Night Witch

Chapter 27

It was tedious work.

The light grew weaker every minute, causing her to squint and her eyelids to droop. Karina's fingers grew sore, and her shoulder ached from being hunched over.

Red flower. Purple flower. White flower. Red, red, white, purple, red, white, purple, purple. A dark pink. She was sorting flowers for a woman she didn't know just to get to talk to her. A woman who called her by her mother's name, who was too quick to even ask her a question.

She pursed her lips. This reminded her of a time when she had spent the day cutting branches into small woodchips for kindling, and they had gotten mixed up in some of Olga's herbs and a broken glass container. She'd spent the day picking up the different materials. Her hands had been cut and sore afterwards, and a couple splinters had rooted themselves under her fingernails.

This was only slightly better.

Karina's hands might not have been ripped to pieces this time, but hunching over with an injured shoulder wasn't fun. And because she felt even more alone than she did then, it might have actually have been worse.

Red. Purple. Purple. She could hear a bird's wings flapping above. White. Red. Purple. She smelled something rotting. Maybe wood. Purple, purple, purple, and she was losing her mind. She couldn't keep up with this.

Her hand brushed her dress pocket, and she felt a soft lump.

Lilith.

She used Lilith whenever she could back then. Why hadn't she thought of her earlier? She could use the blessed little doll and free herself from her tasks.

She grabbed Lilith and sang the song to make her live. "Take me," she said, surprised at how even her voice sounded. "Get my emotions and work on sorting the flowers into piles based on color."

As...you..wish...

The words came from her mind, not the stitched mouth of the doll. She rubbed her fingers together and sighed before getting to work with her best friend.

****

The time--minutes, hours, she didn't know--stretched on. Karina hummed a tune and tugged on the end of each finger, hearing the refreshing pop of her knuckles cracking. After hard work with her hands, she liked to relax them as much as possible.

She rolled her good shoulder back. The sorting was almost done, even though it was too dark to see much more than light or dark shades. Lilith was doing most of the work now.

At long last, Lilith finished sorting the piles and went stiff like she always did when her assigned task was finished. Karina gently placed the doll back in her pocket and stood up.

She walked over to the large door of the old woman's house and knocked with the small skull knocker on the door, intentionally only touching the outside edges of the skull and keeping her fingers far away from the teeth. A single touch of it sent a jolt of electricity down her arm, and she jerked her arm away.

It swung open immediately, almost as though the woman had been waiting behind the door.

"I finished. Ma'am. Witch. I mean--" Karina dipped into a curtsy, a steady pink tint staining her cheeks. "I--do you want to see?"