draining you as fast as you are building up magic. You immediately need to learn…”

“Wait, the house is draining me? Is that dangerous?”

“No,” Master Garthis said. “Most mages and witches spend years putting spells on their houses, things like protections from their enemies. The house is taking the magic from you to renew those spells.”

He pointed at the roof which no longer had a large hole in the tile roof and said, “This house has several self-repair spells apparently. Very handy.”

“So the door will repair itself?” Kaitlyn asked, pointing at the door that still lay on the floor.

“I don’t know,” he said. “She may have only put them on things like the roof and walls, she might have placed them on anything she couldn’t repair herself, so the roof would make sense. I will teach you how to find and study the spells, but I will warn you that it is very difficult to read anyone else’s spells. It is part of why teaching magic is so difficult. But first you need to learn how to manage your magic.”