...

            Two years later.

...

            I couldn't remember the last time I saw myself in a mirror. I almost fell off the chair when I sat down and saw the thing looking back at me. It was bad. Even with a shower— another new, though very refreshing, experience—I looked like a literal animal that just crawled out of its hole in the ground.

            "Hey, hey, bro-miester, how's it chillin'?"

            I spun around in the chair. It was Stallion. As big and as tall as always. He took up most of the doorway which separated the little run down barber shop from the rest of the world. I was about to greet him when he walked inside.

            I watched him walk a few steps more before saying: "So, Stallion, buddy, before Jamie gets back you wanna pick up where we left off?"

            He stopped. I almost couldn't suppress the laugh threatening to ruin everything as he folded his arms and thought deeply on the matter.

            Finally, he shook his head and smiled a hopeless smile. "Sorry, bro-buddy, you gonna have to remind me, what was it we were doing?"

            "Comparing penis sizes."

            His face paled almost instantly. I put on the best damn poker face of my life. He just stared at me, waiting for me to say something more. I crossed my legs and arms, waiting. I wasn't going to make it that easy.

            For his credit, he smiled again and tried a laugh, albeit a pretty awkward one. "C'mon...dude-face, you're jokin', right?"

            "Oh, no, you aren't getting off that easy. I showed you mine and you swore yours was at least twice the size. Now, c'mon, put your penis where your mouth is and drop those pants!"

            He was red for sure. By god, this was better than when Fawn would let us listen to her music.

            He looked from me down to his sweatpants. Oh, no. Was this bastard really going to do it?

            I put a hand over my mouth, unable to keep a straight face as he sighed heavily and brought his hands up to the waistband of his pants. As he grabbed them, I lost myself completely and burst out laughing.

            "Not cool, bro. I didn't even show you yet—"

            "Goddammit, Jamie, I know it's you!" I gasped through fits of laughter. I doubled over and nearly fell out of my chair. "Now knock off the act before you straight up kill me you heartless witch!"

            "Oh you son of a bitch!" Jamie shouted, already rushing over to my mirror, shoving me and the chair with wheels aside as she did. "It took me forever to convince Stallion to go away long enough to put this act together! I even got yall's stupid bro talk down, goddammit!"

            "Oh, god," I tried to catch my breath, my sides burning like hell. "Well, personally, I thought it was a stand up job. Best one yet. Bravo."

            "Oh, go compare penises with your boyfriend," Jamie shot, but she was smiling and shaking her head as she worked her magic on her face. "I did do a damn good job though. How in the hell did you figure me out so quickly?"

            "The real Stallion twisted his ankle a few weeks ago during one of Fawn's training courses," I said, calming down a bit more as I watched Jamie shorten the nose, thin out the lips, enlarge the eyes. "He's pretty good at hiding it, but he's been walking with a slight limp. So, when he waltzed in here like suddenly everything was all good and dandy I knew something was up. Also, it didn't help that I was expecting you to come."

            "Well, that's twenty for twenty you perceptive punk," she replied. Satisfied with her face, she began to pull at Stallion's bushy afro, stretching it and twisting it and creating dreads with each casual tug.

            I leaned back in my chair. Watching her use her Knowledge was like watching an artist paint a new painting. She was never the same person twice, unless she was looking like one of my friends to try and trick me.

            "You know, if you disguised yourself as someone other than my friends it'd probably be harder for me to tell it was you."

            "It wouldn't make any sense if I did that. You never even see anyone other than your friends. It's just the five of you and Fawn all paling around in that creepy asylum."

            "Hey, you've never even been inside our home," I countered, staring back at myself in the mirror as Jamie went to work on the rest of her body and clothes. "The place may look a little...foreboding on the outside, but we've made some pretty habitable improvements to it over the years."

            "Oh, yeah? Must make it tougher to be leaving it today then."

            "I suppose," I said, shrugging. "We had a sort of going away party last night. It helped."

            "That's nice. So, Alex, how do I look?"

            I spun my chair back to her. As expected, it was someone I had never seen before. Tall, like Stallion, but clearly a woman with large brown eyes and long dreads that went down her back. She was wearing a short, yellow sundress with a thin white sweater and bright white tennis shoes.

            "You look good, Jamie, but what's with the shoes?"

            Jamie glanced down at them. "My feet are always killing me after I pretend to be one of ya'll. Just because I can make my own feet look as tough as Stallion's doesn't mean they are actually that tough. I don't know how Fawn got you guys to do it."

            I looked down at my own bare feet. It wasn't until I was around witches like Jamie that I even realized how strange the other familiars and I appeared.

