One year after the death of the witch, Minerva...

"Have you eaten anything yet today?"

I stared down at my hand.

"No."

"I know that. Do you know how I know that?"

The fingers curled. The nails dug into the wood of the table.

"The hand?"

"Yes, the hand."

The dark woman with dark hair interlaced her dark fingers as she examined the hand with her dark eyes.

"It seems upset."

"It's mad."

Her dark eyes moved up from the hand. They examined something else.

"At you?"

The other hand, the normal one, tightened into a fist.

"Yes."

"Because you aren't taking care of yourself."

Darkness. Just for a moment. Dark and quiet and peaceful.

"Gust, look at me."

The dark woman had a deep frown on her face. She never looked happy. A shame. She would look much prettier if she just smiled every once in awhile.

"The hand is moving again. What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing."

Shrink away, go away, disappear. Don't need you anymore don't want you anymore. Get off get off get off get off.

"Nothing will change if you don't talk about what is on your mind. About what is bothering you."

"Okay."

"This is your eleventh session. We've been having them for almost three months. I shouldn't have to be telling you this now."

"Alright."

The dark woman sighed. The first thing she'd done besides frown and talk for months. Her lips were really red. Like an apple.

"It is reaching for me again."

The hand was. It crawled across the table with cracked, brown fingers towards her. It only stopped when the normal hand reached out and grabbed it by the wrist. Even then it squirmed and wriggled.

"Sorry."

"As I've said, you do not need to apologize for its actions."

She was always good about never appearing uncomfortable. At least, not easily. She liked to misdirect it. Hide a grimace behind words of concern. A leer replaced quickly with wide, worried, eyes.

Even now. She removed her hands from the desk, placing them in her lap, while at the same time leaning forward. Trying to hide it. The fear. The disgust.

"This is not the first time your hand has shown an interest in me."

She was more careless when she was afraid. Calling it 'your hand' instead of 'the hand' when it made her afraid. As if the person it was attached to had any choice. As if it was because he wanted it to happen.

"Gust?"

"Sorry. I don't know why it does that."

Her frown was back in full force. She leaned back and folded her arms.

"I think you do."

She always looked so smart and done-up in her brown suit and black tie. Like what she was doing was the most important thing in the world. She probably took everything she did just as seriously.

She probably wore a business suit to bed and when she was showering. She probably frowned and looked super serious when she made breakfast, watched a movie, or when she was brushing her teeth. She probably didn't have any friends because people would get uncomfortable when she never smiled or cracked a joke. Maybe she would only smile the briefest of smiles when she looked at her reflection and saw how ridiculous she looked.

"Why are you smiling?"

"What? I'm not..."

"You are."

"It's nothing."

She sighed again. Even pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Were you a therapist before you were a witch?"

She released her nose and her dark eyes went back to examining.

"I was many things before I was a witch. Why are you asking?"

"I don't know. It's only been like two months and you're already upset."

"It has been nearly three," she reminded, "And I am not upset. I merely have had a long day and no longer have the energy to hide its effect on me."

"You want to talk about it?"

She examined the smile. Snorted.

"Nice try, you are the one who should be doing the talking. But to answer your question, yes, I was a therapist. But it was only for a short while. The job did not suit me."

"That's the only reason?"

She arched a dark eyebrow. Neat and trim. Just like the rest of her.

"I will answer your question only if you start answering some of mine. Fair?"

"Fair."

Maybe enough time had passed for her to forget what even started this line of discussion.

"In truth, my patients bored me."

She paused a moment to let it sink in.

"Really?"

"Yes. They were all petty people with petty problems."

She leaned back further in her chair. Her interlaced fingers rested on her stomach.

"When I was in school my grades were good enough and my practical skills developed enough to allow me to work anywhere I wanted, demand any price. My friends, family, and colleagues encouraged me to take the best offer. It was an honor, a privilege, they said. Not everyone could reach my level and it would do those very people a disservice if I declined. They told me all of that, and more. And I will not lie, part of me believed it, at the time.

