Capítulo 13: Unmaking Of A Witch(I)
The first rays of dawn painted the horizon in hues of gold and pink, melting away the deep chill of the night. Zana and Flower stood at the edge of the barricade, their figures shrouded in the lingering fog.
"Are you really going?" the boy asked, his voice small and uncertain, his breath misting in the cold air.
"Yes," Zana replied without looking back, her steps already carrying her away. Her tone was brisk, practical, but not without a tinge of reassurance. "But do not worry. In time, we'll be back once our chores are done."
Flower lingered for a moment longer, her hand raised lazily in the air as she waved goodbye. "Farewell, kid. Learn wise and don't give the witch too much grief." With that, she turned and followed Zana, the two vanishing into the fog like wraiths.
El Ritch stood there, clutching his arms against the cold, watching the mist swallow them whole. He had been given the choice to start his training as either a Hunter or a Witch. When asked, he had chosen Witch, though not for the reasons one might expect. It wasn't curiosity or a thirst for arcane knowledge that had guided his decision, but something far simpler, far more childish: the thought of sleeping in a warm bed for a few days longer.
The witch, sharp-eyed and sharper-witted, had seen through his lie with ease. "That's a tough lie you're going to pay for," she muttered, a smirk tugging at her lips. But she had let him enjoy his small victory, allowing him the comfort of rest until dawn.
When the sun finally rose after they left, however, her leniency ended.
"Training the mind also comes with training the body," the witch declared, her voice as sharp as the frost in the air. Before he could ask what she meant, El Ritch felt a sudden chill as his clothes disappeared, leaving him standing in nothing but a makeshift pair of underwear.
"W-We can train indoors!" he stammered, but her deadpan stare silenced any further protest.
"We cannot have fools wage war and cowards make strategy," she snapped, gesturing toward the barricade. "Run. Around the perimeter. Until I tell you to stop."
El Ritch opened his mouth to plead, his wide, innocent eyes searching hers for mercy. But there was none to be found. With a resigned sigh, he set off at a slow, stumbling pace. The icy wind bit at his exposed skin, each gust cutting through him like a blade.
But as the minutes passed and his legs found their rhythm, the chill began to fade. His muscles warmed, his breath steadied, and the cold no longer felt like an enemy, merely an annoyance.
By the time an hour had passed, he was drenched in sweat, his lungs burning as they struggled to draw in the frigid air. His legs wobbled beneath him, threatening to collapse. But he pressed on, driven by a singular thought: I must become strong. I must walk beside them.
Finally, the witch called him back, and he all but collapsed at her feet, his chest heaving as he sucked in great gulps of air. She stood over him, arms crossed, her expression as impassive as ever.
"Good," she said, and with a snap of her fingers, his clothes reappeared, dry and warm against his skin. Relief washed over him like a wave.
"Now," the witch continued, her tone shifting to one of instruction, "I will teach you the basics. Not just of Witchcraft, but also of Hunters, Conjurers, and the art of survival."
El Ritch's head snapped up at that, his exhaustion momentarily forgotten. "All of them?" he asked, his voice tinged with both hope and disbelief.
The witch shot him a withering look. "No, boy," she said with a sigh, shaking her head. "Just Witchcraft. One step at a time."
El Ritch exhaled in relief.
The fire crackled softly in the hearth as El Ritch and the witch sat across from each other at the small wooden table. The morning light streamed through the cracks in the hut's shutters, illuminating the tattered pages of the book El Ritch was leafing through. His brow furrowed in concentration as he studied, jotting down notes in uneven handwriting.
"It is a very big question for you indeed," the witch said suddenly, breaking the silence. Her voice carried a tone of challenge. "But what is hope?"
El Ritch didn't look up from the book, his fingers flipping through the pages with steady determination. "Something we should have when we are weak," he answered absentmindedly, parroting a phrase he had read earlier.
The witch clicked her tongue in disapproval, her eyes narrowing. "Wrong. Don't fool me with your bookish answers. I expect the truth, boy—the answer from you."
El Ritch hesitated, her words cutting through his focus like a blade. His mind wandered, searching for the meaning of something so intangible. Hope, to him, wasn't something he could easily define. He thought of Adeline, the warmth of her presence, the way she had tended to him and helped him recover. If hope were a person, it was her. But how could he put that into words?
"...Hope is something that can be found only in things we can interact with?" he ventured finally, his voice tinged with hesitation.
The witch tilted her head, considering his words, before offering a rare smile. "Good start," she said, and for a moment, her tone softened. "But let me teach you something more."
She leaned forward, resting her arms on the table as she spoke, her voice taking on the cadence of a mantra. "We witches live by a simple motto: 'Hope is a value that is treacherous, placed on something that is transient.' Do you know what that means?"
El Ritch shook his head, his curiosity piqued.
"It means that hope is interchangeable, a fleeting thing we pin on something fragile, something mortal. Hope is placed on things that can fail, die, or vanish. That is the truth of the world. There are no miracles in witchcraft, no gods to grant us permanent salvation. And no gods-," she said, her eyes glinting with certainty, "-means no permanent hope. We do not rely on it. We accept the world as it is—for better or worse."
Her words hung in the air like a weight, and El Ritch found himself unable to respond. He didn't fully understand, but there was a gravity to her speech that pressed on him, something he felt he would only grasp with time.
The witch straightened, brushing off her skirt as she rose to her feet. "But remember this," she said. "Keep these words in your heart, even if you don't yet understand them."
El Ritch nodded, committing her teachings to memory as best he could.
"A small walk wouldn't hurt, would it?" she asked suddenly, her tone lightening.
