No Matter What

Chapter XI

I walked into the third witch's home. The door closed as usual.

"I knew you'd come," the third witch said. She was looking at a board.

The board was covered in writing and red wool connecting two sentences together.

"The black petal—" she started saying.

I interrupted,

"Has a price, like the others, I know. Tell—"

"—me and I will do it, I know," she interrupted me.

For a moment, nobody said a thing.

"You're prepared, I like that. You know, the future is the most significant time of them all. Anything could happen in the future."

Her hair was a lot like my doll, Lena's, except purely white. She looked obsessively at her plans. She jotted a million things down as she spoke.

"All I need from you... is..." she seemed to be calculating something, "Your dagger."

"My dagger? Why—"

"Would you need my dagger? Don't question the future, young one. It has its ways of sneaking up to you, but I will never let it sneak up to me. I will need this dagger in the next visit, trust me."

"You can see the future?"

"Oh, no, only our mother can. I simply calculate what is the most probable. That is why I don't need traps. I know exactly who will come to me and whether or not they deserve a chance. Now, hurry hurry. Hand me that dagger."

I took out the dagger from my bag and handed it to her. She snapped and the black petal floated in front of me. I took it and put it in my bag. The door flew open.

"Off you go," said the witch, writing an event on her calendar.

I walked out and the door closed again. Now I would start my way towards Fairyland. I took out the map and worked out a path: I would walk on forward all the way then turn right at the road I had first taken.

That is what I did.

Walking towards another ingredient, I was filled with satisfaction. I missed home, Arthur, my mom, and even the medic. I missed my necklace, and I was terribly wounded and tired. But I had done it. I had survived it all. I had nearly half of the ingredients and I would soon get the rest. I was going to save my mom. I felt happy.

Fairyland was much further than I had realized. I was utterly exhausted so I decided to rest. I took a seat at a big rock that was hidden by a tree from the sunlight and took out my water from my bag for a sip.

From afar, I could see a herd coming. It was a herd of sheep. They ran down the hill heading towards the meadow in front of me. These sheep were not white like the ones my village took care of, they were pink.

I watched as the heard of pink sheep was lead by their shepherd. He guided them where they could rest and feed.

The shepherd wiped the sweat off his forehead the noticed me. He ran towards the rock I sat on.

"Hello! Are you lost?" he asked.

"I am not, thank you."

"Oh. What are you doing here?"

"I—I'm on a mission."

His face lit up with curiosity, he said,

"A mission! That is so cool. All I ever do is take care of my parents' sheep," he looked at the herd; they ate the meadow's grass. The shepherd was just a kid.