RD Walpurgis Nights 8: Part 3
Then…
The last stringy leg came loose from the strand of barbed wire it had been twisted around, and the horrible thing fell loose. Gasping, Kriemhild Gretchen curled it up close to the rest of her body as the throbbing pain finally started to recede.
Kriemhild still had no answers. She didn’t know where she was. She didn’t know why she was tied naked in such a torturous position and exposed to the elements. Heck, she didn’t even know her own name. And above all, she didn’t know what she even was, why her legs were such a bizarre nest of wiry…things. Was she even human?
Still, as she clung to the hour hand of the massive clock face with all her legs wrapped around its base, she was grateful that she had been mutated in such a way. At least it meant that she had a way to keep herself from falling. She tried to look out at whatever it was that lay below her, but it was weird, twisted, made no sense at all, and seemed to be moving, so she stopped.
Kriemhild couldn’t decide if she was more terrified or confused. Nothing about any of this made any sense. It had to be some kind of demented nightmare. If she tried hard enough, she could almost make herself believe that, believe that she was safe in her own bed somewhere, and in a few moments she would wake with a start, wondering what she had ate to give her such a vivid dream.
Except that the bitter cold was too real to be a dream. As had been the pain.
“Help!” she screamed out as loud as she could. “Please, help me!” Her words were swallowed up by the wind.
The height was starting to make her nauseous, so she turned away and closed her eyes. Tears were prickling at her eyes. Why was this happening to her? What had she done to deserve something like this?
Then she so happened to blink her eyes and look up. She gasped.
There was someone else there, someone tied to the top of the same clock hand she was clinging to. Kriemhild gaped, then her face hardened with resolution.
Fully maneuvering herself around so that she was fully facing the clock hand was a terrifying experience, and she had to talk herself through switching the position of each individual leg. But she got it. Then she began to climb.
She was already far, far too high up, and making herself go even higher took every ounce of willpower. Every centimeter of height gained felt like a battle, and there was precious little for her legs to hold onto. The cold metal of the hour hand was agony against her bare skin, and its length seemed impossibly long.
Don’t look down, she told herself. Don’t look down, don’t look down, don’t look down…
The higher she got, the clearer the other person became. It seemed to be another naked girl, also strapped in place by barbed wire. Well, that was enough reason to try to free her. Kriemhild gritted her teeth and pressed onward and upward.
The climb seemed to take forever, though in truth it was less than a minute, but finally she was passing over the girl’s body. The girl was pale of skin and completely unconscious, just as Kriemhild had been. Her long raven hair blew freely in the wind. On top of her head was a scarlet flower bud. Some kind of weird metal disc covered where her wrists were bound to the clock hand over her head, like some sort of lock.
Also, her arms and shoulders were nothing more than bare bones, completely free of flesh.
For a moment Kriemhild thought that she had come so far just to reach a corpse, but then the other girl moved. It was a slight reflex, just a simple shifting of her weight, but her eyelids fluttered and she let out a small moan.
Kriemhild blinked. Wait, what?
She lifted a finger, hesitated, and then reached up and poked the bones of the other girl’s upper arm. It reflexively moved away from her touch, just like a living arm.
Another monster then, like her. For some reason she was almost cheered by the thought.
She then studied the other girl’s face. There was something achingly familiar about her, something important. A name was clawing its way up through her swirling memory, something so close and dear, and yet she couldn’t seem to grasp it.
“Hom…” she whispered, and then it was gone, dissipating like a dream.
Then the other girl stirred again. She groaned, louder this time.
Encouraged by this, Kriemhild gently shook her shoulder.
“Hey,” she said. “Wake up.”
“Uh…”
“Wake up!” Kriemhild’s shaking grow more urgent. “Please, you have to wake up!”
The other girl blinked her eyes. Kriemhild breathed a sigh of relief.
“You’re awake!” Then she glanced up to where the other girl’s arms were still bound. “Just…Just hang on! I’ll get you off!”
The other girl blinked in confusion. She looked down, and her eyes widened.
“What?” she said with a small gasp. “Where?”
But before Kriemhild could answer, the other girl then looked up.
And she screamed.
Kriemhild winced at the shrill sound. “Calm down, calm down!” she said, though she herself felt anything but calm. “I know it’s scary, but I need you to hold still while I get you loose!”
The other girl gaped at her. “What…who…what am…where are…who are you?”
“Me? Oh, I’m Kriemhild. Kriemhild Gretchen. Do you have a name?”
The other girl stared at her. “A name? A name? I don’t…I don’t remember anything! How can I-”
Then she blinked. “Wait. Wait, wait, wait. I think I do. My name is…”
…
Now…
Homulilly opened her eyes.
With the fogginess of sleep still upon her, the mix of familiarity and unfamiliarity around her completely bewildered her for a moment. Like always, she was lying with her face toward the wall, Gretchen spooning up against her, their heavy blanket cocooning them both.
But the wall was papered with a floral pattern instead of being painted pale blue. Also, their mattress was all…swimmy.
Frowning, Homulilly turned her head. The ceiling was all different too. What in the world…
Then enough of her mind emerged from the haze to remind her of her current circumstances. The pleasant surprise was enough to wake her up fully.
“Oh,” she said out loud.
Then she heard a soft giggle. She turned all the way around to find Gretchen already awake and smiling at her.
“Surprised you too?” Gretchen said.
“A little. But I’ll get used to it. I mean, all the important stuff is still around.”
The two softly kissed. Then they kicked their bedcovers away and started getting ready for the day.
Their pajamas were stripped off and clothes were put on in short order. Then they left their room. It was a little strange going down the hall for the bathroom instead of having it connect directly, but oh well. They relieved themselves, washed up, helped each other with their hair, and then headed downstairs.
They smelled breakfast before they saw it, and it smelled wonderful. It wasn’t as if the meals at the FIB were bad by any stretch of the imagination, but even masterful cooks like Candeloro and Charlotte would have their skills diluted if they had to cook for as many people as the FIB housed. But since they didn’t, it meant that Homulilly and Gretchen were probably going to have to start watching their weight.
Homemade blueberry waffles, sausage, toast with butter and jam, and fresh fruit were waiting for them. The others were already there around the table, with Charlotte serving out the portions.
“And here they are,” Ophelia said as the two came down the stairs. “Good morning, you two. Sleep well?”
“Very!” Gretchen said as she literally bounded across the kitchen. “Good morning, everyone!”
She and Homulilly took their seats, said grace, and dug in.
“So, any big plans for today?” Charlotte asked while they ate.
“Nope!” Gretchen said cheerfully. “Just unpacking.”
“We’ve been really stressed out all week,” Homulilly admitted. “So today we’re just going to, you know, decompress.”
“Goof ideash,” Oktavia said through a mouthful of toast.
“Later on I do kind of want to get the hang of that bow though,” Gretchen said.
“For real?” Ophelia said.
“Well, yeah. I mean, I’ve always felt like I needed some kind of real hobby. And archery sounds fun.”
“Jeez, you’re gonna make me feel bad for giving up on the spear,” Ophelia sighed.
Oktavia swallowed. “Do you have to take everything as a challenge?”
“Says the girl whose first impulse, upon hearing that there was an honest-to-God sea monster swimming around, was to go out and fight it!”
“I’m not going to fight it!” Oktavia complained. “I’m going to catch it!”
“When is that going to happen, by the way?” Homulilly said.
“It’s already started,” Oktavia said. “For most of the week, actually. I just took some time off to help you guys settle in.” She frowned. “They better not find it while I’m home.”
“Hmmm,” Ophelia said in a tone that implied that she would be perfectly happy with them finding the karnuk without Oktavia’s help.
And then the phone in the kitchen rang.
Candeloro sighed. “I’ll get it,” she said as she rose. “It had better not be my work calling me in. I asked for today off for a reason!”
She went into the kitchen and answered the phone. “Hello?”
Homulilly went back to eating. She picked up a piece of buttered toast smothered with raspberry jam and took a bite.
“Oh, hello,” she heard Candeloro say. “Yes, they’re here. Why, did they forget something?”
Homulilly froze with the toast still in her mouth.
“Oh,” Candeloro said. “Oh. Yes, we did hear something about that.”
Homulilly opened her mouth and slowly placed the piece of toast back down onto her plate. She glanced over to Gretchen, who glanced back. Ophelia, Oktavia, and Charlotte had also stopped eating. They all turned their attention to the kitchen and listened intently.
“I see,” Candeloro said with a sigh. “Well, that is…Wait, she wants to do what? Um, are you sure that’s…a good idea? I mean…Yes. Yes, I understand. All right, I’ll let them know, but I make no promises. Of course. Thank you. Goodbye.”
Candeloro hung up the phone and rejoined the rest of the group in the dining room. She was clearly troubled.
“Well,” she said as she sat back down again. “I suppose you all know what that was about.”
“Hitomi,” Gretchen said. Both of Homulilly’s hands curled into fists, and she hastily stuck them onto her lap, out of sight.
“So that’s her name,” Charlotte muttered. Oktavia blinked, and then frowned.
“Yes, that’s right,” Candeloro said. “Apparently seeing you two badly upset her.”
“Yeah, we noticed,” Homulilly said in a bitter tone.
“Anyway, that was the FIB. Obviously. And they said that she was pretty hysterical for most of the night and only calmed down early this morning.”
Oktavia breathed out. “Wow. Poor kid.”
Poor kid. Sure. That was one way of putting it.
“So, what do they want them to do about it?” Charlotte asked, motioning toward Homulilly and Gretchen with her fork.
Candeloro shook her head. “Well, nothing, actually. I mean, it’s obvious that this isn’t their responsibility. But apparently she’s been asking to talk to them.”
“Yeah, I’m gonna go with ‘Hell no’,” Ophelia said as she leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “That’s all kinds of a bad idea.”
“Is it?” Gretchen said.
“It is,” Homulilly said flatly. Gretchen shot her a bewildered look.
“It is,” Charlotte confirmed. “Look guys, I don’t know how much about this you know, but it’s super dangerous for a witch to talk to a Puella Magi that she knew in her past life. Just hearing your old name can mess you up.” She raised an eyebrow. “In fact, seeing how shaken you two were, I’m willing to bet that it did.”
Homulilly sighed. “It did, a little,” she admitted.
“So it’s settled. You’re not talking to her.”
Gretchen still looked unconvinced. “But there has to be something we can do for her,” she said. “I mean, it’s kind of cruel to just leave her like that.”
Charlotte shook her head. “Okay, look: you remember what it was like during your first few days, when you were still trying to wrap your heads around being dead, and aliens existing, and that you’re a weird, supernatural creature and stuff?”
“Yes,” Homulilly said. “I do.”
“So do I. And going through that is bad enough for a witch. But for a Puella Magi? Oh, it is so much worse. At least we don’t remember our old lives, so we can just jump in and start getting used to things. But Puella Magi still remember. They remember everything: their families, their friends, their dreams, their everything. So, that just makes it all the harder for them to accept the idea that they really are dead, that they left a corpse somewhere in another universe, and they’re never, ever going home again.”
The ends of Candeloro’s ribbons twisted together on the table in front of her, her way of clasping her hands. “Puella Magi tend to be…highly emotional during those first few days,” she added. “Irrational. Prone to outbursts.”
“I remember,” Gretchen said softly. “They were…very upset.”
