Night Witch

Chapter 6

"Did your mother ever teach you magick?" Hans asked, hacking through the bushes with a swipe of his tree branch. Sweat beaded on his forehead and he swiped it away with a grimy hand. "My da--" rustle-- "taught me about the wildlife and stuff. Y'know--" thwack-- "how to attract animals through magick, and how to--" pant-- "enchant objects."

"No," Karina said, carefully picking her way through the brush behind Hans. "And I'm not a yaga. A witch. However you want to say it."

Hans turned to look at her. "Not a witch, huh? That's why you can enchant dolls to do your will and have welts and burns covering your arms where those iron cuffs were? Because iron isn't toxic to yagas or anything, huh. That's why you're the daughter of a yaga?"

Karina inclined her head and rubbed her fingers together. Her hair, which looked brown in the light, swung to the side."Are you a warlock?"

He shrugged. "They banished me, so I must be. I'm alright with it. Just more power for me to use." He flexed the fingers in his free hand.

Karina squeezed her eyes shut. "You honestly still trust their judgement? After they banished you to the Forest of the Dead? After they theoretically left you to die?"

Hans gave a low whistle. "Theoretically. Big word, huh. Don't you enjoy talking." The words bordered a thin line between friendly and sarcastic.

Karina felt her face begin to burn from something more than just exhaustion. "You clearly do." She opened her eyes at his indignant huff. "Well?"

"Look, 'Rina, we all got problems. Are you throwing spooklights behind you?"

No response. She was unbreakable stone. Karina dropped one behind them, and it shone pale. "Happy, Hans?" she asked in a low tone.

"Not really," he grumbled. "I'm leaving home. Where I would have succeeded and become a leader." He shot Karina a glare. "Thanks, witch-girl."

She felt as though ice water had just been dripped down her back. "I already told you, I'm not a--"

"Yaga, yeah, yeah, I know." A sigh puffed out of his mouth and he looked up towards the treetops. "It's getting dark, Karina."

"I realize, warlock-child." She breathed deeply, glad for the change in conversation. The more she denied his claims the better off she would be.

"Hey! I'm older than you."

"In maturity?" Karina teased, feeling the taste of a smile play on her lips. It was an odd feeling that quickly disappeared at the way Hans's mouth twisted.

"Whatever. It's not like it matters or anything. Should we clear a place to sleep?"

"Should we even sleep? It's the Forest of the Dead, Hans. I'm surprised that you, with all your suspicions, want us to sleep here. Haven't you heard the tales?"

Hans dropped his branch onto the ground. "You know I have."

"Then why?"

"Because humans have to sleep, Karina! You do. I do. And sure, we may be magickal, but I'm pretty sure we have to sleep as well."

She resisted the urge to smack him for calling her magickal. It wasn't as if magick or yagas were bad, but it was as though it wasn't fair that she wasn't magickal and yet was still persecuted.

She hated this world.

Karina tilted her head, weighing the possibilities of his words. "We'll need someone to act as guard, then. At different intervals of the night."

Hans shrugged. "What about your doll? Could she?"

Karina's fingers twitched, grappling with the idea of letting Hans see Lilith. "Can I trust you," she murmured in a low tone. It was barely audible, yet in the eerie silence of the Forest of the Dead it seemed to peal as loudly as a bell.

"We're both outcasts. And at some point everyone dies. It's not like I would kill you with her or something."

"I've had enough betrayal for a lifetime. Death doesn't matter, only the morals of your actions."

"And my morals or whatever are questionable?"

"You switched sides. First you fought for your father. Then you supported the men that killed him." She wished she didn't have to spell it out for him over and over.

"You don't know me, 'Rina."

"Stop calling me that!"

"Why? Because it's your childhood nickname? Because I gave it to you?" His voice was as taunting as it had been that morning in her cell, and she tried her best to shove aside the dull ache in her chest. He had been trying. So why did it hurt so much to go back to that?

Her dark eyes were hot and her vision blurry. I'm tired of being strong, Hans. Why can't it be like it was back then? Why can't we be children anymore?

Why am I keeping myself from that?

"Because we're not children anymore." Her chin trembled, and she forced herself to look away from his bright blue eyes. "We've grown up. I've grown up with a stone heart and a best friend made out of hay and wood, and you've grown up with Festivals and a different village girl on your arm every month."

"That's hardly applicable now, is it? We're in the Forest of the Dead."

"We are circumstances of our pasts."

"Stop playing seer, Karina! Do you trust me with your doll or not?"

Karina pressed her lips together. He was her companion, the one who she would have to believe had her back at all times. And if she couldn't trust him with Lilith, if Lilith couldn't trust him, than there was no hope.

"I do. "

"Good. We can clear up this place and then you could ask her to keep watch in the night and wake us up at a certain time." He picked up his tree branch and started poking at the leaves and bushes that covered the floor. "Karina, can you get Lilith to do this too?"

"Hans... She needs bread or some other form of energy to work on. I only have a few crusts of bread in pocket from prison, and I thought it was for me. You. Us." She shifted from one foot to another. "She can steal emotions, though."

"What?"

"Emotions are energy. She'll take away the powerful emotions and use them. It's worked before."

Hans poked at the forest floor again. "Do it now. This isn't working."

"Once we need it. We can clear the brush on our own. Lilith can only be awakened when we truly, desperately need her."

And with a semblance of a smile, Karina got to work.

Hello, beautiful readers! To start off, I'd like to thank all of you for getting this book up in the rankings--#630 in Fantasy?! 99 votes?! That's incredible! I really, really appreciate it, so thank you all so much!

In this chapter we had some talk between Karina and Hans. Please comment what you thought of it! What do you think of Hans as a character now? What do you think of Karina here?

If you enjoyed, don't forget to vote and comment what you liked! If you didn't, please tell me what could be improved and I'll do my best to work on it.

See all of you next week! Hugs!

Edited 6/26/16: Typo removed.

Edited 9/20/16: More internal thoughts of Karina's added in.