Nearly Witches

Chapter Two

Alysanne knew she had been lucky last night, lucky that Susan had been kind enough to catch her and saved her from hitting the ground. She could have broken her back or neck; she could have died from falling who knew who far he threw her; which was a feat since she was heavier than she looked, and it had surprised people when she rattled off her weight.

She could have died because she didn’t know any defending herself up close and when she was away from Ghost and Nymeria. What surprised her more, was the fact that she never let go of her silver bow; something she got as a joke when people started calling her Artemis, the Goddess was known as Artemis of the Silver bow, while her twin brother was known as Apollon of the Golden bow.

Thinking about falling from buildings, it reminded her, wasn’t there a state, New York? Maybe, she wasn’t sure. Where if you jumped off a building that was higher than fifty meters tall, you’d get the death penalty? Wasn’t that pointless? If their goal was to avoid people taking their lives, if someone really wanted to die, then all they needed to do was jump from a large building.

If they lived through the fall, they were be in a ton of pain and their limps might give them pain for the rest of their lives; however long they lived until they were given the death plenty and died anyway, unless judges didn’t give that sentence anymore and just them go into a psychiatric hospital instead to get help for their suicidal tendencies. 

No, it was better if she thought about what happened last night. Most of the animal’s that she know owed favours to, left the moment the shadow Hell hounds had left, so she doubted that most of them knew she had been thrown in the first place.

Thank goodness to Susan and her mothering instincts.

She would have to check the bakery again, but Alysanne was sure that all that was left was small spots of blood that had been caused by the hellhounds, she didn’t know how many of them died during that attack because of their injuries. Nature was a cruel mistress, the strong preyed on the weak and injured. 

She had warned them what they were facing, all of them had chosen to that risk; all Alysanne could hope was she never lied to them and they died because they weren’t prepared to go into a battle with a stronger opponent. No animal would go into of her battles without knowing what they were walking into and what risk they were going to take for her.

Her of all people.

‘Alysanne,’ Ghost said before licking her cheek, Nymeria poking her arm with her nose. It was cold against her bare skin; she didn’t want to open her eyes since that meant it was morning and that meant she had to go to school.

Why couldn’t they attack during the school holidays? Or even during the weekend, not Sunday, her joints were sore, and her arm was strained. And now she was thinking about getting thicker gloves, but that would mean she wouldn’t be able to feel the strong under her fingertip and that was something she didn’t want to do.

She felt like she had picked a fight with a brick wall and lost.

‘It’s the weekend,’ Nymeria told her. ‘And it’s lunch, meaning you missed breakfast.’

‘Can’t I just skip?’ Alysanne asked, it wasn’t like anyone knew when she eat or if she ate at all when she thought about it.

‘No,’ Ghost and Nymeria told her, even her own wolves thought lunch was important and it was, since if she missed school because she was sick, then they would ring her father and then he would ring her. He could be in Hermes’ knows what time zone, this was what happened when your only parent was worked in travel job and wanted to avoid you.

And she needed to look at the string on her bow, she needed to keep that thing in good shape, and she didn’t know if it had been bent during her fall from grace. Sighing, she cursed herself and opened her eyes.

‘Isn’t he going to ring today?’ Ghost asked her.

‘If he remembers,’ Alysanne shot back.

Thinking about her father annoyed her a little, since she never knew where he was in the world or if he was safe or not, half the time she didn’t even know if he was alive. He could be in Africa, Europe or Asia for all she knew; a few times he had send her something from Australia and another time from New Zealand.

He worked in airlines for as long as she could remember and had started taking more jobs from her fourteenth birthday; saying that she was now old enough to look after herself and she was mature enough.

Bills were pulled from his account until she turned sixteen; so, for two years all she had to do was remember to buy food and she took a school bus in the morning. He put enough into her bank account each week, to the point that she knew it was just an automatic thing. She was old enough to look after herself, she was a few months away from being legally allowed to vote.

Alysanne had a feeling that he wanted to get away from his dead wife’s copycat, apart her freaky coloured eyes. Groaning, she pushed herself out of bed, knowing that Nymeria or Ghost would just push her out of bed if she stayed in it.

“I hate that asshole already,” Alysanne said as she pulled a loose black shirt over her head, one that she had brought from Red Bubble; she thought it was cute since it had three moon goddess on it, she knew Artemis, but not the other two. Along with a pair of sweats, she couldn’t be bothered getting dressed last night after she took her costume off and put it back into its locked box.

Villains were easier to think about than absent fathers.

‘He did throw you off the bakery,’ Ghost reminded her.

‘That’s because I lack any means of close combat,’ Alysanne reminded them as she walked down the stairs.

‘He controls shadows,’ Nymeria chimed in.

‘All the more reason to want him dead,’ Alysanne shot back, before she sighed and looked at the empty house. She was surprised that some people could tell someone lived on the first floor, since besides the kitchen, Alysanne didn’t use any of the rooms.

