The Witch of Two-Stone
“Stop looking at me like that,”
“Like what?”
“I know that look. Whatever it is, just ask.”
Sonata blinked at Sunset, beginning to feel the blood leaving her legs.
“Heh, you look extra-grumpy upside down,” Sonata giggled, angling one hand to detach Sunset’s head from the rest of her body. “Now you’re a grumpy floating head.”
“If I catch you doing another of your little investigations,” Sunset warned. “I’ll make you sweep the floor with a single blade of grass.”
Sonata lowered her legs from the wall and turned on the bed so that she was the right way up, giving Sunset a mardy look out the corner of her eye.
“Fine,” she grunted. “But answer it honestly, okay?”
“As honestly as I am able or willing to,” Sunset replied gravely.
“See, you do that every time,” Sonata complained. “And you wonder why I stopped asking you questions.”
Sunset looked at her, and then turned around from her position on the floor where she had been fixing the base of the tripod on which the cooking pot rested.
“Very well. What question do you have? If it isn’t too personal, I will make an effort to answer it as fully as I can.”
Sonata sat, putting on uncharacteristically grave and serious looks. “Okay. My question is this.” She looked into Sunset’s deep aqua stare, and Sunset gazed right back, a faint look of expectancy marring the usually impassive features of her face.
“Can you do magic?”
There was a silence. After a few moments, Sunset’s slight frown deepened into a look of mild bewilderment.
“Come again?”
“Magic,” Sonata said. “You know...” She mimed making sparks shoot out of her hands, and then conjuring something from the ground. “Magic,” she concluded.
“That’s seriously your question?”
“Yes.”
Sunset looked faintly disappointed. “I don’t believe in magic,” she said succinctly, and turned back to the cooking pot.
“That’s not answering my question,” Sonata pointed out, pouting a little.
“I don’t believe in magic, and thus I do not use it. I have therefore answered your question.” She looked up again. “I am a little curious though. Why would you think that I do magic?”
“Because you’re weird,” Sonata shrugged.
“Many a supernatural occurrence explained in a three-word sentence,” Sunset commented wryly. “Well done.”
“Are you sure we’re not just getting our terms mixed up again?” Sonata asked.
Sunset considered this. “A valid concern. Go on then. What is magic to you?”
“Making stuff happen without touching them,” Sonata said after a moment or two of deep thought. “Making things appear out of thin air. Being able to know stuff even though you weren’t there to see it. Living in weird placed like, say, under Two-stone rock.”
“Two-stone rock?” Sunset repeated, smiling slightly. “And you think any of that applies to me?” Sunset asked. “Other than that last one, which I think you’ll agree is a bit of a contrivance. If I could make things move without touching them, I’d get you to actually sweep the floor.”
“Ha ha,” Sonata laughed monotonously. “Joke all you want, some of those things still apply to you. Like how you seem to know where I am all the time.”
“You’re bright blue in a mostly orange landscape,” Sunset pointed out. “You’re not difficult to spot.”
“And you somehow manage to make things in super fast amounts of time. Almost,” she said with emphasis, “as though you poof them out of the air.”
“Such as what?” Sunset asked, frowning.
“Such as this bed,” Sonata said, exasperated. “You had it ready at sunrise. Like, literally sunrise. That was barely a few hours.”
“I’d already made the frame,” Sunset explained. “All I did was add some finishing touches.” Sonata’s mouth scrunched in response to this. Sunset gave her a probing look. “Is all of this something to do with that silly sage theory you keep proposing?”
“See, there you go again,” Sonata said swiftly, pointing an accusing finger. “How could you possibly know that witches are the opposite of sages?”
“I didn’t know—Witch—what...” Sunset pinched the bridge of her nose. “Is this suspicion going to go away on its own if I ask you to drop it?”
“Probably not,” Sonata shrugged.
Sunset brought her hands together, her index fingers and thumbs extended and touching at the tips to form a diamond shape. This she dropped her face into, the ends of the diamond touching her forehead and chin. At first Sonata considered whether or not this was some kind of ritualistic warding gesture, perhaps to fend off evil spirits or bad influences. But that couldn’t be; she was the only other person there, and she wasn’t an evil spirit.
After a few moments, Sunset looked up. “What do I have to do,” she began, in a long-suffering voice, “to get you to accept that I don’t utilise magic?”
Sonata seemed to give the question serious consideration. Far more than Sunset would have bothered to on such a ridiculous question.
“Where do you get your medicines from?”
“I make them myself,” Sunset said, frowning. “You’ve seen me do it.”
“Totally a witch,” Sonata concluded, nodding seriously.
“Don’t be so ignorant,” Sunset warned.
“I’m just joking,” Sonata chuckled, grinning. “I don’t know. I guess I’ll just watch everything you do until you do something spooky and magic-y.”
Sunset’s lip curled. “Please tell me you’re still joking.”
“Nope,” Sonata said cheerfully. “Im’ma stick to you like tree sap. Only I’m more cuddly.”
“No cuddling.”
To Sunset’s great consternation, she greatly underestimated Sonata’s determination. Sonata was as good as her word, and as Sunset made her way around her usual daily chores and activities, Sonata was never too far behind. To be fair, she was a somewhat helpful nuisance, helping carry water back as usual, and when Sunset lost a box of fresh-made incense-sticks, Sonata was so kind as to hand it to her. None-the-less, it was with an ever heavier brow that Sunset made her way around the invisible territorial line of her home, picking crops and adjusting the weathervane she’d fashioned above the storage shed.
