The Grey Witch

Chapter 3

Neo found Nailah Khouri to be very curious.

There had been thirteen others who had woken up during the week while he and Nao were tilling the garden. Of the one-third of the population that was not tainted by the blackness, thirteen people woke up and looked around, but only she woke up, looked around, and broke free of the ajiki illusion magicks entirely. Only she stood up. Only her tama took on a color. Human tama should be pure white. Hers was silver. And now only she seemed capable of using magicks.

But why?

He wished he had seen her before the tilling to know if her tama had always been silver, or if it was something new, something due to the exposure to his magicks, perhaps.

Neo sent an orphaned boy to her door. Vincent had been the youngest one to awaken. He could think of no one better to look after the young Inborn then the garden's only Spark, and she took to the role magnificently. She used her magicks like an extension of her body and flew them straight to his home, but once there, she felt the woman's neck rather than peering into her tama to check for life.

She had other ticks too. Little moments where she'd pause, brow furrowed and tilt her head at something, or shiver slightly. Then she'd shake it off and pretend nothing happened, but Neo saw it. Nailah was breaking through the illusion. Piece by piece she was chipping away at it.

After tilling the garden, Neo and Nao had set the clock back on the world. The root of the darkness and the pain seemed to be science, so he got rid of it. The chemicals, the drugs, the machines, all of it. They went back to a point in history before all that happened and rewrote the personal histories of every survivor of the tilling. It should have meant a fresh start, but Nailah was seeing through it.

[How's it going?]

Neo glanced over his shoulder as Nao joined him. He had taken the shape of a small blue bird and was sat outside Nailah's window, watching her from the branch of a tree. Nao had taken the same form, though her feathers were purple.

[It's hard to say. I can tell that she knows something is off, but she can't seem to put her finger on what.]

[That's a good sign.]

[No, it's only been a few hours. At this rate, she's going to shatter the ajiki magicks sooner not later.]

[Well, maybe that's all right. She is the only magick user in the garden after all. We could pop in and--]

[No.]

[Why not?]

[We observe and...] Neo caught sight of something metallic and whirling coming down the street. [What is that?]

It had two large wheels, a chain connecting them, a seat for the person straddling it, and pedals for them to push to propel it forward.

[A vehicle for transportation.] Nao hopped over to his branch.

[I thought we got rid of all technology.]

[You said nonmotorized modes of transportation were all right.]

He had said that, and this vehicle was not motorized. He sighed and turned his attention back to Nailah's window.

[What about the Unborn?]

Neo looked to Hector. He had been placed with Nailah because he had not woken up during the tilling. Neo wanted to see what effect she would have on an Unborn as well as an Inborn. He had a theory that proximity to magicks would have a profound effect on them both, just as it had for Nailah. When he had inspected her tama, he had found that she had broken free of his magicks because her tama had absorbed them all. He wanted to know if the same could happen to an Inborn and an Unborn, or if there was something different about Nailah. There had to be a reason that she was the only Spark in the garden.