It had not been easy for the teenager to escape the notice of her Sisters.

As the youngest Witch in her Coven, Anais found that there was little enough time for her to be alone to contemplate the coursework that the homeschooling curriculum that she was subjected to allowed her, let alone have the time to wander by herself.

Well, she thought with a shiver, not strictly alone.

The snow on the ground crunched between her feet hollowly. The air smelled pure - what she could smell of it, in the barren cold.

It always smelled fresh, pure out in these woods, not only because of the unseasonal snow. When she breathed, it left her mouth in a mist before it dissipated above her head.

For a while, she walked.

In spite of the snow and the harassing wind that pushed and pulled, there was not a part of her body that was cold. The spell-laden clothing that she wore clung to Anais like a second skin.

Up ahead, she knew, she still had a good five more minutes more of a walk until she reached their agreed upon spot. It was a place where, like a prisoner cutting into stone slowly and deliberately, she had managed to create a hole in her Sisters' security around the property.

The whole of the fifty-some acre property was blanketed as surely as the snow did now with the intricately woven field of protection spells. Most of it relied on warnings and tell-tales for the Witches themselves in case of intruders.

Of course, Anais had never herself had the chance to see the spells in action. She had also never, in her short years, felt afraid on their property.

As she was hurrying through the snow alone, however, she got the first impression in her mind that she was not safe on their property.

She stopped. It was instinctive, reminiscent of a rabbit peering around it at the first sign of untoward movement. She looked all around her and, again, felt the presence from before.

Only this time, it felt much more potent, oppressive.

No matter how hard she looked, Anais could not see anything beyond the trees. Nevertheless, she felt a though the thing's eyes were laying on top of her. Crushing her beneath their weight.

Anais broke into a run. Her boots, as enchanted as the rest of her gear, lent her the advantage of preternatural speed.

She crisscrossed over the snow, her feet hardly touching the ground.

Anais could felt the presence of something chasing her, gaining on her.

The feel of her tears, which had begun to run out of her eyes unbidden, began to trickle down her cheeks, her chin.

She wanted to scream, but she stopped herself before she could, instinctive that she did not want to give whatever it was that was chasing her maliciously another advantage in finding her.

Anais ran past trees, the thick lines of the massive things turning into blurred, melting images as she raced past them. The dying foliage that poked out beneath the snow looking like the fingers of corpses escaping their graves.

Exhaustion booming in her, Anais saw a tree that appeared suddenly, as though it were being pointed out for her benefit. Before she could run past it, she recalled where she remembered that tree from.

Wheeling to the other side of the tree, Anais shoved her body roughly into the hollow that had grown in the middle of the dying tree.

As she got her breathing under control, she was aware of the sound of movement where she had just been running.

What she had hoped that she would hear - the sound of whatever had been chasing her running down the path that she had been going down - did not come.

Instead, she heard a physical presence stop just a few feet away from the tree. For five long, shallow breaths, the presence lingered.

Finally, she heard what she first mistaked to be the sound of powerful wind tearing through the trees. Soon, however, she understood it to be the sound of someone running away.

After waiting a few more breaths, Anais allowed herself to think.

She had one of two options. She could go back and alert her Sisters, or pushing forward to Their meeting place.

Shutting her eyes, Anais forced away the fear in her heart. She felt in her bones the inherent danger in escaping the forest to run up the long and winding path that lead to the country home.

So much open space and so many chances to be overtaken.

It struck her as the best course of action to push forward.

Shuddering, Anais dislodged herself from the hollow and recalled her alternate path to Their meeting place.

She wished that she could call out for help, but she knew that the first to respond to her would be the one chasing her. Hunkering low to the ground, Anais slid, grateful now more than ever for the noiseless boots that she had gotten.

She crept through the thicker patches of wood with no real ease beyond her knowledge of the barest makings of a path.

She had walked in silence, careful of everything that she touched and passed by for a good two minutes that easily felt like half an hour. She came to the place where the snow seemed scarcely able to touch anything.

Moss was still thick, vibrant green as it clung to branches a good five feet off of the ground.

Anais sighed and walked into the clearing, her eyes looking desperately in the dark enclosure that the being that she sook out called home.

Finally, unable to stand waiting a moment longer for it to show, Anais called out Her name.

Anais saw the yellow eyes in the thick shadows in front of her. In the next moment, she felt the sensation of being stabbed through her chest. It was as though she were made of wet paper mache, ripping apart the moment Anais was touched.

She called out the Monster's name, then collapsed forward. She had no more than pitched forward than she was caught from hitting the ground by the thick weight of the object that had pierced her.

"I had to cut away the protective layer that they keep on this land, but now I can clearly see this place."

It had been days since the - incident - but still it was still hard for Netta to come to terms with what had happened.

Ash, sitting next to her, snorted. He - It - was being stand-offish since the incident. Which suited Netta well, gave her time and energy to think.

She only wished that this was something that she could reason out.

Netta peered at the house that she could just barely see behind the line of thick trees. They protected much of the home on the hill from an outsider's gaze.

"It's obviously a Witch's home, you lot are awful unimaginative when it comes to homes - and privacy - but you didn't see what the house looked like in your dream."