             I shrugged again."Fawn is just thorough. She wants to ensure that, even if we are completely naked, we can still be capable of defending our Masters."

            "Yeah, okay, I think that's enough thinking about your nasty junk for one day." Jamie held up her hands and walked back towards the door. "I'm gonna go grab my supplies from outside and then I am going to do my very best to turn that mess you call an appearance into something presentable."

            I stared back at myself. At the shaggy red hair. The dirty face. The months of dark bags under my eyes. And the long, dirt and blood encrusted, nails. I couldn't help but grin again.

            "Yeah, good luck with that."

            I had to have been in that chair for at least a solid two hours. Jamie wasn't shy about letting me know just how long it was taking. Yet, despite her complaints, I was again watching another piece of art come to life. And this time it was me.

            I had taken a shower back at the asylum earlier that day, but the long trek to the dust filled ghost town had nearly brought me back to square one. Jamie had to wash my face and hair again, a fact she wasted no time commenting on, though it felt pretty nice on my end. That is until she started pulling out the knots, that part hurt. But once she moved on and began cutting my hair and adding weird powdery and colorful things to my face that she called "make-up" I was quickly seeing a new person form in the mirror. Just like magic.

            She kept the hair long but braided it in the back like one of her dreads but thicker, more like a pony-tail. The make-up she used involved tracing a dark line around my eyes that made them look brighter then I had ever seen them. The powder and color she used made the darkness under my eyes vanish and gave me a sort of fake 'blush' affect. Finally, she used a little cylinder device with a waxy red top that she called 'lipstick' to color my lips a darker shade of red. When she announced that she was done I could not stop looking at myself in the mirror.

            "Don't I..." I said, pausing to further take in the transformation. Something about it made my head ache. "Don't I sort of look like a girl?"

            "Yeah, sorry, boss's orders," Jamie said, studying my reflection for a moment before cracking a smile. "Hats off to me though, you look hella gorgeous."

            I looked up at Jamie's reflection. "Is this what Fawn meant about looking presentable?"

            "Yeah, but don't be surprised, or upset, if your buddies look a little different. Each Master has a special look in mind for their familiar when they meet them today."

            My reflection looked back at me. I tried a few faces. Happy, interested, confused. It was like watching some pretty girl making those faces at me. For a brief moment, it made me wonder how Kat would look if she made faces like that.

            "Is it alright if I'm a little nervous?"

            Jamie laughed and patted my shoulder. "Foxy, I'd be nervous if you weren't nervous. It's going to be fine, though. I don't know how many scary stories you heard about Lady Louise, but I've met the Knower a few times and she seemed alright to me."

            I stood up, brushing off Jamie's hand. I was aching to stretch my legs after two hours of being immobile. A layer of dust got tossed around as I walked across the rotted wood floor.

            "I actually haven't heard much of anything about her, really," I admitted, examining my newly cut and cleaned nails. "I know she owns her own business, and most other witches are terrified of her."

            "I'm not terrified of her. She seems nice."

            "You work directly for Wildwood."

"So?"

I regarded the perplexed Jamie with a look of barely concealed disbelief. "Fawn taught us a bit how the system works. You have your witches that give up their freedom and secrets in return for stability and security by working within the Community. Those witches work in service of the witches like Lady Louise who help finance the whole thing and who get to maintain their own homes and their own secrets. She says a lot of the witches who don't work directly for the Community are both respected and feared and are in constant competition with each other. Sometimes that competition can turn deadly, so that's why we familiars are around, to protect them from each other. Basically, these 'free witches' are so preoccupied fighting amongst themselves that you 'community witches' really have nothing to fear from them."

            "Huh. You know, I've been one of your 'community witches' for nearly my whole life and I never even considered how the system worked," Jamie mused, staring at her own reflection. "I'm just happy having a roof over my head, food in my belly, and not having to skip town every month, you know?"

            "Oh, yeah?"

            She didn't say anything further. As a general rule of thumb, I learned it was best to let Jamie talk about herself at her own pace.

I continued to move around the room, examining long abandoned cobwebs and broken windows. The missing door and broken windows let in a lot of air and dust which filled the inside of the barbershop with that musky, cluttered smell which littered the entire town.

            "I'm not saying the system is either good or bad. Just, if my Master can scare off a bunch of free witches, who make a living by trying to scare off each other, it's something to keep in mind."

            "I guess," Jamie said before patting the back of the rusted chair. "But enough idle chatter, sit your butt back down and let's get that make-up off you.

            I walked back over and sat back in the chair. I reexamined my reflection.