“Exactly,” said Charlotte. “So even if they explain everything to this…what was her name again?”
“Hitomi.”
“Right. If they explain everything to Hitomi and get her to promise to behave herself, there’s no guarantee that she won’t have another fit and start trying to make you two remember. She might start screaming your old names over and over. She might even attack you. There’s no way to tell.”
“Attack us?” Gretchen swallowed noisily. “Um, th-that might actually happen?”
Homulilly nudged her pieces of waffle around her plate with her fork.
“It might,” Charlotte said. “Like I said, there’s no way to tell. But I for one don’t want you two taking the risk.”
“Agreed,” Homulilly said in a low voice.
Oktavia cleared her throat. “Um, I don’t suppose there’s a chance that she’s…mistaken? Like, maybe Gretchen and Homulilly just look kinda like her friends and she got them confused.”
“No,” Homulilly said, not taking her eyes off her plate. “Those names she called us…I felt them. They’re ours.”
“Same here,” said Gretchen. “I’m very sure that she’s right. We did know her.”
Ophelia groaned. “Fuck me, what a mess.” Then, when Candeloro shot her a disapproving look, she just glared back. “Oh, what? They’re not kids anymore, they can handle a few dirty words. Besides, this is way more important.”
“I suppose,” Candeloro allowed. “Still, this does raise the question: what do we do about this?”
“Nothing,” Charlotte said with a shrug. “I mean, let’s face it: what happened to Hitomi sucked, but it’s not our problem.”
Gretchen immediately looked distraught. Even Ophelia raised an eyebrow. “Well, that’s kinda cold.”
“But it’s the truth. We can’t trust this Hitomi not to do something that’ll be damaging, and I’m sorry, but I’m more concerned with their wellbeing than I am with hers.”
“Huh,” Oktavia said, her forehead furrowing. “Okay, so hear me out. What about a compromise? Like, one of us goes to talk to her in their place.”
Candeloro shook her head. “It’s still the same problem. If we knew them in the past life, then there’s every chance that she knew all of us as well.”
A heavy silence fell, filled with uncomfortable glances and the pushing around of forks against plates. Ophelia noisily refilled her cup of orange juice. Oktavia’s chair hissed as she moved the seat back so she could stare up at the ceiling.
Then Charlotte groaned out loud. “Oh, damn it. It’s going to be me, isn’t it?”
“Huh?” Gretchen said, looking up abruptly.
“Well, it only makes sense,” Charlotte said with a shrug. “I mean, I’m the only that she probably never met. You know, considering.”
When everyone shot her several different kinds of looks, Charlotte rolled her eyes and said, “Oh, what? What? C’mon, we’ve already established that I probably wasn’t part of whatever superhero team you guys had. Maybe I got brought on at the last second as a plus one for some big fight, or hell, maybe I was the witch you all were fighting when things went sideways. It’s not like I’m sensitive about it. Hell, if you want to get technical about it, I’ve been part of this group longer than they have!” She motioned over to Homulilly and Gretchen. “My point is, if anyone is going to go talk to her, I’m our best bet.”
“Are you sure about this, babe?” Candeloro said, laying a ribbon on Charlotte’s shoulder. “I mean, you were pretty adamant that we have nothing to do with this.”
“Yeah, but that’s because I don’t want this girl to hurt the people I care about,” Charlotte said. “I’m pretty much guaranteed to not get affected by the same stuff you guys are.”
“And if she tries to jank you?” Ophelia said, picking up a butter knife and making a stabbing motion.
“Then I knock her back on her ass. Come on, I know enough about taking care of myself to handle her at least.”
“Are you sure?” Gretchen said. “I mean, she’s a Puella Magi.”
“Apparently not a very good one, if she’s here already.”
Gretchen sighed. “I mean she still has her weapon.”
“Yeah, she sort of summoned up a…an umbrella thing?” Homulilly said with a frown.
“An umbrella? An umbrella?”
“You know, one of those fancy ones with the curved handle.”
Charlotte stared. “What’s she going to do, thwack me to death?”
Candeloro let out a very unladylike snort.
“You do know that this umbrella thing is probably magical,” Oktavia pointed out. “Who knows what it can do?”
“Who cares?” Charlotte said. “I’m going to be at the FIB anyway. Something goes screwy, they’ll shut it down immediately. Besides, even if she does somehow manage to blow my head off, it’ll grow back in like thirty minutes.”
“Well, there’s a cheery thought,” Ophelia said wryly. “And a really gross mental image. Thanks for that.”
Candeloro made a face. “Well, I don’t like it, but you’re probably right.”
“Thank you,” Gretchen said softly.
Ophelia cleared her throat. “Just, uh, you know, don’t go out of your way to antagonize the kid, okay?”
“Why would I?” Charlotte said in bewilderment.
“Because you got all the gentle tact of a steel mallet, and you’re already annoyed that she’s bothering us with this and might just take it out on her.”
Charlotte made a face, but nodded. “Fine. Okay, point. I’ll do my best to be nice.”
Nice. Right. Homulilly thought back to their brief encounter with Hitomi and how quickly she had lost her mind. She felt that it didn’t matter how gentle and polite Charlotte was going to be, it would still end in tears, if not outright violence.
…
“So, would that be all right?” Dr. Jazmine asked.
Hitomi stared back at her. She was sitting on the side of her bed, nervously chewing on her finger. Dr. Jazmine was kneeling in front of her, obviously trying to appear as non-threatening as possible.
Were they afraid of her? Why? She was no one! She couldn’t even kill one witch! And the place was full of witches!
“Hitomi?”
Hitomi blinked. “Um, er, right. You want me to…talk. To a friend of Madoka and Homura.”
“Yes. They’re living with some friends, and one of them wants to talk to you on their behalf.””
“Right. Right. Um…why though? Why can’t I just talk to Madoka directly? Doesn’t she want to see me?”
“She does, but this is just a precaution. To be safe.”
Hitomi’s hands started shaking harder. “You think I would hurt her?”
“Of course not! At least, not on purpose. But like we said-”
“I know, I know!” Hitomi sighed. She fell silent, thinking. Dr. Jazmine let her, patiently waiting.
Finally Hitomi sighed. “Okay.”
“You’ll do it?”
“Y-Yeah,” Hitomi said, giving the barest of nods. She might as well. It was just another step, after all. Another step to being reunited with her friends.
Besides, if Madoka had new friends in this world, than she wanted to see what they were like. She wanted to see what she was up against.
…
The next day…
The walk from the shaded outskirt suburb that Charlotte lived with her friends to the narrow streets and tall buildings of Freehaven proper was not long. If they had ran, they could have cleared the distance in less than a minute, and from there it was a straight shot across the rooftops to the FIB. And running was such a common way of getting around that no one would have given her a second look.
Charlotte did not feel like running. She was not looking forward to this at all. So she walked.
Candeloro and Ophelia walked with her. They were definitely not going anywhere near Hitomi, but they were going along for moral support. Charlotte appreciated the gesture, even if it did mean that she felt all the more that she was heading into actual danger.
C’mon, get it together, she told herself. The kid’s probably more afraid of you than you are of her. You’re the one with all the power here. Just get in, play it safe, get the info, and get out.
“So, hey, hypothetical question,” Ophelia said. “Let’s say everything goes swimmingly, no one gets hurt, and it turns out that Hitomi did used to be our nearest, dearest friend. Do we adopt her too after she’s been…rehabilitated?”
Charlotte scowled.
“Where would we even put her?” Candeloro said. “We’ve used up all the rooms.”
“There’s Oktavia’ old trophy room, I guess,” Ophelia said. “Though it’s kind of small. But if it’s just her then I guess it could work.” She frowned. “Though if she gets a girlfriend before then, then that could, uh, complicate things.”
Charlotte sighed. She did kind of hope that it didn’t come to that. Meeting Homulilly and Gretchen had been a happy accident. With this Hitomi, she had known about her for less than a day before she started causing them tons of problems.
“Speaking of which, did anyone have any flashes of recognition to her name?” Candeloro continued.
“Nope. Nothing,” Ophelia said.
Charlotte shook her head. “Me neither.”
“Same,” Candeloro sighed.
“But Gretchen did say that she did,” Ophelia mused, thoughtfully rubbing her chin. “Tavi did too, last night. She said she had some kind of weird bell go off in her head.”
“Yup,” Charlotte said. “We’re really learning a lot about how things used to be between us, ain’t we?”
Candeloro tilted her head toward her. “Char, are you okay?”
“Nope! I’m scared and upset and I really don’t want to do this.”
“You know, you don’t have to do this,” her wife said, laying a ribbon on Charlotte’s shoulder.
“You’re sweet,” Charlotte said, giving the ribbon’s end a light squeeze. “But please don’t try to talk me out of this. I already agreed to it, and someone has to.”
“Okay, but just remember to bail if things get…dangerous,” Ophelia said. “She’s not going anywhere, and we don’t want you putting yourself in harm’s way if you don’t need to. Okay?”
“Kind of late for that,” Charlotte said as she came to a stop and looked up.
They had made it, with the Freehaven Integration Bureau towering over them. Most of the time the place seemed friendly and nostalgic. After all, they used to live there, and they had visited it often to see Gretchen and Homulilly.
But now it just felt bit and imposing. The sun was still rising over its other side, causing its shadow fall over the trio. Charlotte looked up into its windows and found herself remembering that it was as much an asylum as it was a school and place of rehabilitation. Not all the girls who passed through its halls got better. Maybe Hitomi would turn out to be one of them.
“Come on, Charly,” Ophelia said, lightly punching Charlotte in the arm. “You got this.”
“Sure,” Charlotte said, still staring up at the windows. “Yeah. I sure do.”
In the front lobby, one of the caretakers was waiting for her. Charlotte didn’t really know her, but she had often seen her around.
“Charlotte, right?” the caretaker said, walking over greet her. “Thank you so much for coming. I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m Dr. Jazmine Smith.”
“Yeah, I remember you,” Charlotte said, shaking her hand. “So, on a scale of one to ten, how fucked up is she?”
Dr. Jazmine winced. “She is…upset, and emotionally on edge. To tell the truth, this whole thing is kind of a risk. She was insistent on it though, refused to cooperate with us unless we let her talk to Kriemhild Gretchen. This was the one compromise we could get her to agree to.”
“I figured,” Charlotte sighed. “Well, let’s get this over with.”
Dr. Jazmine led her through the halls and talked as they went. “I was the first caretaker to welcome her, and she seems to respond best to me, so I’ll be in there with you to help calm her down if necessary. The whole exchange will be monitored by security, and should she do anything drastic like try to attack you, the failsafes will engage to neutralize her.”
“Failsafes?”
“A simple knockout field. She’ll just go to sleep. In the meantime, should she say anything that triggers anything in you, let us know immediately.”
“Like, that weird déjà vu feeling?”
“Exactly. If you two did not know each other as you suspect, then you ought to be all right. But why take chances?”
“Got it.”
They reached the staff elevator. Dr. Jazmine pressed a hand against a green pad, and it slid open. Despite herself, Charlotte couldn’t help but feel a little curious. This elevator had always been off-limits to her and the other residents during their own stay, and more than once someone tried to find their way in. Supposedly it was the only way to access the area where the…tougher cases were kept, which was underground.
