He looked front and back, searching for the person when someone from the branch jumped down on the ground. It was a small girl who had her hair tied in two braids. She looked no more than eight by age, her features would have considered being innocent if it weren't for the expressions her face was able to hold.
"h.e.l.lo, Inot. You are late," said the small girl with a wide smile on her face.
"Judith," Inot addressed the girl, "Where is Mistress?" asked the servant.
"She's busy. Do you think she has time for measly likes of you?" said the little girl, hopping around the trees and then coming to the stop, "What news do you have?" she asked him.
"The experiment that was done two days ago failed. We need a more powerful being."
The girl didn't stop moving and she said, "Use a switcher. They are from a different land. You can use and reuse them as much as you want," stopping her feet from walking further, she said, "There are some who reside in Bakel's town. Throw some holy water and you will find them," she said in an innocent voice that didn't match her intentions.
The little girl was there when her Mistress Witch had run the ritual and had almost opened the gates through which the switchers or the shapes.h.i.+fter-like creatures had come out to this world.
"What if they hunt me down?" asked Inot, his back was bent and he looked at her through his thin eyes that drew long to the sides.
Judith smiled at him and then her eyes turned to slits like a snake to indicate the girl was not a human but a black witch herself, "Be smart and don't make mistakes. You don't want to disappoint our mistress now, do you?" looking at the man, she then said, "Get it done quickly and if needed discard this man. We don't care about him but the book he spoke about, which better exist. I will come back later."
The little girl turned around to leave, walking away from Inot who turned to go back to the mansion without letting the vampire know what he was up to. Judith walked in the quiet forest where no one ever came. Not in the night, not in the morning.
The girl's eyes from green slits turned brown human-like, she walked looking ahead without blinking her eyes. Judith was much older than she appeared to look right now. On her way when a feral animal came to attack and feed on her, she pulled out the knives that were hidden in her dress and she slashed its throat, wounding it back as the animal tried to claw her.
Blood splashed on her face, and she used the black of her sleeve to wipe her face.
The smile on her lips was long gone and her eyes looked dully at the animal. Getting up and pus.h.i.+ng it away she put back her knives before looking at her hand that was covered in blood, same as the night she had left her village, a village she had tried to be part of. Judith looked up at the starless looking sky that was above her.
Judith never started her journey with her mistress on a whim. She was a young girl who was abandoned from a very young age as she was an orphan with no family of her own. She had been cared for by an elderly woman with grey hairs who often wore a bun behind her head.
"What are you doing standing behind the wall?" the woman would often catch her peeking at other people or children who didn't allow her to play with them. She didn't know why but she had tried to get along but the children would often abandon her. For instance, playing hide and seek if she were to hide there were days where she hid for hours until she came back to notice it was night and all the children had gone to sleep.
"Aunt, why am I always left behind?" Judith had asked the elderly woman who smiled at her.
"Children's can be strange, dear. They take time," came the response but it wasn't just the children and then came a night when Judith was dressed like a bride who was going to be offered as a sacrifice to the Mountain G.o.ds.
Judith was a white witch and the villagers knew it. They had spared her all those years for the sole reason to sacrifice her instead of sacrificing their own blood and kin. A month ago, people from the village had started to fall sick.
Even the woman who had been looking after her had betrayed her by not speaking a word of protest to what the villagers were about to do. Instead, the woman had given her a cold shoulder as if she no more existed and she had been looking after her for this day to come so that she would be sacrificed.
"The G.o.ds will be happy! They will praise us!" shouted the humans.
"Tonight there shall be peace!"
"Bring the fire!" screamed the men and Judith saw the fire that was waiting for her in an effort to have her as a peace offering to the Mountain G.o.ds who would spare the humans from plague and other diseases.
Judith didn't know what happened but when she was put on fire, she had screamed in pain. The fire that had tried to burn her had ended up burning the houses. Fire everywhere with smoke that went up the sky. Instead of her, it was the people who had tried to kill her who had been sacrificed.
"You did well," came a voice behind her and she turned to look at a girl older than her with blue eyes, smiling down at her.