I still wasn't entirely sure how I felt about seeing myself like this. It did not look like the real me. Is this what Lady Louise was hoping I would be? Clean and polished and pretty?

Jamie began to wipe off my lipstick with a wet cloth.

"Now that I know for sure what works, we can put on a quick, fresh layer when we get to the station's bathroom."

I remained silent while she went to work removing the rest of the make-up. It was nice, being able to see more of myself come back. Though the hairstyle, plucked eyebrows, and clean skin still threw me off.

Jamie was finishing up by the time the real Stallion made it back. He was walking in with his head down, examining a weird looking rock that he was holding in both hands. "Hey, Jamie, it took me forever, but I think I found a rock that looks kind of like a skull. Now, what did you need it for..."

He stopped walking and talking when he looked up and our eyes met in the mirror.

"Sup, Stallion," I greeted. He didn't say anything back, just continued to stare at me with a slacked jaw. It was a little weird, so I eyed what he was still holding instead. "What's with the rock?"

"Oh, no way, you actually got one?" Jamie cut in, dropping the wet cloth in my lap as she walked over to him.

"See for yourself."

Stallion was still looking at my reflection when she took the stone out of his hands. I tried to think of something else to say, but I was drawing a blank.

"Sorry, dude, that was just a trick to get Foxy alone for a bit," Jamie said, tossing the rock casually behind her. "That was pretty spot on though. A for effort."

"What?" Stallion exasperated, looking away. The frown that came across his face almost instantly turned into a smile, however, as he wiggled his eyebrows. "Oh, I see. A little 'one-on-one time'?"

I let out an audible groan, but Jamie's was louder."Oh, god, Stallion, just, no." She visibly shuddered as she held herself and shook her head side to side. "God, just the thought...damn you, I just ate!"

"Yeah, yeah, screw you too," I shot, standing and throwing the still wet cloth and nailing her in the face.

To her credit, she took the hit with grace and fell to the ground in a rather dramatic fashion, death twitches and all. Stallion and I both had a good laugh at her antics, but when the silence fell I caught him watching me again. He made it worse by trying to hide it by looking out one of the windows covered in thick layers of dust.

Damnit, what was his problem?

"Stallion—"

"Why don't you kids start heading to the car," Jamie interrupted, sitting up and letting the cloth fall from her face.

"You don't want help cleaning up?" I asked, trying not to sound like I was begging. I knew what she was trying to do.

"Nah, I got it. You guys go on ahead."

She stood up in a flash but I still caught the wicked smile on her face. Of course Stallion's awkwardness put such a heavy feeling in the air she could feel it too. And, of course, she'd want to dump all of the weight on me.

That little—

"Well, c'mon, Foxy, let's get out of Jamie's very badly done hair," Stallion called, already halfway out the door.

"What? Badly done?" she asked, hands hovering around her hair. When her eyes met mine, I found myself the one caught in the act now as I shot my own eyes in a random direction. "It's not badly done, is it, Alex?"

"Who?" Stallion stuck his head back in, a big smile on his face.

"Foxy, I meant Foxy. Would you guys just get going already?"

"Alright, alright, c'mon Alex."

I nodded as Jamie heaved another loud groan. I avoided looking at her as I walked across the dusty wooden floor and joined Stallion outside.

Control. I needed to get control again.

A strong wind was kicking up the loose dust that made up the long stretch of road just outside the building. Stallion led the way as we walked through the various store porches and under their roofs. Maybe stores. Most of their paint had peeled off and the few which still had swinging signs had their names long ago worn away. Still trying to reign in my feelings, I would peer into each store as we passed, though most of the windows were either coated in dirt or the insides of the buildings were far too dark to make out any details. Just bare wood walls and floors.

My hands were getting numb. I shoved them into the pockets of my jeans. I needed a better distraction.

"So, Jamie is totally into you, man," Stallion spoke up.

Not the distraction I was hoping for.

I shot a glare at him. Stallion and I both had on scarves that Jamie insisted we bring to the town she appropriately deemed Dust Town, but I just knew he was grinning at me beneath his. Still, he was acting more like himself again.

"And what gave you that impression? Was it the way she looked like she was about to hurl her lunch when you implied she wanted to be alone with me?"

"All an act," Stallion insisted. "C'mon, man, why else would she take us this far away from home and then try to ditch me? You know she could have done your...make-up just fine at home."

I could just make out Jamie's red jeep in the distance. The swirling sand made it difficult to keep my eyes open, let alone keep shooting my companion dirty looks. Even with the cover of the little shops' porches, the wind had to be blowing all of Dust Town's dust straight into our path. I moved slightly behind Stallion's large frame in order to block some of the debris.