They went inside and the door closed. As they headed downward, Dr. Jazmine hesitated, and then said, “Also, I do need you to watch what you say. As you probably know, newly arrived Puella Magi often come in emotionally traumatized and need special care to help them heal. And from what we’ve been told, Hitomi’s death was especially brutal. Please try to avoid bringing that up, and also watch what you say about witches in general. She didn’t find out about their true nature before she died, and is having trouble adjusting.”
Charlotte’s lips thinned out. “Even though…I’m a witch.”
“Yes,” Dr. Jazmine said with a sigh. “So please don’t take anything she says personally.”
“You know, this is starting to strike me as a really bad idea.”
“If you want to cancel-”
“No,” Charlotte said before Dr. Jazmine could finish. “I’m kind of committed at this point. But hey, out of curiosity, how often does something like this happen?”
“Not all that often,” Dr. Jazmine said. “But it does happen every now and then.”
The elevator doors slid open, and Charlotte found herself in a part of the FIB she had never been in before.
She had been expecting something cold and sterile, with raving girls restrained by straitjackets and tied to gurneys. To her surprise, it was very pleasant, with soft woods and carpeted floors. Even the lighting looked like natural sunlight.
Noticing Charlotte’s reaction, Dr. Jazmine allowed herself a small smile. “The girls down here aren’t prisoners, and they’re more of a danger to themselves than anyone else. It helps to have a comfortable place for them to stay while we treat them.”
That made sense, though Charlotte had to disagree on one point. Sure, maybe they had a good reason to keep them down here, and maybe it was a nice place, but any place that you weren’t allowed to leave was technically still a prison.
She thought back to her own stay in the FIB. She hadn’t had much interaction with those girls. Occasionally one would get better and be allowed to join her class, though they were under strict orders not to pelt anyone like that with intrusive questions, so she had just minded her own business. Occasionally she would see the others brought out into the playground for exercise, but they were always kept away from the rest of the students and kept under heavy supervision, so she never got a good look at them. They had seemed normal enough from what she remembered though.
As they passed through the halls, she couldn’t help but glance through the glass windows set in the doors. Most of the rooms were empty, though she did see the occasional caretaker working with some of the girls, usually one-on-one or in very small groups. Things seemed pretty normal from what she could tell, with nobody acting particularly abnormal.
Dr. Jazmine apparently noticed Charlotte’s confusion, as she smiled grimly and said, “The especially difficult cases are in a different section.”
“Oh. And, ah, are we going into a different section?”
“Yes.”
Charlotte stopped looking into the windows.
Sure enough, soon they were in another part of the facility, and she heard someone screaming.
Charlotte stopped. The screams were coming from far the down the hall. A moment later a door opened and two caretakers rushed out. They ran over to the room where the screaming was coming from and quickly went inside.
“Another newcomer,” Dr. Jazmine said sadly. “She’s only eight years old. And, well, she misses her family. Badly.”
“I bet,” Charlotte said. “Do you, ah, deal with this sort of thing a lot?”
“All the time.”
Charlotte shook her head. The fine ladies of the Freehaven Integration Bureau just went up a few ranks in her head.
Fortunately, the room they were headed toward was not near the one with the screaming girl. Still, Dr. Jazmine paused before opening the door.
“Remember,” she said. “Do what you can to avoid upsetting her. Don’t force information on her. Don’t put the blame on her for anything. Let me know if she stumbles across some problematic information. Be as gentle as you can. Understand?”
“Got it,” Charlotte said, though she was wondering if she really did. She had never done something like this before.
Dr. Jazmine slowly opened the door.
Charlotte craned her neck to see. Beyond was a what looked like a rest lounge, with the same soft colors as the outside. There were potted plants and a softly babbling fountain in the corner. Two comfortable-looking chairs sat across from one another, with a low table in between them, on which sat a box of tissues, a plastic cup of water, and a water pitcher next to it.
And seated in one of the chairs was Hitomi Shizuki.
To be honest, Charlotte hadn’t really known what to expect from Hitomi, as no one had even so much as described her appearance. What she saw was a slender Japanese girl in her early teens, with long, pale green hair and eyes of the same color. She seemed to be of average height, comparable to Ophelia and Homulilly, and something about her struck Charlotte as being someone who never really had to worry where her next meal was coming from.
However, Charlotte did expect someone on edge, terrified, disheveled, and ragged looking, and that’s exactly what she got. Hitomi didn’t look like she had slept well in days. Her eyes were wide and sunken, her skin was flushed and glistening with sweat, her hair a mess, and she was trembling from head to toe.
Charlotte didn’t know what she had been doing before Dr. Jazmine opened the door, but she was now sitting upright and rigid, with the only movement being the shaking. In her hands was the umbrella, fortunately folded up. She was holding it by the canopy, handle-up, and was gnawing on the end of the handle.
As soon as Dr. Jazmine saw the umbrella, she held a hand in front of Charlotte, keeping her from entering the room. Taking a cautious step forward, she cleared her throat and said, “Ah, Hitomi?”
Hitomi blinked owlishly at her. “Y-Yes?”
“Your umbrella, dear. Could you please put it away?”
Hitomi looked down at the object sitting in her lap. She actually seemed surprised, as if she hadn’t known that it was there in the first place. “Oh. Oh! I’m…I’m sorry. I didn’t…I didn’t…Um, okay.”
There was a small flash of green light, and the umbrella vanished. Hitomi clasped her hands in her lap and swallowed noisily.
Dr. Jazmine glanced at Charlotte and shrugged. The two of them entered the room, and Dr. Jasmine let the door swing shut behind her.
“Hitomi, this is Charlotte,” Dr. Jazmine introduced. “You remember, the one we discussed?”
“Hi,” Charlotte said with a wave.
Hitomi stared at her. “You’re a witch,” she said.
Charlotte paused for a moment, and then nodded. “I am.” Another pause. “Is that…okay?”
There was something downright unnerving about the way Hitomi’s eyes bored into her. Charlotte couldn’t really fathom what she was thinking, but she was willing to bet that it wasn’t good. At any rate, it was several seconds before Hitomi finally blinked. “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”
Charlotte noticed Hitomi’s nails. They were practically gone, all of them chewed away.
“Anyway, she’s a friend of Madoka and Homura,” Dr. Jazmine told her.
“That’s right,” Charlotte said. “I’m just here to-”
“What was it like?” Hitomi said.
Charlotte hesitated for a moment before saying, “What was what like?”
“Changing into a witch. Being a witch. Living in your labyrinth. Luring people in. What was it like?”
Well, this conversation was certainly going to be all kinds of unpredictable. “I don’t remember,” Charlotte said. “All my memories from that time are gone.”
“Are you sure? Maybe it shows up in dreams.”
“Maybe,” Charlotte allowed. “But if it does, those dreams are gone too.”
“Do you think you ever killed anyone?”
Unpredictable and dangerous. Wow, this was already shaping up to be a bad idea. “Might have,” Charlotte said. “But like I said, I don’t remember.”
“You don’t remember,” Hitomi repeated. “You might’ve killed people, and you don’t remember.”
“Hitomi, we’re not here to talk about that,” Dr. Jazmine cut in. “We’re here to talk about Madoka and Homura, right? So let’s do that.”
Hitomi blinked. Then she nodded. “Okay. Okay.”
Sighing, Charlotte sat down in the chair across from Hitomi, careful to do so slowly and cautiously, keeping her tail out of sight. The last thing she needed was to spook her. “Right,” she said. “So, like you were told, I am a friend of Madoka and Homura. And I’m here to-”
“What do you call them?” Hitomi interrupted.
“Pardon?”
“They have different names now, right? That’s what they said.” Hitomi pointed to Dr. Jazmine. “So do you call them by their new names or their real names?”
Charlotte really didn’t know the best way to answer that question, so she went with honest. “Their new names,” she said. “We didn’t even know their…real names until you, uh, told us.”
Hitomi’s mouth set in a straight line, but she nodded. “Okay.”
“Anyway,” Charlotte said. “I would like to talk about your friendship with them, maybe learn more about their past. Is that okay?”
“Fine. That’s fine.”
Was it? “All right. So, you were close friends with Madoka and Homura, right?”
“Yes,” Hitomi said. Then she frowned. “I mean, no. I mean…with Madoka, yes. We’ve been friends for years. But I didn’t know Homura all that well. I mean, she only transferred to our class a couple months ago.”
A couple months. Wow, Charlotte’s entire life in her world had only taken up less than a couple months in the other. “I see. So, was Madoka friends with Homura then?”
“Yes,” Hitomi said. Now that they were talking about things she was familiar with, she seemed like she was starting to relax a little. Good. “They, uh, bonded pretty quickly. I didn’t know why then, but, uh, I guess I know why now.”
“I guess so. Maybe we’d better start at the beginning then.”
Hitomi closed her eyes for several seconds. Her mouth was closed, but it kept making odd movements, like she muttering silently to herself. Then she opened her eyes again. “Okay. Let’s do that.”
Charlotte motioned for her to begin.
Taking a deep breath, Hitomi said, “Well, I’m from Mitakihara City. Do you know where that it?”
“Can’t say that I do.”
“Oh. Um, anyway, that’s where I’m from, and Madoka Kaname is one of my best friends.”
Charlotte’s ears perked up. “One of?”
“Right,” Hitomi nodded. “The other is Sayaka Miki.” She paused, and then asked, “Have you met her?”
“No, I haven’t,” Charlotte said as she mentally filed that name away for later. She wondered if she should point out that maybe this ‘Sayaka’ was going by a different name now, but decided against it. “Anyway, go on.”
“Oh. Um, like I was saying, we’ve been close friends since elementary school, but Madoka and Sayaka have been best friends even longer. But we always hang out together at school and on the weekends and…” Hitomi seemed to lose her train of thought. She blinked, shook her head, and said, “But anyway, a few months ago, they suddenly got…strange.”
“Strange?” Charlotte leaned forward. “Strange how?”
“W-Well, they stopped…spending time with me. I mean, it wasn’t like they had cut me out or didn’t like me anymore, but they just got real secretive. They were always around each other, but rarely talking. It was like they knew what each other was thinking. And at first they actually seemed…” Hitomi frowned. “I don’t know, happier I guess? And…well, this might seem a little silly, but at first I thought that they might have, you know, gotten…together, if you know what I mean.”
Charlotte had a feeling that Hitomi hadn’t exactly been clued in on how relationship demographics worked now. “I do,” she said in a neutral tone. “But that wasn’t it, was it?”
“No,” Hitomi said, shaking her head. “I understand now what happened. They had made a contract with Kyubey. They became magical girls, Pueh…Pooey…”
“Puella Magi,” Charlotte said.
“Right. That.” Hitomi sighed. “They weren’t secretly in love. They were secretly fighting monsters every day. Keeping us safe. That sort of thing.”
“Probably, yeah.”
Hitomi closed her eyes for a bit. Then she continued. “Um, anyway, right about then they started to make a lot of new friends. It was like, one day it was the three of us like normal, then it was them and…other people. They started following this one upperclassman everywhere, having lunch with her and even going to her place right after school every day.”
Okay, here it came. “What was her name?”
