Abandoned Witch (Shadow Claw Book 6)

by Sarah J. Stone

  The girl was confused, but she stayed until the mother got up and started moving toward the stream. The girl picked up the cubs in her arms and followed suit. The mother settled by a tree across the stream and the girl placed her cubs by her. The bear rubbed her head against the girl’s and she knew she had made an ally. But she was tired now, and needed to sleep. Asking the owls to keep watch, she headed off to her tree, fluffing up her bedding and cuddling into it, hoping the bear and her cubs wouldn’t disappear the next morning.

  The following day, she saw the mother bear was standing and moving about, collecting berries. The girl was sure the mother needed more than plants to get by and started to hunt, and came back in the next hour with an intruding deer and a rabbit. She threw her makeshift spear in the stream for fish and started to skin them all at once. The mother bear got scent of the meal and approached her, so the girl allowed her to take the deer aside for herself as she worked on the rabbits and fishes, crushing together berries, leaves, and seeds to marinate her game in. The cubs woke up too soon and the mother bear abandoned her food to attend to them.

  The girl was careful to start a fire away from them, feeling the smoke would be bad for them. She cooked her share and ate in silence, studying the mother and her bear.

  A sort of loneliness fell over her. These cubs had someone to take care of them, rabbits stayed in groups and had families, and so did deer, birds, cats, and dogs. They always had someone taking care of the other. She was the only one here who had none of her kind with her to do the same. And it felt lonely. She had no one to communicate with her, hold her, and simply be with her.

  Tears sprung in her eyes. She just felt so alone.

  She rushed to her tree to hide under her bedding. The animals sensed that she was upset, but they understood absolutely nothing could make her feel better in that moment. The life tree pulsated all the energy it could to her, but it was of no use. She was lonely. There was no one to understand her the way she was there to understand them. She needed a companion. She needed someone to take care of her. She hated being alone. Her memories were locked too far away to reach even for moments of happiness in her life.

  It was obvious that she would be alone this way for a very long time.

  ****

  The next few weeks were a blur, but fascinating. She would almost forget what loneliness even felt like because of the cubs. They grew faster than she would’ve expected them to and had started chewing on solid food. She was sure bears were not supposed to grow up this fast, but there they were, already climbing trees, albeit stumbling a bit when they walked and ran.

  She would take off after them to make sure they came to no harm, and they formed a strong bond each time they played together. What was probably the most dumbfounding thing was that they could communicate with her, literally. It all started so suddenly when she heard voices in her head.

  Alarmed, she reached up to cover her ears, but the cubs nudged her.

  It’s us, she heard a childish voice, Why are you scared?

  She looked at the cubs, blinking. She opened her mouth to try and speak, her voice hoarse. She hadn’t spoken much, only crying, making grunting noises, and imitating animal speech since the next day that she was abandoned. But she still remembered how to talk in her own language she had grown up with in the human world.

  “You hear me?” she whispered.

  Yes, she heard two voices at once.

  What? How? she thought and they caught onto it.

  We’re your familiars.

  The words sent her into a dizzying shock as she recalled a few dreams where she saw and heard of the bond between people and animals before. She didn’t know it was possible to have two at once.

  “Is that why your mom let me near you?”

  You’re the only one she would let close.

  This time, she managed to distinguish the black cub’s voice from the white’s.

  “So, um, what are you guys called?”

  You choose our names, spoke the white one, You’re our master now.

  “This is so weird.” She sighed. “Um, okay, I’ll just call you Yin and Yang.”

  Who’s Yin?

  “You,” she picked up the black one, and then petted the white cub, “And you’re Yang. Remember that.”

  You’ll take care of us, won’t you? asked Yang, You’ll teach us your powers?

  The girl recalled something of the sort in her dreams where people shared not on consciousness, but powers with their familiars.

  “Seems like it.” She nodded. “But I’ll need to meditate and see what I can figure out. It’s not easy and takes lots of energy.”

  We’ll manage, Yin said cheerfully. It occurred to her that Yin was most probably female, and Yang was male. She didn’t know how she would be able to look after two defenseless cubs should the join her everywhere, but she could try. The bears had caught onto what she was thinking.

  Our mommy will leave us with you after some time, Yang informed her, You’re our real master and she will have no responsibility over us once she deems us old enough to part with.

  “I’ll see what I can do…” she said softly. It was strange how the cubs did not seem at all bothered or upset about being abandoned. If it had happened to her she would bawl her eyes out.

  When she went to sleep that night, the cubs joined her. They cuddled up to her for warmth. And it felt nice. To have someone who could talk to her, and she could talk to back. She didn’t know how close familiars got with their masters, but there was a love budding for them that she knew would be exclusive to them only. A protectiveness of sorts.

  That night, she started to receive some of her memories back. And they made her cold. So very cold, and not physically, but at heart. It hardened, became cautious, and wounds opened anew. It was painful to think she was treated the way she was when she never understood why.

