The Wandering Witch

In which a girl breaks into an apartment, and a deal is struck.

I woke up to the sounds of something in my kitchen.

This was rather odd, as I lived alone.

I rolled over to check what time it was, only to see that it was four in the morning. That was another big red flag about the situation.

Another problem appeared with the fact that I had already used Fold too much while escaping from Zeph. If I used it any more, it could end up causing permanent damage.

‘Hold on there, Michael!’ I hear you shouting at your book. ‘Why are you so concerned with your health now, when you tackled a man who could light himself on fire just yesterday?!’

My answer to you is that you should stop shouting at your book. You’re probably going to get more than a few weird looks on the bus if you don’t.

A loud clutter from the kitchen reminded me that I had much more pressing matters than trying to break a fourth wall that, in all likelihood, probably didn’t even exist.

Slowly, I got out of my bed, trying to be as quiet as possible. You could never really know for sure whether whoever had broken into your house was a human or something far more dangerous.

Just one of the risks of living in the hub world of a newly connected multiverse, I suppose.

When I got to the door, I peeked around the corner to see that someone was crouched in front of my open fridge, taking various pieces of food.

I couldn’t see their face because they were facing away from me, but there were still some other defining features that helped to give me an idea of how this would go.

The first defining feature was their relatively short stature. From this, I figured that they probably wouldn’t be a physical fighter.

This theory was only added to by the second feature, which was that they were wearing a fairly familiar set of mages robes, big wizard hat and everything.

“Hey, what are you doing?” I asked.

The figured turned around, not even having the courtesy to look shocked or worried about being caught stealing someone else’s food and, just as I’d been expecting, it was the same witch from the fruit shop earlier today.

“Eating.”

One word.

It took a grand total of ONE WORD for this girl to start a twitch in my left eye.

If nothing else, I at least had to admit that it was impressive.

“I can see that.” I said. “I suppose it would be a better question to ask why you’re eating from someone else’s fridge. So, following that train of thought, why are you stealing food from my fridge?”

She stared at me for a second, and her brows arched in a way that seemed to say that what she was saying would make perfect sense to anyone with a brain, and that by questioning it, I was just stupid.

“Hungry.”

At that point, I was sorely tempted to Fold her out of my apartment, health hazards be damned.

“So that justifies stealing?” I asked. “Especially considering how I saved you before?”

“Saved?” She asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, don’t you remember?” I asked. “In the fruit shop yesterday?”

As I said this, she seemed to stare a little bit harder than before, droopy, bored looking eyes becoming just a little bit more focused.

This went on for about a minute, before her eyes widened slightly.

“Oh!”

Well, it looked like that twitch wasn’t going to go away any time soon!

“Are you seriously telling me you didn’t even recognize me?”

She shook her head, before pointing to my hair.

“Brown.”

Her hand moved down to point to my eyes.

“Brown.”

It moved down again to point to my clothes.

“Average.”

I felt the twitch spread to my other eye, as she started gesturing to all of me.

“Unmemorable.”

“I’m sorry…” I said, unconsciously beginning to grind my teeth together. “I’m afraid that I’m not quite sure what you’re implying…”

She tilted her head for a second in confusion, before somehow not getting the hint and apparently deciding that I was asking her to elaborate.

“Dull.” She said. “Tedious. Unexciting. Unremarkable. Lacklustre. Forgettable. Uninteresti-”

“Damn it, fine! I knew what you meant!” I shouted, running my hands through my hair in frustration. “But so what if I look so average and boring that my parents couldn’t even find me in my old school photo! It’s what’s in here that counts!”

At that last bit, I started smacking my chest to try and emphasize what I was saying.

In response, she just stared at me, before pointing back to the pile of food next to her.

“Stingy.”

While I was still frustrated, I could kind of see what she meant, and sighed.

Damn it.

“So, what?” I asked. “It’s been a while since you’ve eaten or something?”

She nodded, and I sighed again.

“How long?”