Hitomi’s brow furrowed. “Um, let me see. They introduced me to her a couple times, and Kyubey said…” She scratched her head. “Toe…mo…ay. Tomoe. Mami Tomoe. She seemed nice enough, but it struck me as a little strange that she didn’t seem to be very interested in spending time with people in her grade. Then Homura transferred in, and…I don’t know, she seemed like she actually knew Madoka. I asked Madoka if they had met before and she said that they hadn’t, but before I knew it Homura was a part of their group. They were always walking to and from school together, having lunch on the roof by themselves, going right to Mami Tomoe’s place as soon as school got out, and whenever I’d run into any of them on the weekends, the others were there.”
Charlotte pursed her lips. Mami Tomoe, huh? That name meant absolutely nothing to her. There was no flash of recognition, no déjà vu. Still, she had a pretty good idea of who it originally had belonged to. “Okay. Anyone else?”
“Just one,” Hitomi said. “She didn’t go to our school, actually, but she’d be with them when I’d see them outside of school, and I’m pretty sure she was sneaking into the school to have lunch with them. She seemed very out of place, very ragged and kind of dirty, like…like some kind of delinquent. I couldn’t understand why they let her be a part of whatever it was that they were doing.”
“It’s because she was probably a Puella Magi too.”
Hitomi sighed. “Right. That makes sense.”
“Did you ever learn her name?” Charlotte pressed.
“Yes,” Hitomi said with a nod. “Once when I ran into all of them one Sunday, and again after I, um, met Kyubey, he told me her name. Let’s see, her family name was Sakura I think. And her first name…Kee…Kee…” She snapped her fingers. “Kyoko! That’s it!”
A delinquent troublemaker? Well, there were two possible candidates for that. Well, three she supposed. It was entirely possible that Charlotte herself was this mysterious other girl, though given her lack of recognition of those other names it wasn’t too likely. “And anyone else?”
Hitomi shook her head. “Not that I saw, no.”
“All right,” Charlotte said as she started to tic points off on her fingers. “So, you were friends with Madoka and Sayaka, and everything seems normal, and then out of nowhere all these other people just seem to show up, and right away your friends seem more interested in them than they are in you.”
Hitomi nodded. “I mean, they didn’t shut me out or be mean or something like that, but that’s what it felt like. I get it now, but at the time…”
“Got it. So, what happened next?”
Hitomi looked down at her feet. “Well, that was…that was kind of my fault.”
Charlotte raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
Hitomi nodded again. “See, it has to do with my…” A flash of pain passed over her features. She swallowed noisily, and when she spoke again her voice was much thicker than before. “My boyfriend. Kyousuke Kamijo.” Just saying that name seemed to hurt her. “Well, actually, we’d only been dating for a little bit, but we’ve been friends for years! He’s wonderful, kind of brilliant actually! As if in, he’s an actual prodigy with the violin and already so many prestigious universities have been offering scholarships. Every time I hear him play I…”
Her voice trailed off. Charlotte waited for her to continue, but Hitomi was just staring off into space, lost in her own little world.
Charlotte glanced over to Dr. Jazmine, who motioned for her to wait. Right then. Let the kid work her way through this at her own speed.
Nearly a full minute passed, and then Hitomi seemed to jerk back to awareness. She blinked, shook her head, and cleared her throat.
“Anyway,” she said. “Um, the reason this is important is because of Sayaka Miki.”
“Madoka’s friend,” Charlotte said.
“And mine! But she’s been friends with Kyousuke longer than I have. I mean, she’s known him longer than I’ve known him, and she’s known him longer than she’s known me, and…” Hitomi winced.
Charlotte could see exactly where this was going. “She liked him too.”
Hitomi seemed unable to meet Charlotte’s eyes. “Very much so. You s-see, a while back Kyousuke was in a terrible car accident. The other driver had fallen asleep at the wheel and ran a red light and…” She shuddered. “Anyway, Kyousuke was hurt very, very badly. Something to do with his spine, I think. He couldn’t walk, he could barely move his hands, his nervous system was completely messed up. And so, you know, he couldn’t play music anymore. It was the most important thing in the world to him, he loved it so much, and it was just taken from him. It was so cruel, for someone with that kind of gift to have it stolen away like that.”
She paused again, only this time it was from emotion rather than just losing her train of thought. Tears were starting to form in her eyes, and she had to turn away.
Dr. Jazmine was at her side in a moment, holding her and murmuring small words of comfort. As for Charlotte, she couldn’t help but feel like she was intruding just by being there, so she sat in place and tried to be as unnoticeable as she could.
“Sayaka was…really broken up,” Hitomi said when she had composed herself enough to continue. “She would visit him nearly every day at the hospital, bring him albums to try to cheer him up, and stuff like that. It was really sweet of her, but I don’t think Kyousuke ever really understood how much he meant to her.” She cleared her throat. “So anyway, one day, I got a call and…he was better! The doctors said it was a miracle, that all the nerve damage was just…gone! He got full use of his hands back almost immediately, his legs were healing up just fine, and no one could understand why. But he could play again! He got his life back, it was amazing!”
As she spoke about the seeming miracle, a small smile had started to form, brought forth by the happy memory. It didn’t last long though. She glanced back at Charlotte and her face fell. Then she cleared her throat and said, “Kyousuke started coming back to school soon after. I thought for certain that was when Sayaka would make her move, but instead she started avoiding him for some reason. I couldn’t understand it, but she seemed so hesitant to talk to him.”
“So you took advantage,” Charlotte guessed, then she winced. Damn it, that had not been the best choice of words.
Hitomi immediately looked stricken. “Not like that! I mean, she had known him longer, had…had loved him longer, had been by his side the whole time he had been hurt, so it was only fair that…that it would be her. But she wasn’t going to do anything! She just kept hiding from her feelings and wouldn’t take the chance and…” She sighed. “I met with her after school. I told her how I felt about Kyousuke. I told her that I knew how she felt about Kyousuke. I told her that it was only right that she try to confess to him first. I gave her twenty-four hours, and if she didn’t, then I would…you know…”
“Oh boy,” Charlotte breathed out.
“I just wanted to give her a push! I wanted them to be happy, and didn’t want to seem like I was stealing him from her!”
Charlotte hesitated, and then said as gently as she could, “You…do realize that the reason he healed up like he did was-”
“It was her wish,” Hitomi said in a flat tone. “Yes, I figured that out later. She wished for him to be healed. And she avoided him because, well, she had new responsibilities and probably didn’t want to put him in danger and…” She bent over, grabbing her head in her hands. “Oh, I don’t know! I didn’t know!”
Jazmine laid a hand on her shoulder. “There was no way you could have known.”
Perhaps, but that didn’t change what had happened. Charlotte waited until Hitomi stopped crying before prompting, “So, she didn’t take her shot, and you did?”
“I did.” Hitomi sniffed, blew her nose, and straightened up. “I walked home with him, and…I told him. Told him how I felt, that I wanted to be his girlfriend and…he said yes! He liked me too, so I thought things were going to be great! Sayaka would, um, she would get over it, and…and…”
“She…didn’t?”
This time the pause lasted nearly a whole minute. Charlotte was starting to wonder if she ought to prod her again when Hitomi said in a very small voice, “I never saw her again. She disappeared soon after that.”
“Oh.”
“Most of them did. Mami Tomoe stopped coming to school too, and they didn’t go to her place after school anymore. And I never saw Kyoko Sakura again either. She didn’t sneak into the school at lunchtime anymore, she wasn’t hanging out with them on the weekends anymore. They were just…gone.”
“But Madoka and Homura weren’t.”
Hitomi shook her head. “No. They were still around. They said that they didn’t know what happened to them all, but…” She frowned. “They were sad, yes! Madoka seemed so depressed, and I saw her crying by herself a few times between classes. But they weren’t worried! I mean, it was like they knew that Sayaka and the others were dead instead of missing!” She took a deep, shuddering breath and said, “They knew something. They knew what had happened to them.”
Yeah. Yeah, they sure did. “So, what did you do?”
Hitomi rubbed her calves together in agitation. “I…I waited until a moment when Madoka was alone, when Homura wasn’t with her. It wasn’t easy, they seemed like they were joined at the hip. But one day, right between classes, I caught her, I pulled her aside, and…and I told her that I knew she was hiding something. I told her that I knew that she knew what had happened to Sayaka, and I begged her to tell me.” A small sob escaped. “You see, I thought that maybe, th-that Sayaka might have-”
“Killed herself because you stole Kyousuke.”
Hitomi nodded. “Yes. Or ran away.”
Charlotte crossed her arms. “Which wouldn’t explain the other two disappearing.”
“I don’t know,” Hitomi said, shaking her head. “I thought maybe she did something drastic. To them, and…herself.”
Even though she knew it was a terrible thing to feel, Charlotte was starting to become a little relieved that she probably hadn’t been part of that group at all. “Yeah, that would be pretty drastic.”
Hitomi swallowed the rest of the water. Dr. Jazmine refilled her cup. “Anyway, Madoka still refused to tell me. She just started crying again and said that she was sorry over and over and ran away.” She paused, and then said, “Homura Akemi showed up in my room that night.”
Charlotte raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“I had no idea how she got in. I was just sitting on my bed, trying to figure things out, and then she was just…there. She was wearing a weird outfit and had a shield, but the look in her eyes! She was always so meek and shy, but right then she scared me more than anything else ever had.”
Charlotte tried to imagine Homulilly actually successfully intimidating someone. She had to admit, it was a hard image to conjure. “What did she say?”
“She told me to leave Madoka alone,” Hitomi said with a shiver. “She told me to mind my own business. She told me that if I ever upset Madoka again, then I would not like the consequences. She didn’t say what they would be, but…”
“She didn’t need to.”
“No. No, she didn’t.” Hitomi frowned. “And then she was gone! I was looking right at her, and she just vanished! And again, I know now how she did it, but then?” She shook her head. “I didn’t sleep at all that night.”
“I bet,” Charlotte said. She crossed her legs and joined her fingers over her knee. “So what happened next?”
Hitomi slowly breathed in and exhaled through her nose. “There was a storm, a big one. It just seemed to come out of nowhere. I mean, there was nothing about it in the weather reports or anything, but before I knew it, the city needed to be evacuated.”
“A storm?”
“Yeah. At least, that’s what we thought. I f-found out later that it was a huge…” Hitomi’s voice trailed off. “…uh…”
“A witch,” Charlotte said.
Hitomi winced. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine. None of us had any control over that.” Then Charlotte frowned. “Wait, a huge witch causing a storm…do you mean a Walpurgisnacht?”
Hitomi stared blankly at her. “A what?”
Oh, wow, she was really uniformed. “It’s…uh…” Charlotte shot a glance over to Dr. Jazmine.
“A Walpurgisnacht is the name for an amalgamation of witches,” Dr. Jazmine explained. “When one witch accidentally collides with another, they usually fuse into a single entity.”
Hitomi’s face paled. “That can happen?” she whispered.
“Yes. It’s rare, but it does happen. The stronger ones can even leave their labyrinths and float around freely.”
“That’s terrible! How has nobody ever noticed?”
“It’s extremely rare that they become that strong, and the witches themselves are invisible to normal human eyes. Typically, when one arises, any nearby magical girls will join forces to take it down.”
Hitomi slowly breathed out. “All this time,” she murmured, more to herself than anyone else. She placed her face in her hands. “All this time this was happening, and nobody knew.”
For her part, Charlotte was dealing with a bit of a revelation of her own. “Wait, how long after everyone vanished did this happen?”
Hitomi shrugged. “I don’t know. About a month, I guess?”
