The World in Dissonance (Volume 1)

Chapter 4: What dwelt in the woods ~ Won’t remain concealed

Part 1

Time felt as if it slowed down, for it was still around 2 in the afternoon.

The uncommon team—composed of the Two Christian Girls, the Class Rep of 12B and the Witches had just crossed the public entrance that lead to the Lord’s Lot Forest.

Coincidence or perhaps Divine Will, according to the intel relayed by the temporary guards at the entrance, it suggested that Lord’s Lot forest would not be subjected to any witch hunt the entirety of the day. Thus, the peculiar party had the whole hunting ground to themselves, and the only thing left was to wait for the culprits to fall for the bait. And the fact that no witch hunt would take place only heightened the likelihood that the culprits would trail them into the woods; after all, it was not every day that the one you accused of sorcery so obligingly returned to the very scene of crime you had set up. According to Dedicatus, that alone was sufficient to lure them neatly and make them fall under the trap the Christian Girls so carefully laid.

“Are we sure that whoever is behind the scene, they would actually show themselves up and follow us?”, asked the class representative of 12B Elena Rosenthal. “Well, to be honest, I am still uncertain as to why would they do that!”

“Elementary my Dear!”, exclaimed Alyss as she turned towards the young girl and started to walk backwards. “They would follow us because we are inquiring on them! A good culprit often manipulates the investigation itself in the shadow, setting the environment to their advantage! But when a worthy foe makes its appearance, they have to adapt on the fly! If you’d ask me, I’m sure every witch hunt that happened in the recent days have been monitored closely without the citizens acting as witch hunters beings aware of it!”

That was the explanation the young maiden came up with; she definitely couldn’t tell Elena that it was because Eldritch and the others were actual witches and that they used the fact the culprits might know about it to lure them into the trap.

The situation actually felt like a contest and whoever made the best move would win.

“Sorry, it’s not that I am doubting your plan but I am still concerned about the reason pushing them to do all of this!”

“You mean?”, interrupted Mathers as he walked close to the two girls.

“Lying! Tricking the citizens of Carnforth... No, at this point, that fake new have reached different counties! What good will they get from doing such a deceitful act!?”

“So, you’re reflecting on the benefits they’d get from planning all of this!!”, questioned the witch boy. “Well, don’t overthink it too much! Human nature is a mystery!”

It was one of those awkward moments where a witch, who usually called humans as regular people or mortals, made the assumption that Mankind was still a mystery even to them. Unlike humans, the followers of the Beast had a longer lifespan, but even so the mystery behind Human psychology was still something even those who walked the path of the night didn’t fully get grasp on.

Elena Rosenthal was not like the girl named Dedicatus. There was no doubt in her being a smart girl, she proved it with the analysis she structured for the past few days, one that allowed her to understand the whole situation despite not belonging to any of the two factions. But it stopped there. That was where Dedicatus displayed her authenticity for being an expert. But as Alyss and Sonya thought, the eldest twin of the Liddel family would definitely appreciate the young girl going by the name of Elena.

The newly formed team managed to get deeper into the woods, so all they had to do was to actually wait for their prey. The camera that Alyss previously prepared was already set and properly hidden to avoid their targets to even notice it. It was mainly the reason for the Christian girl’s previous visit of Lord Lot’s forest with her friend Sonya. While they got closer to the actual scene, i.e the place where the fake ritual was discovered, Sonya turned her gaze to Alyss and without even exchanging words, they understood each others.

“I propose that we divide in two groups from here on!”, suddenly raised a voice.

It was Sonya who spoke those words.

“It’s common sense for the hunters to act careful when hunting a prey! And so, even though the culprits would tail us, they will take precautions to avoid being caught. So we can expect them not to appear together! The goal of the second group is to chase after the other one!”

“That is only if your theory about the culprit being more than one comes out as a truth!”, insisted the witch girl Lilim. “But I do agree about splitting in two groups! The other group can be on standby and catch them in case they are trying to flee!”

“Well, that’s something we should consider as well but in any case, we can assume at 90% that the number of the culprits are at least about two persons! Unless you’re a mad genius like that one girl, you can’t manage to efficiently orchestrate this whole scenario!”

It wasn’t really the time for a debate, both girls understood that as a matter of fact. And so, the group divided into two.

“Since we can’t separate the twins, and it’s also better to have the Silverstar siblings together, Mathers, Tabitha and Stella should go with me!”, stated Sonya as the second group formed.

“Affirmative!”, replied the witch girl Inès. “The second group should count less members!”

“Or else, they would suspect that we are up to something.”, continued her twin sister Anès.

(If what Dedicatus asserted proved to be true, then Eldritch’s presence within the main party would normally draw the culprits’ attention toward them! Our entire stratagem rests upon a simple theory of hers, yet in 99,9% of all cases she solved, her deductions have been unfailingly correct.)