  But she did not cry when she woke up. This time, she accepted her past and allowed it to shape her to be cautious, to keep her actions and desires to hurt under control no matter how she was offended and how much the other may hurt her. She had to be guarded, and make sure she had nothing more to blame herself for.

  She woke up the next day with severe dislike for companionship. She felt she didn’t need anyone. She made it through the few months in the woods alone, and she could go on longer. But one glance at the cubs brought a wave of calmness in her heart. She could make an exception for them. Just them.

  Chapter 6

  It didn’t take her long to figure out how to share her powers with her familiars. She even managed to connect with them and pull them into her meditation to practice. It’s difficult at first, and she had to practice a lot of patience because they were just kids, but they’re quick to get the hang of it all still and she couldn’t have felt prouder.

  She had to become careful because of them. She could not pull them into her obsessiveness with meditation and practice. They were still very young and needed a proper schedule. They needed breaks, food, sleep, and playtime. And it worked out pretty well for her. She finally had someone to relax with.

  It had been a few months with them, and the cubs had grown faster than the girl could deem normal. Their fur had grown out and the diamonds on their heads were more prominent than ever. They were such beautiful creatures. They had learned to outrun all the other animals in the forest and could jump long distances to tackle things. It had been a week since the mother bear had left, but the cubs seemed quite all right with it. All they wanted was the girl. All they needed was her.

  It was another one of their meditating sessions, and they were doing very well this time. They could put up defensive barriers and conjure energy to shoot at opponents. Their aim had gotten a lot better, too. They were always so energetic and she had nothing to worry about except putting them to sleep. She always had to exhaust them during practice, so it required her to hold them close to nighttime.

  Their practice was proceeding
rather smoothly until she felt a tug in her consciousness. This disrupted the cubs and made them cry out, and the girl had no choice but to pull them all out of their trance. They all fell to the ground. The girl’s marks disappeared and eyes returned to normal, while the diamonds at the cubs’ foreheads stopped glowing.

  Why did that happen? Yin whined.

  “I don’t know,” the girl responded with a groan as she held her head. The pain was sharp whenever she was disrupted so abruptly, “Gather yourselves for a moment and come after me. I’ll go check what’s wrong.”

  A squirrel squeaked at her urgently and ran off into the leaves. She picked herself up and followed after it. She smelled it before she saw it. An intruder. But this was different. This was very different and did not smell like all the other animals she’d ever dealt with. This scent was something else completely. It reminded her faintly of her cubs, but only in a strange context.

  The girl halted in the trees, almost falling over the branch she was on. She almost missed it, but her eyes caught the sight of the intruder. And what she saw shocked her.

  It was a human. It was a person with arms, legs, and a head like hers, only they looked a lot different than her. But they were definitely humanoid. And they were looking straight at her.

  The girl dodged and attack within the next fraction of a second by a few centimeters. Startled, she tried to comprehend that someone was doing what she could do.

  She dodged another shot of energy and attacked by flicking her hand and sending three consecutive shots at her. The person looked at her, wide eyed, and raised her arms in a cross o block her advances. The girl slid off the trunk to the ground and ran toward her opponent, flinging discs of fire at her. The person only moved out of their way and chanted under their breath, pulling up a barrier around themselves. The girl hadn’t trained for nothing, and the barrier opened a hole with a flex of her fingers and she jumped through like a wolf, tackling the person to the ground.

  The girl didn’t understand how this person got here, but they shouldn’t have made it so far in. She would have known about them even while meditating, but she missed it this time. It came to her attention that this person had something around her, a barrier of sorts on their body that prevented her from being traced externally. That would explain it.

  The person’s hood fell off their head, revealing a mane of long red hair that spread out behind her. She had pale skin peppered with freckles and the most intense green eyes. The girl was momentarily struck by her beauty, but snapped out of it and worked to deliver a blow that would render her unconscious. She did not intend to kill her. Not yet.

  The girl was thrown of her opponent with a blast of energy, sent rolling a few feet away and crashing against a tree. She groaned, but got up and lunged at the intruder with animalistic rage, a hand ablaze and the other coiled with a rope of water, ready to strangle her. She swiped her flaming hand at her repeatedly and shot fireballs, but the opponent deflected them with the symbols that appeared from her chanting. The girl could see that her rival was surprised with the way she was fighting, while she herself could not understand how simply chanting was working for them so well. But nevertheless, she fought on, attacked and dodged until she found an opening to shoot her power into her consciousness and pull it out.

  The opponent’s next move deflected her spell right off and toward the girl, which she dodged. The girl moved to attack again but before she could, her cubs jumped out from behind her and right at the intruder, crashing against her and pinning her arms down. The girl rushed forward to complete her aim but was once again pushed back by an inviable force along with her cubs, hitting her head against a tree hard enough to render her dizzy.

  Her body hit the ground with a thud, vision going blurry as the intruder drew close and crouched down to her. The last thing she saw was her eyes before she blacked out.