A month. Charlotte frowned. Okay, so maybe she and her friends wasn’t this massive Walpurgisnacht that causes a city-wide evacuation. She didn’t know how many witches had to go into a Walpurgisnacht’s creation to cause it to break free from its labyrinth, but it probably was more than four. “Okay, so this storm was coming, and everyone had to flee their homes. What happened then?”
“W-Well, the storm just…stopped. It showed up and pretty much smashed a big portion of the city. Like, most of downtown was just in ruins. The news said that entire skyscrapers were ripped up and thrown around!” Hitomi grabbed a tissue and blew her nose. “But then it was over! The storm stopped, and it was over!”
Oh boy. “And…Madoka and Homura?”
Hitomi’s eyes unfocused. “Madoka and Homura went missing,” she said, staring off into space. “They never even made it to the shelter. That was that. I never saw either of them again.”
Charlotte did some mental math in her head. Okay, so supposedly they had vanished to fight this Walpurgisnacht, so it made sense that that was when they turned into witches themselves. Did they fight alone, or were there others on hand to help? She tried to imagine Gretchen and Homulilly fighting off a massive Walpurgisnacht on their own and got the shivers, especially since they apparently had to deal with one another. All things considered, maybe it was for the best that they had become witches themselves. That wasn’t something that anyone would be better off remembering.
Hitomi went on. “Madoka’s parents drove themselves crazy looking for her. Her mom was always a little…uptight. But this just drove her over the edge. She did everything she could to find her. Like, hiring private detectives, demanding security footage, anything. She even got arrested once for harassing the police! And since, you know, Sayaka and the others had already disappeared, people started to think that maybe it wasn’t the storm that had gotten them, that maybe something was going around, taking girls or something like that.”
Charlotte winced. Yikes, that was rough. “What about Homul…er, what about Homura though? Did anyone try to look for her?”
“Not really,” Hitomi admitted. “I mean, yes, there was a missing person’s report, and the posters went up with both their faces. But she didn’t really have anyone other than Madoka. And when Madoka was gone…”
“I see.”
“It was the same when Sayaka disappeared,” Hitomi went on. “Her parents weren’t as, uh, determined as Mrs. Kaname, but they still tried really, really hard to find her. But no one really did much for Mami Tomoe. She just, you know, stopped showing up.”
Charlotte was starting to feel a little uncomfortable with what Hitomi was hinting at. It did seem kind of messed up that the worth of someone’s life seem predicated on how many people they had in their life. “And what did you think?”
“Me?” Hitomi made a face. “I…Okay, you know at first I said that I thought that Sayaka might’ve done something…bad? Like, everyone thought that she might’ve ran away, but I started to think that she went crazy and, uh…”
“Did…something to herself, and the other two?”
Hitomi swallowed. “Yeah. That. And I was so sure that Madoka knew, but after she and Homura disappeared, I started thinking that, I don’t know, that maybe she didn’t know after all, and she and Homura went to go look for her and the other two when the storm hit, and they were caught in it, and-Oh, I don’t know, nothing made any sense!” Then she blinked, and her brow furrowed. “Except, until it did.”
Charlotte crossed her legs. “This is when the Incubator showed up, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Hitomi nodded. “I…I didn’t…it was so strange, but we had just returned home, and I had spent most of the day talking to the police about, well, about Madoka, and if I knew anything about where she might have gone.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “But anyway, that was over, I was in my room crying, and then…and then…”
“Then you heard a voice,” Dr. Jazmine prompted. “A voice inside your head.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I did. It was so weird! At first I thought that I must be hearing things, but it just kept talking, saying that it could, you know, help me! And then…then I saw it.”
Despite having come as a questioner, Charlotte found herself kind of wrapped up in the story. She had heard a few firsthand accounts of first meetings with Incubators before, but none had this few levels of separation before.
“It looked…it looked kind of like a cat. Or a rabbit. It was small and white, with these big ears and bushy tail.” Hitomi shivered. “Its eyes though…they were small and red and beady and barely ever blinked. And it had this smile that never, ever changed, or even moved!”
“An Incubator,” Charlotte said, in part to herself. She had seen pictures of the things, and of course everyone knew what Reibey looked like.
“Yes. Is…are they really aliens? Like, from another planet?”
“They are,” Dr. Jazmine told her.
Hitomi slowly shook her head. “Aliens. Magic. Afterlives. It’s just…a week ago I didn’t know any of this existed! And now I’m…” She looked down at her hand. “I’m…I’m dead, apparently. I was beaten to death by a monster, except apparently it wasn’t really a monster and-”
Before she could drift off too far, Dr. Jazmine swooped in. “You know, Incubators aren’t the only aliens out there. There’s plenty that they’ve made contracts with and ended up here too.”
Hitomi’s head snapped up. “Wait. You mean, like they showed us in the orientation video?”
“Exactly. We’re actually friends with several. In fact, there are a few living here in Freehaven.”
“Oh,” Hitomi said. She seemed unsure of how to react to this piece of information. “I, uh, what…kind of aliens?”
“The cool kind,” Charlotte said. “Don’t worry, they’re our friends.”
“I…see.” Hitomi blinked. “Aliens. Huh.”
Well, at least they got her out of her funk. Time to get back on track. “Anyway, let’s get back to the first alien you met,” Charlotte said. “You said his name was…Cutie?”
That actually got a small laugh out of Hitomi. “N-No. Kyubey. With a ‘b.’ Anyway, he told me that the reason everyone disappeared wasn’t because they ran anyway or got killed by the storm or were kidnapped or anything like that. He said it was because they were actually magical girls who protected the city from evil witches! And that they had disappeared fighting these witches, and he was worried about them!”
Oh, that lying motherfucker. Charlotte wondered if it had been this ‘Kyubey’ that had been responsible for her own contract, and if he had used a similar half-truth to get what he wanted. “That must’ve been crazy to hear.”
“Yes. Yes, it was!” Hitomi sighed. “But then, it was an alien bunny-cat that talked directly into my head, so what did I know?”
“What else did he say?”
Hitomi shook her head. “That the storm was no storm. That it was a super-witch that Madoka and Homura had gone off to fight, and though they won he hadn’t heard from them since. And with no other magical girls around, the city was defenseless.”
Now Charlotte was getting an even clearer picture. Jesus, it really had just been business as usual for the little rat bastard, hadn’t it? He had gotten through his old batch of magical girls, so he went to work getting news ones, probably just to fill some kind of quota. And what better way to go about it than find someone emotionally vulnerable? Like, say, a personal friend of his last set of marks, one that didn’t know what had happened to them and was probably worried sick about them? It was as smart as it was despicable.
“So that’s when you took his contract?”
“Not at first,” Hitomi said. “I…I didn’t really know what to think of it, or if I even believed him. But over the next couple of days I just keep thinking and thinking and thinking and…” She bowed her head. “I had no idea where anyone was or what had happened to them. And I started to figure, if it wasn’t a trick, and I had a chance to find them, then how could I not take it? Th-Then they’d be back and I’d be one of them, and maybe then we’d be…” She swallowed. “We’d be friend again. Like we used to be.” She looked up at Dr. Jazmine. “But he knew, didn’t he? Kyubey knew what had happened to everyone.”
“Almost definitely,” Dr. Jazmine said. “That’s how they operate. Tell you enough of the truth to get your attention, and then throw in one small but significant lie to give you just enough of a push.”
“That’s…That’s just…”
“Sick,” Charlotte said flatly. “Exploitive. Whatever you want to call it.”
Hitomi swallowed. “I was duped.”
“We all were.”
“I was an idiot.” Hitomi closed her eyes. The slight tremble started to grow worse. “I was such an idiot.”
“No, you weren’t. He was the one in the wrong. He and the rest of his kind have been doing this for literal centuries. They are very good at manipulating people. It’s not your fault that he decided to target you.”
“But…if I had…”
“There are no ‘ifs,’ Hitomi. There is only what is. And you are in no way to blame for what happened, okay? It’s not your fault.” Hitomi turned her head, unable to meet Dr. Jazmine’s eyes. Dr. Jazmine gently but firmly turned Hitomi’s gaze back toward her. “Look at me. It’s not your fault.”
“Okay,” Hitomi said after a few seconds. “Okay. Thank you.” She looked back up at Charlotte. “Um, I’m sorry. Where were we?
Charlotte blinked. “Er, you just met Kyubey. And you made your wish?”
“Right,” Hitomi sighed. “That.”
“So, you wished to find your friends?” Charlotte asked.
“Yes,” Hitomi nodded. Then she frowned. “Er, well, sort of. Kyubey s-said that they were probably somewhere d-d-dangerous, and just being sent there would be a bad idea. So I should wish for the power to find them instead.” She looked up at Dr. Jazmine. “Another trick?”
“Probably,” Dr. Jazmine said. “Sending you straight to them would just kill you. He would want you around for a bit to hunt witches.”
“Why? Why does he want us to hunt witches? Why does he want us to become witches? Why do any of this?”
“It’s…a little hard to explain. But the gist of it is that we release a sort of energy that Incubators can harvest: first when we make a contract, then when we become a witch, and again when that witch is killed. It’s a system that they keep going to feed upon.”
“That…disgusting!”
“No arguments here,” Charlotte remarked. “But okay. You made a contract, got your powers, and set off to find your friends. What happened then?”
“Then?” Hitomi let out a derisive snort. “What do you think? There was no ‘then,’ there was no setting off. A witch showed up almost immediately, so I went to try to fight it.” Then she started to drift again. Her eyes started to lose focus and the shaking increased. She stuck the middle knuckles of her right index finger into her mouth and started gnawing on it as she talked faster and faster. “It was…it was horrible! I was in a world that made no sense, a forest made of roads where up was down and down was sideways, and there was this…this tree with all these stop signs and crossing signs, and…and I transformed! I just felt this rush of power, and suddenly I was faster, I was stronger, I-I guess my clothes were different, but I didn’t even get the chance to use that power! I jumped up, but it just swatted me out of the air! I hit my head on something and-”
“Hitomi!” Dr. Jazmine pulled Hitomi’s hand away from her mouth as clasped her own hands over it. “Hitomi. Look at me. Look at me.”
Hitomi did, but the shaking didn’t stop.
“You don’t have to go there, okay? We don’t need to hear about that. And it’s over, okay? It’s over. It can’t hurt you anymore.”
“I…but…it used to be a girl like me, right? Who hurt her? What could possibly be so bad to make her like that?”
“Kyubey did. She’s a victim. You’re a victim. We all are. That’s what our whole community is about. Being there for each other. Taking care of each other. We’re all in this together, okay? And we’re not going to let anything happen to you.”
Hitomi slowly nodded. She reached for her cup of water, but her hands were shaking too badly, so Dr. Jazmine quickly retrieved it for her and helped her hold it steady as she drained it.
As for Charlotte, she was starting to gain a whole new level of appreciation for Dr. Jazmine and others like her. Also, she was coming to really regret some of the shenanigans she had gotten into when she was younger. Given what the caretakers had been dealing with, they probably hadn’t needed the additional headache.
At any rate, when Hitomi handed back the empty glass she seemed to have calmed a bit. “Anyway, that was, um, that, and…I don’t need to talk about th-that room, do I? Or that city?”
“No, dear,” Dr. Jazmine said.
