A green glowstick cut the darkness with a crack.
Hazel stared into the trees beyond the glow, his ears straining.
The girl at his side slowly rose, holding the glowstick over her head. “I can’t hear them anymore. We should be okay to move.”
The woods were nothing more than a line of old trees separating two cul-de-sacs. The cookie cutter houses all had their lights on. Shadowy figures paced in front of many of the lit windows.
He stuck near the girl’s back as they carefully alternated between casually walking and sprinting through the neighborhood.
The sky was graying with pre-dawn once they cleared the neighborhoods. The early risers were starting to leave their homes, either climbing into their cars idling in their driveways, or wandering sleepily to the bus stop.
The girl stopped feet away from the bus stop. “Hold my bag a sec.” She stuck the glowstick in her mouth, using both hands to rifle through the backpack. She extracted a red hoodie and continued digging.
Hazel allowed her to take back the backpack so that he was free to yank the hoodie over his head.
“It’s a little tight, and not really in season, but I doubt anyone will look twice.” She handed him a transit pass. “This has enough on it to get us out of the city.” She hummed, cocking her head at him. “One more final touch….”
She removed her round-framed glasses and placed them on Hazel.
He was assaulted by a blur just different enough from the scenery to make his head hurt.
“Can you see without these,” Hazel asked.
“I’ll borrow them if I need to read something.” She clipped a streak of fake purple hair into her long, light brown hair. “Bus is here.”
They took seats beneath the monitor screen in the middle of the bus.
The monitor silently played the local weather predictions as the list of route stops scrolled along the bottom.
“At least the weather looks nice this week.”
Hazel lowered the round frames to better stare at this girl.
She smiled sheepishly. “Just looking for a silver lining.”
A breaking news banner flashed onto the monitor. A police sketch with written description popped up: Witchboy At Large.
Hazel slid down, straightening at the sharp elbow in his ribs.
“Don’t worry,” she murmured. “A generic description and rough sketch are nothing. Act casual.”
He stared out the window, but the creeping sense of eyes stealing looks at him kept him from taking in the scenery.
The lights inside the bus were too bright. It was too easy to stare at him, match him with the image and description on the screen. It needed to be darker. It needed to be much darker.
The lights flickered. The bus lurched.
An uneasy murmur buzzed through the bus.
“Sometimes I wonder about these electric buses,” she muttered.
“It needs to be darker…,” Hazel whispered.
“What?”
The bus jerked to a halt as all the lights died.
The passengers expressed annoyance and unease at this, yelling at the driver accusations of not charging the bus or running out the battery.
The girl snatched her glasses from Hazel’s face, donning them, and looking around. She pulled him up and to the front of the bus.
“Is this going to take long,” she asked the driver. “It’s our first day at work. We can’t be late. Can we get off?”
“No refund on your passes. And, you’ll have to pull the manual opener. Obviously.”
The driver stood to address the other passengers while she pulled the lever to open the door. Hazel hopped out after her with no other course of action, and they jogged away from the dead bus.
“Which way is your train station,” she asked once they rounded a corner.
Hazel stopped. “Wait… I need a minute.”
“As long as it’s really a minute,” she said. “We don’t want to dawdle too long. People are going to start point fingers at any brown-haired teen boy before long.”
“Who are you,” Hazel asked. “Where are we going? What about my dad? And just… everything!”
“I’m Kaiza, and—.”
A police car’s siren gave a warning beep as it crawled by.
“And that’s all for now,” Kaiza finished. “Train station, now?”
Hazel took the lead but stopped multiple times to get his bearings. He snuck a look at a placard with the city mapped out. The bold print and bright markers made it easy to locate their position and that of the train station.
It was a rectangular, brick building that did not stand out. The only thing that separated it out as a place of notice was the larger than average parking lot and the crowd shuffling inside.
Kaiza stepped over to read the timetable. “Is the last stop too obvious? Maybe we should do the second to last?”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to use one of those rideshare things,” Hazel asked. “You could have the driver go all over if you wanted to lose a tail.”