‘Breakfast?’ Ghost asked her.

“Death itself, I’m older than the underworld,” Alysanne said as she walked into the kitchen, getting Nymeria and Ghost’s breakfast ready. Chicken drumsticks, chicken liver, and Green Beans, looking at their water bowels, she could see that they had enough water.

They would tell her when it tasted off to them and she’ll change it.

“It was like he watched Hercules and got inspires,” Alysanne told them. “Or watched Disney in general, some of their older villains were pretty scary, not like that sheep lady from Zootopia or whatever that movie was called.”

Jail wasn’t going to hold him for long and she wasn’t sure that the Government was ready to imprison someone who could control shadows like puppets. Create animals and transport, Alysanne had a feeling that they hadn’t seen everything.

But why death? Alysanne thought to herself as she gathered things for her own lunch, maybe she’ll make some pasta bake, so that way she didn’t need to cook dinner

‘Fear,’ Nymeria chimed in, Alysanne blinked at their food bowels before picking them up and putting them on the other side of the kitchen’s island.

‘A warning,’ Ghost suggested.

“Either way,” Alysanne told them as she went back to making her own lunch, putting pasta in a pot with water and waiting for it to cook. She would avoid mirrors when she could, she didn’t like looking at her mismatched eyes.

Having one dark brown eye and one forest green eye, meant it was slightly harder to find clothes or make-up that suited her. Prints and brown belts were the most colour in her wardrobe, she was the town’s ‘Goth’, since she never wore anything apart from black.

“It’s horribly cliché, even if it a bit interesting, even Disney are moving away from it and sometimes not for the better,” Alysanne admitted, putting her hands on her hip as she looked at her car keys and her shoes in a shoe rack. “Fear me, for even the Lord of the Underworld runs from my presence, and that’s if we know which underworld he’s talking about. Greek, Japan or Norse, to think of a few off the top of my head, all of them  have underworld. Even most African myths have a story about someone breaking into the underworld, their interesting, but it’s a common theme.”

‘Research?’ Ghost asked her.

“I’m leaning more to Greek or Celtic, I think Celtic Myths have Hellhounds in them,” Alysanne told them. 

‘He does of an army,’ Nymeria reminded them.

‘An army of hellhounds or Direwolves made from shadows,” Alysanne admitted before sighing and looking at a poster from Game of Thrones, along with a map of Westeros next to it. “If I find another wolf pup, I’m naming them Grey Wind or Summer just to annoy someone. I’m not naming a wolf Lady or Shaggy Dog.”

If there was one trait she shared with her father, it was that neither of them were creature when it came to naming things. Susan got her name because she happened to be reading the Hunger Games at the time.

One day, she wouldn’t be surprised if named a raven Ronan or Blue, just to have a break from A Song of Fire names. The point was, neither her or her father were good at coming up with names by themselves, if they had to name something it usually came from a book they had read or was currently reading.

Alysanne hoped her partner was better at naming children, or else she felt sorry for them.

“Neither the Police nor the Government are ready to fight animals from Fantasy novels, I can’t face him again without getting some hand-to-hand or dagger training under my belt,” Alysanne told them as she looked at the water. “Heck, even short sword fighting would do at this point.”

‘Or sword fighting,’ Nymeria suggested.

“Too long and their heavy things, would take too long to get the strength to use only one hand with it,” Alysanne told her. “And where did you hear that?”

‘Some groups was talking about it on our afternoon walk,’ Ghost replied.

Alysanne nodded her, she would have to drive them somewhere for their walk. She didn’t think the animals in the forest would be up for having either Ghost or Nymeria in the forest, not so soon after that attack.

‘He’ll attack again,’ Ghost told her.

“Of course, he’ll attack again; he most likely didn’t get what he wanted last night,” Alysanne told them. He was a villain; she didn’t know if he was trying to see if his tactics worked on a smaller town before working his way up to cities and then major cities; like New York or Chicago or Phoenix.

New York was always attacked in Marvel, if he took cues from Disney; that might be the first major city he attacked. And Alysanne knew there was no Iron Man or Captain America to stop him, where were their heroes? She didn’t know, and that was something she didn’t want to think about until she got some food into her stomach.

“You have water, I’m making lunch,” Alysanne told them, she didn’t want to ask this of then, but she knew she had to before someone or something forced her into a corner that she couldn’t get herself out of. “I would suggest not hunting in the forest for the next four days, after last night, we don’t need any fights between you lot; shadow things might still be in the area.”

If only she knew what he was after; what he wanted and what his end goal was. Criminals and Villains usually wanted something; rarely did they want world domination. That involved figuring out who he was under the freaky silver mask; and soon afterwards, pieces of the puzzle would come together, and she’ll know how to stop him.

There was always a reason, it might not make sense to others, but it made sense to them and that was all she could worry about.

Robbers wanted money or fame, their name on the front of the daily newspaper. She was sure a few of them, did it for fun or to rebel against the government.

