Witch Doctors Inc: SEASON ONE (Completed!)

Part 3.4

I end up wearing my regular clothes. Queen Irine's forehead creases with disapproval when she sees me. "Was there something wrong with the dress, Lily?"

I shrug. "It just wasn't me."

Her frown deepens.

I give her my sweetest, sickliest smile.

The rainforest is alive with lights and music. Ta-mamau is pretty much a city of tents. There are tents in the trees, where people sleep and eat. There are bigger tents on the ground - they serve as gathering places. The tents come in light colours: light green, pink, yellow, purple and blue. Candles burn inside, giving the impression of giant glowing slugs.

The community has turned out to welcome Addy back. It's an animated crowd, lots of laughing and dancing and eating. Drummers send beats reverberating through the heat. I look for my coolness charm. It's currently hovering over my left shoulder, a shimmering peppermint-coloured hummingbird that flits around my torso breathing clouds of icy mist onto my skin. The home planet of the witches, Phaedra, was a cold place. It's why witches don't do well in the heat.

Onyx is peering inside every cauldron of frog soup. He turns to Addy after the fifth one. Spotted frog, he announces triumphantly. I knew you would not disappoint me, Adamantine.

"There's sautéed beetle too," Addy reminds him. "It's one of my favourite dishes. It's served with singing mushroom sauce. And don't forget the grilled snake. It's really good."

Addy and Onyx stuff themselves with this delicacy and that, chattering enthusiastically about tastes and textures. I'm just trying not to throw up in the bushes.

I'm hovering over a cauldron of something that looks promisingly normal when I see a pair of mournful green eyes watching me from the shadows outside the clearing. A curl of auburn hair burns in the dark.

Before I can say anything, both have been yanked back into the shadows. I shrug and turn back to inspecting the contents of the cauldron. "Addy, what's in this one?'

"Spider curry."

I feel my face going green. I almost ate that.

"You know what," I say, "just give me a mikau berry or two."

I'll live on mikau berries the whole holiday. There's nothing wrong with that.

Addy hands me one of the big purple berries and takes a bite into another one. "Me and Lima loved these when we were little," she says. "We used to have competitions to see who could bring back the biggest one."

I cast a furtive glance in Queen Irine's direction. She's taking a goblet of some bright yellow drink from one of her guards.

"She didn't hear it," Addy assures me. "But I can't just forget about Lima because Hami doesn't like to talk about her."

Madelima was Addy's younger sister. She died when she was three and Addy was six.

"I wish I could talk about her with Hami." Addy fiddles with the mikau berry. Its green insides stain her fingers. "I loved Lima too. We all did. That's why I don't want to forget about her."

Your mother's grief is a different shape to yours.

Onyx has come up beside us. His face is stained with frog soup.

Addy rests her head on his back. "I wish Lima was still here," she says, the sadness plain on her face.

I don't know what to say. What's the right thing to say to something like that? Lima can't come back. She's dead.