Kait jogged back to the door of the Jouls’ house, a stick in one hand and a plastic bag filled with clothes in the other, but she came to a stop as an unfamiliar voice suddenly called out. “Helllloooo!!”

She looked over her shoulder and saw an older woman wearing robes she recognized, with Hailey trailing behind her. Kait raised an eyebrow. “Hey?”

The woman came to a stop in front of Kait, shoving her face uncomfortably close. “Are you the Kait I’ve heard so much about?!”

She wrapped her arms around herself as the spell keeping her warm dissipated. She cast aside the baton stick that was bewitched to keep her warm and stared at the woman, evaluating her. She probably wants something from me. “Um…yes. But…I’m super cold. If you want to talk, why don’t we go inside and warm up?”

“Seriously? Absolutely! I’m cold, too.”

A minute later, Kait and Taila sat on couches opposite each other. Hailey sat on a chair in the kitchen, subtly grimacing in pain as she leaned against the table, her head turned back toward the conversation. She would have gone to her room, but she needed Kait’s help. I guess I just need to bear through this conversation…

She watched as Kait and Taila settled down.“So, you’re a witch?” Talia asked.

Kait sighed. “Yep.” She glanced meanly toward Hailey, though the younger girl didn’t seem to understand why.

“Awesome!” Taila said with giddiness before audibly muttering, “Though, I guess you couldn’t be that good since you’re so young and probably didn’t have time to learn too much…”

Kait shook her head. “Hardly, I’ve had my whole life to train.”

“Your whole life? Then you must be a great witch,” Taila said, looking Kait up and down to appraise her age.

Kait waved her off. “I’m not that great.”

“Hm…” Taila frowned in disappointment. “So you wouldn’t be able to perform a great ritual, then?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Great ritual? What are you talking about?”

“You know, like flying on brooms, enchanting items with powerful effects, cursing people, that sort of thing?”

“What?” Kait said with confusion. She smirked confidently. “Oh, of cour–” Kait was suddenly cut off as she lurched over, her eyes widening in a combination of dread and pain as she put a hand to her throat. “I…” she began, her voice sore, quickly hiding her expression as she raised her head, “Of course, I can m-maybe do some of that.”

Hailey raised an eyebrow. Why is she lying like that? And what just happened?

Taila wasn’t sure what to say for a moment, but quickly asked, “A-are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Kait said with a suddenly harsh tone. “I just…tried to hold in a cough.”

“I see…well, could you show me some of your magic? I’d love to see what you can do.”

She shook her head. “No. I feel a bit sick. Sorry, but could you leave me? Maybe some other time.”

Taila opened her mouth, and just as she was about to speak, Hailey suddenly said, “And I’m kinda in pain right now, so I’d prefer if you two did a magic show later.”

“I…see…” Taila said with disappointment as she looked between the two. “But would you be interested in doing a collaboration later? It’s not every day that I–”

“No,” Kait said sharply, standing from the couch. “I can’t do that.”

Taila stood and opened her mouth to protest, but caught a warning glance from Kait. She reluctantly sighed.

As Kait walked up to the second level and Hailey passed by Taila she opened her arms. Hailey reluctantly accepted the woman’s hug. “I’ll see you later,” Taila said. As Hailey leaned away with a nonplussed expression, she continued, “Get better, alright? Everyone wants to see you happy again.”

Hailey stepped back, averting her eyes, then rushed up the stairs toward Kait.

Hailey followed Kait’s into her room.

Kait looked back at her with confusion. “Um…what’s up?”

Hailey pressed a hand to her forehead in pain. “I…” she considered asking about her emotion for a moment, which had only grown more intolerable as time passed, but she instead asked, “What happened there, with you?”

“W-what do you mean?” Kait asked, her expression inscrutable.

“You suddenly lurched over like you were about to barf,” Hailey said. “Plus that was a bald-faced lie you told Taila. At least a white one.” She chuckled. “Not that I blame you. Sorry you had to deal with her; Taila can be really overbearing. Sometimes I wonder if she needs to grow up.”

Kait looked at Hailey like she was an idiot.

“What?”

“You do realize this is your fault, right?”

Hailey quickly gained a smile. “Sis, no way I could’ve known things would turn out this way! She asked me a question and I answered!”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“You were meant to keep my witchcraft a secret!” Kait argued back.

Hailey paused, her expression turning indignant. “How the muck could I have known that? She’s mom’s sister, I assumed she’d know you were here, and I’m in crippling pain right now!”

“What do you mean you didn’t know you were meant to keep my witchcraft a secret?! You were there for my conversation with Taylor!”

“I was eavesdropping! There’s a very big difference, girl! I thought you’d come upstairs and explain it all to me but instead, you got all passive-aggressive about it!” Hailey growled back.

“If you really wanted to hear what I had to say, why didn’t you meet me at the door instead of eavesdropping?! Do you realize how rude that is?”

“Maybe it’s rude to you, but I didn’t want to talk to Taylor! Call me petty if you want, but seeing him just pisses me off. Every time we talk it’s all about how I should get out of my mucking room!” she yelled.