  ****

  Her eyes squinted open, trying to rid the haziness from her vision to see where she was. It was still nighttime with only moonlight to spare her any sight. Surprised to find herself in her bedding cuddled up with Yin and Yang, she almost believed the whole ordeal to be a weird dream.

  Almost.

  The lady with red hair appeared in front of her, green eyes glittering in the moonlight. She held a steaming bowl of something in her hand, and although it smelled good, it alarmed the little girl and she crawled back against the trunk of the tree, holding her hand out to attack. The redhead held her hand up to create a barrier and chanted under her breath. She pushed past the mosquito net and reached the bowl out to the girl.

  “Drink up,” she whispered, “You’ll feel better.”

  She stared at her, scared and skeptical. But she reached out cautiously and took the pleasantly warm clay bowl from her. She looked into it, some kind of broth filled with pieces of chicken and vegetables. She hadn’t had vegetables in ages. Or chicken, for that matter. She could smell the egg in it, too. Her first sip soothed her as it slid down her throat, warming up her chest in a way that spread throughout her whole body. She took another sip, and a longer one this time, lapping it up as if she was starving. She hadn’t had a good meal in so long, she couldn’t really hold back at all.

  “What’s your name?” the redhead asked. The girl had to force herself to stop for a moment.

  “I don’t know,” she replied before downing down the rest of the liquid. It was soup.

  “Want more?”

  “Yes.”

  The read-head poured her some more. “Well, I’m Ivanna.”

  The girl really wasn’t listening, too busy drinking soup to her fill. She held out the bowl for more. Ivanna blinked at her.

  “Give it a little rest or your stomach will hurt,” she said, “I promise to give you more.”

  The girl sighed, but set the bowl down obediently. Ivanna spoke again, “How long have you been like this?”

  The girl tried to think. She really didn’t know because she wasn’t keeping track. So, she shook her head and held out her bowl. Ivanna sighed and filled up a glass instead with dark liquid. The girl sipped it. It was berry juice, but Ivanna had added something else to it that made it taste less sour and better than before.

  “Easy, okay? Little sips,” Ivanna warned her, “You’ll get sick.”

  The girl only nodded and tried practicing some self-restraint.

  “Do you know anything about who you are? Where you come from?”

  “Nope.”

  “What about these cubs? Who are they?”

  “Yin and Yang. They talk to me.”

  “Are they your…familiars?”

  “Yes, that!”

  Ivanna seemed mildly surprised, “I didn’t know witches could have two.”

  “Who?” The girl stopped drinking and looked at her. “What am I?”

  “A witch,” she claimed, “You’re a witch who learned all on your own in this forest. No chants, no nothing. How do you do that?”

  The girl was very skeptical of letting her know her ways, so she played coy, “I don’t know how I do it…”

  Ivanna nodded. She had such a kind face and a calming air about her. The girl wanted to trust her, she really did, but her heart had never been so heavily guarded.

  “Will you leave soon?” she asked Ivanna who seemed a little lost in thought. Her ears perked at the question.

  “Soon, yes. I need to take you back to where I come from.”

  The girl was alarmed. “No, I can’t.”

  “You need to be cleaned up and taken a look at, little one,” she said. “The woods are no place for anyone to live in alone.”

  “I’m fine here,” she stated. “I have animals to look after.”

  “The animals have looked after you,” she corrected her, “And they are grateful for you protecting them. They learned a lot from you. Now, you and your familiars will have to head back home with me and be taken care of. You need food, shelter, and proper clothes.”

  T
he girl did not bolt immediately. Ivanna gave her a kind look, understanding her fear and caution. “You can think about it. I won’t force you, but there are many others like you and your familiars there. We look after them well and help them become powerful.”

  The girl was silent as she looked down at her drink and calculated her options. Her familiars stirred in their sleep, turning to grab her legs and cuddle close. She looked at them, knowing she couldn’t go any longer with them still growing so rapidly. The forest was too large and they would want to explore. Also, there was something about this place, and her tree especially, that made her not want to leave.

  “I don’t want to leave my tree…” she whispered.

  “Can’t blame you,” Ivanna admitted, “It’s your life tree. We all have them spread out everywhere. But nothing will happen to it, I promise. You can always come back to it once you learn how to use your powers to transport yourself from one place to another.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.” Ivanna nodded. “A witch’s life tree holds with them the most intimate and important bond of all. It’ll be important for you to come back every once in a while.”

  “What does a life tree do?”

  “You will learn everything about yourself if you come with me,” she sang, pouring her more soup.

  The girl contemplated it, and knew it was an important decision. She had always trusted her gut for everything and it was telling her to go quite incessantly. “Okay,” she said.

  “Good!” Ivanna cheered, “Here, more soup. Sleep all you can and we’ll head off first thing when daylight.”

  She nodded, accepting the soup and slurping it up. It was her last bowl and she knew she had enough to keep her full for almost a week or so. She was satisfied. And growing very, very sleepy. She felt content for once with, even with this little portion of the day. If anything, she felt cared for. She wondered if everyone else would be just as nice as Ivanna back where she came from.