Nearly Witches

Epilogue

Alysanne walked through her old hometown, it wasn’t as small as it once was and some of the forest had been removed. Apartment complexes in the middle, so she wasn’t surprised when she found an illness sweeping through, a plague like the black plague and she was sure that humanity never found a cure for that one.

Other than burning the rats that had spread it. It made her wish that her twin was with her, Apollon would know what to do and what was causing it, Alysanne didn’t know what started it or any other illness that was making its rounds in other countries.

It also didn’t help that Alysanne didn’t know enough about medication to help anyone, all she could do was kill a rat here and there. In the end, she guessed that the strong would live and the weak would die.

She still didn’t think the population of sewer rats helped with that, they were worse than mice and rats were, larger and more likely to spread around disease. But short of burning down the sewers and killing them like that, she couldn’t do anything else.

They were also nasty to talk to.

‘Let’s go in here, I smell food,’ a large said as it stared up at a window. Alysanne narrowed her eyes and stabbed four rats as she spotted a woman with a baby in her arms, a blue blanket surrounding them as she rocked them gently.

She was looking at the sky as if pleading with it.  

“Antony and Matthias are strong; they have to be. I can’t lose them like I lost Lily,” she said as she started walking backwards, Alysanne jumping through the window before moving towards the nearest corner. Something drew her into this house, and something made her want to look closer at Antony and Matthias.

‘There’s milk this way,’ a rat said as it walked through a hole in the wall, Alysanne putting an arrow through its head before it could move towards the cribs. It would seem she would have to look for a cat that wouldn’t sit on the children and only attack the rats.

“Persephone,” Alysanne greeted as her sister walked into the room. “What brings you here, sister?”

“Same as you,” Persephone told her.

“Antony and Matthias.”

“Hephaestus and Hermes.”

“Hades told you?”

“He did, he’s getting better at tracking down which god or goddess has been reborn and where they were born.”

“Thousands of years later, and we’re still family.”

“You’ll keep an eye on them?”

“Always.”

Alysanne nodded her head as Persephone left, leaving her to walk over to her long-lost brothers and looking into their crib. Antony and Matthias just looked at her with dark brown eyes, before closing them and going back to sleep. She would keep any rats from getting to them or any cat, she would find one that was fine with just hunting down rats.

Kronos army wouldn’t touch them either, they wouldn’t kill Hephaestus on her watch, nor would they get their hands on Hermes again and torture him as they had one her. This she promised herself as her fingers traced soft skin, the plague would end in a few years and humanity would rebuild.

“Alysanne?” a woman asked her, Alysanne turning around and spotted the woman from before but something seemed familiar this time. “It’s been twenty years since Grandma had passed away, Dad tried telling me it was all a dream.”

“It would seem that pretending would have done you no good,” Alysanne informed her as she looked at Rosalie’s great grandchildren. “And it’s Artemis, Alysanne Byrnes has been dead for nearly a century by this point.”

“You’re here to look after the boys?” Mary asked her.

“I look after family.”

“Then you wouldn’t mind being their nursemaid?”

“Not at all.”

Mary nodded her head, before darting out of the room while Alysanne made herself visible and looked around the room. First things first, she would fill in that hole and find some plant that would kill rats that wouldn’t harm curious babies.

“It’ll blow over Mary,” a man said as he walked into the room, opening the windows and Alysanne watched as a rat slipped past him, sighing she stabbed that one before it could get closer to her charges. “They always do, we just have to look into the past and find something similar and how they dealt with it.”

“Find what?” Mary asked him as she nodded towards Alysanne, raising an eyebrow at the arrow in her hand. “It’s been a year since Dad died of the plague and he wasn’t in charge of the company, I should be glad that Grandfather taught us to look after family.”

“I would suggest looking at the black plague or the plague that was in London,” Alysanne told him, stabbing another rat as it went past her feet. Mary’s husband just looked at her with narrowed eyes and he waved his hand at her. “I would look at the rats, they’re the ones carrying the illness and the thing that saved London was the Great Fire.”

“And you think this, why?”

“You have a few rats in your house and a few holes in the wall. I think you might want to deal with them.”

“Mary, you know her?”

“Yes, Sam, this is Artemis,” Mary told her patting her on the shoulder. Alysanne looked at her clothing before humming, she was still wearing a black skirt over leggings along with a long-sleeved black shirt. “She’s the boys’ new nursemaid.”

“And the last one?” Sam asked her.

“Had to send her home, she died of the plague yesterday.”

“And this one?”

“Artemis has passed all her health tests and that’s more than the last woman we spoke to.”

“Why wasn’t I told?”

“You’ve been busy at the company dear.”

“If you wish, I could answer some questions,” Alysanne told him. “But for now, I think I might haunt down a cat and deal with the rats before anyone else is bitten.”

“I’ll trust your judgement,” Sam told her as something past through his eyes, taking out his phone before tapping something out. “I’ll tell the boys to start looking at the rats, but we’ll need to find some of them to test on.”

“How about these ones? Along with any others I kill or catch,” Alysanne suggested as she pointed to the rats she had killed.

“I’ll send them to the lab,” Sam told her leaving the room, she could only hope that he would come back with gloves. She wouldn’t allow him to touch the children with he thought he was touching them with his bare skin.  

“They’re going to be safe?” Mary asked her.

“Don’t need sleep and they’re Rosalie’s grandchildren. They’ll be as safe as they can be with me watching over them,” Alysanne promised her. “No one is going to touch them, not with me around or bite them.”

“I’ll find a cat then,” Mary told her as her husband came back with two bags and gloves on her hands. Alysanne just passed him her arrow, before he took them off and she took it back.

“I’ll them to the lap, don’t wait up dear,” Sam told her, before leaving again. Alysanne just looked at Mary as she sighed. The front door closing as they continued to stand in the nursery and Alysanne just shrugged before glaring at a rat that had poked its head through the window.

“I’ll find one, just don’t be surprised if you see a cat walking around,” Alysanne told her before summoning her bow and shooting said rat, huffing as she went to close the window, the arrow would return to her quiver clean. “Until then, I have a hole to close and children to keep an eye on.”