Lily was bored of walking around. She’d much rather have gone shopping with the rest of the group especially in the store with all the brightly coloured candy, but Amanda had insisted she come with her and Sirius on a walk around the village. They had stopped to say hi to a few people but no one was really saying much of anything back. They all seemed pretty unfriendly and Lily’s legs were starting to hurt.

  “Can we go back?” she complained. “I’m tired.”

  “Just a little further,” Amanda told her. “There’s another gathering of houses just up the hill over there, and I think I can see some people. Do you recognise any of them, Lily?”

  “No,” Lily replied without even looking. She wasn’t sure why she would recognise any of them.

  “Maybe she could wait here,” Sirius suggested. “If she’s tired, it’s probably better we don’t push her.” He gave Amanda a meaningful look, one that meant nothing to Lily.

  Amanda nodded.

  Lily sat down among the flowers at the side of the track in relief. “I’ll wait right here,” she said. And she meant it too. The yellow flowers were pretty and she had decided they’d make a nice necklace.

  “Alright,” Amanda said. “Right here, don’t go anywhere else. We’ll be back soon.”

  Lily nodded and picked two nearby flowers. Amanda and Sirius continued up the steadily narrowing and steep path, or paths. It looked more like rabbit tracks weaving their way up the hill. Not far away, a gentle stream, wove its way in the other direction. There were huts up there though, and people, some working in gardens, some sitting outside on chairs smoking.

  Using her nail, Lily punctured a hole in the end of a flower stem and then pushed another stem through it. She’d done about four or five of them when she heard kids voices echoing up from a grove of bushes down near the stream. It sounded like they were laughing and having fun.

  There were splashes of water and then more squeals. Curious, Lily got to her feet and took a few steps in their direction. She didn’t really know the details of why they’d come to this strange town in the middle of nowhere. She knew it was supposed to help her but she didn’t know how. What she did know was that she missed her new friends.

  She was also hungry. Breakfast was hours ago. Amanda had given her a muesli bar on the walk in, but still it hadn’t sated her. Nor had the rabbit she’d taken a bite out of.

  She hadn’t meant to and she wasn’t sure why she had done it. Perhaps she had just imagined it? That was it right? It had just been a dream? The world seemed to feel more dreamlike to her these days anyway, more distant, as if she weren’t really there.

  Ally and the others had made her feel like she belonged somewhere. But they were back in Little Rock. Here there were new children. Maybe they would be friends?

  With a glance up the hill, she saw that Amanda and Sirius were currently out of sight, perhaps around the corner or in one of the houses. Without another look back, Lily climbed her way down into the grove of trees where the young voices and splashes were coming from.

  The grass was long enough here that if she’d dropped down into it she could have hidden herself completely. She had to drop down low to clamber beneath the branches of a large willow tree. She slipped down behind its trunk and from there she could peer around and see the children.

  There were four of then, two boys, and two girls. Three of them were holding one of the girls down near the stream. Her head was under the water. Now that Lily was close enough, she could hear what they were saying.

  “Drown the witch! Drown the witch!” chanted one boy.

  The girl they were holding was eerily still.

  “NO! Stop!” Lily burst forth from her hiding place without waiting.

  All four kids looked up at her. The girl who had had her face in the stream giggled. It was just a game.

  Realising this, Lily came to a short stop and glanced about shyly.

  “Who are you?” asked one boy.

  “Lily,” said Lily.

  “Are you a witch?” asked the older girl whose red hair was dry.

  Lily shook her head. She knew well enough not to answer yes to that question. She wondered if it was true. She had no powers, and could remember herself having none. But both her parents had magic. Of that she was certain.

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  The other boy’s mouth curled up in a smile, and though his words sounded friendly enough, it was a smile that Lily did not like. “Do you want to be a witch? We play this game, you see. You put your head in the water and you have to hold your breath as long as you can while the others hold you still. If you give up you just tap your hand and then we pull you up.”

  The other kids nodded enthusiastically. It sounded simple but Lily didn’t like the idea of trusting complete strangers with her life. What if they didn’t lift her up in time? What if they missed her signal? What if they held her down for longer on purpose?

  She shook her head but she didn’t run away. Still she was curious and she wanted ever-so-much to make friends like she had back in Little Rock.

  “You have to,” insisted the first boy. “If you want to play with us, you have to be the witch next. We’ve all had a turn.”

  She could see from their hair that the boys had indeed had a turn, but not all of them, not the red-haired girl. That girl was the tallest and she grinned, and when she grinned, she looked mean. Lily couldn’t have told anyone why the girl looked that way, she just did.

  “No, I don’t want to,” said Lily, backing away. She’d decided she didn’t want to make friends after all. She would go back and wait by the road like she was supposed to be.