“Oh. Well, then I was brought here, and that’s wh-when I saw Madoka.” She sighed. “And…I guess you know the rest of that.”
Charlotte slowly breathed out. Wow, that really did answer quite a few questions, though not really in as satisfactory way as she had been hoping. “That’s…quite the story.”
Hitomi actually looked hurt. “It’s the truth, I swear!”
“No, I believe you,” Charlotte said hastily, before the emotionally troubled girl could freak out on her. “I definitely believe you. A lot of stuff makes a lot more sense now.”
“Oh,” Hitomi said, calming down a bit. “Okay. So…” She glanced from Charlotte to Dr. Jazmine. “Can I see Madoka now? Please?”
“We’ll talk about that in a moment,” Charlotte said before Dr. Jazmine could answer. She grabbed a small table and pulled it between them. “Now, I brought along a few photographs. And I would like you to see if you recognize any of them.”
“Oh.” Hitomi gave a small nod. “Okay.”
Starting things off with something they already knew, Charlotte pulled out a picture of Kriemhild Gretchen, which they had taken during a hiking trip about a year prior. It was from the waist up, and she was holding up a baby squirrel that had taken a liking to her.
“Madoka,” Hitomi said without hesitation. “That’s Madoka. Except…her hair is…darker? So’s her skin. And eyes. It’s kind of creepy.” Her brow furrowed. “Her legs. When I saw her, her legs were tentacles.”
“Wires, actually,” Charlotte said. Maybe if she treated witch remnants as normal and mundane Hitomi would be less disturbed by them. “Or something like them.”
Hitomi silently stared down at Gretchen’s grinning face. “So she did turn into a witch,” she said at last.
Charlotte winced. “I’m afraid so. Um, could you please tell me her parents’ names?”
“Why?”
“Like we said, she’s lost her memories. So this is just in case she wants to know.”
“But I can tell her that in person!”
“In time. For now, this is just to fill in the holes, so to speak.”
The look Hitomi gave her wasn’t exactly friendly, but finally she sighed and said, “Fine. Her mother’s name is Junko Kaname, her father is Tomohisa Kaname, and she has a baby brother named Tatsuya.”
Charlotte, who had been writing all this down, paused for a moment at that last part. Baby brother? Oh, that was going to complicate things.
She finished her notes and took the picture of Gretchen away. Then she brought out a picture of Homulilly, taken from the same trip. She was standing with her cheeks full of trail mix, looking at the camera in surprise as Ophelia had snapped the candid photo. She was wearing a jacket, so it wasn’t immediately apparent that her arms and hands were bones unless you were looking right at her hands. “Now, how about this one?”
“That’s Homura,” Hitomi confirmed. “Except she didn’t have a flower on her head. And she used to have glasses, and her hair was different. And her arms…when I saw her here, they were dead. Just bones.”
“She’s a little sensitive about it,” Charlotte told her. “So if you do see her again, it would be best not to mention them.”
Hitomi stared at her in bewilderment. “How do they move? There’s nothing holding them together!”
“Magic,” Charlotte said with a shrug. “That’s all there really is to it.”
“Oh.”
“And you said she doesn’t have any family, right?”
“That’s right,” Hitomi said. “I, uh, did some digging after I met Kyubey but before I made my contract. She pretty much grew up in this Catholic school in America and only got sent back to Japan a little while back.”
“America?”
“Er, yes. You…know what that is, right?”
“I do, I was just wondering why she was there to begin with.”
“That…I couldn’t find out,” Hitomi sighed. “Something to do with her health, I think. She had something wrong with her heart, and had been in a lot of hospitals.”
Damn. Well, that wasn’t a lot to go on, but Charlotte couldn’t help but wonder if her heart issues and her lack of a family was somehow related. Some kind of accident, maybe? Anyway, It was time to start bringing out the big guns. “Okay, how about her?” Charlotte said, presenting the next photo.
This time Hitomi stared at the picture for several seconds before her eyes widened with recognition. “Yes! Yes, I do know her! That’s Mami Tomoe, the upperclassman they were hanging out with! Is she a witch too?”
The picture was one Charlotte had taken herself, of Candeloro relaxing in the back yard. It had been in the autumn, so her sweater hid her ribbon arms. “Yes. She goes by Candeloro now.”
“Candy-what?”
“Candeloro.” Charlotte tapped the photograph. “Now, is there anything else you know about her? Her family, maybe what kind of wish she originally made?”
Hitomi shook her head. “Not really. No family though. They died. In a car accident, a few years ago.”
Charlotte winced. Well, at least she hadn’t left family behind, but even so, that was rough. “Makes sense.” She pulled out a marker. “Mami Tomoe. How do you spell that?” Hitomi told her, and Charlotte wrote it on the back of the photo before putting it away.
Once that was done, Charlotte presented the next picture. “Okay. Now, how about this one?”
The picture was of Ophelia, in her usual eccentric get-up. Sure enough, Hitomi seemed outright confused by her look.
“No. No, I’ve never seen her before.”
That wasn’t a surprise. “Try this one.” She took out another picture, which was actually one of Ophelia’s old class photos back during their own FIB days, before she had adopted her signature style of dress and was just wearing a black tank top and a pair of jeans.
Hitomi shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember a bald girl.”
“She might have had hair originally,” Dr. Jazmine suggested.
Hitomi frowned down at the picture. “Um…wait! Those eyes.” She nodded. “Okay, I think that might actually be Kyoko Sakura. But she had long red hair. Like, very long, tied into a ponytail.” She glanced up at Charlotte. “Witch?”
“Yup. Her name is Ophelia.”
Hitomi didn’t seem like she knew what to make of that. “Ophelia. Really?”
“Witch names are weird. Do you know anything about her? Any family or anything?”
Hitomi shook her head. “No. I’m sorry, but I never found out much about her.”
Well, that was a shame, but maybe it was for the best. Charlotte wrote down Ophelia’s old name and put the picture away. She hesitated, and then brought out the last photo. “Okay. Now, how about her?”
Sure enough, Charlotte had barely set the photo down before Hitomi practically leapt out of her seat. “Sayaka! That’s Sayaka Miki! She’s here? She’s really here?”
Even though she had been expecting some kind of strong reaction, Charlotte was still a little startled. “Y-Yes,” she stammered, her head jerking back. “She is.”
All of the confusion, grief, and fear simply vanished from Hitomi’s face, to be replaced with pure joy and jubilation. “I knew it!” she cheered, practically leaping out of her chair. “Please, I need to talk to her. I need to tell her I’m sorry, I didn’t know what she was going through, and…” Then realization hit. She frozen in place, blinked, and whispered, “She’s a witch too, isn’t it?”
Charlotte winced. “Yeah. Yeah, she is.”
Hitomi sat down very suddenly. “Oh no.”
Charlotte breathed out. “The best we can figure, Sayaka, Kyoko, and Mami all turned into witches at the same time and…sort of merged.”
Hitomi choked. “They were the Walpurgisnacht? The one that attacked the city?”
“We don’t know,” Charlotte said with a shrug. “It could be, but I don’t think so. The timeline doesn’t match up. But we…” Oops. Charlotte quickly corrected her slip. “They were a Walpurgisnacht, yes. Well, are.”
Unfortunately, Hitomi caught it. “You said we. Why did you say we?”
Charlotte sighed. “Well, I was sort of part of that whole business too.”
Hitomi frowned in suspicion. “Who are you? I’ve never seen you before!”
“I figured,” Charlotte said with a shrug. “Best we can tell, I was probably added to the group at the last minute. Probably a new magical girl that was brought in at the last minute before a really hard fight, one that didn’t end well.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, it’s just a guess. That’s part of the reason I wanted to talk to you, to try to figure some things out.”
Hitomi looked down at her knees. “None of them remember anything, do they?”
“No. That’s how the witch thing works.” Dr. Jazmine immediately shot Charlotte a warning look. Whoops. That much blunt force was probably not a great idea, so she quickly added, “But they are very happy. They have a great life here, and-”
“How could they though?” Hitomi hissed. “With everything just gone, how can you be happy?”
A few seconds passed, and then Charlotte said, “Sometimes you just make the best of what you have.”
“And Madoka?” Hitomi demanded. “And Homura? How do they figure into all this?”
Charlotte sighed. “We met them later and became friends. See, we don’t have our memories, but there is a sort of déjà vu thing that happens when we meet someone we used to know. But they apparently became their own Walpurgisnacht later on.”
“They were the Walpurgisnacht?” Hitomi gaped. “The one that made the storm?”
“Probably not. It’s just the two of them. I’m thinking that they fought the big Walpurgisnacht and won, but it took everything they had, and then, well, you…can probably guess.”
Hitomi’s hands gripped the armrests of her chair so tightly that her knuckles turned white. Her entire body had started shaking. “This is so wrong. This is so very wrong. I wanted to find them so badly. I had so many things I wanted to say, so many things I wanted to apologize for, but now I can’t! They don’t even know me!”
Oh boy. Charlotte had expected things to break down in some way, but now that it was actually happening, she was realizing just how ill-equipped she was to deal with it.
Fortunately, Dr. Jazmine was on hand to pick up that slack. “Hitomi, it’s okay,” she said as she knelt down in front of the trembling girl. She took Hitomi’s hand in her own. “It’s not your fault. There was no way you could’ve known.”
“But…But I…”
“It’s not your fault,” Dr. Jazmine repeated. “If you must blame someone, blame Kyubey. Blame the rest of the Incubators. We are all their victims.”
“I…” Hitomi’s voice was swallowed up by a sob, and she practically fell out of her chair into Dr. Jazmine’s arms.
As for Charlotte, she wasn’t exactly sure what to do with herself. Just like it hadn’t been Hitomi’s fault that her friends had disappeared, it wasn’t really her fault that Hitomi was breaking down. But even so, she did feel like she ought to say something.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But they are happy, I promise! Gretchen and Homulilly are one of the happiest couples I know, and-”
And yet again, she would have been better off keeping her mouth shut. “Couples?” Hitomi exclaimed, practically leaping out of Dr. Jazmine’s arms to stare at Charlotte. “Excuse me? Madoka and Homura? They’re dating? Each other?”
Charlotte stared right back. “…yes?”
“But…” Hitomi shook her head as she tried to wrap her mind around this new piece of information. “They’re both girls!”
It was then that Charlotte came to realize just how far removed they were from the world of the living. Forget the magic, forget the aliens, forget the immortality, just this little bit of difference really made the divide clear. She had heard that prejudice against same-sex relationships existed over there, but since they were the norm where she lived she had never really been able to understand it. “So’s everyone else,” she said. “We don’t exactly have a whole of options, you know?”
Hitomi’s eyes practically bugged out of her face. “So do all the girls get with other girls here?”
“Not all,” Charlotte said. “But most.”
“Are you with a girl?”
Charlotte knew that she ought not be defensive, that Hitomi was brand new and had yet to get used to things, but she still felt a little insulted. “Well, as a matter of fact, I am. Candeloro, to be specific.”
“And Sayaka. Is she with a girl?”
Charlotte quirked an eyebrow. “Why do I get the feeling that I shouldn’t answer that question?”
“It’s the one with the red hair, isn’t it?” Hitomi said. “I mean, who had red hair. Kyoko Sakura, the delinquent.”