Kait clenched her hands, slowly breathing in and out. “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that was the problem,” she said, restraining herself. “I just—Don’t ever, ever eavesdrop on me if you can. Okay?”

“Uh…” Jeez, I guess she’s just really sensitive about it. Hailey held out her palms defensively. “Okay, sorry. I won’t do it again. You okay now?”

She let out another deep breath. “S-sorry. I didn’t want to get into this argument with you, it was stupid. What did you ask me again?”

Hailey finally relaxed as she spoke. “I wanted to know why you lurched over and lied like that.”

Kait averted her eyes. “I…It’s not your business.”

“Okay,” Hailey said slowly. “Then that’s out of the way, but…” She sighed, her chest hurting from the emotion. “…The main reason reason I wanted to talk to you was because since you and Taylor fell asleep…I-I’ve had some weird emotion attacking me.” Kait’s eyes slowly widened as Hailey spoke. “I don’t know how to describe it, but it feels really, really bad. I can hardly think. What is it? What did you do to me? A-and what’s wrong?”

Kait averted her eyes. “Hailey…I-I’m sorry, I should have told you. I forgot…”

“Forgot what?”

“Do you remember, yesterday? When we walked together?” Hailey slowly nodded, so Kait continued. “Well…I tested to see if you had an affinity for witchcraft.”

Her eyes widened. “That’s…and you mean…I have an affinity for witchcraft?” she said hesitantly, holding back a smile. When Kait didn’t meet her eyes, Hailey frowned. “But there’s a catch, isn’t there?”

“Sort of…” she said. “Where—when—I grew up, everyone was tested for their witchcraft affinity early in their life. It was traditional to test for it when we were five…so I never had to personally experience it….” Hailey nodded, unsure where Kait was going with what she was saying. “…But there’s something strange that happens when an uninitiated witch is near an initiated witch for a while. We called it unofficiation. When someone undergoes unofficiation…I’ve heard a lot of rumors, but to my understanding, it can cause a lot of…bothersome side effects.”

“Like what? Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”

“I…didn’t know it would happen so soon. I didn’t know it would do anything like causing you pain either. All I know is that it occasionally causes the uninitiated and initiated’s minds to meld together, unintentionally causing them to share memories, emotions, senses and other things like that. Initiated can also draw on the uninitiated’s emotions to fuel their own spells as well, which I’ve heard can get messy. Anyway, since initiated witches have control over their magical energy, they don’t experience the same effects.”

Hailey took a moment to take it all in. “So all of those memories I’ve been seeing, where I was you…”

“Memories? You’ve actually been getting memories?” Kait asked with surprise.

“Yeah. Since the first day we met.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that?!”

Hailey shrugged. “I dunno. You were the one who went off on me because I listened in on a conversation in the middle of my house, so can you blame me for not wanting to talk to you about it?”

Kait’s expression froze. “W-wait, what have you seen in those visions?”

“Weird stuff,” she said simply.

“Shit. T-that could be bad,” she said, holding her head as she began to pace through the room. She quickly paused, though, her expression turning confused. “If you…maybe it’s a loophole? Maybe The Consciousness doesn’t notice when you see them…”

“The dreams are vague, though,” Hailey said. “And really discordant. It’s kinda like I’m only seeing the memory as well as you can remember them.”

Kait sighed, relaxing just a bit. “Oh. Well, that…might be fine.”

Hailey rubbed her face, annoyed by how vague Kait was. “Look, I don’t see the problem here. How about you make me a witch, then we don’t have to talk about this mud again? You do know the ritual to become a witch, right?”

She shook her head. “I-I do, but I can’t tell you.”

“The muck’s that mean?”

“I mean, when I lurched…” Kait looked down. “There are things I can’t tell you. One of those things includes why I can’t. So…I-I need to figure this out.”

Hailey sighed. “So what, you can’t get rid of this dang emotion? I’m stuck with it?”

“Hmm? Oh, I think I can fix that if I do that thing I mentioned; using your emotions for my own spells…are you sure you want me to do that, though? I haven’t done it before, and it might go away on its own.”

Hailey just looked at Kait boredly, as though her answer should have been obvious.

“Uh…alright. Let’s see, how to use this emotion…” Kait put a hand to Hailey’s forehead for a moment. She then ran downstairs and appeared back up with an ice cube in her hand. She placed a hand on Hailey’s forehead. A moment later, the cube grew, turning into a basketball-sized cube that she struggled to hold in one hand. “There you go. Did that fix it?”

Hailey blinked. “Wow, it was that easy?”

Kait nodded. “Yep. As simple as that. The emotion felt like a chunk of ice, so I used it to make one bigger.”

“Weird. Well…thanks, I guess. Did you need me to help figure out that big problem you were worrying about, or…”

Kait shook her head as she struggled to hold the ice. “I’ll figure something out sooner or later…” she sighed. “I just hope I don’t have to leave.” Hailey nodded along with her. “But…what should I do with this ice?”

“I dunno, but it’s your responsibility now. See ya!” Hailey rushed into her room, leaving Kait alone with the two foot tall chunk of ice.