"Jamie was just trying to fool me into thinking she was you," I said, noting how stiff Stallion became after I said it. "That's why she ditched you and why she wanted me alone, alright? Besides, you know her; she likes to travel a lot. She spent at least half the drive going on about how this was one of her favorite 'get-a-ways', for whatever reason. Wouldn't be my first pick."

"Yeah, I guess," Stallion muttered. I could hardly hear him over the howling of the wind and the grinding of sand grains in my ears.

Already, the awkward silence was rearing its awkward head. I chose to endure the sandy torment so I could walk beside him again. "And don't tell anyone else I told you this, but I think Jamie feels uncomfortable being around the other familiars."

Stallion kept his eyes firmly on the path ahead. We were only a few more buildings away from the jeep. He probably had his sights on it as well, as eager as I was to get out of this dust storm.

"You think?" he asked. I had to think a moment about what he meant.

"Okay, she told me, what's the matter with that?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all, really," he assured, clapping me somewhat awkwardly on the shoulder as he continued to avoid looking at me. "It just proves my point that she has a thing for you. She obviously doesn't feel uncomfortable around you if she told you how much the rest of us make her feel."

"Okay, so then what's the point of all this?" I asked. I walked a little ahead of him, trying to get him to look at me. "You've been acting weird since you walked in with that rock. Who cares how Jamie feels about me? Why do you care?"

"I just..."

Stallion stopped at the end of our last porch. Jamie's jeep was only a few feet away. He turned to me, but did not look at me. He seemed to still be looking at the car.

"Today's our last chance," he said, clenching and unclenching his fingers like he didn't know what to do with his hands. "After today, who knows what's going to happen to us— where we're gonna be. We might not even see each other agai—"

"Don't say that," I interrupted, stepping up closer to him. "You can't know that."

"Look, Foxy, Kat warned me about how you felt about this, but she and I both agree—"

"Well, of course she thinks that!" I said, throwing my hands in the air. "She's been able to be with those kids these past few years. As long as she has them, she doesn't care about us. She doesn't need us."

"Foxy." Stallion finally met my eyes and it made me pause.  He said my name like it was a threat. "You don't understand."

"She doesn't understand," I insisted. "She's been with people who care about her. We'll be lucky if our Masters even remember to feed us, Stallion! I know you've thought it too, ever since Fawn told us about our jobs. They only have us around so they don't have to dirty their own hands."

"You don't know that, Foxy," Stallion said, breaking our brief eye contact. "You don't know how they'll treat us."

"How do you think they'll treat us?" I asked. There was a weight falling on me, worse than any awkward silence. "Like expendable pets. We'd be lucky if they treated us with any dignity at all. You think I'm wrong? All of our witches are free witches. You know what that means."

He didn't respond.

"That means all they care about is bringing themselves up and putting everyone else down. That includes us— especially us. You think they are going to be interested in what we want? No, what they want is what we want. End of story, as far as they are concerned."

Stallion opened his mouth to speak, but I walked right up to him, forced him to look me in the eyes when I grabbed his arm. "Why aren't you on my side with this? You, me, and Mutt are all in the same sinking boat here. All of our witches are going to have their own violent agenda and expect us to be a part of it. And, meanwhile, Kat gets to play around with a bunch of—"

"Kat's Master is going to be waiting for her today, too," Stallion interrupted, removing my hand and boring down on me with his dark eyes. "Or did you forget that none of those other kids are her true Master?"

I let my hand fall to the side. The wind and sand continued to howl and grind in my ears. A sign nearby, barely clinging to its post, creaked as it swayed from side to side. I looked around at all the crumbling buildings, down both ways of the dirt road that cut through the center of town, expecting to see her.

I finally returned to Stallion, whose eyes had softened somewhat. "Maple?"

"I wasn't supposed to tell you, because of how you might react," Stallion straightened his arms, leveling me with a stare that told me not to move just yet. "But, yeah, her. She agreed to come out of hiding if Kat would be released to her and if the Community of Wildwood takes no actions to capture her."

"Maple..."

I had to walk away, despite how Stallion flinched, and grab hold of an unstable looking wooden post that helped keep the roof of the porch from falling on us. I took in a few, slow, breaths as I steadied myself.

When I turned back to Stallion, he had his arms folded and was watching me carefully. "She's still alive?"

"Yes." Stallion took a few steps towards me, unfolding his arms. "Now, Foxy—"

            I held up a hand to try and stop him. He stopped. I pulled myself off of the post. I could stand, but it was on shaky feet.