By the time she’d sat down for her daily meditations, she was thoroughly worn out, and her patience even more so. She glared through one aggrieved eye at Sonata, who sat peering at her with polite interest from the other side of the little stone altar.
“Sonata, I’m willing to tolerate your foolish fancies at almost any time of day, but please have the courtesy not to interrupt my meditations.”
“Sorry, I can’t,” Sonata said innocently. “This is the witchy-est thing I see you do.”
Sunset felt a tick go in her cheek. “There is nothing ‘witchy’ about what I do.”
“Sure there is,” Sonata said, leaning over the altar. “Look. You’ve got all these little gods here that you’re praying to for good weather and stuff. And maybe even one or two that can curse people.”
“You believe in curses?” Sunset grumbled, scathingly.
“Sure do. Like, this one time back in my village, there was this woman across the way that offended the witchdoctor, see, and—“
Sunset, her eyes still closed, was struggling to unclench her jaw. She tried to focus on her meditation, chanting one of her concentration-aiding mantras in her mind. Unfortunately the soothing accents of her inner-voice weren’t quite up to the task of blocking out Sonata’s obnoxiously happy chattering.
“So, is this one, like, the god of animals?” Sonata asked, pointing out one of the little idols that seemed to be some kind of dragonish chimera. “Oh, this one is definitely the moon goddess.”
Sunset opened her eyes, and slapped Sonata’s hand away from the figures.
“Ow!” she whined, rubbing the back of her fingers.
“This is a sacred altar. I use it to clear my mind through meditation. I don’t use it for magic, I don’t implore the gods for good weather, and I certainly don’t call down curses on anyone,” Sunset snarled. “Although, I’m starting to think about it.”
Sonata paused, giving Sunset a slightly fearful, yet appraising look. “So, it’s just to help you calm your mind?” Sonata asked.
“Yes!” Sunset growled.
Sonata sat for a moment, with an unusual look on her face. It took Sunset a moment or two to see through her annoyance and exasperation that it somewhat resembled a spark of craft.
“Good to know,” Sonata said, standing.
Sunset blinked. “What?”
“Thanks for telling me. I think I’m going to get something to eat.”
Sunset stared after her, as Sonata skipped happily into the house, humming cheerfully.
Sunset stood up and stopped in the doorway, staring down at the girl in amazement.
“You mean to tell me that all of this witch nonsense was just to get me to tell you something about myself?”
Sonata leaned her head to one side, and then the other. “Pretty much, yeah,” she said slowly.
Sunset stared at her, the cogs in her unusually clever brain working. Sonata wasn’t being entirely truthful, she knew, this wasn’t just some vain exercise to find out more about Sunset. To her surprise, Sunset felt herself impressed, however slightly, at the cleverness of this entire ruse, and realised that that had been the point the entire time. She stared into the magenta eyes, seeing a glimmer of mischievous merriment.
“It’s not like you tell me anything about yourself willingly,” Sonata shrugged.
There was a pause.
“Alright,” Sunset said, calmly. “Good to know.”
As she turned away and sat back down at her altar, she was pleased to hear Sonata’s tentative footsteps near the doorway. Clearing her throat, she took two of the figures on the altar and placed them at the centre. Relighting her incense sticks, she discreetly took hold of one of the little bowls that provided the miniscule lights she used in all of her rituals.
“Oh great and feared Nameless One,” she announced, in a loud, ringing voice. “By your forbidden name, I beseech thee!”
Behind her, she heard the scuffle of light feet reluctantly making their way closer over a dusty floor.
“Discord!” she cried, dropping the contents of the bowl. A brilliant cloud of smoke erupted from the fallen contents, leaving a slightly aromatic scent on the air. She heard Sonata let out a little gasp of surprise.
“Queen of Nightmares, Guardian of the Night, I beg thy assistance in the punishment of one most worthy!”
“Err...” Sonata said, taking a furtive step out of the doorway.
“By the ancient words of sacrifice, I appeal for you both to spare your wrath from those unworthy, and place it weightily upon the guilty one!”
“What are you doing?” Sonata asked, a distinct tremor to her voice.
Sunset opened one eye. “Cursing you of course. Now be quiet, this part is a bit tricky.”
Sonata let out a squeal. “Whuh! No, wait! Please don’t!”
Sunset brought her hand down on the altar, sending a fresh wave of the sweet-smelling ash flying into the wind.
“No! Stop!” Sonata screamed.
Sunset raised her hands high, expanding her lungs, her face a hard mask of concentration.
“Ohm-mothello metrikarkum,” she began in a deep resounding voice.
“I’m sorry!” Sonata cried, looking as though she wanted to pull Sunset away from the altar but dared not touch her. “Please, I won’t ever do it again. I was just bored, really!”
Sunset paused in the middle of the chanting. “And you’ll sweep the floor?”
Scrabbling upwards, Sonata practically dived into the house. Within moments Sunset could hear the shhht, shhht of bristles against the stone floor, and felt little clouds of dist and grit flying beside her out through the door.
Grinning to herself a little, she wiped the residual ash from the altar, and set the idols back reverently in their proper place. She gave the strange, mismatched figure a knowing half-smile.
“Real curses don’t come from magic,” she said quietly. “We inflict them upon ourselves.”