Murders wanted to be in control, the pleasure of the kill or they did for revenge, hatred, passion, love or jealousy.

Rapists wanted to have power over someone, to be in control or show their prey just weak they truly were. Abuser were much the same, it was the pleasure of having over someone they weaker than them, to be in control of the situation.

Alysanne knew it was a simple way of looking at the situation; she also knew that sometimes, more than she liked, the situation really was the simple and that was why criminology existed and how they could catalogue said behaviour.

“He wants something,” she whispered to herself as drained the cooked pasta, grabbing the pasta bake tray, cheese and pasta sauce. “I have a feeling he won’t find it here.”

‘A building block?’ Nymeria asked her.

“Most likely, he’s here to test out some sort of plan,” Alysanne agreed.

On weekdays, she eat two large meals and thus she could got up a six and left at eight. Alysanne never did like what they served in the cafeteria and it was her time to finish her homework and projects, since her night-time activities; along with her dance lessons, language class and her archery lessons ate up her afternoons.

In fact, she had dance class at five today and an archery class tomorrow at two. She would need to make sure; she had a large dinner before she left class and then something to eat before she went on patrol.

“They always want something, even if it’s not from us,” Alysanne said, she didn’t want to know how much raw meat she went through feeding both of them. “What he wants, we won’t know until we can yank that mask off his face, or he just outright tells us, but that would mean I’m tied to something or someone’s tied to something.”

‘I bet ten rabbits that he’ll just tell us,’ Ghost said.

‘I don’t take obvious bets,’ Nymeria shot back.

“The police should be able to deal, hopefully, with anything that happens during the day,” she said to herself as she turned the oven on. Quickly finishing preparing her tuna pasta bake before putting it in the oven. Weekend days were for homework and extra-lessons; along with the rare dance competition that her teacher highly suggested she compete in. “There’s Captain Justice and Tribe as well, their known to be active during weekends.”

She could read while waiting her lunch to finish cooking, she was in the middle of Half a King by Joe Abercrombie.

“I’ll eat once it’s cooked,” Alysanne told Ghost and Nymeria, who looked at her before eating their own lunch/breakfast.

She knew that no one would think she was Artemis/Huntress, people thought she was far too selfish for that. Like poor, weak little Alysanne would know enough archery or have the strength to be a hero, wouldn’t they be surprised if her identity was called out.

No one, she meant no one knew about her Irish dancing or archery lessons. It also helped that in her small town, she was the only one who did it and she had to drive thirty minutes to the nearest city to get to her lessons.

No one in her school was interested in the Irish culture, and she didn’t see that changing anytime soon. Even if River Dance and King of Dance, had made Irish dancing more popular and she was glad that she could perform for people when she felt like it.

She didn’t do it often, as most of her competitions took place in major cities and she would have to get herself there. Alysanne was sure that she had competed in Ireland once or twice before her mother had died and left her with her distant father.

He had allowed her to continue her dance lessons; since it was something her mum would have wanted her to continue with; along with her Irish Gaelic lessons. To connect to a world that her great-grandparent had to flee during the potato famine.

“It’s going to rain later,” Alysanne said to herself. “I should go to the grocery store and pick some more raw meat. Also running low on food, let’s get this over and done with.”

‘Have fun,’ Nymeria told her.

“You know I won’t,” Alysanne shot back, as she grabbed her reusable bags. “And I don’t care if I’m going in sweats and a t-shirt.”

‘You’ll fit in,’ Ghost told her.

“Good morning Mary,” Alysanne greeted the old woman who walked past her house, she always saw her on the weekends. Her daily walks being during school hours, she enjoyed talking to Mary. She had a gentle voice and a larger than life personality.

Alysanne didn’t care that others were nervous around her, small towns and small minds, sometimes and it saddened her when she learnt the reason some people avoided her. It was because she was an immigrant from Africa, Libya.

Which meant she wasn’t someone of high class and thus, parents told their children to avoid her and she thought the news handled African American and Native American issues weirdly. They were either no good criminals or they were victims of crimes committed hundreds of years ago.

Criminals or victims, but never survivors.

Which Alysanne thought was stupid in either direction but kept that to herself. It wasn’t up to her to decide how others dealt with generational trauma. She might have thought of them as survivors and fighters; able to keep some of their traditions alive and their families strong, no matter their so-called masters told them.

Then again, she was Irish and her own generational trauma to deal with, without trying to understand another group of people thought about their own. Or what anyone thought of generational trauma.

It was her business and no else’s.

“Alysanne,” Mary greeted.

“Have a lovely day,” she told her.

“You two dear,” Mary told her.

Alysanne nodded before locking the door behind her, before walking towards her car as Mary walked past her driveway. If she waited until Mary was well and truly away from the driveway, that was also her business and no one else’s.

She had groceries to pick up, and a lot of meat to keep in the boot of her car.