            "Kat's just going back to her and Wildwood isn't doing anything about it?" I asked, finding more strength as I sorted everything in my head.

            "They don't have much choice," Stallion answered. "After they failed to get her back on their own..."

"You mean after they nearly sent us all to our deaths," I countered.

"However you want to put it, there was no getting her back by force."

"So, instead, we're giving her back Kat? How is that any better? Wait, I'll answer that for you, it's not. It's worse! Kat being her familiar was what almost killed us in the first place!"

"It's still our best option," Stallion insisted. "She's come out on her own and I firmly believe, like the rest of the Community, that Kat being with her is a good thing. You have to give her more credit, man, Kat's strong willed and persuasive. Maybe, given time, she can convince Maple to come back to us."

"She can what?" I dug some sand out of my ears. "I'm sorry, I couldn't really hear you, Stallion. I thought you might have said that you think a familiar can convince their Master to do something. You know, instead of the other way around."

"I think she can do it." Stallion folded his arms again, as if to reaffirm his statement. "And if you're her friend you should believe in her too."

"Don't throw that at me," I hissed, rounding up on him. "This isn't about whether I want to believe in her or not. We're not witches, Stallion, not even know-nothings. We don't have the power to convince anyone to do anything! There's a reason we are the familiars and they are the witches. They have all the power, they have the Knowledge. The moment Kat joins back up with her Master is the moment we've lost her because she won't be our friend anymore. She'll be nothing more than a witch's bitch—!"

Stallion's fist slammed into the side of my face. Pain blotted out everything for a split instant. In that time, I was already on the ground and he was standing over me, grabbing the sleeve of my shirt, threatening to hit me again.

"Just shut up, Foxy."

His knuckles were turning white; his eyes were black coals of hate.

"Am I interrupting something?"

Jamie had caught up to us. Maybe she had been there awhile, by the way she was leaning up against a nearby post all casual-like.

Stallion let me go. I remained on the ground. I watched his feet walk a bit away before stopping.

"You know, when I saw you back there, all dolled up, I had a serious case of déjà vu. Like I could almost remember who you were before. But I know, no matter how much Jamie dolls you up, you won't be anything more than an animal."

I sat up in time to see his back as he walked off the porch and towards the jeep. I thought about shouting at him, but the aching in my cheek made me hesitate.

"Need some help?"

Jamie kneeled down beside me, her hand outstretched. I mumbled a thank you as I grabbed it.

"You alright?" she asked.

"Other than my face and my pride? Just fine."

Jamie stroked her chin as she inspected said face."A few touches of powder and color and that bruise will vanish like it wasn't even there," she said, patting my shoulder. "Can't do much about your pride though, sorry."

I caught her grin as she lifted me up. I wanted to smile, but my cheek resisted with another spark of ache."Damnit, this feels like it's going to hurt for weeks."

"I wouldn't stress over it. Just the fact that you're still conscious is both impressive and promising."

She stepped away from me. Stallion was already in her jeep. He sat in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead into the vast, sand-filled, landscape that surrounded Dust Town.

Jamie turned to me one more time and flashed me another smile. "Ready for the most awkward car ride ever?"

I tried another smile and winced. "Would you quit with the jokes? My face can't take much more abuse."

"Sorry, sorry," she said with a wave and a laugh. Definitely not sorry.

I kept my hands in my pockets. They were shaking so terribly.

Damn that Stallion. Why did he have to bring that up? I thought I had made it clear to all of them years ago.

I slammed the door of the jeep extra hard when I climbed into the back.

It was a simple rule. My only rule. I could forgive what they did to me. I could accept my destiny to forever be a witch's familiar. We could all move on with our lives. All I asked was that they never talk about what happened before. Never mention it. Never bring it up. To act as if none of it ever happened.

Was that so much to ask?

I glared at the back of Stallion's head for most of the car ride. He and Jamie did not say a word to either me or each other. Her radio died out soon after we left Dust Town. It left just the three of us, the howl of the wind, and a tense, heavy, silence.

...

*Author's Note*

So, this is our first major time skip, and it seems like a lot has changed in such a short amount of time. Jamie and Foxy are friends, Stallion and Foxy not so much, and Fawn is a seemingly adequate teacher while Maple has become a major threat.

But there seems to be more going on, just beneath the surface. A shared agreement to not talk about what happened before. With this day being possibly the last day all the familiars will see each other again, can this agreement hold?

I'd love to hear what you all think of this new, maybe somewhat unexpected, development. Like it? Hate it? Eager to see where all this is going? Whatever your thoughts, please let me know!

And, of course, thank you so much for reading!