Witch Doctors Inc: SEASON ONE (Completed!)

Part 4.14

"Where am I?" I demand.

The Dark Witch smiles. The sobbing fades to nothing. The magic thread in the air, the woven curse, stops undulating and waits. "In your mind," she replies. "Where else would you be?"

"What are you doing in here?"

She laughs. The sound is almost charming. "I have always been here, Lily. I am you, and you are me. I never die."

This is my memory...her memory. I'm talking to a part of myself, a part I've buried until now. And that part is talking back.

"You want to reverse the curse. Try. I will not stop you." A tooth glints in her smile.

"Why did you curse them?" I ask. "Why did you turn them into dolls?"

The Dark Witch turns back to the spinning wheel. A slow hum brims at her lips.

This is my own mind. I must be able to make it do what I want.

"I have always been here," the Dark Witch muses. "We have always been here, all of us. We are you, and you are us. Our energy is a part of yours. Our soul is your soul."

Fear pricks at my resolve, but something Rikamu said comes back to me. She couldn't give me the Dark Witch's heart. It wasn't mine to take. I have my own heart, I realise. The same soul, but a different heart.

Hope surges through my veins. I can reverse this curse. I pull myself out of my mind and into my body, which lies prone on the floor.

People are gathered around me. "She's still breathing," the guide says.

I reach for the dark lattice shimmering over the dolls. I can see it clearly now - a layer of black magic, undulating to a slow rhythm. I reach for it with my energy.

I gasp.

It's like hitting a wall head on. The anger, the hatred...it has the texture of stone. I try to force the threads apart. They remain steady.

"She needs a doctor..."

I grab at the lattice desperately. I pound on it with my energy.

Nothing!

Why won't it give?

I slam into it again and again. Exhaustion weighs me down. I feel myself slipping back into my mind.

"Lily, do you hear me? Lily..."