“You’re not safe in the palace. Let us help you.”
“Help us?” Eudora said suspiciously. “Now why would a dweller of the forest want to do such a thing?”
“Let’s say we don’t agree with the rules of this forest. And we don’t like what would happen to you if you don’t come with us.”
That sounded convincing.
Anwen looked at her friends in a what-other-choice-do-we-have way. But they seemed hesitant.
“Why would we trust you?”
“What would you better do?” said the strange lady confidently.
The three of them seemed to come to an agreement as they stopped their running and chased after the two strangers who had offered to help them.
“Don’t ever trust a stranger,” her mother had told her, though not only did Anwen overrule that advice, but she was also putting her life into jeopardy while following these people.
“Anwen,” Eudora muttered. “Of all the things we’ve done in this forest, that’s by far the craziest.”
“I know.” She whispered.
“It’s not as crazy as it seems,” the woman interfered and almost made them jump out of their skin. "They petrified our daughter two months ago just because she broke one of their stupid rules.” The woman seemed to have a hard time remembering it. "She was twelve."
The last addition left them all speechless.
“Now I won’t let innocent kids wind up the same way.”
“Does she realize we’re young adults?” Eudora whispered.
“How did you know about us?” Brayden asked, seemingly interested.
“Everybody in the Osage Orange Forest knows about you,” the man explained
“How so?”
“They filed a report. You’re everywhere. You’re basically wanted.”
“Wow, that’s so cool.” Eudora seemed so impressed.
“I just figured we haven’t even introduced ourselves,” the man added. “I’m Axinite and this is my wife Pyxie.”
The three of them didn’t even need to introduce themselves as they were already famous around the forest.
“Where would you have us hide?” Brayden asked.
“In our home, of course.” Pyxie smiled.
“Meow,” the cat moved beside his patron.
“Did you bring your pet with you?” the woman asked.
“I didn’t know what to do. Apricot and I are really close. And no one in the academy could look after him.”
“Apricot?” the woman frowned.
“Mm-hmm,” she smiled, delighted.
"That's a weird name."
Anwen’s smile vanished eventually.
* * *
“How long do you plan to keep us holed up in here?”
“For as long as it takes.” The room was quiet. “Does anybody need some cake?”
Eudora looked at the weirdest thing she’d ever seen. She could puke just by seeing it.
“I’m fine.” She tried to form an appreciative smile.
“What about everybody else?” this time Pyxie turned to the other witches in the room and smiled.
“I’d like some,” Anwen offered.
She was so weird, Eudora thought.
The cat purred beside his patron.
“Would you like some?” she offered.
Apricot ditched it in the most obnoxious way, turning his head to the other side.
“I’m getting bored.” Eudora sighed and placed her head on Brayden’s shoulder.
He tried to hide a smile.
When Anwen noticed their little cuddle, she couldn’t explain why she was captivated by such a grudging feeling. She could imagine Eudora and Brayden in a relationship—there was some kind of chemistry in the air. And yet she couldn't be happy for them.
“Why is everybody here so annoying?” she mumbled on his shoulder.
“Well, not everybody, look at them. They are trying to help us.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“You don’t?”
“Augh, Brayden you’re so simple-minded,” she groaned.
He didn't respond.
“But it could be worse,” she said and it took him a moment to realize what she was talking about.
Anwen couldn’t hear what they were talking about. She was so focused on eating that strange cake while listening to whatever creepy story that woman had to share.
“She’s just nice,” he grinned.
“Way too nice if you ask me,” she added firmly.
“Now I’d rather we come up with some plan,” Eudora got up on her feet.
“Relax darling. You step foot outdoors, they catch you before you even know it,” the woman smiled.
“Well, being stuck here isn’t any better. We can’t stay here forever. They’ll keep searching until they get us anyway. They know we’re not witches. We can’t go anywhere.”
"She makes a good point," Brayden said defensively.
"I don't need your support."
“She’s right,” Anwen added.
The woman seemed to hesitate for a while, but then she tried to see things differently. Maybe they were right.
“There’s a way,” she said after her long thoughtfulness.
“Great,” Eudora shouted.
They were all listening, expectantly.
“I can use a spell to transmigrate you.”
“What? No, you cannot…” there was something to it that concerned Axinite. “You know what happened the last time.”
“What happened the last time?” the horrification on Brayden’s eyes was worthy to be captured.
“You know that was one time only,” the woman talked to her husband, ignoring the guy’s question.
“I remember the time before that, or last month, or last Halloween. There’s a couple of them I come to remember.”
“Come on, they’re freaked out. They need to do something. What other choice do we have?”
Eudora started to get annoyed by their arguing and that's why she determined to barge uninvitingly into their disagreement.
“We’ll do it.” She said stubbornly.
“What?” Anwen and Brayden managed to say almost synchronically.
