FSE

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Days without Lyle were not completely empty and hallow but they were certainly less fulfilling. Rhea helped plant Old Man Tarus' garden, gathered edible mushrooms for the Bread and Barley tavern, and watched Garius' sheep for a few hours.

Rhea hated sheep. Learning to talk to animals had been the nail in that coffin. Bees had minds like lively music and hummingbirds always appeared to be on the verge of an excitable orgasm. Dogs tended to babble about how much they loved their masters and cats were entertaining in their arrogance. Listening to the minds of sheep, on the other hand, was like listening to dunk simpletons who had trouble with their words.

The inarticulate babble of two dozen monotonous voices clogged her head like beavers in a river. Closing her magical senses would have spared her the headache but witchcraft was not the sort of thing one simply learned from books and lectures. The world was alive and a full of spirits and it took practice to interact with them.

Rhea's talents lay mostly as a green witch and so she listened to the deer fret about the hunters and basked in the wisdom of ancient trees. All of these talents needed practice to improve upon and practice took time and focus. Naturally, these types of activities looked odd to outsiders and a task like sheepherding got her away from people. Sitting naked on a large rock with her legs crossed, Rhea was able to feel the world around her. Hours passed in quiet meditation and she was still able to get paid for it.

Drawing a magic circle in the ground around the sheep had cut her off from the worst of their noise and it warned her when she needed to do her job. When a sheep strayed outside of their circle she would hear it at once. Then the strength of her will caused little puffs of wind to blow in their faces. The errant creature would amble stupidly back into its flock and harmony would return.

The grasses whispered tiny secrets into the air and held the ground in place. When something stepped upon them they took notice and Rhea was able to use them to keep track of the entire meadow without looking. When someone eventually approached she would have plenty of time to return to herself, dress, and assume the posture of one who was alert while watching the dumbest animals one could domesticate. One day they'll tame something dumber ... and the damn things will look up with gaping mouths and drown when it starts to rain.

Sirius approached in silence but he arrived to find the girl standing with her staff and staring intently at his flock. The look on the man's face told Rhea that he was bothered by this. Clearly, he had been hoping to catch her not doing her job, which would be all the excuse he needed not to pay her. The next test came when he turned to the flock and began counting them in his head. Neither of them said anything until he finished and he took a deep breath.

"Any trouble?" Sirus asked in the calm tones of a man trying not to wake up a great beast.

"No, sir," Rhea answered in a similarly soft tone.

"Any wolves?" he countered.

"One," she answered without interest. "I threw a rock and it went away." It was a lie, of course. Rhea did not need to throw stones at a creature that she could talk to. The wolf had been interested in the sheep but she told him that hurting them would bring men ... and he should hunt somewhere else. The wolves in this area had learned long ago that men brought death and so they needed little coaxing.

Sirus nodded and handed her a small handful of coins. The girl accepted them, glanced at the number, and slid them into her belt purse. Then she handed the shepherd's staff back to its owner and began walking towards the village. Once she was out of sight, she turned north until she came to a large and gnarly oak. She touched the tree and was rewarded with a buzz of Quercus affection.

"Hello Philander," she told the tree and she felt its response through the tingling in her fingers. The tree's deep roots and unwavering presence made it easy for her to calm her mind and center her spirit. The edges of her world were thin enough to step through here and so she gathered in her power and a deep breath. When she began to blow out, she released the stored energy and stepped forward. When she breathed in again, the air carried the tang of lemon cakes and freshly baked peanut brittle.

Opening her eyes showed her a cottage made out of gingerbread, with frosting thatch, cookie shutters, and a fence of oversized peppermints. A collection of drunk bees were sprawled happily along the rim of her garden and white smoke billowed sweetly from the chimney. Rhea passed through the graham cracker gate, walked up a path of mints, and let herself in through the red candy-coated door.

"Baba," she called out, "I'm home."

"Welcome back, Rhea," answered a grandmotherly voice. "How was your day?"

"Oh ... just another day," the girl reported as she took off her shoes and put her feet into her house slippers. The sugar spun floor was indistinguishable from hard wood and most of the sturdy furniture was made of the same material. Only close observation would reveal its caramelized texture but Rhea had long sense grown used to it all.

"How are the sheep, dear?" the old woman asked.

"Dumb as a rock and twice as useless," Rhea growled. "Their minds seem to make the whole air thicker. It makes everything harder to focus on."

"It's good practice, dear," the old woman chided her. "Once you get good at working with a handicap, you will find working without one easier." Rhea fell into a couch of marshmallow fluff that did not melt or leave her sticky. She stretched and let out a sigh which drew a chuckle from the other room. "Ah, I see," Baba Ginger observed without looking. "You miss your boy."