She paused for a second, looking down in thought, before looking back up.

“Long.”

I think I was noticing a pattern here…

“How many days?” I asked, figuring that it would make everything easier for both of us if I just gave her questions that she could answer with one word.

“Twenty-seven.”

I can safely say that that wasn’t the answer I’d expected.

I must have stood there, a stupid, slack-jawed expression on my face, for almost a full minute before I managed to catch myself.

“Ok.” I said, before kneeling down and gathering up the small pile of food she had amassed. “I was unaware humans could even survive that long without food, and I now see why you may feel the need to resort to stealing.”

I put it all back in the fridge, before looking through it and taking certain ingredients.

“But you need to remember, stealing is wrong.” I continued. “Surely someone would’ve taught you that…”

“Fifteen.”

What?

“Fifteen?” I asked, looking back to her. “What do you mean by that?”

“Age.”

Age? What did she mean by tha-…

Wait.

What?

WHAT?

“You mean your age?!” I asked, almost dropping the ingredients.

She nodded, and my legs nearly gave out from the shock.

“I assumed you were ten or something!” I shouted, getting a small glare from the girl. “Oh, don’t act like I’m weird for thinking that! Look at you, you’re barely three quarters of my height and don’t seem to realise that stealing is wrong! That’s not normal for someone our age!”

She just stared at me for a bit, and I got the subtle feeling that I was being insulted somehow.

“Normal?” she asked, before walking over to my apartment window and pointing out to the massive, swirling black cloud that constantly surrounded the city, cutting us off from what used to be the rest of the world. “Really?”

She pointed further down, and I walked to the window to see a huge group of species from multiple different universes, all working on what appeared to be wooden stalls of some kind.

I guess she kind of had a point. The word ‘normal’ had kind of lost all meaning over the last eight yea-… Wait, stalls?

“Really?”

However, I had stopped paying attention, as I continued to stare down at the stalls.

“The festival.” I said, as I realised my mistake. “THE FESTIVAL!”

Abandoning my original plan, I essentially threw all of the food back into the fridge, before grabbing a bunch of cooking equipment and running over to the mage.

“Here, carry some of these and follow me!” I shouted, before running over to the door of the apartment, fumbling to try and open the door without dropping all of the pots, pans, and utensils I was carrying, and sprinting towards the elevators.

The mage, following behind me, looked at me in confusion.

“Festival?”

“What, you didn’t know?” I asked, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. “It’s the anniversary of the Convergence tomorrow!”

She stared up at me, the confused expression still clear on her face.

“Convergence?”

“You know, when all the rifts opened around the city?” I asked. “And all the different worlds across the multiverse connected to each other, with Junction as a hub world?”

Her eyes widened in recognition.

“Rottnacht.”

“What, is that what you call it?”

She nodded.

“Celebrated?”

“Yeah, well, technically, the actual day of the Convergence was back in February,” I explained, “but tomorrow is the fifteenth of June, the day when all the inner worlds signed the Treaty of the Junction, and the city went from being a warzone back to a normal city. So for the last eight years, we’ve had a huge festival to celebrate it with tonnes of attractions and food stalls, one of which is owned by yours truly. However, after yesterday’s events, I had completely forgotten to finish my preparations. If I’m going to get any of the food ready in time, I’m going to need a helper.”

From the annoyed stare she was sending my way, I was pretty sure she knew where I was going with this.

“No.”

“I’ll give you free meals and a roof to live under for a week.”

“Ok.”

Sure, I did feel a little bad about essentially blackmailing someone who had nowhere else to turn into helping me out, but she had been trying to steal from me. And this way, I could help her out without losing anything in the process, as an extra pair of hands helping around the stall would more than make up for the money I lost feeding her.

Of course, it was only when I started thinking about how much time I’d be spending with her that I realised I’d forgotten a crucial part in the process.

“Oh, I forgot to mention it, but I’m Michael Evans.” I said.

She seemed lost in thought for a second, before looking back over to me with a nod.

“Emri.”