“Way too pricey, and then you get the problem of adding some other person to the mix,” Kaiza said. “And I don’t have my phone. And they’ll probably tip off those rideshare apps.”
She decided on the second to last stop.
Hazel took the window seat.
There was a familiarity about the rocking train and speeding scenery despite Hazel unable to recall when he would have ridden the train before. He searched for the memory, his eyelids growing heavy now that his adrenaline had calmed.
Kaiza’s voice added to the peace, Hazel aware she was explaining something but not aware enough to catch what it was. He murmured nothing in a vain attempt to converse before sleep won out.
Hazel stirred, his shoulder being shaken vigorously. He quickly realized he was still on the train and that Kaiza was the one rousing him.
The station was much smaller than the one they departed from. The landscape beyond being residential and spread out. There were few passengers left now, and fewer outside waiting to board.
“How could I fall asleep,” Hazel muttered, rubbing his green eyes.
“C’mon, the doors are going to close,” Kaiza urged, pulling Hazel from his seat.
They slipped through the doors as the whistle blew.
The clock above the train schedule indicated it was now midday. The mild weather caused Hazel to sweat in his borrowed hoodie.
Kaiza rested her backpack on the plastic seats bolted into the side of the station. “We should snack a bit. You aren’t allergic to nuts, are you? I got a peanut bar and a cashew bar? Your pick.”
Hazel finished the peanut bar in two bites. It dawned on him that he had not eaten since lunch yesterday, and that had been nibbles due to his anxiety over his secret being discovered.
His father was likely arrested for harboring him.
“We should get moving,” Kaiza said, offering to take his wrapper from him. “It shouldn’t be too much of a hassle to walk to the last stop. Train stops aren’t horribly spread out if you’re willing to cut through yards.”
“Won’t jumping fencing make people notice us more,” Hazel asked.
“I meant more along the lines of unattended, un-fenced fields and the random, small parks, but I like the cautious thinking.” She frowned at the audible rumble from Hazel’s stomach. “Another reason to get moving; we can blend with the lunch goers at the next stop.”
They headed off.
Hazel tried to ignore the hunger pangs, but that peanut bar had teased his appetite. He had concerns much bigger than eating lunch.
Kaiza had told him her name, but that was not useful in knowing who she was and why she was outside his house. He was sure she was not associated with the witch finders; ushering him around in secret was too much trouble to simply hand him over.
“So… may I ask something,” Kaiza said. “On the bus… with the power dying like that… was that you?”
“Yes,” Hazel said hesitantly. “Or, probably. Possibly. …Yeah.”
“That was so cool,” Kaiza squee’d. She cleared her throat. “It was pretty impressive, but so dangerous! And, kind of puzzling. Why’d you do that? No one noticed us.”
“I don’t really know,” Hazel said sheepishly. “It’s like… sometimes I hyper-focus and can’t stop until something happens.”
Kaiza hummed. “I bet that’s because you don’t have any training.”
“How’d you know that,” Hazel asked. “Are you a witch?”
“I wish! That’d be awesome!” Kaiza kicked a dandelion head. “Just a mage-blooded that thinks magic is neat.”
He never gave his magic much thought, but on introspection, it was an amazing thing. He could do little more than turn lights and electric appliances on with a snap of his fingers, but it was a convenient trick.
His father did not like magic. It made him ridged and uneasy. Hazel was discouraged from using it and practicing it.
“You still think it’s cool even though… well….” Hazel gestured to himself.
Kaiza adjusted her round frames. “I’m more in the mind of individuals. You seem like a good guy, so it’s still cool. If you were creepy, well, then I wouldn’t be doing any of this.”
“Why are you doing this,” Hazel asked. “Actually… what are you doing? I don’t even know that much.”
Kaiza went mum as they turned a corner onto a busier street outside the last station on the line. Commuters lined up by the handful of food carts to grab something before heading off. The train sat empty with all the doors open for the cleaning crew to give it a once over before it went back down the tracks.
