Sightwitch (The Witchlands 0.5)

“What happens inside the mountain?” I would ask. Then she’d chime back, “What happens during the Summoning?” For hours we would make guess after guess, each more absurd than the last.

I tried to play alone. To pretend today was no different from any other. To imagine what Tanzi might be doing right now. Yet it was a battle to come up with any clever answers—something as silly as what she might conjure. I gave up after only one try.

“Maybe Sirmaya is not even real,” I mumbled, my arms full of fallen pinecones and branches. “Maybe we inhale too much bat droppings in the air, and it turns our eyes to silver.”

The words tasted of ash. Especially because part of me wished they could be true. No sleeping Goddess. Just bat droppings and a spirit swift’s random choice.

On my hike back to the Convent, I found the two newest Serving Sisters picking flowers off the path.

I yelled at them. It wasn’t nice of me, and shame burns in my chest as I write this.

“Rule 15!” I hollered as they dashed for the trail. “Never leave the marked path!”

They tried to apologize the entire trek home, but I wouldn’t listen and I wouldn’t stop frowning.

I bet they’re terrified of me now.

Why do I always do that?





Ryber Fortiza

Y18 D154 — 2 days since Tanzi was Summoned

DREAMS

No dreams. No sleep.

Tanzi has not returned.

Hilga acts as if there is nothing to be alarmed about, but there is. There is. After a Summoning, a Sister returns on the eve of the following day. Almost always, she comes back.

But I waited in the Grove for her all night, and she never returned. I sat beside the dolmen, within view of the slab that will slide back once she has completed her Summoning.

Not once did the granite budge. Even Sister Ute and Sister Birgit, who sat gossiping beside the alders, grew alarmed by sunrise. Then Ute went off to find Hilga.

Soon after, the Head Sister joined us, her expression grim—though she tried to act relaxed, regularly slumping her shoulders and breathing deep.

I know her too well, though. I may not have the Sight, but Hilga was my mentoring Sister for the first six years I was here. Right up until she was named head of the Convent and then creaking old Sister Rose became my mentor instead.

Hilga was scared.

The four of us waited until the sun had fully risen.

Tanzi never came.

So of course, I did not sleep and did not dream.

Where is Tanzi? What if she’s hurt? And all alone with no one to help her? There is no way for a non-Summoned Sister to get inside the mountain, so I cannot find her. No one can find her.

Curse me. I must go to the observatory now. It is time for morning prayers.

Please, Sirmaya, please. Show us where Tanzi is in the scrying pool. Or better yet, Summon me.

I beg you to. Please, I beg you.


MEMORIES

Trina and Gaellan were summoned after the prayers today. No visions of Tanzi in the pool; just more spirit swifts.

Two of them came for two Serving Sisters.

I don’t understand.





Ryber Fortiza

Y18 D155 — 3 days since Tanzi was Summoned

DREAMS

No dreams and no sleep.

Tanzi still hasn’t returned. Nor Trina, nor Gaellan.


MEMORIES

Three more Serving Sisters were Summoned today.

What is happening? Why is Hilga acting so calm?

And why why why has no one come back from the mountain?

All Sisters enter the mountain two times in their lives. First, to receive the Goddess’s gift of Sight.

Second, for sleeping.

Sightwitches do not die. Instead, when our bodies fail us, we enter the mountain and Sirmaya enfolds us into her embrace. We sleep for all eternity, and the magic she gave us returns to her.

None of us knows precisely how that happens, since Sisters who sleep are hardly going to return and explain it all. Yet we do know it happens to each and every one of us.

Tanzi can’t be sleeping, though. Nor can the other Summoned Sisters. The spirit swifts don’t appear for that, and we sleep only when our bodies can no longer continue.

So again: What is happening? I want to know where Tanzi is. I want to know that she’s all right.

Sirmaya, I will give anything for my Threadsister’s safe return. Please, please, please.





Tanzi Lamanaya

Y16 D89

Ry and I cornered Hilga after the midday meal today. We went to her office in the top of the tower, where no one could hear.

Where Sister Rose couldn’t hear.

“Please,” Ryber began before Hilga had even reached her chair. “Please be our mentor again. We know you have duties as Head Sister, but Rose is … she isn’t …”

“She isn’t very good,” I said bluntly—exactly like Ry told me not to do. “She’s ancient, and she—”

“She is the oldest Sister here,” Hilga snapped, dropping emphatically onto her stiff-backed chair. She was wearing her Stern Head Sister face. “Rose has more knowledge and experience than anyone else. You should be grateful she was willing to take over after me.”

“But we want to learn more,” Ry pleaded.

This was a half lie since I had no interest in learning more. That was really only Ryber. But I was dreadfully sick of Rose.

She means well. Sleeper knows she does, but her Sight overpowers her most days—a common ailment for older Sisters and one of the reasons Sisters remain at the Convent their whole lives. It is too hard to live in the outside world with the Sight.

These days, it seems too hard for Sister Rose to live in this world. She’ll forget mid-sentence what she was teaching us, and no matter how much Ry and I try to remind her, it’s rare that she’ll ever actually circle back to finish a lesson.

Instead she always feeds us the same phrase, “You’ll understand once you’re Summoned.”

It’s so thrice-damned frustrating!

But my argument wasn’t nearly as compelling as Ry’s, so I let my Threadsister do the rest of the talking. She is the better orator, and also the more desperate party. Plus, the Rook was on his perch, and it had been a few weeks since I’d seen him last.

The Rook is my favorite person at the Convent aside from Ry. And no, he isn’t technically a person, but he acts like one. I’ve never seen an animal that understands so much of what we say—much less one who insists we get his name right.

It’s not Rook, but THE Rook. He’ll bite you if you get it wrong.

“He belongs to the Convent,” Rose said this very morning when he swooped in during breakfast. “He is as old as the Crypts and will outlive us all.”

“How is that even possible?” Ry had demanded.

“You’ll understand when you’re Summoned.”

That had been the last grain of salt to flood the sea. Ryber grabbed my wrist, and I knew it was time. Finally, we were going to beg Sister Hilga for a new mentor.

After giving the Rook a few good scratches beside his beak (I love the way he purrs! Even the kitchen cat doesn’t purr with this much satisfaction), I honed in on the argument unfolding behind me.