Living With Witches

“Goodbye, Conner.” Those two words had been haunting Luxelena Hensley since the early morning when she had boarded the first train out of Watford. After months of living together, Lux had woken up before dawn and silently slipped out the door of the small-town house that she had shared with Conner Hart for the better half of a year. It was still dark out, but the short walk to the train station had been softly illuminated by the few lamp posts lining the street. That had been a small blessing as her phone had broken months before and lights of any sort had been hard to come by in the recent months. It was there that her blessings ran out as it seemed that the weather was reflecting her mood, which was miserable at best. The rain had been pouring for a while and it flowed in small rivers down the cobblestone road and soaked her old shoes.  Her feelings, like the gloomy winter weather, were beyond miserable as she reached the train station drenched from head to toe. It was to her surprise that she found the curly haired, freckled faced boy that she had grown to care about waiting for her. Seeing him threatened to bring tears to her eyes that she refused to let fall. Now was not the time for feelings. In fact, it was because of her feelings that she was leaving.   From the moment the two had met, Lux had begun preparing, as she usually did with strangers, to say goodbye. Goodbye was the worst word in the goddamned world if you asked Lux. She had thought she was prepared this time. That it would be different and not like it had been with Alex or Bree. That morning though, with the rain pouring and wind howling as she boarded the train, Lux found herself hesitating. She was not ready. Not ready to leave and certainly not ready to say goodbye as she left Conner standing where he had stood to wait for her. Unable to even look his way, Lux boarded the train and finally let the tears fall.   Lux knew without a doubt that morning was it. It was the last time that she would ever see Conner Hart and the end of their chapter. Lux had found over the years that goodbyes, whatever the intention of them, were always permanent.   Goodbyes were small, irreversible forces of nature pulling people apart in ways that could never be mended. At least not for people like Lux who lived constantly on the run. She knew that she had to live with those losses and that her small list of broken chapters would stay forever unfinished. Those chapters in her life’s story had been stripped of a nice ending by the higher powers of their world that were forever unkind to people like her.  The names she would never hear again and the faces she would never see, had seemed to grow in number during the recent years which was something that terrified Lux. Saying goodbye, adding those names, scared her in ways that she had never been able to voice. The feelings she had once felt had became weaker and weaker with each name added to her list of losses. Lux had no idea where those feelings went, but what she did know was that each time someone left, so did a little piece of herself and Lux just hoped that at the end of her life that there would be enough in her to still resemble a soul. Whether there would be, she wasn’t so sure. But the numbness, the unfeeling, ate at her in the small way a person never noticed until it was too late, until the hole was too big and everything that was important was flowing out, until…  Until the world spun and burned, until justice came, and witches could roam free as the humans. Only then would Lux feel peace. She knew this with the certainty that she knew winter had come to the beautiful, rural landscape that now streamed past her window on the train.  Lux pulled herself from her thoughts of her morning and turned to face the woman she had spent much of her morning talking to. She was a stately woman of some importance most likely. The woman’s coat and matching knee length periwinkle dress hugged every curve perfectly and her jewelry sparkled in the afternoon sun.  The woman was fashioned in such a way that made a person not want to look away, and while she had drawn looks from all who passed, none had approached or spoken to her. Though, if Lux was honest, it was the woman’s outfit that she admired more than woman. She had never been intimidated by beauty or class, so neither of those made a difference to Lux who, in a strange way, was used to being around people in power. The woman’s outfit though, that impressed her. It was a statement… No, Lux realized, the woman was the statement. After a moment, Lux moved her gaze from the woman seated across from her and focused her gaze outside of the train’s window. She no longer knew where she was and had long since lost the familiarity of the corn fields and mills that had surrounded Watford. Though she knew that the train was somewhere between Watford and Ellry, Lux knew not where the latter one was. She had only heard of the small town up in the mountains once while listening to the conversation of a merchant and his costumer who had been her target. While she knew little about the country town, it had taken no large amount of convincing from Lonn to have her boarding a train and on her way the very next day.  Lux preferred that kind of lifestyle… The traveling was nice. So was never staying long enough to make lasting relationships.  