“How often have you practiced that spell?” Eudora ignored her friend’s angry sights.
“Well, a couple times actually. It’s been like, what, twelve complete practices.”
“And how many of them turned out wrong?”
“Well, eleven to be precise.”
“What?”
“Try to think about the one that went right.” The woman forced a smile on her face.
After a moment of soundlessness, they were all weighing their options.
“Be that as it may. It’s not like we have any other options.” Eudora said.
The woman put a huge smile on her face and got up on her feet hurriedly, ready to perform the spell.
“Go back a little,” she tried to adjust them altogether.
The three of them got close and Apricot jumped into Anwen’s arms.
“Adducam ministri requietum ad destinatum.”
“Did you say requietum instead of requiratur?” Axinite asked.
Eventually, the posse disappeared into the magical fog.
Chapter Sixteen
“What is this place?” Eudora dusted off the dirt from her sweater.
“I don’t know.”
“We should’ve never gone with this crazy idea.” Brayden managed to get up from the ground.
“It’s getting so dark now, I can’t see anything.”
“We should’ve never come to this forest in the first place.” Anwen scoffed.
“What makes you think we’re still in the forest?”
“The trees.” He jumped into the conversation and let her look around.
“Oh…”
Anwen got up and looked around. It was just a place that suggested they were in the middle of the
forest. There was nothing significant around them that could help them get a better idea of their coordinates.
“If we’re still in the forest, then we’re in serious trouble.”
“Eudora, this is the forest.” He reassured her.
“Meow,” the cat lingered around.
“We keep getting in more trouble.” Anwen didn’t pay much attention to the cat for the first time, that is until the cat approached and jumped on her arms.
“We can always go back to where we were.”
“We can?”
“Yeah, I’ve read it in my book, you can use the nearest-performed spell as a path to go back to where the magic started.”
They weighed the offer. Really, if they turned back they could never get out, since there were guards all around looking for them, but on the other hand, being in the out was dodgier since they had no one to protect them.
“I say we give it a try,” Brayden finally broke the silence.
“Unde incepit redeat retro.” She said after a quite considerable moment of contemplation.
In a flash, they were back to the place they’d just escaped a minute ago.
“Where’s the house?” Brayden was shocked.
"And the owners of it?" Eudora said.
“Is this the right place?” Anwen asked, not as concerned as her friends.
“Meow,” the cat replied.
“I remember the porch; it looked out from that particular series of trees which are different from the other trees in the forest.”
“How can you tell?” Anwen asked her.
“Because they’re green,” she shouted.
They were all befuddled by the stranger facts that kept making an appearance rather quaintly. Maybe it was best if they went back to where they came from. This place was so creepy.
It was getting darker any moment, and much to their frightfulness, the place was getting filled with sounds of animals that stood above the tree branches or beneath the stumps, or even nearby the bushes. Some of the sounds were quite recognizable, but there were other noises that echoed through the air that made them want to escape that place as soon as possible.
“Maybe we should go back to where we started?” Eudora offered.
“That place wasn’t any less scary.”
“I don’t think we’ve got much of a choice here,” he said.
“I’m starting to regret coming here in the first place.”
“I’d worry if you didn’t.” Anwen comforted her.
In the middle of their indecision, another sound could be heard. This time the sound was continuous and more frequent than all the other ones.
“What was that?” Eudora seemed terrified.
“I think it’s the footsteps of someone coming this way…” he reasoned.
“What? Great!”
“We need to leave now,” Anwen accepted their previous offer.
“Shouldn’t we find out who is approaching us first? Maybe it’s not that scary as we think.”
“We don’t have time. And we can’t take that risk.” She said, harshly.
They couldn’t make out anything among that darkness that had embraced the atmosphere. Except for a grumble of leaves and stumps infesting the floors.
“It’s getting colder.” Anwen embraced herself with both arms around her shoulders.
“It should. It’s autumn, already.”
“I know, I just wish I were someplace warmer, like campus right now.”
“I cannot believe you have time to deal with these sorts of thoughts right now while we’re right in the middle of a dilemma here.” Eudora scoffed.
“How do you expect someone to think quietly when it’s so cold?”
“It’s not that cold,” he muttered.
The footsteps now seemed to become more prominent. And the best part was that, even though someone strange was approaching them, the three of them didn’t have anything better to do other than complaining about the coldness in the forest. Say the cold outside was the biggest problem of all.
Chapter Seventeen
“What is this place?” Anwen had to take a glance around the place.
“I have no idea,” he dusted off the final leaf from his jacket.
“Well, it doesn’t look like that scary place we visited a couple of minutes ago.”
“But it doesn’t make sense. I performed the same spell.”
“This place is strange.”
“Are we ever gonna get out of here?”
