Number 667

Epilogue

Fifteen Years Later
Vivian headed carefully through the forest. She had changed into her "dirty work" clothes. Being a lawyer, both Vivian and her work wouldn't ever permit her to be dirty.
Ever.
Her raggedy T-Shirt brushed up against a wet branch of a pine tree, and she shivered. Just like the day she had cast the spell, it was cold, rainy, and rolls of thunder boomed across the city of Twistville.
In truth, Vivian was terrified.
Maple and Carrie would have come with her on the mission, but Maple was away on a business trip, and Carrie had to take care of her sister's baby. Apparently, when she was away at boarding school all those years ago, her parents had had a baby.
Carrie, of course, was overjoyed about the baby and wouldn't talk to her parents for a month.
But she got over it.
Now, as Vivian made her way through the dark forest alone, she listened intently. Her feet made relatively no noise, and she could thank the ever-present blanket of pine needles for that. She turned her head this way and that, careful not to let her black bun snag on a branch.
Then the tree came into sight.
It was skinnier than ever, the bark peeling, the flowers wilting.
Fifteen years.
Vivian stepped on a soaking-wet petal as she walked closer to the tree.
"Oh no."

Crystal's Computer

File: LONG, Vivian
Age: 12
Hair: Black
Eyes: Green
Parents: LONG, Dameon and Marie
LIVING

File: PIPPIN, Carrie
Age: 12
Hair: Red
Eyes: Blue
Parents: PIPPIN, Jonathan and Carmen
LIVING

File: ANNAS, Macy
Age: 10 OR 70
Hair: Blonde OR grey
Eyes: Blue
Parents: Unknown-Not in records
DECEASED

File: SHAY, Maple
Age: 13
Hair: Blue
Eyes: Yellow
Parents: SHAY, Michael and Deborah
LIVING

File: LEPPERIN, Marietta
Age: Unknown
Hair: Black
Eyes: Unknown-Thought to be green
Parents: Unknown
DECEASED

It was.
She was.
Where?
What?
Flowers.
How long?
No, not flowers.
What?
Items.
Everywhere.
Glowing.
But how?
Pieces of thought.
Death.
The last thing.
Who?
How?
Am I...
Magic.
Magic.

The tree shivered.
It's leaves were wet from the rain, her flowers drooping and wilting and brown. She could feel it stirring inside her. What was it? What was it? She knew something had happened, but what was it?
The house. Of course, the house. She could see in through the rotting roof. Broken floors, peeling wallpaper.
Vivian Long.
She remembered the name as it emerged out of nowhere. Was she herself anymore? She didn't know. But she did know that she couldn't move. Her feet were brown, clenched together. Her arms were long and spindly, with hundreds of fingers. Her head was the same.
Who was she?
"Die, Marietta!"
The words flashed in her head like a lightning bolt, remembering one sentence.
That had been the last words she had heard before the blackness.
But what was she doing here? And in this form?
She wrestled with it.
Nothing.
But she would get something soon enough.

Carrie's head was spinning.
Magic and mystery, what did it mean? Where was Jackson? And what of Carrie Joshua? Where they gone forever? There was no way of knowing.
But she needed them back.
She quivered on top of the ladder, her hands trembling as she reached forwards to the noose.
The ring of rope was fitted perfectly for her head.
But why her? Why couldn't it be Carrie Joshua. She was the one who was supposed to die.
The woman beside her swiped a tear away from her face, smoothing back her blonde ringlets and staring moodily into her very own noose. Then she grabbed it and yanked it around her neck.
Then she jumped.
Carrie couldn't look as the woman hung limly from the rope.
"She was the Starsnuffer! Now we must kill the other witch! Thou shalt die, thou shalt die!" Soneone screamed from the sea of faces.
Carrie turned her head to look at the scraggly branches around her and their light purple flowers.
It was a laurel tree.
She took the rope and strung it around her neck.
"Witch, witch!" The crown screeched.
She braced herself.
"Witch, witch!"
And then she jumped.
As she made that fatal fall, she thought her last thought before the blackness came.
If you could change the past, would you?