Mira
Chapter four
The Witch's Hut
“Taika,” I say, my voice smooth. “Nice to see you.”
She turns slowly, her long, dark brown locs swaying, strung with bones, beads, moss, and gods know what else.
Her smile is wicked, eerie. It never reaches her eyes, eyes the color of dirt after rain, rimmed in shadows as deep as the trench.
Her lips are slicked in something thick and black, tar-like and wet.
“Captain Bleu’s daughter,” she says, her voice soft and slithering, curling through the air like smoke. “I wondered when you’d come. So many questions, I imagine. Questions I could answer…”
I glance around the hut, my eyes adjusting to the dim, flickering light.
Cages line the walls, some made of bone, others of rusted iron, housing creatures in varying stages of decay.
One twitches violently, skin hanging in strips, its eyes gone but somehow still watching.
Another is nothing but a ribcage and claws, rattling softly as though whispering secrets to the dark.
A third lies motionless, lifeless eyes staring up, yet its limbs jerk like a puppet.
My eyes flick to Smith, leaning in the doorway.
Waiting for any move she might make to hurt me.
My stomach churns, bile rising in my throat. But I don’t flinch. I meet her gaze and speak calmly. “Aye. I believe you’re the one who can help me.” I let the words land, solid and unafraid. “But what do you want in return?”
She glides across the room, her steps near soundless. With a graceful flick of her fingers, she plucks a vial from the chaos of her shelf. Inside, the liquid glows faintly, like starlight trapped in glass. It shifts, shimmers, catching the low lantern light and throwing ghostly shapes on the walls.
“Mermaid tears,” she says, holding it between two fingers, her smile never quite touching her eyes.
“They heal even the most grievous wounds. Might just save a life.” I narrow my eyes, studying her face, trying to unravel the game beneath her words.
There’s something she’s not saying. Something more.
Her voice softens suddenly, almost maternal, but it’s the kind of softness that makes my skin crawl at the same time. “My dear girl,” she says, tilting her head just slightly, “I don’t need you to help me. I simply want a wish. One little wish, made in my name.”
Shock pulses through me like a lightning strike.
A wish? She wants me to make a wish for her?
I try to hide the way my chest tightens.
Taika is the most powerful witch in all the seas.
If she wants something, can’t she just take it?
Bend the tides, speak to the dead, twist the world to her will?
Unless there’s something stronger than her.
Something even she can’t touch. Or that she's afraid of…
“How do you know what I’m after?” I ask carefully, each word measured. I keep my voice low, guarded. Her laugh coils around me, like a snake wrapping its prey tight.
“I know everything that happens in the sea,” she says. Her eyes flash. “What pirate isn’t chasing the cursed fountain by now?”
I lift my chin, letting the weight of her words settle without sinking me. I straighten my shoulders, spine tall, tone steady. “I see,” I say. “And what is it you want to wish for?”
“Girl,” Taika says, voice heavy as storm clouds, “I will not tell you my wish yet. It is dark and it must remain a secret. Spoken only to your ears.” I blink, the weight of her words pressing against my ribs. But she doesn’t wait for my reply.
Her gaze cuts to Smith, lingering. Then back to me, sharp, unreadable, almost hungry. “Do you wish for him to leave us?” I ask evenly, keeping my tone firm, calm. Reassuring. “He’s harmless. Let him be.” Taika moves slowly toward Smith.
“Hurt him,” I warn, my fingers resting against the hilt of my cutlass, “and I’ll kill you where you stand.” She pauses mid-step. Her eyes narrow, her expression shifts, mocking, cruel.
“You wish to protect those with bad blood running through their veins?” she whispers, the words thick with meaning. A chill runs down my spine. My instincts bristle. She said it low enough only my ears could hear it. A secret.
“What are you talking about?” I press, but she only shrugs, like I’m not worth the effort of an answer.
Like the future has already unfolded behind her eyes.
She turns without another word, vanishing into the shadows of her hut.
Smith stays rooted to the doorway. Watching.
And though nothing moves, the air feels colder now.
Taika’s figure is swallowed by the flickering gloom, but her voice lingers, low, echoing, as if the very walls breathe with her magic. “I want to help you,” she says. “You are the only one meant to find the fountain. I have foreseen it. You are the key.”