No, she actually did not like it, but she told herself that lie often with the hopes that one day she would find herself believing it. Who knew, maybe one day she would believe it, or maybe one day it would cease to be a lie and she would not have to believe anything because it would be reality and she would actually enjoy her life the way it was.  However, until then, lies would do just fine.  Or maybe one day, when the world had officially gone to s**t, Lux would find herself a nice quiet spot in the world similar to the one she now passed. A place with open fields of lavender and a slow, steady stream that brought life to the valley with mountains in the background and a beautiful sunset off to the west.  The train continued on for a while, the valley disappearing into a forest before they climbed a large hill overlooking another valley, this one holding a small country town at the base of the mountains behind it. The city lights had come on and though it was not yet fully dark, the town lit up the clearing in the most elegant way that an old town could.  It was so absolutely stunning from a far and Lux found that it took her breath away.  As the train descended the hill, Lux found herself drawn back into conversation with the woman sitting across from her.  The train arrived at the station and while Lux had tried to pay attention to the route the train had taken, she realized that she had not the slightest idea of where she had come from. It had been strangely difficult to focus on directions the closer the train had gotten to the town. Though Lux remembered going through a valley and forest, she knew not from what direction.  It had been decades since trains had been limited to rails and the mighty beasts now roamed wherever their driver wished. The large plow attached to the front of the massive vehicles made them capable of clearing new paths for their drivers to take.  The town, which she now had a clear view of, was elegant, comforting, and absolutely country. It was the kind of town that people never moved out of. Lux walked briefly through the town still in awe as she looked for a general store. She needed a map and possibly a phone book to look up the man who had requested her visit.  Though she had spoken to Lonn before her departure, there had been no way of communicating after Lux had boarded the train so she found that she had no clue as to where the man might be. Lux’s quick departure had consumed her mind more than any reasoning that would have prodded her to ask more questions and it ultimately resulted in her leaving before she had the man’s address. Lux had always been a very attentive person, normally. She had to be in her line of work, if someone could even call it a job. She had always paid attention because not doing so could get people killed. No, it had gotten people killed and Lux had determined not to be one of them, however, as the train had come closer to her stop, her attention had lessened allowing her to lose track of both time and direction. She was also focused, normally, and yet she had let a passenger in a pretty blue coat pull her into a conversation that had lasted hours and yet when they said their goodbyes at the train station it had felt as though they had not discussed anything… It was a pretty coat though. Normally, she was attentive.  Normally, she was focused.  And yet she had been neither of those and knew not where she was or where she came from. Lux knew nothing of the town she now found herself in other than the town’s name as well as the name of the man who she was scheduled to meet. If she came into trouble during her stay and found herself needing to leave, she would have no way of knowing where to go.  Essentially, Lux would be trapped.  For now, she simply needed to find the man who might be the answer to her problems, if not the cause of many new problems. Lux just hoped that whatever happened on this trip, that Ellry would be kind to her.   ——   Luxelena Hensley sat patiently in an old, leather armchair that seemed to be as ancient as the rest of the office’s contents. The bookshelves, desk, chairs, and chests all looked as if they had been made in a different time as well as in a different place. Lux knew simply by glancing at the room’s furniture that there was no way any of it could possibly be from the state. Whether it had all been preserved or restored, she was unsure. The books that cluttered the bookshelves were littered with history, dating back as far as eight thousand years. Ancient artifacts were clustered along a table at the far end of the room, some on display while others were covered with sheets.  Lux had absolutely no clue as to how the older man had gathered it all, but the fact that he had it made her ever so slightly more confident that he might actually be able to help her. After all, not many people had maps dating back to the old world, not when they had been outlawed and destroyed by government officials. After all, the less the humans knew the better, right? It was messed up, how the higher ups had changed the world in a matter of a few years by taking the people’s knowledge away, but they had and the world was worse for it.  