The Unordinary Life of the Enchantress

Chapter Twenty-One: Truth

Halting his page-flipping, the researcher lifted his head to look at the Master. Terror filled his eyes as he took in her words and his gaze flickered to the Enchantress, whose furrowed brows and deep frown did little to console him.

"Farce?" the Enchantress repeated, turning to look at the boy, her eyes glowering with rage.

Looking between the Enchantress and the Master, unsure of what to do, the boy slowly lowered the book in his hands. His eyes darted to the doorway, his mind attempting to calculate an escape he knew was impossible. As his gaze speedily hopped from one possible exit to the next, it found its way back to his mentor. Unable to break free from her enraged stare, he stood still as the blood drained from his face.

"Farce?" he repeated, trying to articulate an argument for himself. "You mean the... uh... the small bit of misinformation I used to become your ... apprentice?" He gave a nervous chuckle as his eyes shot to the Master, begging for aid. As she gave him a shrug and a sympathetic frown, he nodded and looked to the ground. "The truth is, approaching you was... an assignment," he muttered, his voice barely audible as his lips struggled to part. "You know," he looked up to meet his mentor's gaze, "she gave me the quest to bring you home and learn whatever I could along the way. So, I asked to be your apprentice..." His gaze shot to the Master, urging her to explain in his place.

The Master accepted the researcher's gaze, a sigh escaping her as she took a step towards them. Her eyes wandered between her confused pupil, and the jittery boy.

"Like you," she began, waving her hand in the Enchantress's direction, "he's also my student. Although, I must admit, he was quite a bit easier to teach." She gave a slight shrug, passing a smile to the boy. "And, as I did with you, when I taught him what he needed, I gave him an assignment. Yours was to survey the land beyond the forest – although you did not take it as seriously as I'd wished. His was to bring you home.

"There's many things you, my dear, can do with great ease and mastery. Your nonchalance when doing something that takes so much effort to learn is what I wanted him to pick up. You grew up learning this from me, so, to you, it may be second nature – but I, who developed it, and he, who's only been learning it for a few years, know just how difficult it is – you're controlling the world that's immediately around you!" she exclaimed, throwing her hands out for emphasis. "I wanted him to learn how you do it with ease. But, in that process, I didn't expect him to break your mist-ball to bring you back..." Her gaze switched to a nasty glare as she peeked at the boy from the corner of her eye. She composed herself once more and replaced her attention to the Enchantress.

The frown that etched itself into her expression did not falter, however, the confusion in her eyes was replaced with a shattering betrayal. Looking between the Master and the researcher, the Enchantress noticed tears pricking at her eyes. Blinking them away, she cleared her throat.

"You didn't have to," she stated. "You could have just sent him- as a messenger, or as something but not as a... a mole."

"Well, now," the Master interrupted. "I didn't send him as a mole – were you even listening to me, child? I sent him as a student – with the quest to bring you home. All in all, if you'd just listened, and come back every once in a while, to fill me in, he wouldn't have that quest."

As the Enchantress rolled her eyes and nodded along to her parent's words, her gaze found her so-called apprentice. He stood still, lips pursed, and eyes glued to the ground. Anger bubbled within her. How dare they take me for a fool? She sunk her teeth into her lower lip, attempting to mask her humiliation. They did not need to take her for a fool- they could have simply been forthright. Honest. As she was with them.

Noticing her pupil dwelling in her emotions, the Master knew she had to change the atmosphere. "Anyway, that's not very important right now," she spoke up, hastily shuffling towards the bookshelves. "We need to find something that ties the Witches' experiments with contamination." She started to extrude more books from her selection. "We can do so by taking note of the subtle changes, like I said. Now, enough dawdling, get on with it!"

With a hesitant nod, the duo returned to the slim notebooks in their hands, sifting through the pages of the logs before them.

Hours progressed as they transcribed the data, scribbling the strange shapes and symbols that fell in their line of site. The Enchantress, having noted nothing more than some over-fertilised soil by the river bank, gave a sigh of exasperation. She looked around to her peers, noticing the boy's overt seriousness as his forehead wrinkled and his brows furrowed closer with every page turned. As his eyes bored into the pages before him, the Enchantress turned her attention to the Master, who hummed an obscure tune as she rearranged books and extracted a few to place by her side.

"I've sorted through about three-years of data," the Enchantress raised, interrupting their acts. "Fertilisation of the soil near river banks has been increasing exponentially, near the lakes it's been worse. I don't see much out of the ordinary – nothing is there that you wouldn't usually find in earth."

Nodding as he took in her information, the boy slid his gaze to the Master, only to see her bobbing her head too. He took a brief glance at his notes, staring at the compounds he had scribbled across the pages, tying together the data in his hands, and the findings of the Enchantress.

"I've found similar," he finally raised. "Except... water shouldn't have such high levels of nitrogen, and phosphorus, and..." He paused, squinting at the page and tilting his head slightly. "There's something here I don't recognise – but it wasn't in the water four years ago, so, I don't think it's native."

Hearing his words, the Master's head snapped to face him. She dropped the book in her hands and hurried towards him, snatching the notes and open log from his hands. She studied his scribbles and the log, her expression darkening with realisation as her eyes made their way across the pages. Placing the notes on her desk, the Master clenched her jaw, the colour draining from her face. She lifted her head to look to her pupils. Her lips twisted with disgust, as if she had just eaten something foul, and she shook her head slightly before speaking.

"These things in the water – it's what's causing the over-fertilisation... and, it's also why deep-water creatures – like the decapod you found, are moving up the mountains, to shallow water." She studied the confused faces before her. Of course, they should be confused. It was information they had just uncovered, something blatant with little relevance... right?

The master let a choked laugh escape her, and she heaved a deep sigh before continuing. "High levels of fertilisation in water – and in the soil, causes algae to grow over the water surface. I can presume that the lake near your manor," she looked to the Enchantress, "is likely completely covered. That would, expectably kill whatever plants are in the water – I mean, they do need sunlight, after all. That lets the plant-eating animals die, and that... is what leads scavengers and predators up the stream." She stared at the confused faces, noticing that not even a sliver of realisation was reaching their eyes.

"This happened in three years," she continued. "However, the over-fertilisation began... much earlier than that. And, if these levels have been growing exponentially, then the deposits are slow-releasing." She closely studied their eyes as she spoke. "And, considering the fertilising began suddenly, it was all from a sole source. That source, we can assume, is the Witches - but what do you think the substance is – what is the thing that's making these waterways so fertile and, inadvertently, toxic?"

Still, too little realisation was reaching the eyes of her audience. She opened her mouth to continue but stopped when she saw the Enchantress lift her head and furrow her brows.

"It would have to be something that holds all the compounds we've seen in the logs... but that would be-" she stopped short, her eyes widening as fear trickled into them.

With a nod, the Master confirmed her suspicions.

"Blood."