“Grab us a seat down at the end of the track,” Kaiza said. “I’ll grab lunch.” She dug through her backpack, extracting a wallet, and passed her bag to Hazel. “We can chat over fries.”
He sat on the bench furthest from the food carts and open train doors. He felt the weight of Kaiza’s bag on his lap. He fingered the zipper, glanced to see where Kaiza was, and slowly gave it a tug.
The backpack was stuffed with shirts and caps. They ranged in size from toddler to early elementary, all sporty or boyish in style.
“What are you doing?”
Hazel leapt up with one hand still in the bag. He ignored Kaiza’s expression, being too hungry to do anything but stare at the large order of chili cheese fries in her delicate hands. His face reddened at the extra loud rumble from his guts.
Kaiza set the fries on the bench between them, and relived Hazel of her backpack. She stuffed her wallet back among the clothing before zipping it up.
“My advisor is on a mission to rescue witchboys,” Kaiza murmured. She smiled weakly. “I never expected to find one your age.”
Most witchboys were between two and five when they were caught and tried for witchcraft. His father plainly told him it was unusual for a witchboy to make it that far, typically the witch and her husband discarding sons much earlier to be on the safe side.
“So you… browse the news for upcoming trails, and try to get to the witchboy before they’re executed,” Hazel questioned. “How many have you saved?”
Kaiza dropped her gaze. She plucked a fry from the tray, and stuck it in her mouth to avoid speaking.
It would be impossible to sneak a captive witchboy out of jail. It would be suicide to storm the gallows.
“How long have you been doing this,” Hazel asked.
“This is my first solo run,” Kaiza said. “I did go with my advisor twice before now.”
Hazel nodded that he heard her, his mouth too full to ask a follow-up. He took the napkins Kaiza pulled from her back pocket.
“It was a total shot in the dark finding you,” Kaiza added. “With the other hangings, my advisor and me left immediately after, and then read about the witch finders going door-to-door looking for other witchboys well after the fact. I decided the best chance of really finding one and helping would be to stick around and keep an ear out after the hanging.” She beamed. “I’m ecstatic that it paid off.”
“Same.”
They laughed lightly at the awkwardness of the situation.
They separated off to the bathroom after the fries were finished and the paper tray tossed.
Hazel studied his face as he washed his hands. There were bags under his green eyes and his skin was dull. The nap on the train did not combat all the exhaustion from being hunted all night.
He wrestled out of the hoodie after exiting the bathroom. The afternoon sun was bright in the cloudless sky.
Kaiza now had her hair tied up in a bun. The fake purple hair was removed, and her face was tinted red from washing it in the cold water.
“Keep the sweatshirt,” Kaiza said. “It’ll be dark when we get in. It might get chilly.”
Hazel followed Kaiza way from the platform. “So… where are we going?”
The afternoon was uneventful filled with walking, another bus ride, and more walking. The sun was long down as the two of them found themselves at the mouth of a planned neighborhood surrounded by vast nothingness.
Kaiza’s orange glowstick and the moonlight shone enough to make out that the neighborhood sign read Rusty Blackbird Court. The road was paved, but only a single house was constructed among the cleared land.
Light shown from the first floor with a much weaker light akin to candlelight glowing from one of the second floor windows.
“Hopefully Mr. Gedney is still awake and he didn’t just leave the lights on for us,” Kaiza said.
Hazel could not find the strength to add to her comment. He could not remember ever walking so much before. His feet hurt. His legs ached. He was sticky from sweat but chilled from that sweat cooling beneath the sweatshirt.
Kaiza led him into the house.
The house was sparsely furnished and what furniture was there looked like random pieces off a showroom floor. The light fixtures were in different styles. The walls were different shades of off-white and cool gray.
Hazel dragged behind Kaiza through the spacious kitchen to a closed door. A sliver of warm light lined the bottom of the door.
“Mr. Gedney,” Kaiza called, knocking lightly.
The door was yanked open.