In the weeks following, governments had begun to release their made up stories about the witches in order to scare their citizens. Soon after the first few stories were released, the tales spread and slowly morphed into more and more terrifying tales of all the bad and terrible things that witches had done. It was less than two months after those first few stories had been released when the bounties had been placed and the laws which made using magic illegal came soon after. Those laws made existing as a witch illegal and officials were all to eager to kill any and all suspects. They were nightmarish, the games that the officials played. Yet for all the officials did, no one ever questioned them, and slowly but surely, witches began to disappear. Those who disappeared would find “justice” at the hands of biased officials. It was always cruel, unfair justice which lead the witches to their deaths. And through it all, witches had done nothing to put a stop to the madness. In Lux’s opinion, doing nothing had led to the witches demise faster than the fires that had killed them. Lux’s attention snagged on bear claws that were encased in a glass box on one of the bookshelves. Leaving her seat, she walked the short distance to the bookshelf where she picked up the large box. There were at least twenty claws in the glass box. They were all different sizes, though none were small. Lux set the box back in its place and moved back to her seat as a rich male voice floated towards her from the cracked door. She took a seat once more and waited. The voice paused on and off, as though it might be listening to another on a telephone.  The conversation stilted and cut off abruptly, and a moment later an older man walked through the door and took a seat across from her, greeting her with a warm smile.  Lux forced a smile back as she braced herself for every possible outcome of their meeting. Best case scenario, she was completely safe and could learn how to use her real magic safely. Worse case, it was a trap for her and had been for countless others.  What the truth was, Lux was not sure. All she knew for certain was that she was running out of options very quickly and this might just be her very last chance, after all, Lux was running out of both time and money and neither would last long. However, if she was in luck, she just might just make it out alive.  Only time would tell, and Lux hoped desperately that she would be there when it did.    ——   Myles Venturi quickly made his way through the Friday night crowd, anxious to get out of the club and away from the girl and the unwanted memories she had brought him. She was not his old boss, he reminded himself as he took a couple of steadying breaths. While she might not have been the witch who had made years of his life feel like actual hell, she sure as hell looked like the damn lady.  When Myles came out into the rainy night sky that was lit up with ugly orange lights, he turned and walked down the street towards the south side of the city. That was the best part of the city if you asked Myles.  No one had, and he doubted anyone would care to.  The South was the best part of Birchwood, not because it was lived in by the wealthy in the North or visited by tourists in the East, but because it was where a man could go, disappear, and then pop up in another part of the city with little to no effort. No sight. No sound.   And most importantly, without proof or evidence.  It was where the slavers, hunters, gangs, and, most importantly, witches could go to without consequences and Myles, being the saint that he was, wouldn’t snitch.  He walked down one alley and came out in another, next to the office building occupied by the man he so terribly needed to see, to talk to. He unlocked the door, locked it once more, and strolled down the hallway entering Maska’s office. He found it was empty and with a grunt, he sprawled into the seat, stretched out his legs behind a long, oak desk and waited.  About an hour later Maska walked into the office with a woman hanging on his arm. Myles turned his gaze towards the woman and froze. The smile fading as he stood. His chest tightened as the woman’s eyes met his. She showed nothing that would imply she recognized him which was a small blessing. It was best that way, he supposed. Seeing the woman was unnerving. Not only from the memories, though he had only met her once technically. It was because he had only seen one other who looked like that, one other with those eyes.  Before his friend could introduce his new fling, Myles spoke up, “I need to speak with you. Privately,” he added.  The male signed and escorted the woman out. Myles did not know who, or what, the lady was, but he knew he did not like anything about her. Not her, not the situation, and he sure as hell did not like her resemblance of Sullivan. No good would come from having one of the Sullivan daughters in town, especially if she was like Almirah.  Myles was unsure what to think, but he was not stupid enough to think that this a coincidence. As much as Maska was a friend of Myles, the male often found company with the bad and strange things of the world. That said, Myles supposed some might say that he was among those of Maska’s friends that the male should have stayed away from. Afterall, Myles could admit that he was not the most upstanding sort of person their world had to offer.  “Who was that?” Myles asked shortly when Maska came into the office.  He smirked, “Just someone I found… What’s going on Myles?” “Lonn called, he wants me to come back to Ellry.”