He blinked in confusion, caught off guard by the sudden change in her demeanor. "I... I don't think so," he replied hesitantly.
"Good," she said, gesturing toward the door. "Then what are you waiting for? A walk in the morning woods refreshes the mind. Let us go."
And with that, she strode out of the hut, leaving El Ritch scrambling to follow.
The walk to the lake had been silent, save for the crunching of snow beneath their boots. The witch led El Ritch through the woods, following trails left by animals. When they reached the lake, his breath hitched at the sight of it. The surface was frozen and perfectly smooth, reflecting the sky in a way that made it seem like a portal to another world. The mirror of the heavens itself, he thought.
"Follow me. Silent and close," the witch whispered, her voice breaking his trance. She took his hand and led him down to the edge of the lake, where the trees grew thick and the shadows were long. Hidden among the branches, they stopped, crouching behind the cover of a large pine. Before them loomed the mouth of a cave, dark and yawning. Occasionally, faint growls echoed from within, low and guttural.
"We go inside," she said, her voice low and calm, and without hesitation, she guided him forward.
The cave was cold and damp, the scent of musk and decay heavy in the air. In the dim light, El Ritch's eyes adjusted, and he saw the outline of a bear—a massive creature lying on its side, flanked by two cubs. They were smaller than he imagined cubs should be, their ribs visible beneath their scruffy fur. The mother bear, too, looked emaciated, her once-powerful frame now frail and trembling.
"This year the harvest hasn't been bountiful for the bear family," the witch murmured, her tone indifferent as if stating an obvious truth. They crouched there, unseen, and watched the bear interact with her cubs. The little ones whimpered, shivering in the cold, and the mother licked them softly before rising to her feet. Her limbs trembled under her own weight, a sign of age and exhaustion.
"They aren't hers," the witch continued, as if reading El Ritch's thoughts. "The mama bear probably picked them up during mating season, abandoned cubs left to die."
El Ritch's heart clenched. The bear nudged the cubs, urging them to stay behind as she ambled out of the cave. The witch followed, motioning for him to come. They trailed the bear at a distance, silent as shadows, watching as she searched desperately for food. She clawed at trees, overturned stones, and dug through the frozen ground. She found nothing.
Occasionally, she would scavenge what she could: a handful of withered berries, a squirrel that had been too slow to escape her grasp. But it was not enough. Her desperation grew, her movements becoming erratic. When she came upon a patch of poison berries, she ate them in her hunger, gnashing her teeth as if the bitter taste meant nothing. Moments later, she began thrashing, rubbing herself against thorny bushes to ease the burning itch that spread across her body.
El Ritch turned to the witch, his face pale, his voice trembling. "Why can't we help her?" he asked.
The witch's gaze did not leave the bear. Her expression was cold, her eyes as unmoving as the frozen lake. "Why should we?" she replied, her tone devoid of emotion. "Are we gods, boy? When did our ego swell so high that we think ourselves capable of changing nature's course? The bear suffers because it must. That is the way of things."
El Ritch felt a lump in his throat as he watched the bear writhe in pain. The bear returned to the cave, its limbs trembling, its breaths shallow. The journey had yielded nothing but failure. No food, no sustenance, just the weight of a long and fruitless day. The cubs, hearing her approach, stumbled forward on unsteady legs, whimpering and bleating with hunger. They nuzzled her sides, desperate for the warmth and nourishment she could no longer give.
El Ritch watched, a growing knot in his stomach. It was a tragic sight, the mother giving everything for her cubs but left powerless against the cruelty of nature. He thought of the witch's words, her indifference to suffering, her refusal to intervene. For a moment, he had believed she was wrong, that there was hope, that someone, anyone, could make a difference if only they tried.
And then, the bear moved.
At first, he thought she might be licking the cubs, comforting them in their hunger. But her movements were not tender. They were deliberate. Calculated. Her jaws opened wide, and with one swift motion, she clamped down on the neck of the first cub, tearing its head clean off.
El Ritch simply stood, watching as the mother bear turn to the second cub, its cries piercing the frozen air before being silenced in the same brutal manner. Blood splattered across the cave floor, staining the white snow outside. The mother bear, now hunched over the lifeless bodies of her cubs, began to feast.
His lips quivered, his chest heaving as if he might scream, but no sound came out. His mind scrambled to make sense of what he was seeing. Was this some illusion? A nightmare? No.
It was real.
His eyes could not deny what they had witnessed: the mother, her maw red with the blood of her children, devouring them without hesitation.
There was no agony in her eyes, no pain, no sorrow. She was no longer a mother; she was a beast, primal and driven by the singular instinct to survive. Whatever tenderness she had shown in licking her cubs earlier had been an illusion, a fleeting moment in the face of her greater desperation.
El Ritch's thoughts turned to the witch's words. Hope is a value that is treacherous, placed on something that is transient. Was this what she meant? The bear's hope for survival, once tied to her cubs, had shifted in an instant. Her maternal instincts were devoured by the more primal need to live. There was no morality in her actions, no choice, only the raw and unrelenting will to persist.
Perhaps she would regret it later, El Ritch thought. Perhaps when the hunger was gone, and the cave was empty, she would feel the weight of what she had done. But what would it matter then? Regret would not bring back her cubs, nor would it change the course of what had already transpired.
And in that moment, he understood...maybe?
{Such is hope, he thought, ever changing, ever treacherous for the one who needs it most. It was not a gift, not a light in the darkness, but a fleeting and fragile thing, shifting with the wind and betraying those who clung to it too tightly.}
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