“I’m not liking where this is-”
Hitomi had started to shake again, and this time it had nothing to do with grief or guilt. “She was…so absolutely smitten with Kyousuke. She stood by his side all the time he was injured, she traded away her soul for him! And when I got in the way, it killed her! But as soon as he’s out of the picture she just decides to go hook up with that…that…”
“Okay, stop,” Charlotte said, holding up a palm. “A few things. First? We’re talking about Oktavia here, not Sayaka. And Oktavia doesn’t even remember Kyousuke. Second, don’t call my friend a delinquent. She’s actually a hardworking engineer and an accomplished dancer. Third, we have no idea what caused Oktavia to become a witch. Fourth-”
“No.”
“Excuse me?”
Hitomi emphatically shook her head. “No! Not ‘Oktavia.’ Sayaka!”
Charlotte gritted her teeth. “Not anymore.”
“All right,” Dr. Jazmine said, hastily putting herself between them. “I think we’re done here.”
Charlotte honestly would have preferred to stay and debate the matter, but then her common sense got the better of her, so she just sighed and moved toward the exit. Hitomi, however, felt no such restrictions.
“Her name is Sayaka!” she shouted after Charlotte. “Sayaka Miki! And Sayaka is in love with Kyousuke! She sold her soul for him, it belongs to him, not anyone else!”
…
Homulilly lay stretched out in Ophelia’s recliner, the chair reclined out to its full length, with Cheese wandering up and down her torso. She stared up at the ceiling, unconsciously steering Cheese this way and that with pokes of her fingers.
Oktavia lay nearby across the couch and was reading a magazine while Gretchen paced back-and-forth in the kitchen, the patter of her legs sounding not unlike a gentle rain.
They had all been like that since the others had left to go talk to Hitomi. Since then, they had all tried to keep themselves busy so as not to obsess over what was going on at that exact moment and what might be being revealed. In this, they had all failed miserably.
Gretchen walked back into the living room, her hands wringing. “What do you think is going on now?”
Oktavia sighed and looked up. “Oh, who knows? It depends on how much she has to say.”
Homulilly gave them the briefest of glances before returning her attention to the ceiling. She started moving her hips, making the chair lightly bounce back and forth.
“Do you think it’s going to work? What if Hitomi doesn’t want to talk to Charlotte?” Gretchen said.
“She will,” Oktavia reassured her. “If anyone can get to the heart of things, it’s Charlotte.”
“Unless she says the wrong thing at the wrong time and Hitomi attacks her,” Homulilly said, not taking her eyes away from where they were fixed.
“She won’t! Stop being so pessimistic! Um, at least I don’t think she will. Charlotte’s pretty smart and…” Oktavia’s voice trailed off.
A moment later there was the crinkle of paper as Oktavia tried to go back to her magazine. Gretchen sighed and returned to the kitchen to resume pacing.
…
Charlotte had expected to leave the FIB immediately after finishing up her talk with Hitomi, but given how it had ended they had insisted on giving her a full psychological inspection before they had let her go, just to make sure that Hitomi hadn’t accidentally knocked something loose. That had been annoying. Charlotte had come to do the analyzing, not be the nalyze.
Regardless, she was still a little shaken when she finally left the building. Candeloro and Ophelia were still waiting for her outside. When they saw her coming out, they rose and Candeloro immediately rushed over.
“Are you all right?” she said, laying a ribbon on Charlotte’s shoulder.
Charlotte breathed in. “Yeah, I’m fine. Don’t worry.”
“They said that things kind of broke down,” Ophelia said as she walked up to the pair.
“They did a little,” Charlotte admitted. “But it’s not my fault!”
“Sure it isn’t.”
“It’s not!”
“She didn’t attack you, did she?” Candeloro said, looking Charlotte from top to bottom.
“No, she just got upset and started yelling,” Charlotte said. “Turns out she’s not exactly super-comfortable with the whole girls loving girls thing.”
Ophelia raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. Apparently it’s still a…controversial subject back in the world of the living.”
“Weird,” Ophelia shook her head. “That’s just weird.”
“Tell me about it.” Then Charlotte brightened. “But hey, it wasn’t a wash, as I learned tons more!”
“Well, there’s that,” Ophelia said. “Though, just to be safe, you’d better save it until we get everyone together. I have a feeling that we’re going to need all the group support we can get.”
…
“So, it looks like we were right.”
Everyone was gathered at the dinner table. Homulilly and Gretchen were sitting next to each other, hands grasped tightly under the table. Ophelia was on her feet and pacing back and forth, Cheese along for the ride on her shoulder. Oktavia was leaning forward, one elbow on the tabletop with that arm’s fingers drumming against her temple with opposite forearm laid across the table. And Candeloro stood behind Charlotte, with a supportive ribbon laid over her wife’s shoulder.
As for Charlotte herself, she seemed…grim. Homulilly still hadn’t heard any details about her meeting with Hitomi, but by the look of things it had gone badly. That, or she had learned something very disturbing. And the funny thing was Homulilly couldn’t decide if she wanted to hear everything Charlotte had to say or none of it.
“You all were some kind of magical girl super-team,” Charlotte continued. “Either I was a really late addition or, as is probably the case, the actual witch you all were fighting when everything went to hell. I’m still not sure what knocked over that domino line, but something probably caused a mass witching-out while you were in my labyrinth, and then badda-bing, badda-boom, Walpurgisnacht.”
Nobody said anything to that, though Ophelia did pause her pacing and quirked an eyebrow in Charlotte’s direction.
For her part, Charlotte took a deep breath and said, “Hitomi wasn’t though. She only made a contract after our deaths, specifically to look for some missing friends of hers.”
“Us, right?” Gretchen asked.
“Exactly. According to Hitomi, she was close friends with you,” she pointed first to Gretchen, “and you,” her finger moved over to Oktavia. “And apparently you two had been BFF’s since you were little.”
Oktavia blinked. “Wait, me? Really?”
“Well, it does make sense,” Gretchen said in a low voice. “I mean, we did figure that we were probably, um, closer than the others.”
Homulilly’s lips thinned out.
“Huh,” Oktavia said with a frown. “Well, okay…” She looked over to Gretchen and managed a crooked smile. “So, together forever after all, huh?”
Gretchen smiled in return, but it didn’t last long, though probably more due to the heaviness of the situation than any opinion about remaining close with the easygoing mermaid for the rest of eternity.
“Yeah, anyway,” Charlotte said. She looked up to Candeloro. “It seems you were team leader or something, no surprises there. Hitomi said that you were an upperclassman that everyone else just started following around one day.”
There was a pause, and then Candeloro gave a slight nod.
“You were a transfer student,” Charlotte said, motioning over to Homulilly.
“A t-transfer student?” Homulilly stammered.
“Yeah. Apparently you were already a magical girl or whatever when you showed up, and sort of, uh, made friends with Gretchen pretty quickly. Anyway, one day you weren’t there, the next you were, and were part of that group ever since.”
“Oh. Well, that makes sense, I guess.”
“Dare I ask what my deal was?” Ophelia said.
“Sure. Apparently you were a stray delinquent that they just picked up from God knows where.”
Ophelia let out a bark of surprised laughter. “Wait, seriously?”
“Yup. Hitomi says that you didn’t even go to their school, but you’d sneak in to have lunch with the others and was always with them when she’d see all of you after school and on the weekends. And you seemed, and I quote, ragged and kind of dirty.”
“Well, I’ll be damned!” For some reason this news seemed to cheer Ophelia to no end. “True rebel from day one!”
“So what happened to us all?” Oktavia said. “Did Ophelia, Candeloro, and I just up and vanish one day?”
“Apparently,” Charlotte said. “And this actually has the most to do with you.”
“What? Me? Really?”
“Oh, damn it, Tavi,” Ophelia sighed. “What’d you do this time?”
“Yeah, and brace yourself,” Charlotte said. “This one’s…kind of…” She frowned. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s something though.”
She explained to the group all about a boy named Kyousuke and his unfortunate accident. This was followed by his sudden miracle healing and the clash between Hitomi and Oktavia’s past self for his affections, and how that all went.
“Seriously?” Oktavia said, her eyes practically bugging right out of her face. “I gave up my soul for some dumb boy?”
“Well, that is a very kind thing to do,” Candeloro said. “Very selfless.”
“Yeah. I mean, it kind of makes you a hero if you think about it,” Gretchen added.
“And it does explain why you’re so good with music,” Candeloro added. “We always figured that it must have something to do with your wish.”
“Screw that! That’s got to be the lamest thing I’ve ever heard! All that, and I didn’t even have the spine to make a move!” Oktavia threw up her hands in exasperation and slumped back into her seat.
“Well, if it makes you feel better, it all worked out in the end,” Ophelia said as she reached over to tousle Oktavia’s hair. “And you definitely traded up.”
“Yeah,” Oktavia sighed. “Yeah, I did. I just wish the journey wasn’t so…dumb.” She tilted her head to one side. “So, is that what set me off?”
“Um, maybe?” Charlotte shrugged. “Hitomi wasn’t there, so there’s no way to know for certain. She just said that one day, everyone but Gretchen and Homulilly up and disappeared, and that you two seemed to know why but refused to say.”
“That’s awful,” Gretchen said in a small voice.
“These stories very often are,” Charlotte muttered. “Anyway, not much to tell after that. Apparently a huge storm hit out of nowhere and everyone in the city needed to be evacuated, but your, uh, past selves never showed up to the shelter and were never heard from again.”
“A storm?” Candeloro rubbed her chin. “Why do I get the feeling that that storm was no storm at all?”
“Because it wasn’t,” Charlotte said. “Apparently Hitomi was contacted by an Incubator not long after who told her that it was some kind of giant Walpurgisnacht and that you all were Puella Magi, all the while conveniently leaving out the part about you turning into witches yourselves. She said that he gave her the impression that you were all still alive somewhere, so she wished to be able to find you guys. Er, Gretchen and Oktavia specifically.” She shrugged. “And she got knocked off in her first fight with a witch, so I guess it came true. From a demented point of view.”
“Wow,” Gretchen said.
“Wow’s right,” said Ophelia, finally pulling out a chair to sit down as well. “That kid’s had it rough.”
“So, wait,” Oktavia said. “A big Walpurgisnacht was threatening the city? You guys don’t think that it might have been, um, us?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Charlotte said. “I thought about it on the way home, and the timelines just don’t make sense if it was. Homulilly and Gretchen disappeared right after the storm cleared up, so they must have turned into witches right after. And we had already been here for years when they showed up.”
“That just means that they got taken down at least a few weeks after,” Ophelia pointed out. “If they were the last Puella Magi in town when it happened, then they could have been wandering around as witches for a while until new ones showed up.”
“Huh.” Charlotte blinked. “That’s, uh, that’s a good point. And…a very disturbing one.”
Homulilly breathed out. That was a possibility that she really rather not think about. And judging by the nauseated looked on Gretchen’s face, she felt much the same way.
“Okay, but wait,” Oktavia said. “What happened to the boyfriend?”
“Why, you hoping he’ll turn up as well?” said Ophelia. Oktavia crumpled up a napkin and threw it at her.
“No clue,” admitted Charlotte. “He kind of dropped out of the story around the storm, so I guess things got weird between them. And now their relationship is definitely not going anywhere.”
“I can’t help but feel for him as well,” Candeloro said. “I mean, to lose both his close friend and his girlfriend in such a short period of time without ever knowing why. That can’t be easy.”
