Chapter 337: 338: No foreshadowing

Fresh stands in front of the cauldron, peering down into its bubbling surface as she watches her reflection float around inside of it, always staring up to face her.

“What do I do?” she asks it, her voice echoing around the otherwise empty basement.

The girl in the water shrugs. “Heck if I know!” she says. Fresh sighs. The reflection meanwhile, shakes her head. “Just do what you think is best.”

“But I’m dumb,” argues Fresh, looking at her reflection that has started floating upside down on her back, facing the entirely wrong way in relation to where the real Fresh is. “I don’t even know if you’re real.”

“I’m as real as you are,” replies the reflection.

Fresh frowns. “Then how come you’re always hiding?”

The girl shrugs. “Wouldn’t want to make things weird for you,” she says. “I don’t want to butt into your life,” says the reflection. “Besides, it’d be really weird, you know?” it asks. “Jubilee would be all, ‘good morning’ and then you’d say ‘good morning’ and then I would too and we’d both look at each other awkwardly because we don’t know which one of us was being talked to.” The girl in the water shakes her head and rubs her arm. “It’s too weird.”

Fresh tilts her head. That’s a very specific anxiety. Is she really like this? “Aren’t you me?” she asks.

The reflection lifts a finger, swirling it around the bottom of the water, as if her finger were stroking along a sheet of glass. “Maybe. I dunno. Aren’t you me?” asks her reflection.

Fresh grumbles. “Please, just… what do you think I should do?” asks Fresh again. “I can’t ask the others because… I don’t know.”

“Because it’s weird?”

“Mm,” nods Fresh. She isn’t even sure why it’s weird. But it’s weird. She just… it’s just… It’s all just weird. She can’t ask Jubilee for a neutral opinion, because Jubilee is just as mad at the red-wizard as she herself is. Basil and Shamrock weren’t really there the entire time, they didn’t have the same ‘relationship’ with the red-wizard as Fresh and Jubilee had. And Fresh herself is the one who was essentially betrayed by the wizard.

Though, maybe ‘betrayed’ is the wrong word. It’s not like there was ever any pact of friendship or allegiance. They always had a business-natured relationship with another. But she herself got too close, she read too much into it all and then it hurt twice as much when the wizard was looking out for her own survival, rather than helping them.

Then again, she did steal from their store during a crisis.

In a sense, Fresh feels like she could find a way to forgive the wizard for leaving her behind, as odd as that sounds. But she can’t forgive her for stealing from them. But then again, in the west, she had forgiven the fairies for stealing some of their candy.

So it’s weird.

“It’s gonna be fine,” says her reflection.

“Huh?” Fresh blinks, looking at it.

The reflection shrugs. “It’s gonna be fine. It’s all been fine so far, so why wouldn’t it keep on being fine?”

Fresh thinks for a while. This feels like good advice to her. “Man, I’m really smart,” mutters Fresh.

“Right?” asks the reflection, drifting around in a circle.

“You shouldn’t talk to yourself,” says Basil, coming down the staircase. Fresh blinks, lifting her gaze to look at the priestess. Turning back down to the cauldron, she sees that her reflection has gone back to normal. “It makes you turn weird after a while.”

Fresh laughs quietly to herself. “Wait. So you don’t think that I’m weird, Basil?” asks Fresh.

The priestess shrugs, walking past her and sparing a hand for her shoulder as she makes her way to her table full of potions and bottles. “As weird as the rest of us,” says the priestess. “So that makes you normal. For our house.”

Fresh sighs. “That’s a relief.” She looks back to the cauldron. “So what do you think?”

“Me?” asks Basil, turning back to her bottles. “It’s not my decision to make,” says the priestess. “I don’t have anything that can help her with her predicament,” admits Basil, shaking her head. “It’s in the hands of the gods now.”

“Yeah…” says Fresh. “But, I mean, I do. Maybe,” she says, looking over to her damp-grimoire which is sitting against the wall.

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” notes the priestess. “After all of the other weird stuff you’ve conjured up.”

Fresh gasps. “So you do think I’m weird!”