"But the only people who could afford me were terribly, completely, and unapologetically boring. Some would go on for hours about the stresses involved with balancing a nice marriage with a passionate love affair. Others would nitpick and complain about every casual glance, every perceived insult, or accidental bump. Still more loved nothing more than to spend their sessions interrogating me. Asking how much I made, if I was seeing anyone, what my connections were. After a few years, I..."

Her dark eyes widened, just a fraction. She placed her hands back in her lap and straightened in her seat.

"After a few years I had enough. So I quit."

"That's all?"

"Were you expecting anything more? Most normal jobs end in such a way, I'm afraid."

"I wouldn't know."

The hand was back to moving on it's own. It scratched into the grooves on the table, looking to make them ever deeper. It was one of the few habits it had, allowing the therapist to eventually associate it with its cause. Anger.

"I'm sorry," she said as she watched it scratch. "This is my fault. We are not here to talk about me."

"No, I liked talking about you. This is about...something else."

She moved her eyes up from the scratching hand.

"I answered your question, so now you have to answer one of mine. What is it you are angry about?"

Normal. What a stupid word.

"I guess I'm just still not used to all of this."

"All of what?"

What used to be normal was spending time with brothers and sisters. With a dad. Normal meant falling down and scraping something when running outside. It meant, every once in awhile, finding a room, far away from everyone else, and crying about how much you miss mom. Normal was hard, it would hurt, but it could still be called normal.

"I guess, everything, right now."

Nothing was normal anymore. Nothing had ever been normal. It was all a lie. Mom wasn't dead, dad couldn't protect us, the familiars couldn't stop her, and Maple...and Meadow...

"It's shaking. Gust, please tell me what's wrong."

"It was all a lie, Ms. Abigail. All of it."

"Gust—"

The brown and cracked hand curled into a tight ball. The ball grew, the skin hardened, it turned into something else. A weapon.

Ms. Abigail barely had time to back away before it slammed on the table, through the table, splintering it in half. She screamed, but it was cut short when the ball turned into something else. It stretched out, thinned, like a branch and grabbed hold of her neck. She let out a feeble cry before it pushed her across the room and slammed her into the dirt wall behind her.

She gasped blood. Her limbs went limp. If it was any other wall, it probably would have killed her. She still had enough life to look up, to examine.

"I can't take it anymore."

"Oh?" she managed to wheeze out.

"I can't deal with this. Any of it. I thought I could. I thought, after a few years, it would get easier. But it hasn't, not at all. I can't go running through the woods. I don't get to play pretend or see the stars or the sun or do anything like a 'normal' kid gets to. But, worst of all, I never get to see my brothers and sister."

The hand pushed her more against the dirt wall. She groaned.

"Who gives any of you the right to take them from me? They are my family! They are all I have left! I can't do this anymore without them! I want them back! I want them back! I WANT THEM BACK!"

The hand tossed Ms. Abigail across to the other side of the room, releasing her and letting her hit another dirt wall before she crumbled to the floor. She did not move again.

"...Ms. Abigail?"

The hand slunk back, shrunk, and turned almost all the way back to normal.

Even up close, she did not appear to be moving. Or breathing.

"Did I kill you?"

"No, but you came closer than anyone else ever has."

She moved, easily. Like she hadn't just been tossed around like a rag doll. She straightened, rested her back against the dirt wall, and smiled.

Smiled.

A literal crack in the wall. There were cracks all over her face, her arms, anywhere where her skin was visible. Parts were crumbling, some had already fallen away from her body, revealing light brown skin, freckles, moles, wrinkles, scars. One piece had fallen from around her mouth. One side of it was her familiar frown. The other still had a soft, small grin.

"Looks like we are finally making progress."

...

*Author's Note*

It has been awhile since we have heard from the Quincy children. That does not mean they haven't been up to anything. We already know Wildwood's endgame plan for the children, but what will ultimately happen when they run into Foxy's group?

Whatever your thoughts, I'd love to hear them!