Tales of Aradia The Last Witch Volume 1 (3 page)

“Well, I can’t just
leave you out here,” he concluded. After a few contemplative
seconds, Ross very carefully and very awkwardly scooped the girl
into his arms. He held her for a few seconds, not sure if he was
doing it right. He knew he had to support her head, but that was
about it.

She stared straight
into his eyes, and he wondered what she was thinking. The warm
little bundle clung to him with surprising strength. Then she
hiccuped, which, strangely enough, set Ross’s mind at
ease.

He knew he was doing
the right thing by taking her with him. More than that, though, he
hoped she might cheer up Liza. “You know, kid, you are too
cute.”

"Oh Ross, she's too
cute!" Liza exclaimed as she reached out to take the little girl
from her husband.

Her initial confusion
at seeing Ross emerge from the forest carrying what seemed to be a
small brown sack had evaporated immediately upon realizing he held
a baby girl. Once she’d realized it was a child, she’d rushed out
of the car, leaving the door hanging open behind her.

Seeing his wife cradle
the baby so comfortably and naturally in her arms, Ross chuckled at
his wife's maternal instinct.

"But… how? Why?" Liza
sputtered, not taking her gaze off the girl.

"Yeah, that’s the
really weird part," Ross said. "I found her alone in a
cave."

"Excuse me?" Liza
replied, tearing her eyes from the girl only long enough to cast
him a brief look of disbelief.

"I'm not kidding," Ross
said, throwing up his hands to illustrate his seriousness. "She was
just lying there all alone. I called out to see if anyone else was
around but nobody answered."

"Do you think they
might have left for just a little while? To get food or water or…”
she trailed off. Considering the baby’s odd attire, she finished
the question, “or clothes?"

"That thought did occur
to me,” Ross replied. “I don’t think so though. I searched the
surrounding area and didn’t find anything suggesting anybody had
been there recently. There was no tent, no campfire,
nothing.”

“Ross, still,” she
said.

“I know, I know. I
agree. I left my wallet in there with a business card and a note in
it.”

“Your wallet?” she
asked, raising an eyebrow.

Flashing a handful of
cash and cards from inside his jacket pocket, he replied, “No, I
did not leave my credit cards or ID or Golden Spoon punch
card."

Liza closed her mouth
and smiled. The girl’s eyes were wide open, and the two females
gazed at one another.

"What do you suppose
happened to her?" Liza asked Ross distractedly.

"You got me," Ross
replied as he made funny faces at the baby over his wife’s
shoulder.

"Hm-mm..." said Liza.
"We should take her home with us."

"Pardon?" Ross
replied.

"Well, she is all alone
and we were just talking about adopting."

"I’m no expert, but I
think that might technically be considered kidnapping rather than
adoption," Ross replied, not nearly as surprised at his wife’s
suggestion as most men would have been. "Actually, no, I am an
expert."

Liza scowled and said,
"But we can't just leave her out here.”

“Not the only two
options, Liza.”

“But she's just
so...special."

"Well, yeah," said
Ross. "She’s adorable, but so will be the kid we adopt
legally."

"Look,” she said,
flustered, “there is something about her that tells me she's more
than that. She’s just too special to give up. We should take her
in."

As if in confirmation,
the little girl cooed at her.

"Sure, what’s the harm
in the idea," Ross said as he stretched out his arms over his head
and paced in a tight circle. “I’m sure that wouldn’t affect my
legal career, or your job working with kids.”

“Oh c'mon Ross,” she
replied. “Somebody is bound to adopt her. Why not us?”

He paused to stare at
his wife.

"I’m going to check out
the car,” Ross said. “For damage."

Liza chuckled. She let
Ross off the hook without complaint.

He leaned in through
Liza’s still-open door and popped the hood release. After securing
the hood open and fiddling for a minute, he seemed satisfied
enough. Then he turned his inspection to the vehicle’s
undercarriage. After uncomfortably crawling under the car, he
released a clearly audible groan.

"Bad, huh?" Liza called
from across their little clearing while swaying the young girl
side-to-side.

Ross poked his head out
from under the car and nodded solemnly. Liza bemusedly wondered
how, in hardly more than two minutes, he’d managed to smear himself
with so much dirt and oil. “The engine’s fine,” he replied. “But we
snapped our rear axle. At least we have time to make up our mind
about the kid. We’re not going anywhere for a while.”

Liza made baby noises
at the little girl who promptly giggled.

“Hmph,” he replied. He
climbed back out from under the car, checked his Motorola StarTAC,
and groaned again. “No bars.”

“I keep telling you to
switch phone providers,” Liza replied, smiling.

“Ha ha,” he faux
laughed. He fished through his wife’s purse for her Nokia 6160.
“Ha!” he repeated, this time triumphantly. “You don’t have any bars
either.”

“And you’re sure you’re
happy about that, yeah?” she said, tilting her head and raising an
eyebrow.

For a few seconds he
didn’t say anything. Then he just grunted, “Hmph,” again. Liza
smirked.

“Okay, I’ll take a
walk,” Ross decided. “The last exit was only a couple miles back.
You should be fine here for a while. Maybe I’ll even get service
back at the road.”

“Not likely,” she
replied, “unless you take my Nokia.”

“Oh enough of that,
you,” he said. He’d declared his plan, but for a while Ross just
stared at the car, as if that might help. Giving up on that idea,
he turned to look at his two ladies. The younger shifted her eyes
from Liza to gaze instead at him.

Ross smiled.

"Well, firecracker,” he
joked to the baby, “if you are so special, why don't you save me
some exercise and fix the car for us?"