Unexpectedly, not even a single complaint escaped the witch girl Tabitha’s mouth on this occasion. Though, It didn’t really trouble Sonya—in fact, it spared them the delay of wasting time on a needless debate, nonetheless she remained inwardly prepared in case getting into arguments would be unavoidable.

“It’s decided then! With all things set, we can go our separate way here!”

“Stay alarmed everyone!”, added the class rep Elena Rosenthal to warn each person present at that time. Being fully focused was top priority to avoid failure. And failure was not an option.

.

..

...

Less than 20 minutes had passed since the group parted into two and set off along separate paths in pursuit of their shared goal.

At that precise time, an individual arrived in front of public gate of Lord Lot’s forest. It was the very same silhouette that had lingered at a distance earlier that morning, observing Alyss, Sonya and Eldritch as they were stopped by the Campus’ security guard. The silhouette was that of a girl around the same age as the two Christian girls. The person in question was wearing a hoodie along a face mask, just like the witch boy Mathers, which made it difficult to identify her.

“Oh~ so are also going to check the ritual site for the group work?”, asked one of the guards at the public entrance.

This time, it was not the previous guard Gilbert who were on standby. He was nowhere to be found, so one could assume he was done with his shift around the time Alyss and Sonya arrived back at Bellemort.

“Your friends arrived like 23 minutes ago. If you hurry, ya can still catch up to them.”

The guard knew nothing about the relationship between the girl and the previous group who entered the forest, and since they all came from Bellemort Campus and shared a common interest, he deliberately assumed they were acquainted to each others.

“…”, the young girl just nodded in response to his words.

“You lad are fortunate—you won’t have to deal with any outside disturbance today. The townsfolk who usually conduct a witch hunt every afternoon decided to set that aside for the time being. With the sudden rise in the number of paparazzi and occult enthusiasts flocking to the town, they decided it best to slow down for a while!”

That guard was likely a talkative one. He was sharing one piece of information after another without little restraint.

“Hey John! Do you think it might also be because ever since they started those witch hunts, a pandemic flu has been spreading among some of their children... and even a few of the elders?”

“They are convinced that it’s actually a plague laid upon the town by the very witches they are hunting!”, answered the other guard going by the name of John.

The young girl in hoodie paid little to no attention to their exchanges, having already received their approval to enter the forest grounds.

“Be careful out there! And try not to be plagued by the witch’s curse!”, the guard called after her in a joking tone.

“Dang!”, he muttered a moment later as she continued on without even glancing back. “Not much of a talker, is she?”

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..

...

The final stage was set—every piece upon the chessboard rested precisely where it ought to be. All that remained now was to draw a confession from the culprits for what they had done. To that end, Alyss and Sonya had carefully concealed a camera around the fabricated ritual scene the perpetrators themselves had once arranged. More precisely, the device they had prepared was a Bolex H16 EL.

Earlier that day, while arranging the setup, the damp forest earth gave way easily beneath Alyss’s trowel as she carved a shallow trench for the XLR cable. It resembled a jagged, black vein that had to be buried; in the mottled noon light of beneath the trees, any straight line would have been a death sentence for their ruse.

She pressed the loam back over the wire, smoothing the pine needles with a surgical touch until the floor looked undisturbed.

Ten meters farther back, tucked into the hollow of a rotting cedar, the Nagra IV-S restef like a dormant beast.

Sonya adjusted the five-inch aluminum reels, her fingers trembling slightly. She set the gain dials with utmost care—calculated beforehand for the booming, self-assured tenor of the person they were waiting for. A moth-eaten camouflage net was then draped delicately over the recorder, layered by a careful scattering of dry oak leaves.

The young girl wearing glasses made certain none of them touched the spokes of the reels; as a single leaf caught in the spinning metal would produce a harsh scritch loud enough to betray their presence across the clearing.

“Mic’s hot!”, she muttered into the radio.

Four meters from the so-called confession stump, the second daughter of the Liddel family was wrestling with the Bolex H16 EL. She had it mounted low on a Manfrotto tripod, its legs splayed wide and sunk into the soft moss for stability.

The young maiden wrapped the camera’s body in a heavy, lead-lined sound blanket, mummifying the machine to stifle the electric whir of its motor. Only the glass eye of the Vario-Switar lens peeked out from the folds, deep-set and shadowed to prevent a stray sun-glint from betraying them. Both girls made sure that the setup was positioned in a soft spot where the culprits would never turn their gaze.

Alyss then took the remote trigger cable—a thin, rubberized umbilical cord—and drew it back to her own hiding spot behind a dense screen of ferns.

There she sat, thumb hovering over the red switch of the hand trigger; then did a final 'dry run' in her head: the 100-foot roll of 16mm film inside the Bolex was nothing less than a ticking clock.

At twenty-four frames per second, they had exactly two minutes and forty-five seconds of evidence.

They couldn't afford a single wasted frame.