We slip back into Silvers room, and he starts rummaging about, stuffing things into a bag already half packed.

“I hadn’t gotten around to emptying it yet” he explains with a mischievous smirk when I ask him about it.

“Oh- let me get you a bag to pack as well…” he says, about to leave the room, but I stop him.

“I… I have one. It’s with Ebony’s body,” I say in a small voice. His smile finally falters, but only for a fraction of a second, leaving me wondering if I even really saw it.

I sit on his bed curled into the corner again as I watch him make lists in his head, go about those lists, then forget them and do it all over. He seems so unfazed by what happened, barely missing a beat in his smiles now, like it was only momentary shock that had caused any hint of sadness. I envy him.

Eventually, he stands up straight, hands on hips.

“Alright, let’s start packing the cart- oh!” he explains with a hand through his hair, “How did we forget to tell you? We got a cart and a small horse while we were away!” he says with a large smile.

I nod encouragingly. That would be very useful for the trip that we will make. Wait. Now that I am with humans, will we be going through human towns? I had been swallowing the fear and urge to run while walking around this one because I have been here before and had nowhere else to go, but I don’t know if I would be comfortable going to other human settlements.

“Um… we aren’t going to any of the human cities, right?” I say, and he pauses as he must read the trepidation in my face, maybe my voice.

He looks to the side awkwardly, scratching the two-day-old stubble on his chin. “Well, that was the original plan, but we could probably avoid at least some of them…” he says, thinking.

I look down, mumbling ‘it’s fine’, feeling sorry for disrupting his plans.

He comes to sit with his back on the wall next to me, moving the bed and thus me as he climbs on.

“It’s gunna be okay,” he puts a light hand on my shoulder. His genuine smile turns evil, and he takes out the cylindrical package of candy, rips the top completely off so that they are all exposed, and hands them to me.

“They’re all yours, don’t tell.” He stands up with an exaggerated stretch. ”Lets go get the cart.”

Both people are out of the home by now so we do not sneak as we exist the house, turning left to the edge of the town. There is an old barn, beaten and worn down from years of weather and use, a small but useful horse drawn cart sitting outside of it.

“Not bad, right?” he says as we pass it and go through the doors. There are six horses spread out between the ten stalls.

We walk to a dark brown horse with a white snip on its nose and trailing up to its knees on three of the hoofs, only up to the ankle on the front right, and it had a small patch of white on its side.

“She’s a mixed breed so she was so much cheaper than some of the others,” he explains as he grabs tack off of the shelves in the back and starts to groom her. “Lory and Jacob wanted to call her Hazel because they are convinced her eyes are hazel, but me and Tom got them to change it to Bell, short for Belladonna,” he says behind his hand, “because she has quite a… personality. But that also made her cheaper, so we like it!”

He leads me into the stall and lets me brush her left side. Her size is stunning an quite intimidating. Big like everything else in this small town. Timidly, I stroke her stubborn belly full of fuel, and jump slightly as she stamps her hoof to rid it of flies, sending hay and dust into the already contaminated air. After I hand Silver the brushes again, I move to the front of the magnificent animal, the largest I have come into contact with, and gently stroke its neck while looking for the hazel in its eyes, curious.

I see mostly just the normal light brown, but can imagine why they could see hazel.

“Do you want to ride it?” Silver asks slyly.

I turn to him, his grin mischievous again as he leans against the side of the stall. I look at the horse again.

“Yes.”

He passes by me and winks as he brings the brushes back to the wall, taking the tack off and setting it on the horse.

I have never ridden an animal before, I have never much wanted to, it is a more human custom, usually reserved for animal speakers… like…

I shake the thought off and just enjoy the moment. I place my hand on her neck again, trying to connect with it the same way I would with a plant, which obviously does not work. I try again, remembering the few times I did connect with animals; a squirrel that… she… had caught to show me how soft their fur is; a rat within the same circumstances, though… her… intentions were much more sinister.

My eyes tear up and I sniff, hiding my face from Silver with the horses body. How could I just sit there? How could I let that happen? And what of the others? Are they still in danger? Am I sitting there once again, letting them all suffer because of my selfish thought that I still need to go to the council, that I needed supplies from this town so much that I have stayed here for multiple days rather than make my way to the reason I have left them there?