“Well, sure,” said Ophelia. “Until you remember that he’s still supposedly a musical prodigy who got his goods back and will probably end up rich and famous.”
“That doesn’t change anything. If anything, it almost makes it worse. Survivor’s guilt and all that. I mean, can you imagine, just when it looks like the universe has aligned to give you everything you ever wanted, everyone around you is just…gone? And you’re stuck alone, wondering why you deserved to have your wish granted and no one else did?”
Oktavia slowly exhaled.
After a long enough silence had passed, Homulilly said, “Did you learn anything else?”
Charlotte cleared her throat. “I did, actually. To be specific, I learned names.”
“Like, our names?” Ophelia said. “I mean, I figure that you got Tavi’s old name, but the rest of us?”
Charlotte shrugged. “Apparently Hitomi was introduced to you all at one point. Anyway, I showed her your pictures, and she was able to identify them.”
“Oh.”
Oktavia squirmed uncomfortably in her chair. “So, should we hear them? I mean, I know it’s not good for us, but I can’t help but be a little curious…”
“Same. Only problem is we have no way of knowing how it’ll affect us.” Ophelia turned to Homulilly and Gretchen. “I mean, you two only heard them like once or twice, but you said it’s got your heads tied up in knots, right?”
Homulilly sighed. “Yes. It’s…not been fun.”
“What’s the rule on that anyway?” Oktavia asked. “I mean, I’ve heard of witches showing up with people that they knew and hearing their old names like a couple dozen times before someone put a stop to it, and nothing bad really happened.”
“There’s no hard and fast rule on it,” Charlotte said with a shrug. “But apparently, the longer it’s been since your death, the harder it is. I guess if your new identity has had time to settle, then it’s more likely that your old one can really screw you up.”
“Oh,” Ophelia said. “Then yeah, better keep that to yourself.”
“At least for now,” Candeloro added.
“Cool. All right, I guess I’m the secret keeper now,” Charlotte said with a sigh. “Possessor of forbidden knowledge.”
She probably meant it as a joke, but nobody laughed. In fact, nobody really had anything to say at all. They all fell silent, each either looking downward or staring off into the distance.
But despite the melancholy mood, Homulilly had to admit that she did feel a little better than she had earlier. True, Hitomi’s supposed past friendship with Gretchen…complicated things, but at least she now had confirmation that it wasn’t romantic in any way. Heck, if anything, she and Gretchen had been something, given that they had been the only two left for some time. True, it had probably been a very depressing time, but still.
Then Ophelia broke the silence with another question. “So…” she said, drawling out the vowel. “What about our families? Did you learn anything about them?”
Charlotte blinked. “Oh yeah. Kind of. So apparently, Gretchen and Oktavia both had families. Er, I mean, you probably still have, to be honest.”
“Really?” Gretchen said, perking up.
“Well, yeah. I mean, you both were friends with our new weirdo, so it makes that she would know them.” Charlotte pulled out some notes. “Okay, you want to hear this?”
Gretchen stared at her. Then she gave the briefest of nods.
Charlotte opened her mouth, but then Gretchen quickly said, “But no names. I…think it’s probably safer that way.”
“Fair enough. Okay, you have a mom and a dad and…” Charlotte breathed out. “Brace yourself, Gretchen. You’ve got a baby brother.”
Gretchen breathed in through her nose and slowly exhaled. “I knew it,” she whispered. “I just knew it.”
Homulilly squeezed her hand.
Oktavia shot Gretchen a worried look. She cleared her throat and said, “Er, what about me?”
Charlotte winced. “Sorry Oktavia, but she had her fit right after I found out your name and that your family is still around, but before she could actually tell me their names, so I couldn’t find out anything about them.”
“Oh.”
The mermaid’s expression was…odd. She didn’t look sad, or angry, or shocked, or even unhappy. She just sat back and stared.
Ophelia laid a hand on her shoulder. “You gonna be okay?”
“Sure,” Oktavia said. “Just…I always figured that they were out there somewhere, but to actually learn that they exist…” She sighed. “It’s a bit to process.”
“Tell me about it,” said Gretchen.
“I just wish…um, that…”
“That I had gotten their names?” Charlotte said.
Oktavia winced. “Sorry, Char. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s not your fault.”
“Well, it’s not like Hitomi’s going anywhere,” Ophelia said. “Maybe you can find out about them sometime later.”
“Sure. And maybe risk going nuts as a result.” Oktavia sighed. “Jesus, what a mess.”
No one disagreed with her on that. Ophelia looked up at Charlotte. “What about the rest of us?” she pressed.
Charlotte grimaced. “Well, that’s not so pleasant. Apparently you three were all orphans, at least as far as she could tell.”
“Oh. Well, that sucks.”
“Yeah, um.” Charlotte consulted her notes. “Okay. Candy, your parents apparently died in a car crash.”
Candeloro took a deep breath. “I see,” she said. “I guess that explains my…situation. You know, when I first woke up here.”
“Oh shit,” Charlotte said, her eyes widening. “I didn’t even think of that. Yeah, I guess it does.” She shook her head. “Anyway, um, Ophelia, I didn’t get much about you, I’m afraid, but-”
“Suicide,” Ophelia said flatly.
“Huh? You sure?”
“Yeah, you remember all those nooses from my little nightmare cathedral and that stained glass window?”
Charlotte was silent for a time. Then she said, “Right. Yeah, that, uh, makes sense.”
“But why everyone but her?” Oktavia said. “I mean, that window showed her mom, dad, and I guess her little sister? What happened?”
“Who the hell knows?” Ophelia said, all good humor gone from her voice. “Maybe I did, and that was when I learned that you gotta smash the soul gem to kill a Puella Magi.”
Just the thought of that made Homulilly wince. The more she learned about their past lives, the more she was glad she didn’t have to actually remember any of it.
Then, as if just having the thought subconsciously directed the conversation to her, Charlotte said, “Okay, Homulilly. Hitomi didn’t have much about you, except that your parents had been gone since you were little, and you had already been alone for quite a bit before you transferred to their school. She said you had been in and out of hospitals due to heart problems, and had gone to some kind of Catholic school in America before that.”
“What’s America?” Homulilly asked.
“What’s Catholic?” Gretchen added.
Charlotte’s brow went up and down. “Uh, America’s a country, Catholic’s a religion, and that really wasn’t what I was expecting your reaction to be.”
“Sorry,” Homulilly said. “It’s just…what am I supposed to say? A few years ago I said goodbye to my past self. I didn’t know her name or what she was like or anything about her, so I figured that was it. Now I know her name and what kind of school she went to. I know her medical history. She was an orphan, or maybe abandoned, or something like that. It’s like she died three times: when she became a witch, when that witch got killed, and when I let her go. Now she’s back, and I don’t know what to think.”
Ophelia breathed out. “Yeah, maybe this whole fact-finding thing was a bad idea.”
Sighing, Candeloro pulled a free chair out from the table and sat down. “Guys, look. I know all of this is really scary, but understand that no matter what we might learn about our past lives, we shouldn’t let that change anything about who we are now. We know a few new details now, but none of them really changes anything. We already knew we were friends before, and the sequence of events more-or-less matches what we already had figured out. This just fills in some of the gaps, that’s it.”
“Is it?” Gretchen said hollowly.
Candeloro tilted her head. “What do you mean?”
Gretchen shook her head. “I mean, I already guessed that I had a Mama and Papa, but now I know for sure! And if I ever want to know their names, I just have to ask Charlotte. Except that’s dangerous, so I probably shouldn’t! And…I have a baby brother! I don’t know him, but I know about him now. He’s going to grow up knowing about me, but never knowing what happened to me. What am I supposed to do with that?”
That last sentence ended in a small sob. She covered her face and started crying softly. Swallowing back a lump of her own, Homulilly turned her chair toward her and drew her in, letting Gretchen bury her face in her shoulder and holding her as she cried.
After a while Oktavia shook her head and said. “Y’know, I’m starting to agree with Fee-Fee. This was probably a bad idea.”
Charlotte shrugged. “Well, what’s done is done. Now we just need to figure out what to do going forward.”
Gretchen drew back from Homulilly. She picked up a napkin to dab at her eyes and blow her nose. “What about Hitomi?” she said. “What are we going to do for her?”
“For her?”
“Well, we have to do something! You said she was all screwed up. I mean, if just this little bit upsets us this much, imagine what she’s going through knowing everything!”
“Nothing,” Ophelia said. “We’re doing nothing.”
Gretchen shot her a pained look. “How can you say that? Don’t you understand how upset she is? How scared?”
“I do,” Ophelia said. “And that’s why we’re doing nothing. Look, she remembers you, and she remembers Tavi. You guys were her best friends, and then she lost you and didn’t know why. Then she learned about something she should have never known about, and it destroyed her. Now she’s here, having to come to terms with being dead, with never seeing her family and friends again, with knowing that aliens and magic are a thing, and everything. That’s gonna really fuck someone up. Now suddenly you two are back in her life, except you’re not you. You look like you, you sound like you, but you’re both half monster and don’t remember her at all. Hell, she can’t even call you by the names she knows you by. Nothing good can come from trying to reinsert yourselves into her life. The best thing to do now would be to stay as far away from her as you can and let the FIB do their thing. And then…” She shrugged. “Maybe in a few years, after she’s been all therapied and more stable, then maybe you can work something out. But not now. That’s not going to help anyone.”
“That’s kind of awful,” Oktavia said.
“What is? What I just said or that you all know I’m right?”
“Both.”
Ophelia breathed out. “Yeah, well, can’t disagree there.” Then she frowned. “Though hey, something just kind of occurred to me. Hey, Charlotte?”
Charlotte blinked. “Huh?”
“Look, I kinda just realized that we’re all here going on and on about our past lives and shit when you still don’t know anything about yours. I know you said that you don’t care, but I know you better than that. So let me just say this: I don’t care either. I don’t care if you weren’t part of the original group, I don’t care if you weren’t our friend back then, and hell, I don’t care if you were already a witch and we all were trying to kill you when everything went down. None of that matters. You’re just as much a part of this family as any one of us.”
“Definitely,” Candeloro said.
“Yeah. Super agreed,” Oktavia added.
“Same for me,” Gretchen said. Homulilly nodded slowly in agreement.
Charlotte went pink in the face. Her mouth opened, and then closed. She seemed completely taken by surprise.
“Wow,” she said at last. “Er, I…Huh. Th-That actually means a lot more to me than I thought it would. Thank you.”
“Well, okay,” Oktavia said after a bit. “Even if we don’t put ourselves back into Hitomi’s life, we still should at least keep tabs on her. See how she’s doing and all that.”
“That’s fair,” Candeloro said. “I’ll call the FIB and see what I can get arranged.” Then she looked around and addressed everyone. “In the meantime though, we do have a lot to think about and digest. And remember that we all took the classes and know how…dangerous this sort of thing is. So can we make an effort to keep in communication with one another through this? We’re all in this together after all.”
“Sounds good,” Ophelia said.
“Yes. Definitely yes,” said Gretchen.
“Good. All right, we do this together.” Candeloro bunched up the end of her right ribbon in a close approximation of a fist. “Stay strong, guys. We can work through this.”
…
So editing this one was kinda haphazard due to its length, amount of information being discussed, and me being brain fried, so if I missed anything, give me a head’s up.
Until next time, everyone.
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