Mr. Gedney was older than Hazel’s father by fifteen to twenty years. His hair was fully gray, and thin on the top. His eyes were dull and watery, the lower half magnified by his bifocal reading glasses perched on his skinny nose.
“Kaiza,” Mr. Gedney exclaimed. He hugged her hastily. “Oh, thank God! The news said another witchboy was discovered in that city. An arrest was made. I was so worried you were involved.”
“Well…,” Kaiza trailed off, stepping aside. “This is Hazel.”
Mr. Gedney’s eyes bugged as his jaw slowly drooped. He shuffled by Kaiza to better stare, surveying Hazel up and down, side to side.
Hazel shifted uncomfortably.
“Extraordinary,” Mr. Gedney breathed. “How old are you?”
“Fifteen,” Hazel answered.
“Fifteen,” Mr. Gedney said. “Not much older than Salem…. And you remained hidden all those years? How?”
“I was homeschooled,” Hazel said unsurely.
Hazel felt every inch of his body ache with exhaustion as he recognized Mr. Gedney’s building excitement. He had not slept enough, eaten enough, or had time enough to process what happened to be ready for an interrogation.
“Mr. Gedney,” Kaiza said, giving a small wave to direct his attention to her. “It’s nearly midnight. He should sleep.”
“Oh, of course, I’m so sorry,” Mr. Gedney said. “I was getting ahead of myself.” He stifled a yawn. “Truth be told, now that I’m not worried sick, I very well could sleep.”
“I’ll get Hazel settled,” Kaiza offered.
“Then I’ll see you both in the morning,” Mr. Gedney said.
He followed Kaiza away from the office with gratitude filling him. His thoughts were beginning to fuzz out. All he could muster was following Kaiza up the grand staircase without tripping over himself.
Kaiza opened a white door with a brass knob. The bedroom was as sparse as the rest of the house with only a full-sized fourposter sans curtains.
“There might be a spare nightstand or chest-o-drawers in storage,” Kaiza said. She gestured to a thinner door next-door. “That’s the linen closet. Towels are there. Extra blankets. The bathroom is across the hall. And my room is down there at the end if you need something else.”
Hazel gave her a tired smile and small nodded as she departed for her room.
He touched the plush comforter on the neatly made bed and stepped away. As much as his body begged for rest, he could not put aside the thought that he was having difficulty remembering the last time he bathed.
He pulled a dark green towel from the linen closet before locking himself in the bathroom.
The standalone shower was a different make than the soaking tub beneath the picture window. There were two sinks in the vanity, each sporting different fixtures. The backsplash behind the bronze fixtures matched the tile around the soaking tub while the backslash behind the chrome fixtures matched the tile for the shower.
The hot shower was refreshing but also exasperated his tiredness. He did little more than but rinse, afraid that he would fall asleep standing if he lingered longer.
He put back on the clothes he had traveled in; it dawning on him that he would have to sleep in them which rendered the shower useless.
A door was quickly shut as he stepped into the hall. It was not Kaiza’s door.
“Hello,” Hazel called in a whisper. “Kaiza?”
There was no answer, but a small creaking like door hinges moving was enough to get Hazel to scurry to his room and not call out again.
Hazel found the light on. There was a buttered piece of wheat toast sitting on a porcelain plate resting on the bed. A dark t-shirt and basketball shorts were tossed haphazardly next to it.
He double checked that the hall was empty before changing, keeping his eyes on the door as a precaution. He scarfed down the toast and was out as soon as his head hit the pillow.
---------
I think I did this one after the failed Mae (first) attempt and after the Breeching Halcyon Hall since the last modified day was June 1. I wanted to see if I should try doing Witchboy in normal format. I did manage to finish what would be a chapter, but I think the comic style is better. The only issue I have with that is it typically takes the mystery of things away since names are right out there because you're giving the script to an artist and can't be like "oooh that teenaged girl seven pages ago was Kaiza" because that would screw up the art. So, random conversation with a stranger isn't so random because 'stranger' would be 'Salem' or something. But that's all just me spinning my wheels over it.