As she speaks, the lantern hanging above flickers unnaturally, once, twice, and then steadies, casting long, twitching shadows across the floor. Bones in a nearby cage rattle softly, as if stirred by her words. She reappears, gliding back into the dim light. Her smile is gone.
“I do not know how,” she continues, “but something about you is different. Special.” Her gaze sharpens with concern as she slowly shakes her head.
“If I can see it, others will too. You will be hunted. A heavy bounty will be placed on your head.” A gust of cold air rushes through the hut despite no open window.
The flames dance violently, casting shadows on the walls.
There’s something in Taika’s voice, something that clings. Maybe she needs me alive for that wish she refuses to speak aloud. I square my shoulders and meet her gaze. “You don’t know how I’m the key,” I say, each word measured, “but you’re certain I am?”
She hands me the vial, her beady brown eyes locking onto mine with unsettling force. “I foresee things, child,” she murmurs, her voice dry and brittle. Her fair skin is caked in layers of grime, and the bitter sting of potions clings to her like perfume gone foul.
“Things you do not wish to see. Things that weigh.” She pauses, the air around us pulsing faintly, as if the hut itself is listening.
“I see you finding the fountain. Fighting for your life in glowing water. I see you falling. I see you wishing. I see your heart breaking…” Her voice dips.
“… and I see your soul being saved. I see you saving another soul.”
She tilts her head, as if catching a whisper carried by something I can’t hear.
When her gaze returns to mine, there’s a shadow in it—something that wasn’t there before.
My thoughts scatter, no matter how hard I try to focus.
Questions claw at me. Whose soul am I meant to save?
Why would I not want to see what my future holds?
That one thought alone chills me to the bone.
The riddle she’s speaking of, the one she refuses to explain, feels like the deadliest truth of all.
“I see your father, smiling at you. I see you running to him. And I see your mother… but that vision is unclear. Clouded. As if she does not wish to be seen.” A chill bleeds into my spine.
Her words wrap around my thoughts, pulling them tight.
Does she see my father alive? Or is this the afterlife?
The images twist in my gut, gnawing at my calm.
Taika tilts her head, watching me like a predator reading the last twitch of its prey.
“You’re confused. Good.” A thin smile curls her lips.
“Confusion makes you think. You’ll need that, for the road ahead is long.
And it will not be kind.” She steps back, the shadows folding around her.
“But I will help you.” She lowers her voice.
“Now tell me… What is it you came here for?”
I honestly didn’t know what I came here to take.
I came for information. A path. A sliver of direction in all this madness.
“Then I will give you a path,” Taika says, her gaze slicing through me like a blade of glass.
She sees everything. Every buried thought, every flicker of doubt. My heart sinks.
“Get out of my head,” I snap, voice low and sharp.
Taika only chuckles. She turns her back to me and begins rummaging through the chaos of her hut.
Vials clink. Bones rattle. She retrieves a tattered scrap of parchment and uncorks a twisted vial shaped like a mutilated skull.
Thick black tar drips from the mouth of it like poison.
With one long, grime-coated finger, she begins to swirl it across the page.
“Young one,” she croons, amusement dripping from every word, “I am a witch. I have been inside your mind since that enchanted ship of yours first touched my shore.” She pauses, glancing over her shoulder with a feral grin.
“Never tell a witch what to do.” Then her grin stretches wider, feral and strange.
“Unless, of course, you wish to be turned into an eel.”
She lets out a raspy, unhinged laugh and for a moment, I wonder if she’s truly mad. Maybe if I lived here, surrounded by rot and ruin, stirring the dead with every breath, I’d be mad too.
She presses the worn, rolled-up piece of parchment into my hands.
Her dirt-caked fingers brush against mine, and the chill of her touch shoots goosebumps up my arms. “Follow this map,” she murmurs.
“It will lead you to what you are yearning for. I am connected to it and through it, to you. I will be your eyes. You will follow what I say. You will trust me.”
Oddly enough, a part of me does trust her. Even as every other part of me screams not to. I nod slowly and unroll the map. It’s blank. I frown, scanning the page, searching for any trace of the black tar she swirled. But it’s gone, vanished, like it was never there at all.
“What is this? Why must you play these mind games with me?” I snap, frustration slipping through my guard.