Ada: The Witch Huntress

Chapter 1: Hi'laria

Most people would enjoy their holiday either at home or on vacations or trips, but not Ada. Her holiday could only mean one thing, spending it with her lunatic aunt and grandmother for an unimaginable twenty-four hours. Who wouldn’t go demented living with that crazy family of hers?

Ada scowled as she saw the long line of people fanning themselves with abanico under the scorching heat of the beaming sun outside their medium Spanish-style house, to think it was still seven in the morning.

What a long day.

She didn’t want to help her grandma and aunt with their deceptive schemes, so she made herself busy in the kitchen preparing snacks and beverages for the patients in waiting.

Her Aunt Laria is an herbolario, or that’s what she makes her patients believe. Laria could earn thousands of euros per day by healing common sicknesses like colds, fever, and even gaseous abdomens. Some of the townsfolk presumed these sicknesses are induced by evil entities currently residing on their homes, schools, works, or any open space or premises they could ever accuse of having the presence of such entities.

It wasn't about not believing their townsfolk regarding these entities or whatsoever. It was about the way her aunt would make a fool of her patients, that she would sometimes let them gather certain ingredients before she would proceed with the healing.

Her pathetic aunt would make some patients climb mountains just to pick some rare herb or an indigenous flower or insect, which actually had got nothing to do with her healing. Sometimes she’d scream series of curses in another tongue, making the patient believe those were healing spells she was casting on his aching stomach.

However, the people would still prefer to seek her aunt’s implausible services than going to an actual medical institution. People do hate long lines, but what they hated more is going back and forth to different lines while their current illness is existent and probably progressing. Additionally, there is no certainty that those several doses of assorted medicines they brought could heal their present condition.

Once her aunt had successfully healed a client, she would be hundred percent sure that the same client would go back again someday, possibly bringing some relatives with them. The word about her aunt’s healing services had spread across their community and perhaps to the nearby towns too. It only meant that the past clients are satisfied with her aunt’s skills, but not Ada.

Ada couldn’t bear the sight she was witnessing today that she unknowingly rubbed her temples as she sat in one of the wooden chairs of their four-seater dining table made of Rosewood. Why in the effin’ h*ll would she leave her cellular phone inside the room she shares with her grandmother, especially on a time like this?

Her aunt’s sacred room was about ten steps from the kitchen to the right. It was covered with red-laced curtains as her aunt let the people believe that red is the healing color, when in fact, it was just her favorite color. Honestly, the curtain was of no use when everyone can clearly see the patients’ n***d bodies inside. Whenever there are handsome men patient, her p*****t aunt would even make then remove their upper garments even if the patients complains of a severe headache.

Like today, she could see through the lacy curtains how her aunt danced pathetically around a male patient presumed to be possessed by an evil spirit while clanging her infamous golden bells with her hand as she loudly sings a gypsy song she had just memorized from YouTube.

She finally saw her aunt bid her presumed demonic patient goodbye before she came out of her room and hurriedly walked to the kitchen.

“Did you really have to spit on him, Laria?” Ada couldn’t control the fury in her voice as her eyes rolled back in disgust. She questioned her aunt without standing up.

“He’s a cheating b*stard of a man; he deserves more than a spit. Possession my a*s. He’s just a natural demon,” Laria sarcastically answered with a smirk as she grabbed the medium-sized glass pitcher of water on the table, and effortlessly chugged water directly from it.

“Why do you have to make it personal every single time? Remember, you are making profits from them. They deserve respect and humane services from you, so please, stop those unnecessary performances of yours, Laria, and just heal them properly, okay?” she muttered softly. Her aunt teasingly smirked at her as she put the almost empty pitcher back on the table and strolled back to her room.

Ada let out a deep sigh as she looked at her aunt walk away. My goodness, she couldn’t believe that she was able to stay with that crazy woman for so long. God knows how much she hated her aunt and her guts. She might have left this town if not for her grandmother. All those memories of her aunt are just so hard to contain that she felt her brain was going to explode every single time those moments she had spent with that crazy woman replays in her head. There was this one memory that made a difference, though.

She remembered when she was about eight years old; she heard a loud but sad chittering of a bird. She then found a swallow with a broken wing on the ground of their yard. She didn’t pick it up, afraid she would hurt it even more; she had gone back inside their house and called for her grandma. When she didn’t see her grandma, she rushed back outside only to find her aunt picking up the poor bird with her cupped hands. She was about to scream at her aunt when an incredible thing happened. The bird suddenly flew away from her aunt’s hands, and it perched on the nearby tree as if she never saw it in its poor condition a while ago. She almost had a change of heart and started to see her aunt from a different perspective.

Unfortunately, her aunt is her aunt. No amount of magic will make her stop hating her aunt’s guts, not even Magnus sanitatem.