"He's been gone for too long," Rhea complained without an ounce of embarrassment.

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder," the old woman warned. "You wouldn't like him as much if he was always here."

"You mean the sex wouldn't be as good," the girl replied with a knowing smirk.

"To be sure," Baba Ginger agreed. A heavy metal hinge announced the opening of her magical oven. Heat rolled out of the kitchen and the old woman drew out a tray of something savory and delicious. After setting them out to cool she closed the oven door and emerged from the kitchen.

The woman who appeared inspired horror in those who did not know her. Dark green skin stretched tightly along her tall thin frame and her black eyes sparkled with intelligence. Baba Ginger's smile showed off the kind of teeth generally reserved for dangerous predators and they matched her black nails in both color and blade-like appearance. In any other story, a creature shaped like this would be fattening up kidnapped children for her evening meal.

Baba Ginger brought a delectable meat pie and two steaming mugs of hot cocoa with her. She settled the food onto the end table, on Rhea's side of the couch, and then placed one of the mugs in her apprentice's hands. The witch settled herself onto the opposite side of the couch, tugged a bit of the armrest free, and dropped it into her drink. The magic that made the marshmallow into a sturdy piece of furniture evaporated and the fluffy chunk began to melt in the hot liquid.

"The farthest he ever goes is Willow's Peak," Rhea lamented, "and that's only three days away."

"You are worried something has happened?" the old woman asked.

"Something has happened," the girl told her teacher with more insistence than was needed. "I'm just not sure I want to know what it is."

"You think he has another girl?"

"What if I am the other girl?" Rhea blurted with the type of heat that led to rash decisions. "What if I'm just his wild fling while he courts someone else? What if he's not here because he's done fooling around? What if-"

"Rhea," Baba Ginger's voice crackled with life and the girl stopped babbling. When she continued to speak, the old woman's voice was calm, but lacking in sweetness. "Is Lyle the kind of young man who would do such a thing?" The crackle of the nearby fire filled the room as Rhea pondered the question but eventually she hung her head in shame. "Then you must assume that he wants to be here but cannot be."

"Maybe ... he's hurt," Rhea finally said out loud. "Baba, I need-"

"No, Rhea," the older witch told her firmly, "your emotions are too powerful right now. You'll make a mess of things if you try and scry in such a state."

"But I need to find him!" the girl protested. "I need to know he's okay!"

"Have you ever been to Graham Wood?" Baba Ginger asked and her apprentice shook her head. "It's a churchy little place. Not the kind of village a witch should ever go."

"Baba," Rhea insisted, "I need to know."

"Then you need to disguise yourself and make the journey." The old woman sipped at her drink and slurped up a bit of marshmallow. "You're a little young to go as a hunched old apple seller. If I give you a red cape and a basket you could skip into town and tell them you're there to see your grandmother."

"Or maybe I could tell them the truth," Rhea pouted.

"That you're looking for your fiancé?" The older woman balked. "What if he's in some sort of local trouble? If you say you know him then you might be in the same sort of trouble too. We're witches, Rhea, and there are people everywhere who want to hurt us."

"I can handle myself," the girl snapped.

"I'm not worried about you handling_yourself_," the witch told her, "I'm worried about you mishandling others. If you use your magic in a fight ... well ... it could get away from you."

"Or it could do exactly what I mean it to do!"

"Which might be worse." The green skinned woman set her mug on a hard-shelled end table and turned fully towards the fare skinned girl. "Using magic to harm another person is a dangerous thing, Rhea. The magic is in your blood. The energy of any spell flows through you before moving off to do what you need it to do, and the type of magic you wield_will_ affect you. There are reasons why we use tools."

"To distance ourselves from the magical feedback," Rhea finished the lecture, "I know. Would you feel better if I take your cape and basket and then fill it with wands and an Athame?"

"You should only bring your working Athame," the older woman warned. "Keep your jewelry simple and, for goodness sake, try and act like a normal girl as opposed to an independent woman."

Rhea blanched at the thought. Her charade was rarely needed in her home village, anymore, and she was out of practice. "Fine," she conceded, "I'll go in disguise ... but I make no promises about not using magic."

"You're a witch," Baba Ginger reminded her, "of course you'll use your magic. Just make certain you use it wisely."

Rhea grinned and then looked at the meat pie on the end table. "Is that ... travel food?"

"You're about to head out into the Oven of Life," the old woman told her as if it were an obvious thing. "You can't make the journey without provisions."

"But ... how did you-"

"Please, Rhea," the baba cut her off, "I'm a witch. If I explained everything to you I'd lose that air of mystery. Now, finish your meal and then get yourself a bath. I'll be finished with your disguise by then and once we've finished packing it will be off to bed with you. You'll be plenty tired by the end of your journey. No sense in starting that way."