“S-she’s ready!” Silver says in a hurry, making me jump.

I quickly wipe my eyes with my arm and plaster a smile to my face, nodding. He clearly looks unsure, perhaps even uncomfortable, and I say a quiet sorry as he moves to bring the horse out.

He shakes his head.

“So,” he carries on, “you’re going to put you’re left foot in this,” he points to the metal flat bar held together by straps, dangling off of the saddle. “Then you’re just going to jump and swing you leg over and put you’re foot in the stirrup on the other side.” We reach the outside of the stable and he demonstrates, the saddles creaking as he loads it with his weight. Bell snorts and shakes her head, throwing the reins in the air, and Silver mumbles as he reaches for them.

“Just give ‘er a light kick in the sides and you’re off!” he demonstrates as he says. “Obviously, pulling the reins this way will maker Bell go this way and pulling them this way will make her go that way and pull back to stop.” He swings his wight of her and presents her to me dramatically. “Give it a try!”

I blink and approach nervously. “Does the thing in Bell’s mouth not hurt her?” I say worriedly as she chews on it with multiple clacks.

“Oh, no. It just gives her some pressure in her mouth so she knows which way you want her to go. It’s called a bit.” He smiles, “Get it? because it is being bitten?”

I nod, still unsure, and awkwardly place my foot in the… stirrups? Right, that’s what he called them. Holding on to the knob at the front of the saddle and the rise in the back, I jump up, putting the weight in my arms, and attempt to get my leg over, but don’t quite make it

“Here, let me help…” he says after watching me fail two more times, and he makes a stool of his knee, instructing me to put my left foot there instead.

I make it this time and he claps tightly with an equally tight and exaggerated smile.

“Thank you, sorry.” I am not quite sure which to say first, but he puts a hand up.

“Its fine. Me and Tom had to do that the first few times for Lory and Jacob, don’t tell them I told you.” He whispers the last part. “Much easier to do with you two than Jacob though, he hurts,” He says, cringing at the memory.

I smile slightly at the though of lanky Silver struggling not to break as the more dense Jacob puts the majority of his wight on this little point in Silvers leg.

He instructs me again as I attempt to walk Bell in a large circle around the barn, telling me that I need to stop being so scared to actually put even the smallest amount of force in the reins, to which I respond by still not putting enough because I don’t want to hurt her and have her hate me to.

“Not bad,” he says as I successfully climb down.

He brings her back inside, and this time he instructs me on how to help take the equipment off as well.

We groom her again and wonder off to get supplies to put in the cart.

He brings us to a small shop with signs in the windows with drawings of pigs, cows, goats, and horses. I stop at the door as he holds it open for me.

I have been relatively calm considering I am a witch in a human village thus far, but something about entering a human business full of other humans that we would have to interact with fills me with dread and fear. I take a deep breath and put on the best mask of apathy that I can, stepping over the threshold to join an encouraging Silver.

We head to an isle where large brown bags are labeled with ‘horse feed’ and a listing of different ingredients.

“We just need one or two bags because she can also just eat the grass.” He says as he picks up one of the bags, as tall as his torso and as almost as wide as my arm is long. He deliberates for a moment, then tells me to grab one if I can as well as he slings his bag onto his shoulder.

I go to one that is stacked as high as my shoulder and drag is some ways off, positioning my shoulder underneath it and dragging it the rest. My legs bend suddenly and slightly and I let out a small grunt as the full wight finally hits my shoulder, but I manage to keep it up. We walk to the front where Silver puts down his sack and pulls out of his pocket rectangular pieces of green paper with many designs on it and some silver coins.

The store manager looks at me. “’Ya shouldn’t make your lady do this type of labor, lad.” He tells Silver.

He looks at me and responds, “She’s strong, she can take it,” and lifts the bag up again.

I hear the manager mutter ‘uncouth’ as we walk away, and I shrink as we pass through the doors again. I don’t want to draw attention: attention attracts scrutiny, scrutiny attracts skepticism, skepticism attracts witch hunters. I glance around, looking for anyone that looks as though they might be witch hunters, but find none. I am not sure what they look like though. We could be passing through a throng of them now. I was always taught to never leave the coven, that witch hunters will find me if I do, and for some reason I am only now starting to be worried by being surrounded by the race that wants my kind dead and ‘burning alongside our lord’.