They sat in this state, Ellie not daring to speak to either of her companions for fear of breaking Chevias’ concentration. He really seemed to be bothered by all this talk of witches in Tyman, but she couldn’t quite figure out why. Sure it was strange, but witches were strange. Right? Personally, she just wanted to write it all off as none of her business and go home.

The three and a half hours finally finished crawling by after customers trickled in to buy muffins and such, ogling the odd trio as they did.

“Hey, ya’ll order is ready!”

Chevias slapped down the amount listed on the sign above the clerk’s head and started breaking and wrapping up his and Ellie’s portions. Afina did the same for hers and they left the shop in hurry.

Chevias was walking down the street quickly now, and Afina and Ellie had to practically run to keep up with him. Ellie puffed, “Where are we going now?”

Chevias seemed too preoccupied with what he was thinking about to hear Ellie’s question or notice that he was causing the other pedestrians to throw themselves out of his way. Regardless, Ellie quickly found out that Chevias had been looking for a tavern. They had wasted a lot of time in the bakery, so it was a little before midday at this point, so there wasn’t anyone there aside from the barkeep. It was a tall and skinny man, and he was the first one who seemed not in the least bit surprised to see Chevias. “What can I do ya for?”

Chevias walked up to the counter with Ellie and Afina trailing behind him, “I have some questions. Do you know anything about a surplus of witches in the area recently?”

The barkeep frowned as he dried a mug, “Yeah, I heard about that. Saw a few of them myself, though they never came in here. You witches don’t seem to like booze much, huh?”

“How long were they here? Why don’t I see any around today?”

The man shrugged, “I don’t know. They just showed up…three days or so ago. They hung around and then whoosh; they all scattered last night. Or so I heard.”

“Can you tell me what they were doing?”

“No, they were just wandering around…watching. They were usually in groups of two or three. You witches are always looking for something, so I figured that’s what they were doing. I guess if they left that means they found it.”

“Did you hear anything about the way they left?”

“One drunk said he saw a big group of them beatin’ feet out of town while he was between bars. He said they were running like Lomag was on their heels, but I’ve never heard of anything so scary a witch would run from it.”

“Which direction did they go?”

“That one’s hard to say. I didn’t see any of them leave myself, so I only have the accounts of some drunks to go off of. Sorry, but no reliable source there.”

“Last question, I promise. Have you seen any owls around? Particularly in broad daylight.”

“Owls? Not lately that I’ve noticed. What’s that got to do with anything?”

Chevias stood there for awhile, thinking about all this carefully. The barkeep set his glass down on the counter, “…Do you want a drink man?”

Chevias waved absentmindedly, “No thanks, I don’t like alcohol.”

The barkeep turned to Afina and Ellie, “How ‘bout you? I’ve got some nice Redroot Ale. Or what about a glass of milk for the little one?”

Afina shook her head, “No thank you. What are you standing there for Witch?”

Chevias spun from the bar and started out the door.

Before Ellie could run to catch up with him, Afina pulled her back, “What was all that about?”

Ellie thought for a long while they followed Chevias as a bit of a distance, “…I’m not sure. I think he’s upset about something Errol said.”

“Errol?”

“A talking owl. We heard from a lady at the inn we’re staying at that there were a bunch of witches in town the past few days. Later when Errol came in, Chevias asked him about it and Errol said that there weren’t any witches here at all.” As the words left Ellie’s mouth, she finally realized why Chevias seemed to be hung up on it. It didn’t make sense. It was suspicious. And even more suspicious was the fact that several people had confirmed the rumors Mary had heard. Despite this, she wasn’t sure why he didn’t dismiss it as ‘witches being witches’ as she and any other sane person would.

Afina shuddered, “Oh, an owl. I’d heard that witches use talking animals…so that’s true then? That’s bloody unnatural.”

“Well, Errol was more rude than scary.”

“Look Ellie,” Afina leaned in and whispered so Chevias wouldn’t hear her, “I don’t trust witches to begin with, but this is looking sketchy. What you just said is all I need to know that something’s up with these witches and that can’t be good. If I have you with me, a mercenary would be more willing to escort me. Let’s ditch the witch and get out of here before things get messy.”

“What?! No! Chevias has been nothing but kind to me, and are you even paying attention? He’s just as confused about all this as we are.” Ellie looked at him to check if he was listening or not. After seeing that his eyes were dead ahead on the road, she leaned back in, “And besides, he’s really strong. I think we’d be safer with him than any mercenary.”

“You can’t be serious! He’s a blood-sucking, parasitic, frea-“

“I can hear every word you’re saying.”