*****

The journey to Graham Wood would have taken about a day on horseback but Rhea did not have one. Assuming she did not fall prey to bandits, weather, or bad footing, she estimated it would take four or five days to walk. Lyle was a master woodsman and did not need a road or a path ... so he could get there in two days. A witch had completely different skills, though, so she needed to find another way to cheat. Besides, Rhea was in a hurry and patience was never one of her strongpoints.

Baba Ginger had shown her on more than one occasion how to use the Faery Road. It was a wily thing with its own rules and dangers but she had been using it to cover short distances for a couple of years, now, and felt she was fairly good at it. An hour or two of walking could be done in five minutes, so all she needed to do was hold her focus for an hour or two and she should get to the next village without incident.

Right,_she told herself, _that's all I need to do. What could possibly go wrong? What could go wrong was she could stumble into an unstable pocket of time. Faeries were immortal and this made time unimportant to them. The collected will of humanity kept their time running smoothly but faery time did as it pleased. Unless a human will focused and kept it steady, time could age her into dust, send her back to yesterday, or hold her steady while a hundred years passed in the mortal realm.

Rhea swallowed the lump in her throat and focused on the task at hand. In and out ... that is all. Just a little distance down the road without time noticing. I'll exit the path at the same moment I entered ... nothing sudden ... nothing vain.

"Right," she said out loud, and she decided to check her belongings one last time. The red cloak was lightly enchanted and it would protect her from foul weather unless the hail got too big. Her picnic basket held enough enchanted pastries for six meals but they were deceptively small. The pouch on her belt was standard witch gear with enchantments that made it bigger on the inside without adding much to the weight. In there she kept most of her witch gear but it could only be accessed if the person reaching inside knew to focus on the right color as they reached their hand inside.

I'm stalling, she realized as she went through the contents of her purse a third time. "Right," she said once more and then she set to the actual task before her.

Every witch carried an Athame for work and one for ceremony. Rhea took her sturdy utility knife out of her belt purse, cut a stick off of a tree, and then whittled one side to a proper length. Words of power whispered from her lips as she scratched symbols in the dirt. "An entry point. A path for my feet. A destination." She connected the symbols with a line. "Time stay where it lay. Obfuscate the body. Go unseen." Wavy lines were etched into the sides of the symbols and then she lifted the stick up towards the sunlight. Power gathered in its tip until Rhea let out a commanding shout as she cut the air.

A slash in the fabric of reality tore open. Light twirled in a rainbow hue, humming gently at the barrier where the two worlds collided. Careful to keep all of the pieces of the spell in her mind, she stepped into the light.

The world flickered and the road sparkled like liquid gold. The trees and bushes that flanked the path were much too green to be real and bright flowers sang as they swayed in the breeze. Rhea stepped quickly along the magic path.

While the Faery Road was relatively safe, there was no guessing the outcome if she encountered one of the local inhabitants. Faeries were odd in their manner and unpredictable in their actions. Immortal fae did not understand mortals and so it was difficult to predict what was expected of the other. If she encountered one of the faery folk on the road they might help her out, engage in light conversation, or decide that her skin might be the perfect texture for the lining of her boots. Humans were also strange, though decidedly less dangerous, to faeries. Therefore, it was best to move briskly along the path and get to the other side before unwanted company arrived.

Images of solid imagination burned bright in Rhea's mind as she held everything as steady as she could. Strange and terrible things swirled all around but she ignored them all. The future was a tiny point in front of her and the road was an old friend that would take her safely to her destination. Nothing in the world was important ... just this brisk stroll and the place she was going.

The place that held her destination was like a soft spot in a wall of solid turmoil. Rhea touched the place with her mind and two fingers, pressing carefully into it without sending ripples out to either side. Trees and music streaked and blurred until everything smeared across the horizon and then slowly came back together.

When everything settled, Rhea knew she had made it back to her boring mortal world. Everything seemed flat and dull compared to the extravagant energy of faery surroundings. The trees stood straight and did not talk out loud, nor did birdsong sing like flutes or blast like trumpets.

In many ways her surroundings were much like her old village, but everything was a little more ... brittle. The scent of decay was a little stronger than she remembered and it made her sneeze.Something is going on in Graham Wood and I might be the only person here who can do something about it.

A deep breath bolstered her courage and then the young witch stepped forward with purpose. A moment later she remembered she was supposed to be vulnerable and innocent and so she tried out a little skipping step. Her footing faltered and she stumbled forward a few paces before catching herself. Alright, she told herself glumly, no skipping. Just, try not to look like you plan on kicking someone's teeth in.