I never told my dad that I had trouble making friends. Well, ok. That's wrong. Trouble makes it sound like I succeeded in the end. Let me rephrase that: I never told my dad that no one wanted to be my friend. Period.There. All better.It was never about Charter Academy; it’s a prep school for rich kids, but that’s all it is. Hell, the bullying didn’t even start there. I’d always been… different. Maybe mortals could tell on an instinctual level that my mom used to see ghosts, and my dad summoned devils, and that one day, I’d be the same. That I wouldn’t be entirely human. A karmic instinct of sorts. I wanted to believe that.
Either way, I never told my dad because I didn’t want him to start feeling pity for me. He had enough on his plate, being a single dad and providing for us on a substitute teacher’s salary. God, there were months where all we lived off of was SNAP benefits—and having chips and candy qualify for SNAP benefits is not OKAY when an eight-year-old is in charge of the dinner menu. Doubly more so when the kid knows that frozen TV dinners are less stressful for their overstretched parents’ energy level. That's not a dig at my dad. At the time, I thought he was trying his best.I don't know anymore.
I uh… I don’t know what I’m trying to get at.
I guess... Well, my dad was all I had, you know? Especially after my mom went missing. And God knows that it was tougher on him than it was on me. I barely knew my mom. He had a whole life with her before I came along. She had been the love of his life.
I’m not saying he was the best dad but he was my dad. He never hit me or anything. Most of the time, he left me to my own devices. I told myself it was because he knew I was a kid with a good head on my shoulders; I could take care of myself. So I did my homework. Brushed my teeth, washed my hands. I tried not to stick out at school…. And if I was the last one to be picked for dodgeball every recess, or was that kid who never got invited to any birthdays, so what? It was better than having my dad know I was a loser.
I didn’t want him to worry.
…I didn’t want him to look at me the same way everyone else did.
Like some fucking charity case that was a pain to have around.
All because I wanted him to think I was doing a good job, that I had everything under control. I wanted him to see how hard I was working, how much I was putting up with. I wanted his acknowledgement.
I wanted him to care. So when Emyrith gave me my dad’s letter, I clung to it like a baby to his blankie. This trial? It was the chance of a lifetime.
My dad was counting on me. Not just him, but my mom too. Or at least, the fictional memory of her that lived on in my head was.
Here was this chance for me to do something. Something that my parents cared about.
I wanted to succeed in this trial so bad that it hurt. The daemons, the nightmare creatures, the vampires, the monsters—I’d do anything.
But what if… just what if, Charlotte was telling the truth?
Where was my dad? Was it really easier to call in old favors than to be here and guide me? Just being here when my life was in danger?
And the letter… Did he really change his mind after writing it? When did he even write the thing?
What if he knew about everything that was happening to me at school and didn’t care? Is that why he never asked how school went? Or why my backpack and shoes were wet all the time when I got back from school?
Charlotte’s words had brought all the deeply buried insecurities to the surface, the ones I’d tried so hard to ignore over the years. The real reason why I didn’t want to bother my dad. Why I had to be a good kid.
Because without me… he could’ve started a new family. He could’ve left New York. He wouldn’t have to worry about textbook fees, or parent-teacher conferences, or making sure there were microwaveable meals in the fridge. He could’ve… he could’ve just up and left, I guess.
Y’know. Move on.
And now I knew, without me, he could’ve gone to be with my mom and… and the other one. But he couldn’t.
Because of me.
Because he was stuck with me.
He doesn’t want you anymore.
It hurt.
It hurt so much that I could feel my heart breaking into a million little pieces. Like a great dam in danger of breaking apart, bursting free at last and washing everything away in a furious, never-ending tide of pent-up rage, disappointment, pain, and neck-deep sorrow. It felt like I was drowning, caught in a whirlpool, and nothing I did could get me out—out of this dark, murky water and closer to the surface where air and light were. Through the water, I could see everyone else with their parents. The scenes after the school fire haunted me: parents hugging their children, grandparents and uncles showing up just because they cared.
How I’d been the only one who didn’t have anyone.
Wanting to be loved is a hole, and it just eats and eats and eats without ever filling up.
I felt myself growing so mad that I wasn’t drowning anymore. I was the water. I was the raging tempest swirling and spinning, a black pit of tar that dripped with hot-burning acid. A corrosive, fetid thing that just kept dripping into the bottomless pit and rusted it apart. The sharp, tainted edges that could infect me with a nip. An infectious thing that made me so angry.
One second. Enough to say a name. Just one word, and the rules of the game would be changed. Or at least, buy some time. Then I could get to my backpack. There were some wardstones in there. Trinkets I could make. It’d be draining, but I could do things. Leave permanent damage, but I’d at least be trying something.
…And for what?
What was waiting for me after this?
An empty apartment? An RV full of books that no one but me could read? Microwaveable TV dinners in front of late night animal and history channels? Being poor for another four years, struggling to get through college, then what? A nine-to-five? And for what?
It’d just be me anyways.
…and Wol and Hwari.
Charlotte said they hadn’t been meant for me. Maybe that was true, but they were mine now. And I wanted to watch movies with them. Talk to them about stupid pop culture. Listen to music. Talk about monsters and walk through Central Park.