Basil laughs. “Like I said. I guess in the context of someone from the outside, so, any normal person, that we’re all weird,” explains Basil. “But I’ve found that that’s the way I like the people around me to be.” The priestess tinkers around with some glass bottles. “It’s nice that I don’t have to pretend to be any different than I really am, you know?” asks Basil. “Mostly,” she adds on, looking down at the bottles and then over her shoulder.

“Mostly?” asks Fresh, tilting her head.

“Well…” Basil. “I… you know… It’s just that -”

“Hey!” barks Jubilee’s voice from the stairs. “Stop fucking around, you slackers! We’re opening!”

“Ah!” Fresh jolts upright. She had completely forgotten that the store is opening now. “Coming!” she calls up the stairs. She turns around to grab Basil, so that she can drag her along. But she just sees the door to the washroom closing and then being locked from the other side.

Fresh shrugs, assuming that Basil just needs to wash up after breakfast. So she goes upstairs by herself.

Fresh stands there with her hands on her hips, staring at the wall.

She’s upstairs, it’s her lunch break and she’s decided to work on the wall of their bedroom, rather than eating something.

She tilts her head, staring at it.

“Hmm…”

The house-spriggan, standing next to her, copies her movements and does the same.

“Pakew…”

She nods. “Right?”

“Pakew.”

Fresh sighs. It’s a giant dilemma. One that she hadn’t expected to ever be faced with.

Should she put a window on the inside wall of their bedroom?

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On one hand, it doesn’t make much sense, since it’s an inside wall and it would only look out into the living area.

But on the other hand… She could put some cute shutters on it and then they’ll roof-over the top of their bedroom. And because of all the empty ceiling space, they can put a little thing on top of it and then it’ll look like they have a tiny, witchy house, inside of their not so tiny, witchy house.

“Hmm…”

“Three!” says Fresh joyfully, moving her figure three spaces over the board. There’s a little, red game-piece that she knocks to the side as she moves hers to its spot.

“Fuck off!” barks Jubilee, looking at the dice and then back towards the board. “You fucking scammer.”

Fresh lets out a devious cackle, reaching over to Jubilee’s bowl of fruit snacks, pulling one out and making a very theatrical show out of eating it.

“Basil. Kill her,” orders Jubilee, tapping against the table.

Basil grabs the dice. “I wouldn’t go that far. But I’ll see what I can manage,” says the priestess, giving the dice a shake before throwing them down to the table. “Five.”

Fresh gasps. “No!”

“Yes,” says Jubilee, watching gleefully as Basil moves one of her figures over by five steps and knocks Fresh’s out of place. “Aaaah, get fucked!” they say, showing her the finger. Fresh frowns, watching her little purple stick man die.

She sighs, letting her head droop as she slides her bowl of tiny muffins over to let Basil steal one.

“Thank~ you~!” says Basil sharp and curtly, picking out one.

Each of them has a bowl of their favorite snacks. Fresh even went out of her way to buy some of Basil’s favorite orange fruits. Shamrock had requested that Fresh make him a bowl of the red-candy from the west. It was a real pain to get all of the materials here, but she managed somehow.

Every time they ‘damage’ one of the others with their pieces, they get to steal one of their snacks. Every time they make a full lap around without dying, they get to eat one of their own. The snacks represent health-points. It also adds a slight gambling thrill to the game.

Fresh had thought of it while she was working on her tarot-cards from a few days ago. She had made up a simple board-game in which each card is a field. They’re using little carved pieces of wood as their figurines.

It’s fun. Basil had always wanted to have a ‘game night’ and now, they’re finally getting their chance.

Shamrock grabs the dice.

“Pakew!”

“Get lost, runt,” says Jubilee, pushing the spriggan away. “You’re not a part of this.”

“Don’t always be so mean to the spriggans,” says Basil, patting the thing’s head.

Jubilee waves her off. “I’ll be as mean to the spriggans as I deem necessary.”

Shamrock rolls his dice, landing on an eight, falling exactly one field behind Basil, who lets out a sigh of relief. So far, the man has gotten far more of her fruit than she herself has.

He turns his head to look at her.

“Soon.”

“Shamrock, you’re kind of scary,” remarks Basil, very dryly.

The man’s chest heaves as he turns back to the table, looking at the little figurines moving across the board.

“Soon.”

Razmatazz

Speaking of things coming 'soon', expect some news from me eventually regarding the DIS audiobook! =)

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