The sun was high in the sky, burning just as brightly as it had the day before and, as many meteorologists were predicting, as brightly as it would burn for the next few weeks. It didn’t matter much to a young woman, no more than 19, who was sitting near the large, ornate fountain in the town square. Somewhere further up the road, a river would be flowing, lower than usual due to the lack of rain, and the water would be draining into the sewers. What many people didn’t know is that very sewer water which ran under all of the roads was the very water that fueled the fountain. How anyone would guess that the pure river water mixed with sewage could produce the glass-like water that filled the fountain was far beyond the young woman’s concern.

What she was concerned about, however, was why no one was taking the time to admire the water they could see. She sat on the ledge, her long, black hair falling down her back, and stared at the water. She could see her reflection; her sun-tanned skin, her dark green eyes, her slightly pointed nose… even the few scattered moles that were along her jaw line and on the sides of her neck. A little bit of her wanted to hit the water, like she would have when she was younger and not so confident of her looks, but she resisted. Her hands curled into fists, her long fingernails cutting slightly into the palms of her hands.

She winced slightly and relaxed her hands. Slowly she looked up; tracing the delicate carvings of the stone from one side to the other, imagined what was on the other side, then back to where it started. On the lower ones, she ran a gentle finger along with them as far as she could reach before coming back to where it picked up on the other side. She caught herself off-guard as she had started to hum a little. She shook her head, bringing her back to her senses.

It was just in time, too. A pair of pigeons had landed a few feet away from her. One of them looked like it was hesitantly testing the waters, wondering if it should go for a swim or not. The other, most likely a female, looked awfully tempted to open a wing carelessly and knock her companion into the water herself. The young woman chuckled a little. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a little boy come close.

‘Good,’ she thought. ‘Maybe the little brat’ll knock them both in… Annoying things. They’re like rats… but with wings. Whoever thought they belonged all over the world was wrong. Oh, wait… they can fly. They decided that themselves…’

The little boy came a little too close, keeping the young woman from letting a string of inappropriate words fly from her mouth. She may not think the best of little kids, but she didn’t want the parents to hunt her down later on, calling her a horrible influence and the reason the child got suspended from school for swearing. It just wasn’t a responsibility she was willing to take. Leave the corruption of minors to the professionals… like athletes and movie stars. Everything they say is important, after all, so why not repeat it and sound just as special?

Just as predicted, the little boy, who really couldn’t be more than four or five, ran to the very edge of the fountain, the little edge hitting him in the stomach. The birds freaked out, flapping their wings wildly and sending feathers flying everywhere. They flew away, leaving a very confused child behind. The child, seeing the young woman and noticing she was big, therefore old, waddled over to her. Her lip curled a little and she tensed up. Really, one of the few things she disliked more than pigeons were little kids and jerk guys.

She tried to work on her patience and allowed the child to tap her on the leg. She even looked down and didn’t snap or yell as the child asked her questions like why do birdies fly and why is the water wet. By the time the child asked her when the ice cream truck would come, after what seemed like a million other questions with no relevance to each other, she had had enough.

“Little boy,” she started, her eyes narrowing. “Do you know what a witch is?”
The little boy cocked his head and blinked up at her. After a moment of intense thought, he brought his head back to a normal position and shook it. “Nu-uh. Uhm… wat’s a witch?”

She gasped, eyes going wide. She acted up the surprise, and the boy took it for real. Then again, it couldn’t be that hard to fool a four-year-old. She thought for a moment, lips slightly parted and finger tapping lightly against them. Then she looked back to him and smiled. “Well, how about you have a seat here and I’ll tell you all about them.”

“But… my mommy told me not to tawk to stwangers… And I don’t know you, so you’re a stwanger…” he replied, hesitantly, though he took a seat on the wall next to her despite this.

“Well, what if I tell you my name? I can do that. Then you’ll know who I am, right? You can tell your mommy who you were with if she asks, okay?”

“Well…” he hesitated again, thinking. His mom had, in fact, told him to never, ever talk to people he didn’t know, but, he thought, if he knew a name, then he’d know her! He knew the names of his friends and they weren’t strangers. “Otay!”

The woman smiled. Good, this was all working out just the way she wanted it to. “My name is Serena Rae Mirashi, but you can call me Serena, okay?”

The little boy nodded, understanding. “Otay! My name is Damien!”

Serena smiled warmly at him. “Okay, so Damien.. you want to know what a witch is, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“A witch is one of two things. Either she’s a really, really ugly old woman with warts and scars all over her body. She can cast magic on you and turn you into a toad or something else really nasty.”

“Like a mushroom? Or… or… one of those roly-poly-ball buggies?”

“Yes, exactly. You don’t ever want to meet one of those kinds of witches. They do other really mean things, too…”

Damien leaned forward, intrigued. He really wanted to know. “Like what? Like what, like what?”

Serena cringed, wondering who told little kids that it was cute, funny, or anything other than annoying when they repeated the same thing over and over in that annoying little kid voice they all seem to have; the one that makes them talk really fast, not very clearly, and with worse pronunciation than they have normally. She sighed and looked at him, trying to keep sweet and calm. She didn’t want him thinking she was a witch, after all.

“Well… they steal your chocolate milk when you’re not looking. They kick birds and squirrels…” Serena paused, standing up. “They can disguise themselves… and they push little boys into fountains!”

As she said that last bit, she pushed Damien over, causing him to cry out and fall backward into the water. The water wasn’t more than a couple inches and there were only a few scattered pennies tossed into the bottom layer, but he still screamed and cried and caused a general commotion.

Serena just turned away and walked off toward the other, smaller, fountain on the western side of the town. As soon as she was far enough out of sight and had assured that the mother of the child was tending to him, she started laughing.