No. Not like this. Not like this.
I clawed my nails into my neck, gouging out skin but managing to get fingers under the strings. Then I pulled with all I had, creating breathing room.
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The 𒀉𒉺 on my wrist burned with frostbite.
I’d promised Wol not to do it. This was the only way I could think of.
“Az—,” I gasped out.
Miriam stuffed her grubby little fingers into my mouth, cutting off the name.
Charlotte hadn’t done anything complex or overly powerful. Everything she’d done had been infuriatingly simple: prepared trinkets, utilizing the advantage of her familiar to utmost efficiency, using the barest amount of effort to pick apart anything I could throw at her. She didn’t have to. She was just better. Charlotte Valentine was no dabbler.
She was a Society Practitioner. An old one.
Miriam’s laugh was high-pitched, and seemed to pierce through one ear and come out the other.
“Hoho! He tried to call something now, didn’t he?” Miriam swirled her fingers around my mouth, her nails digging into the soft parts of my cheeks. “Let’s make him say it again! Again! Oooooh, how many times do we need to hear it to understand?! To make it ours?!”
“Enough, Miriam,” Charlotte said. She’d walked closer so that she was right below me. “We may question his ghost once he is dead. Kill him.”
I lost, and that meant death.
“J-Jain, is n-n-n-now a bad time?” said a familiar voice.
By the time I realized something was happening, it was already over.
Charlotte whirled, slapping at her own hand as if she’d just touched a particularly nasty mosquito. Miriam screamed, and I could suddenly breathe again. For a terrifying second, I had the sensation of falling—well, because I was. But I was caught at the last second by a pair of long multi-joined arms and set roughly on the snow.
“Me saved you.” Another familiar voice chuckled into my ear from behind me, then just as fast, it was gone.
It was because people were walking up next to me. People carrying wooden staffs, wearing leather cloaks, and donning deer-skull masks on their faces.
A good distance away, Miriam had fallen silent. So had Charlotte. Because the last person to join us was standing right across from them.
“You did well to buy us the time you did. And wiser still to use this particular child to make way to my Geistheilers, you were. Aye…you’ve done all that could be asked of you,” said the Hudson Witch, holding the hand of a blurry child-sized creature, Tagalong no doubt, hiding behind a snow mound. “Leave it to me now, lad.”
“Lad, I take it you did not make this journey alone.” Even though the Hudson Witch was talking to me, she never took her attention off Charlotte.
“Abigail,” I gasped, the snow pressing in all around me. But I didn’t have the energy to do anything about it. “Back in the forest. Against other Valentines.” I barely got the words out before starting to shiver. “Mina. Not sure.”
“Find them,” the Hudson Witch said, and the Geistheilers began to disappear into thin air. The snow softly crunched until that, too, disappeared.
However, a pair of Geistheilers lingered behind. I could tell because their feet were right next to my head. Only now did I realize they wore sandals in this cold weather. One of the Geistheilers bent over and pressed what felt like a leaf on my head. I recognized her—the short one that came with Yokocho to Sana’s Cafe. Pressing the leaf against me, I felt her draw a sigil on my skin.
I gasped as summer heat filled my limbs. The type of sweltering heat that causes you to sweat the moment you step outside, and summons the scent of burnt asphalt mixed with garbage on New York City streets. There was no warning. It hit me all at once, like I’d never been cold at all.
She winked from behind her mask. Then she too, disappeared along with her partner.
Charlotte didn’t say anything. She just gripped her staff, and matched the Hudson Witch’s intensity.
In that small window, I tugged on the connection that I had with my familiars. Wol burst out of snow, shook his fur, took a single look at the field, then bound over to me. Hwari floated over his head.
“Jain,” Wol said, sounding relieved. “She came. It worked.”
“Yeah,” I said, staring at Tagalong’s blurry figure. I’d given up on figuring out what he looked like. I was just happy he was able to find the Geistheilers with his abilities and lead the Hudson Witch here.
‘…Blood will be spilled,’ Hwari said.
“What do you mean ‘will be’. Mine’s orange juice or something?” I complained, gesturing at the blood on my clothes but stopped talking when the two women finally began.
The Hudson Witch spoke up, her voice carrying through the space. “You have called, and I have come, Jain Shin Hallow. I see violence. I see blood. Who is the wronged here?”
“Me,” I said. “I’m the wronged.”
“Share your words about this wrong, Lad.”
“Valentine’s cheating. She—” I struggled to put everything that happened today into words. “She’s been manipulating the trial from the start. The people who led the attack on the Mother Tree. She’s behind it. And, I think—”
“Don’t,” Wol said, putting a paw on my arm before I could name the ‘Wickerman’.
I shut up.
“Lass.” The Hudson Witch turned towards Charlotte Valentine. “Is this true?”
Valentine didn’t answer.
The Hudson Witch sighed. “You have broken laws far older than yourself—laws laid down by those who first walked the path you now follow. You have broken, too, the unspoken covenant your kind has long kept with mine: to honor the ways of inheritance. From father to son, mother to daughter, and parent to child. And in case not able, to uphold the sacred trials borne of wit, might, and honor.”
