Rise of the Night Witch

Chapter 2.2 - Try Again

Recap: Last chapter, Marissa picked her favorite clothes for the Initiation and went to meet Darcy in the Otherworld. In the Seelie Kingdom, to be specific.

Trees formed a lush tunnel at the foot of the hillside. Their branches grew into one another as if the trees had been touching each other their entire lives.

It was a beautiful sight. You only saw such majestic, dense evergreen woods in fairy tales and pre-industrial legends. Everything about it was beautiful. The light warming my skin, the silence refreshing my ears, the lush colors pleasing my eyes, the rose scents soothing my nose. Everything.

I couldn't stop myself from walking through the tunnel. It was too enchanting. As an urban kid, I lacked experience with forests so big you got lost there. I played hide-and-seek in parks but it was nothing compared to that. This felt like the dusky forest where staying too long meant staying forever.

No birds chirped here. Instead of raccoons and squirrels, I saw nymphs and dryads playing in the treetops. Instead of white-tailed deer, this one had unicorns in it. Oh, yeah, I think I already told you about my "princess phase" where I wanted a fairy godmother. I also wanted a unicorn back then. Of course, all that glitters is not gold and there were rules for walking through Fairyland. Rules like "don't eat anything", "don't accept gifts", and "don't stay too long if you don't want to age for a thousand years". Whatever I was gonna do here, I had to do it quick. I had to resist this place's allure.

At the end of the trail waited a lake without borders. It was a calm lake full of glittering water with a weeping willow stroking its surface from the shore like a favorite pet.

Darcy stood under the willow, dressed in the same blue robe with white sleeves and the same wooden staff she held when I first met her. She had her feet roughly shoulder-width apart and her mouth drawn in a thin-lipped, impassive line under her owl mask.

While Darcy's blue robe was a robe first and foremost, it wouldn't look out of place on a prom or another formal event. Its bottom portion didn't reach as far as most robes did, making it look more like the skirt portion of a stereotypical dress. She wasn't my type, but if she was a few years younger, I wouldn't have minded asking her out for homecoming. The blue bracelet and the red hair band added to the air of elegance while the white parts formed a nice contrast against her dark skin. Only the staff did remind me that this was, in fact, a magical robe.

"You're two minutes late," she said.

"So?"

"You could at least be running to show that you're worried. And your dress still looks terrible. No need to be so edgy."

"Thanks, yours looks pretty, too," I said. "Isn't this the Seelie Kingdom? You said fairies can be dangerous."

"Yes and yes, but we have been kindly granted hospitality by the Lady of the Lake. She was the fairy who raised Lancelot and gave King Arthur his Excalibur. She is an ally to Western supernatural societies. Each time a new practitioner gets Initiated, they are allowed passage to our Tower in Salem and back for the ritual. The distance will be much shorter than it would have been on Earth."

"And you can't use your extradimensional shortcuts for your thin-spread Hunters?"

"The Lady only allows them for formal occasions, like the Initiation of a new practitioner. Her paths follow ley lines that can be detected. Our enemies have allies in Seelie, too. If we stay here for too long, they will find us. Show me what you can do with a pen and I will fly you to the Thaumaturgic Council's Tower."