A Heart in Flames #2 (Howl's Moving Castle fanfiction)

Chapter 28: Brave Enough

It took quite some time for Heen to approach Martha. He'd been watching her from underneath the dining table, waiting for her to do something. Say anything. Part of the little dog hoped she would reassure him that everything would be all right.

The day had been overtaken by gloomy clouds and she still hadn't moved.

Heen slowly emerged from the darkness, nearly shocking the frightened witch girl. For a moment she expected herself to be alone. With a dark and cold house, with no lights to brighten the space or provide a facade of warmth, it was truly a vacant place. She had forgotten all about the timid dog who had watched the same scene she couldn't prevent.

"Heen." She whispered. His whimpers hurt her chest. She emulated his pain exactly, feeling the same loss - feeling just as helpless.

Martha's eyes were reddened by the amount of tears that fell. Her nose was congested and when she breathed, the heavy amount of phlegm blocked her airways. She had stayed on the floor since Sophie was taken, continuously reminding herself how at fault she was.

She rubbed underneath her nostrils. "I'm so sorry, Heen." The dog climbed into her lab and she welcomed him. His soft fur helped comfort her pain, but couldn't erase reality. "I tried to save her, I really did. I just needed to test her, to see if Mrs. Fairfax..."

Even saying her name put a strain on her. The wonderful, generous Mrs. Fairfax who came out of retirement simply to teach her; the only one who saw something in her, saw something really special - she was nothing more than a victim to Suliman's evil plot.

Martha banged her head against the cabinets behind her. "You gave me everything and I failed you. I failed."

Heen looked up, but Martha simply stared at the entrance to Mrs. Fairfax's old room. Her mind replayed all the little moments they had together, things that normally wouldn't appear special but that she held very dear to her heart. She wasn't just her teacher - she was practically her mother.

Martha shook her head, a brief laugh escaping her lips as a faint vision reappeared in her thoughts. Heen tilted his head in confusion, though Martha was unfazed. "You were wrong, Justin. You're not killing everyone close to Lettie - you're killing everyone close to me."

Lettie, Mrs. Fairfax, and now Sophie - along with the many magicians she had befriended over the years - Martha was beginning to think this was all a scheme against her. Maybe to get her to work for Suliman using the one gift she could never fully perform with her own magic. Building relationships had now become a gamble with Martha because she didn't know how they would end. She couldn't lose anyone else to that wretched family.

If it were possible, Martha would give her own life to bring back those whom she had lost to Suliman, but even dying wouldn't reverse the consequence of their deaths.

Martha slammed her fist against the cabinet. Heen nuzzled closer to her, hoping he could be of some help to her troubling mind. However, she could not feel any ease. She refused to feel comfort. "Why was I born with this curse?"

Martha noticed it in her childhood years before Mrs. Fairfax. She saw when her sisters were planning tricks and knew how to evade them; she saw how girls at school treated her before they even met and knew who to avoid. Those were small visions with little alterations to the path of time, visions she could mess with and not deal with destroying the future.

However, then came the visions she couldn't change. Visions like her father.

She didn't know then how she saw it, but it became clearer through her training. She never told anyone, thinking it was just a really horrible dream. It never occurred to her that what she saw actually meant something.