Charlotte showed nothing on her face, but her familiar was a different story. Miriam’s teeth were bared in a snarl, her eyesockets hollow now. In fact, she was shedding more of her human skin by the second from within the mirror.
I saw now. Miriam was a medium for Charlotte’s true feelings. Whatever power Charlotte got from having Miriam as a familiar, she paid for it by allowing Miriam to reflect what was in her heart.
“Do you know the price of that transgression?” the Hudson Witch asked.
The wind began to screech around the Hudson Witch. Her voice was perfectly clear regardless, somehow carrying themselves above the wind. I’m not sure exactly when, but Tagalong had disappeared.
“You are hardly in a position to lecture me,” Charlotte said, not a hair out of place despite the gust. “You have done precisely what I have in the past, only a thousandfold more. The very fact that you still walk is proof of your own culpability.”
“Aye. But I have paid the price for my sins, unrelated they may be. And now in this trial, I have been given the chance to pay a little more. Being the hand to uphold the ancient ways is part of my penance,” the Hudson Witch said. She took a step closer to the Valentine, and Charlotte backed up. “You are in the wrong here, Valentine. And punishing you would lighten the blot on my own cycle.”
Charlotte raised her staff. “Lich, you—”
“But the law dictates that my own strength would be the last resort in thine case,” the Hudson Witch said. She gave me a sideways glance. “Hallow, you are the wronged in this case. What say you in this situation?”
I was still lying belly flat on the snow. “Uh, what?”
Wol spoke up. “She’s asking what your opinion on this is, Jain.”
I clenched my fist so hard that it hurt through the cold numbness. “I want—”
“Jain,” Wol said hurriedly. “Don’t take this conversation as just a conversation. There’s Karma involved, and everyone here knows it. That’s why the Hudson Witch is stating everything. To lend karmic weight to her side.”
I frowned. “What?”
’The place. The time. The beings. The reason. They have garnered attention. Karma is heavy here,’ Hwari added.
“Your familiar speaks true. To balance the scales, the world must hear in simple terms what has transpired here,” the Hudson Witch said.
“Which means,” Wol continued. “Every word you say matters. Think, Jain.”
I noticed that Charlotte Valentine hadn’t really explained herself. In fact, she only opened her mouth to badmouth the Hudson Witch. Shifting the blame, making her look worse to everyone involved. My frown ranked up to a grimace, and I contemplated what Wol had said. Reflexively, like flexing a muscle, I opened my Third Eye to better understand the world.
There were lines connectings the three of us—the Hudson Witch, Charlotte Valentine, and me.Lesser lines extended from each of us into different places: the forest, the mother tree’s ashes, the hill behind me.These were relationships, tangled like our representation in this matter.
Then there were… tiny, almost invisible, flecks of light swirling around this place which I’d never seen before. They were all different things. Flower petals, grass stalks, dandelion seeds; all of them negligible. If I hadn’t been looking for them, I wouldn’t even have seen them. Most of them were focused around the Hudson Witch. Charlotte had them too, but a lot less. The light petals were heavier around her, less healthy.
This was a stage. Like a courtroom, where each side made their arguments and wanted the jury to rule in their favor. Except the jury was the Universe.
“Don’t think too much, Practitioner. It won’t make a big difference” Wol said, sensing my hesitation. “But it might make a difference.”
“I…” I swallowed. “I leave it to you, Hudson Witch. As presider of this trial.”
More light petals floated over, intensifying around the Witch. It made me wonder what would have happened if I had asked for vengeance. Better yet, did the Universe even understand the concept of good and evil? If not, were my words empowering the Hudson Witch because I was adding weight to her role as presider of the trial?
This was beyond me now.
The Hudson Witch smiled softly. “Charlotte Valentine. You have tried to cheat, and through it, steal. I hereby dole out my punishment. You will offer one favor, one trinket, one knowledge, and a bound creature from the Valentine repetoire. You must also confess your sings before your own ruling body, Society. These are to be fulfilled no more than tendays henceforth. Do you accept?”
Charlotte paled. “You want me to publicly admit defeat to this boy?”
“Aye. Yield, and make confession before your people,” the Hudson Witch said.
“There must be another way.”
The Hudson Witch’s smile deepened, and not in a good way. “Then the Valentines will bear your debt.”
Miriam floated behind Charlotte, her expression grim. The young girl whispered in the old woman’s ear. The whispering intensified, and I could feel hatred rolling off the mirror-girl, all aimed towards me.
Charlotte shook her head. “No. A public admittance is already a price that bears on the family name. Your alternative option is merely wordplay.”
“Then what do you propose?”
“I want it be known that everything was done under my authority, by mine own hand, and of my own volition,” Charlotte said.
“That is not a price,” the Witch said, frowning.
Charlotte slightly lifted her chin. “I know.”
“Lass. This only ends one way.”
“We shall see,” Charlotte said, and raised her staff over her head.
“Accept the price, Charlotte Valentine,” the Hudson Witch urged.
Charlotte shook her head. “Let’s see if the Hudson Witch lives up to her reputation.”
And the air began to crackle with power.