014 Found And Lost

Kitty never thought her life would take such a huge turn and crashed into the magical world just like this...

She was an orphan wondering on the street not long ago, and now she was here, inside the grotesque store, and being told that she had a witch mom.

How could she never know this before?! Could she really be a secret witch that she didn’t even know? But there was never any sign or unexplainable things happened to her before.

"..." After trying all Kitty could imagine as "summon" but to sing some ancient spells that she had no idea how to say, Kitty gave up summoning her "stone", or well, what the old lady called it, "Phosis".

"Maybe it escaped instead..." Kitty looked up at her with a defeated face.

"Hahaha..." The old lady laughed, "No wonder, no wonder... Of course you cannot summon it. You have never used magic before, right?"

"No... I didn't even know my mom could, before today." Kitty sit on the chair opposed to the old lady, with tea in a kinda dirty cup held in her hands.

"Yes, yes..." The old lady mumbled, "She put a spell on you that sealed your power, I see it now... I cannot lift it because I'm not as powerful as her. Why would she do that...?" The old lady's words turned into a murmur.

She had to break out of some spell to use magic, when she had never even known she had power before. Unless--

"How did you even know who I was? I never knew my mom was a witch. Maybe you just made a mistake..."

"Not likely." The old lady said with a firm tone on that one, "My divination told me that I would meet the shadow of an old friend here, and that's why I came. You don't meet many people with blue hair, do you?"

The "blue hair" clue did calmed Kitty down a bit, but she could not see how she could be a daughter of a witch all this time without getting even a little bit of hint.

"But, why now? I mean, you never felt any hint like this before, have you?" Kitty asked.

"Not really, no. My vision felt as if a light hidden in somewhere dark that suddenly blow out and caught my attention, so I came. Had anything out of normal happened to you recently?"

Well, yeah. The whole village where she lived was wiped out. That certainly counts as "out of normal", right? But Kitty didn't see how that had anything to do with her. Could it be?

"Hmm..." Kitty didn't want to think of the possibility that she was the reason that caused all her family, AND the whole village to their doom, so she changed a question and started with the questions that had been occupying her mind even since he stepped in the store:

"But... I just don't see my mom being a witch... Do witches die of car accidents? Don't they like... live forever or something? I'm sorry, I really know nothing about--"

"What?! Your mom died?!" The old lady gasped.

"You, you didn't know? I guess I just assume you knew... Yes, both of my parents died, in a car accident three years ago--" Kitty's voice lowered as she realized the old lady was panicking at her words already. Kitty's heart dropped. She KNEW it was a mistake! And she just took a weird stone from this weird lady! Without her consent nonetheless!

"No, no, no... How could it be? I didn't see anything..." The old lady started to pace back and force by herself, mumbling a lot stuff that only herself seem to understand, totally forgetting that Kitty was still in the room.

"I... I'll just..." Kitty started to move to the door in small steps. She surely didn't want to answer to this witch about the missing of a valuable stone from obviously an important friend to her. She couldn't even if she wanted to!

She took a deep breath and ran out of the door before the old lady notice her again, but leaving the store still with no mom, yet Kitty couldn't seem to keep her cool anymore.

Her mom was a tender, bright, mischievous woman with a magical brush that paints brilliant works... Kitty couldn't even bear to think the world magical now about her mom. Could she be? A witch for all this time? Why is her normal, pathetic human life suddenly got entangled with all kinds of supernatural secrets now? Is blue hair really that reassuring an evidence? Kitty certainly wouldn't say it's rare. Emma, for starters, had blue hair, too...

But the old lady's vision couldn't be about Emma, could it? Or is Emma still alive?!

Buried in all kinds of messy thoughts, Kitty dragged her body back to the bar, which suddenly felt a lot more like a home, at least, a safe place where she spent the most relaxing time in the past three days, well, in the past three years actually.

She hadn't had a place safe and cozy with no trouble to worry about to live in ever since she lost her parents.

Kitty started to look forward to it. To live in the bar, in her OWN bedroom, with him. He was not there now, but he will be back. And the word "back" suddenly gave Kitty a warm and ease feeling, like an anchor steadied her swaying life.

The warm, bright sunshine of the afternoon cast on the windows of the bar, just like the first day Kitty came here.

She pushed the door open, and there were several people inside, who all turned and fell into silence in shock. They were surprised by her arrival just as much as she was surprised that there were people there.

The Dim Patronus, well, some of them.

"Hi, you are all here! What... What's wrong?" Kitty realized something was right the second her greets left her tongue.

Why are they all staring at her in horror?

"What?" A dark idea started to form in her mind, "Is... is it about Erebus?"

"Why do you care?!" Themis suddenly shout, which startled the rest of them, and Metis put a hand on her shoulder to try to calm her.

Kitty shrank at her sudden censure and fell in silence. Felt wronged, Kitty couldn't bring herself to say any word, also because she didn't know the answer to that question either.

Why did she care? About a man who she just met two days ago? Because he was nice to her? Because he gave her a roof above her head? Because... she... likes him? She hasn’t even thought about that for a long time, not to mention about him. But now with this question in front of her face, that assumption suddenly jumped out from nowhere and won't let go.

"Did... did something happen to him...?" Kitty asked in a whisper, she lose her voice in the shock and the horrible imagination in her mind. She wasn't even sure whether she wanted the answer.

"You would be happy, wouldn't you?!" Themis replied with disdain.

Why are they suddenly all this hostile to her? Did she do something wrong? What on earth happened?

"Themis, calm down. I'm sure this is a misunderstanding--" Pallas started, but his words only got Themis angrier:

"You are a liar!" Themis shouted with her finger pointed right at Kitty.