  “Why not?” demanded the other boy, the shortest one. “Are you too good for us?” He walked toward her.

  Lily turned to run but she tripped over a tree root.

  “Don’t be scared,” said the brown-haired girl.

  “Yeah, you shouldn’t be scared,” said the angry boy in an angry voice. He was right above her now.

  She rolled onto her back and he was standing over her. He reached down for her.

  “Come on, I’ll show you, it’s not scary at all. We’ll let you up, we promise.” She couldn't tell if he meant it or not but she didn’t want to risk it.

  He grabbed her wrist to pull her.

  Lily grabbed his shirt and she pulled him down instead. And then she bit him.

  “Arrrhhhhhh!” The boy screamed and snatched his arm away. Blood went flying everywhere. “She bit me!”

  Lily could taste him in her mouth. Warm blood. She licked her lips and sat up. She stared down at the stunned kids.

  They all ran off screaming downstream.

  Hungry... so hungry... Lily thought about chasing after them. The taste lingered in her mouth. She wanted more. She needed more.

  Indi practically bounced along the street and into the first clothing store she saw. The others followed along at a more relaxed pace, except Wolf, who chased after her with a notebook.

  “Wait up! Indi you promised. Just do this one page for me will you? Then you can do the rest later.”

  Indi’s skip turned into a halt the moment she stepped into the store. It wasn’t just a clothing store. There were other things, like rugs and curtains, which would have been fine with Indi, except that it looked like everything had been made from the sort of material.

  “Gives a new meaning to the carpet matching the drapes,” Indi remarked as she spun and walked out the door past Wolf.

  “Not that one,” Indi said to the others who hadn’t even reached the door of the shop. She moved on to the next one. And emerged from that one moments later as well with another shake of the head.

  Falco stopped moving and turned to the rest of the group, which he realised had been reduced to only Kass. Zephyr and Arianna had gone into one of the stores Indi had rejected, and Wolf was still up ahead trying to get Indi to transcribe the spell from his lost book. Cat was taking a nap back at their accommodation. Amanda and Sirius had gone in search of Amanda’s mystery man.

  For a moment, Falco looked confused that it was just them.

  Kass gave him a small smile, as if apologising for the shrunken state of the group, even though she had nothing to do with it.

  Falco shrugged and remarked, “At this rate, it will be the shortest shopping trip I’ve ever been dragged along on.”

  But he had spoken too soon and as he looked back down the street, he realised Indi had yet to come out of the most recent store she had gone into.

  “Damn it!” Falco cursed.

  Kass laughed softly.

  “At least she doesn’t have any money on her,” Falco said, as he made to go and save Indi from herself.

  Kass gave another brief smile, but it fell a moment later when she cast her eyes around the street. People were watching and none of them looked happy. Kass recognised all too well that look of suspicion, and not one of her comrades appeared to have realised the effects their arrival was having on the locals.

  A little while later...

  “How many bullets for a pig on the hoof?” Amanda asked breathlessly at the counter of the butchery. The place had no sign and it had taken Amanda some time before she’d found someone to point her in the right direction.

  “Mam, I’m a butcher. I sell dead pigs.”

  “Guy up the road said you might have a live one.” Amanda didn’t mention that it was that guy Olly who had mentioned it. She didn’t want to get him in trouble.

  “I might.”

  “So, how many bullets?”

  The butcher looked her up and down. “More than you got on you, honey.”

  Amanda set a box on the counter and the unholstered her pistol and made a show of unloading it. “How much?”

  He eyed her. “Pig’s two of your gold easy.”

  She scoffed. “Yeah? No way. A pig ain’t two gold.”

  He eyed her gun.“That’s a pretty nice piece ya got there. I’ll trade you for that.”

  “The gun? Gun’s worth a lot more than a pig.”

  He scratched his nose. “Mmm, pig and cash then. Say... the equivalent of 14 of our gold which is... about 12 of your gold give or take.”

  Amanda made the trade, hoping he wasn’t lying about the exchange rate. It was probably more cash than they would need but but right now she needed the pig.

  She tried not to look impatient as the butcher counted out coin and retrieved her pig from a holding pen out the back. It wasn’t her favourite gun at least, and nothing too special. She’d learnt not to take anything too special on Coal’s jobs. Was this even still Coal’s job? They weren’t being paid anymore. It was all for Lily.

  She quickly led the pig back to where she’d left Lily with Sirius.

  When they’d come back from their short trip up the hill, they’d found her down by the stream frantically trying to wash blood off herself. Lily had said that she’d tried to eat a rabbit, but Amanda wasn’t convinced. One thing she knew though was that Lily did not have a lot of time.

  That was why she was quite disturbed to find that Lily and Sirius were not at all where she had left them.