"Don’t you put that on
the baby," Liza said defensively, with a barely concealed
smile.

Ross looked down at his
loafers. “I think I have sneakers in the trunk.”

He opened it and sorted
through a pile of junk.

“Ross?” Liza called
uncertainly.

“Hey!” he called out.
“I’ve got a whole change of clothes in here! Sneakers, t-shirt,
exercise shorts.”

“Ross?”

“I know you’re always
on me to clean my car out, but you have to admit it’s coming in
handy now.”

“Ross!”

“Hmm?” he inquired,
poking his head around the trunk.

"Check under the car
again.”

“Huh?”

“Check under the car
again.”

“No, I heard you. But
why?”

“I don’t
know.”

“You don’t
know?”

“I just said that,
didn’t I?”

They stared wordlessly
for a few seconds, neither really sure what was going
on.

“So, you’re serious?”
he asked.

She just glared at him
in response.

“Okay, that’s the
serious look. You really don’t trust me sometimes.”

“It’s not that!” she
protested in a way that he believed her. “Just trust
me
, I have a
feeling.”

He shrugged and again
crawled under the car.

“Well how about that,”
he called embarrassedly.

“It’s not broken, is
it,” she said.

He crawled back, even
more dirty and greasy than the first time. “No, it’s not.
Everything looks fine.”

"But I thought you said
it was broken?" Liza asked confused.

"It was broken..." Ross
said slowly. “I thought it was at least. No, it was. I saw
it.”

Liza shook her head. "I
don't understand, Ross."

"That’s both of us,
then. I mean, maybe I was wrong, but I could have sworn..." Ross
said.

He rubbed his hand over
his face, smearing it even further, and said, "Well, either way,
it’s not broken now, so I suppose we should get going."

Liza nodded in
agreement.

Glancing at his filthy
outfit, Ross said, “I think I’m going to change before we go
anyway.” Liza smiled and nodded.

As he turned back to
the trunk, though, he heard Liza gasp, “Honey!”

"Yup?" he
turned.

She pointed at a nasty
gash on his shoulder. His shirt was quickly staining with blood.
“You’re bleeding!"

He reached over his
shoulder, then stared down at his grimy and bloody hand. “Hmm.
Yeah, I felt my shirt catch on a gear or something.”

“Didn’t it
hurt?”

He blushed enough to be
seen through the dirt and grime. “I didn’t want to
whine.”

"Very smart, tough
guy," said Liza with a sigh. "I honestly wonder how you got through
law school sometimes. Um, here,” she said as she walked around,
reached into the cluttered trunk, and draped a clean towel over his
arms.

“Why?” he
asked.

“Because you’re going
to hold the baby while I tend your wound, and there’s no way you’re
touching her as dirty as you are.”

She transferred the
precious bundle from her arms to his.

“You can do it, baby,”
she said to him. “Just relax.”

He nodded his agreement
and shifted his grip so the baby would rest in the crook of his
right arm.

“It’s pretty deep,” she
said. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this. I think
you’ll need stitches. I'll get the first aid kit, at least we can
clean it out and get some Neosporin on it."

"Uh, Liza..." Ross
interrupted.

"What?" asked Liza as
she swung back around.

It was unmistakable.
The hand with which the girl was reaching towards Ross glowed with
a dazzling, white light.

The light wasn’t as
bright or blinding as the flash they’d seen from the road, but it
was clearly different only in intensity, not in kind.

Ross and Liza watched
in astonishment as she reached over his shoulder and the cut on his
back also began to glow white, shrink, and then
disappear.

She didn’t need to
answer his question. He knew the girl had healed him.

While the couple stared
down at her, she gazed up at them, beaming like sunshine. By now,
her sweet, tiny hand had stopped glowing and was resting its thumb
in the girl’s mouth.

"It has begun," Morgan
gasped as she violently broke out of her meditative trance. Milky,
swirling clouds in her staff’s crystal sphere slowed and
disappeared.

With a flick of her
right hand, she summoned a crow into being. She whispered into its
ear and sent it on its mission. A few tense seconds later, the
Sovereign burst into the room.

"What?" he demanded,
less than thrilled at being so unceremoniously summoned. "For what
purpose do you request my presence?"

Morgan inhaled deeply,
calming herself before speaking. "Torn asunder from time and space,
I have sensed the child."

The Sovereign was
visibly taken aback. "The last witch? You mean to tell me the last
witch lives?"

“The one who escaped
the slaughter of her people, last of her kind, does not still live,
but lives again.”

If the Sovereign had
breath, he’d have taken a deep one himself. "Unbelievable. But it
has been over three hundred years, and witches are not immortal.
How is it so, demoness? Reincarnation?”

"The substance of
existence has been ripped and bridged,” she replied. She moaned in
pleasure and added, “A mystery I felt three centuries ago and now
have solved. How wonderfully satisfying.”

“‘Safe where you and
yours cannot touch her,’” the Sovereign quoted from the report Rome
had given him so long ago. “That we will see. Morgan, I command you
to scry for the location and identity of the last
witch."

“You ask what cannot be
done.”

The Sovereign growled
in response.

"My Sovereign, as a
demon born with the sight, I have many capabilities, but I am not a
witch. I cannot give more than I already have."

The Sovereign didn't
say anything. Instead, he sped to her and gripped her by the
throat, lifting her over his head.

Then his hand held
nothing but air and wisps of blackness. Seconds later, she
reappeared, a bit further away. Ignoring his attack, she added, “My
inability to pierce the veil itself speaks to me,
though.”