Netta growled. For once, Netta wished that she had been able to share her dream with the creature next to her.

As she had thought that morning before, premonitions were the burden of the Witch that the afflicted solely. No matter how confused and infuriating that they made her feel.

It would have been a comfort, at least, to know why she had gotten the dream to begin with.

"I could feel what this house looked like when I was with her - this is her home." Netta closed her eyes, only to find that she was haunted, when her eyes were shut, by bright yellow eyes. And the pain that followed the sight of them.

""Is?" Didn't you see her get impaled in your dream? - If, that is, you told me correctly?"

"Well, yes, but - dreams like this can also be a portent of things to come, it could have been a warning. Maybe I can get there soon enough to stop it from ever happening."

Ash shook Its head, a frown sitting all too comfortably on those full lips of Its.

Netta had to circle around twice until they found the actual entrance up. They could only enter when Netta, with some encouraging from a clearly proud Ash, disengaged the lock on the gate that closed the road off from outsiders.

Her use of magic - from the store that It had provided her - never seemed to fail to elicit pleasure from Ash.

It was a dangerous thing to dwell on the joy it took from watching Netta use magic. Or, Netta thought, on becoming enamored of it for herself.

Netta drove up to the hill that the country house sat on. All the while, Ash reminded her of Its earlier belief that it might not be a good idea to intrude without warning on a Witch's property.

It was as Netta was parking the car in front of the little house that she spied Her sitting on a tree swing.

Netta felt herself taking her seatbelt off and opening the door.

She walked out of the car and could scarcely hear Ash telling her to wait for him. Netta walked over to the downward looking girl in winter wear. It was as though she were back in the dream, only now she was watching the girl.

As she called the girl's name out - Anais - the girl looked up and stared at her with the very same, dark-skinned features that Netta had seen in her dream when she had looked down at her hands.

Even as Netta felt assured that she was looking at the very mirror image of the girl that she had seen in her dream, she became aware almost immediately of the fact that the eyes that looked up at her from beneath the hood that did not possess the optimistic quality that Netta had felt in the girl in her dream.

To the contrary - the eyes that looked back at her were piercing, harsh.

Netta stopped as she was midway to walking to the girl.

"Shit," she said, realizing that, somehow, she was looking at the wrong girl.

The living room of Coven Gardenia was a messy area that bespoke of many different hobbies and focal points. Netta was asked - without it ever really seeming like a request as much as an order - to sit down in a chair. Before she could, it had to be uncovered by some hasty work to remove the stacks of books on it.

They were a ragtag group of women. Even at a glance, they seemed older than their youthful bodies let on. Unlike most Witches, they all looked firmly in their twenties as opposed to the late teens.

With the initial pleasantries out of the way, the Matriarch, Miss Kienna, spoke.

"Do you mind telling me how you know that two nights past, we suffered the loss of one of our own?"

Netta shut her eyes and clenched her hands together. "I - I'm sorry. I had hoped that it was a warning, that there would be time to stop it before it happened..." She stopped, the familiar sensation of weakness and failure overcoming Netta.

She pitched forward to press her hands to her face, feeling the potent memory of the girl's fear and her pain. It went away only she felt hands - Ash's - caressing her shoulder. The feeling of Its touch felt surprising, like the touch of a blast of heat on her skin.

Netta looked up then into Miss Kienna's eyes, trying desperately to suppress her trembling. "I came as soon as I had this - terrible dream that felt too real."

Another one of the Witches, spoke up then - a woman who looked like a stern primary school teacher. "A psychic dream? Those don't happen between strangers."

Netta shifted, feeling the weight of all of the assembled womens' gazes on her.

"Right - but - I think that it's possible that the strength of Anais' will must have infected my dreams - somehow. How else would I be here if I wasn't telling the truth. How would I know what her last moments looked like?"

Another one of the Witches, a stout woman who smelled like a heady array of spices, spoke up. "Don't need much deductive reasoning on this one - you killed Anais."

Netta jerked back in her seat and blurted out, "I didn't kill your little Sister! I would never kill -" She paused, the admonition stuck in her throat.

The one that looked like a teacher snorted. "Don't sound so sure of that."

The girl that Netta had first thought looked like Anais spoke up. She had been quiet while Netta had hurridly been trying to explain why she was there.

"She didn't kill my sister."

There was a deep, long silence that stretched in the room. Before Netta could think of anything to say to agree with the young woman, the girl continued.

"First of all, she wouldn't of come back if she had. Second off, she doesn't smell like Anais' blood."

Another of the Witches softly said, "Morbid, Ophelia."

"Thank you," Netta said.

The girl ignored her and turned to Miss Kienna.

"That doesn't stop me from not trusting her. But I want her help with discovering who murdered Anais."

Kienna, a tall, elegant woman with dusk-toned skin, cast a long glance over at Netta before she turned back to Ophelia. "Are you sure that this one's innocent?"

Ophelia nodded. "Positive." She turned to Netta expectantly, sighed, then turned her unsmiling face back to address Netta. "What more can you tell me about this dream you had?"

Netta bit her bottom lip and could feel all of the Witches' gazes on her.