If the witch let go of her hands, I would just fall. I am powerlessly hanging fixed by the tight belt of her arms, and I keep on senselessly looking at the iridescent fish below.

"Hey?" Hebe anxiously calls me, pulling me closer: one hand is clasping me under the stomach, the other one is embracing my chest. I can feel her breath tickling the skin on my neck: it is giving me goosebumps. "Let's go back home. I was trying to find you all day! You’ll collapse from hunger!"

"I'm probably losing my mind," I say in a whimpering voice. "We haven't seen each other for twenty or thirty minutes! How could such a long time have passed?"

I finally straighten up and turn to her with horror in my eyes.

"What if you’re not real too? What if everything is just my hallucination?"

"You say you have been absent only for twenty minutes. Right?" the witch asks. Surprisingly, Hebe reacted only to these words.

"I'm serious, Hebe! What if I'm out of my mind? How do I understand where reality and where..."

"And where the Matrix has you... yes, yes, yes... That's it! It's time for the girl to eat and sleep."

"I will not go anywhere until I understand what is true and what is not!" I am desperately stubborn.

Hebe sighs, and in one easy motion she takes me in her arms.

"Aahh..." I involuntarily make a quiet moan.

I've never been carried like this before. Parents did it when I was little, of course, and later my dad when he and I make a bet or when he remembers his boxing past and asks me to sit on his shoulders while he’s squatting, but usually his sporty enthusiasm doesn’t last long. How are my parents doing now?

Even when Hebe was carrying me on her back in the Forest, I was not as bewitched as I am now. I do not resist, because I feel that I have no strength at all, just like after meeting with strega. It seems that if I close my eyes for a second, I will immediately fall asleep in her arms. I listlessly stare at the sky: it really darkened and the shadows became longer.

"Hebe, must be hard carrying me..." I say, but I don’t ask her to put me down.

She looks at me tenderly, "Now you don’t seem to mind being in my arms?" the marble-eyed grins.

The witch tilts her head giving me Eskimo kisses, "Don’t be afraid, you are not crazy. You saw a ghost."

"But you said that I was alone on the pier! I would've thought you of all people would notice something supernatural!" I’m getting super stubborn again.

"Ghosts, mmm, if they have been living for a long time... uhmm, I mean, if they have been ghosts for a long time, they could acquire some special abilities. For example: to appear or become invisible for someone or tooo, saaay, move some objects. Maybe she liked you or she was interested in you, so she showed her face to have a small talk."

"But why did time get away from me?"

"Judging by what you told about her, I can say for sure that this is a classic "loop" of almost any ghost. They have to relive their worst or unresolved moment over and over again. You accidentally fell into her "loop" by talking to her, and time passes there in a completely different way. I wonder how you even got there." The witch sighs and holds me tighter. "If you were a sophisticated witch, you would easily get out of the loop or not get there at all. Don't mess around with ghosts: it's better to leave the dead for dead. Their world has not been explored enough. It is somehow connected with those terrible repeating mirror reflections, but whoever tried to go there and learn the secret of the world of spirits and understand whether there is something beyond... no one returned, Velia. But if they could be rescued, to be honest, they are no longer adequate. Most likely they saw something that is much greater than their understanding of the being..."

It has got dark. Here and there little lights are lit in houses and in small garlands and lanterns. Hebe is walking slowly along the beach.

The lonely pier was left behind. On the way we come across some people. I don’t know if they watch one girl who is carefully carrying another one in her arms. Are they looking at us when I tenderly touch her neck and her cheek? Are they confused seeing me who is affectionately looking into Hebe’s eyes? I do not care. My thoughts were left on the pier.