Chevias had turned around and was glaring at Afina with his hands on his hips, “It doesn’t take oversized ears to have good hearing you know. If you don’t want to come, then stop following us.”

Afina crossed her arms and hissed at him, “I would, but at this point I’m concerned for this little girl’s safety.”

“If I wanted to hurt her, I would’ve done it already! How many times am I gonna have to repeat that?! And besides that, if you don’t like witches so much, then why’d you go looking for one? You could just wait until someone takes care of the goblin band.”

The tips of Afina’s ears turned red, “I can’t afford to wait that long! And after the mercenaries were done laughing in my face, they told me to find a witch. They said there’d been lot’s around lately and that if I begged they might be willing to take me along, but I couldn’t find one all night! You’re the only one I found!”

“…You were looking all night? You didn’t find one?”

“Yes!”

This sent Chevias into another deep bought of thought. After waiting awhile, Afina got really irritated, “Hey, answer me!”

“Shh!” He broke out of his trance and looked around. All of the people on the road had squished together as tight as they could to get as far away from Chevias and Afina as they could, probably expecting a fight to break out. He turned and motioned the two to follow, “Come on, be quiet.”

Afina looked like she was about to yell at him again before Ellie trotted off obediently after him. Then she pressed her lips together and trudged after them.

He was silent all the way back to the inn, blatantly ignored the Hayshams, and brought them back up the room that they shared last night. Once all three of them were inside, he closed the door.

“Let me ask a few more questions…Afina, right? Can you tell me about what time you arrived in the city and what time you started looking for witches?”

She glowered at him, “What for?”

“Just answer.”

She huffed angrily, “I guess I got here at about…nine or so. I went all the way to the mercenary post and spent about an hour there, so it must’ve been around ten that I started looking for witches. Why?”

“Ellie, do you remember what time we got to Tyman?”

Ellie scratched her head, “Well, the sun had just gone down, so about…eight-ish?”

He nodded, “Yeah, that’s what I remember to.”

He sat down on the bed next to Ellie, “So, witches were hanging around for three or so days, acting strange. Then Ellie and I got here at around eight. We took a bunch of back alleys, so it’s no wonder we didn’t see any of them. It was probably a little over an hour later that Ellie and I came up and talked to Errol. Do you agree Ellie?”

She nodded, still trying to follow him.

“Errol left as quick as he came. Around the same time or a little later, Afina arrives in Tyman. She spends an hour at the mercenary post and then goes looking for witches. However, they’ve all already blown town by then except for me. Sometime between nine and ten, something happened to make all the witches that were gathered here get out of town.”

Ellie sat in silence as she added it all up in her head, and not finding anything wrong with what he was saying. Except for one detail, “Why’d they leave in such a hurry?”

Chevias sat, staring intently out the window, “…I’ve got a few theories.”

Afina sighed, “Care to share them?”

He muttered, “Still too early to tell. I need more to go off of.”

“Typical witches. Always so tightlipped about everything.” She walked over and tried to push him off the bed, “I’m smaller, so I’ll share with Ellie. You can have the floor.”

Chevias got off and waved absentmindedly at her, clearly not paying much attention.

It was still too early to sleep, but because it was about noon one of the Hayshams came to knock on the door. “Lunch is ready. And if you’re staying another night you need to pay up!”

They headed down to lunch and Chevias paid his and Ellie’s fee. Afina paid for herself, though the rabbit fur purse that hung at her hip was looking a little thin. Lunch was just an apple with a slice of bread and cheese, but Ellie was grateful to have it. She could be doing so much worse right now.

After lunch they all crowded back into the tiny room. Ellie had been mulling over the problem the whole meal and had formulated a question she thought Chevias might answer, or at least would help him find the answer.

“Chevias, four different people have told us that there were definitely witches in Tyman. But Errol told you there hadn’t been. So…can you think of a reason why he’d lie to you about that?”

Chevias sat for a long time before shaking his head, “No. I can’t. I’ve known Errol for a long time…well…I guess there’s one reason he’d lie to me….” Naturally, he chose not to share that one reason.

And so that was how the rest of the day went, with Chevias chewing over this problem while Afina brooded in the corner while Ellie sat and wondered what on Earth was going on and what her family was doing right now. After a long while, the sky grew dark and they were called down for dinner. It was stew again, and Ellie was suspecting that tomorrow’s breakfast would be porridge. Then after dinner, all three of them settled down to sleep, but Ellie got the feeling it was a long time before Chevias finally drifted off.