“Maybe we’re in the out,” she glanced delightedly at the series of sparks that infested a bunch of trees, hanging beneath the branches like Christmas lights. “This is not quite as scary as what we’ve seen till now.” Brayden determined.
“I like it. It might be probably the best thing we’ve seen in this creepy forest.”
“But I told you,” he looked at Anwen. “Maybe this is not the forest after all.”
“Are you saying we might be out of the forest? I don’t think so. This place doesn’t look recognizable at all. At least not to me.”
"Me too," Eudora whispered.
The place was crowded by a bunch of trees just like everything else in the forest, but in contrast, those were oaks and fir trees and it looked a lot like a celebration with all the sparks and the lights around the trees.
It was enchanting.
“Meow,” Apricot seemed to agree.
Anwen brought her cat in her hands and started petting him.
"What is that I see?" Eudora bent forward in order to take a better look.
“What?” he couldn’t see anything.
“There…” she pointed.
“I don’t…”
“Augh, come on Brayden. It’s right over there.” She clutched his hand and dragged him along and now he could take a look from her angle.
“Oh, yes, I see now.”
She scoffed.
"What is it, guys?"
“Come here.” She waved her hand delightfully.
Anwen brought herself to her feet and wandered towards her friends to see what had enraptured their attention so thoroughly. When she was close enough, she turned around in the direction they were looking at, and glanced at a cozy bakery which was also decorated in a very charming way.
“I say we go in,” he broke the silence.
“I’m hungry.” Eudora shrugged.
It didn't seem like they had much of a choice after all. Maybe they could also dig some information inside the bakery, like: What was that place? Were they out of the forest? If they were: thank God.
Wandering towards that place, their fear almost vanquished.
Apricot waddled around, carelessly, with his tail swinging upwards.
“What if we’re really out?” Anwen concluded.
“Then we get on with our boring lives in the most appreciative way possible and never go back to the forest," Eudora said firmly. Really, what was there to question?
“I mean, we’ve got the antidote for Harvey’s petrification.”
“That’s awesome.”
“But…Brayden didn’t get what he came here for.”
“I mean, I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t go back to that place no matter what. If we’re really even out.” She said doubtfully.
“It’s okay. I wouldn’t go back to that place either. There’s something about it that freaks me out.” He comforted her.
“We’ll figure something out. We wouldn’t let you get in trouble, now would we?”
By far, Anwen thought, this was the closest thing to amenity Eudora had ever shown.
“Meow,” Apricot agreed.
Now that they were near to the entrance of that bakery, they could freely make out the sample above the big wooden door: “Trisha&CO” was written in big, blue, neon letters.
“So now we know what this place is called.” She smirked.
“That’s not much to know,” Anwen corrected her.
&
nbsp; “It looks like a bakery to me,” he offered.
“See, the quorum has already decided.”
“Augh,” Anwen rolled her eyes at the comment.
Eudora was the first to go in, as always, followed by Brayden, who seemed to have gotten so fond of her and Anwen stood there pondering for a moment whether she should really go in. Bringing the cat to her arms, she was the last one to go in.
The interior was as cozy as the front of that building. There were nice little tables and chairs where she immediately pictured nice, warm conversations with friends. There was a tremendous window displaying the amazing view of the outdoor lanterns and lights. The place smelled of cupcakes and chocolate.
Now, there was no way this was the forest.
Everything in the OOF was nothing but terrifying, and this bakery, on the other hand, was nothing but normal.
A woman revealed herself from behind the counter; she was a nice young girl with long, brown hair, cherry lips and a huge smile-for-customers on the face. She was pretty.
Now Anwen was sure this definitely wasn’t the forest.
“Hello, there,” she greeted them.
Eudora returned the smile.
“Welcome to Trisha&Co,” she said so delightfully. “My name is Trisha. I’m the owner of this place.”
“Good for you,” Eudora congratulated her.
“What is this smell,” Anwen sniffed, hypnotized, as if trying to catch the buzz of that fragrance in the air.
“Oh, it’s the scent of my red velvet cupcakes. We just baked them,” she sniffled proudly.
“Can I have some?”
“It’d be my pleasure.”
"Um…" Eudora bent. "Hello? We'd like something too."
“Oh, don’t worry. There’s enough for everybody.”
After Trisha disappeared behind some door across the center, they decided to take a seat and make themselves comfortable, since there was nothing to worry about anymore. In a flash, all their troubles seemed to shatter in bits and all that remained was delightfulness and hunger. Lots and lots of hunger.
The red-velvet cupcake's fragrance had embraced the whole room and seemingly they were drenched into it as if they were possessed. It was bewitching.
Apricot, too, seemed so quiet.
Trisha came back with a cafeteria tray filled with cupcakes and enchantingly sweet olfactory.
An Academy for Witches (A Witch in Progress Book 1) Page 10
