The next day, Mena stood misty eyed outside of her auntie’s cabin. She scratched her slightly red eyes, not having had much sleep after last night’s terror.

Her auntie paced back and forth, so enraptured in her lecture she didn’t even notice that Mena’s eyes were glazed over. “The ability to track items or even living things magically is just one of the many gifts granted to folk born with magic,” Mena drifted off into a standing stupor as her auntie continued to pace by her unaware, “But it doesn’t come easy. It takes heightened perception.”

Mena let out a snort and startled herself. “Wha-what?” she asked, her voice airy and tired.

Grizabella rolled her eyes, and produced a tiny magicap, barely the size of her thumb. With her hand to her head, she levitated it in the air and traced it with her other finger. “You need total concentration, Mena. You must know the entire essence of an item to magically track it. Everything from its shape to its texture and even its smell.”

Mena’s hazy eyes watched the magicap as it floated over to her. “Mena, I want you to capture this magicap’s essence in your mind. Once you do this, you will know exactly where the magicaps are located.”

Mena took one look at the mushroom. Her imagination tried to copy the mushroom, but as she thought deeper, Fabias’ face appeared in her inner mind like a glowing star. From his luscious, kissable lips to his shining emerald eyes to his neatly conditioned long hair, his features were so much easier to trace than a silly old mushroom. Her eyes went half lidded prompting her auntie to snap in her face.

“Huh,” Mena said, her eyes blinking.

“I have no idea how you did it, but you seemed to put yourself in a trance,” Grizabella responded. “Try it again.”

Mena narrowed her eyes and grimaced at the mushroom, but Fabias infiltrated her mind again. This time, though, his features morphed from comely to the repulsive, single toothed hag from her dreams.

She shook her head and worried to herself, “Oh I hope I’m not always going to see that baggy hag every time I think of him. I need some magic mind bleach.”

“Phenomena,” Grizabella said, making her jump. “What’s gotten into you? You’re not normally this distracted,” Auntie Grizabella paused, realizing the truth, “Well ok, you are, but normally it’s not this obvious. What’s on your mind?”

“I’m sorry, auntie,” Mena whined theatrically, trying to make her eyes bigger and poutier. “I just had a really great, yet horrible dream, and it’s really sticking in my head.”

“What do you mean?”

“I had the most amazing dream, but right when I was about to experience the greatest moment of my life, the dream turned horrible and repulsive!”

“Hmm,” Grizabella said, fingering her smooth, yet pointy chin. “I’m a decent dream reader. It wasn’t my favorite subject, but I still got A’s.”

“You’re going to read my dreams, Auntie?”

Her auntie continued in her typical haughty, knowledgeable manner. “It’s a known fact that dreams, when read with divination, tend to fade into the ether once analyzed.”

Her auntie strolled over to Mena; and surprisingly, was very calm about her lesson being interrupted. Instead, she lingered on Mena’s favorite subject: Grizabella’s time in the Dream Castle.

“Headmaster Bivion firmly believed in the power of the dreamscape, and that’s what he taught us at school. He spent most of his time sleepwalking through the realm of dreams, even in the middle of class. To him, a truly conscious mind dwelled deeper in the subconscious than those in the waking hour."

“So,” Mena said, questions filling her eyes. “He believed the people who were truly awake were the one’s sleeping? My brain hurts.”

Auntie Grizabella chortled. “He was a bit of a hippy-dippy sort, but he truly believed that. A skilled mind can receive premonitions from the astral plane that spells out our destiny. Not only this, but talented wizards can send subliminal messages into each other’s dreams. I want to see if it was one or the other.”

Grizabella closed her eyes, chanting a magic incantation, “Inner mind, inner mind, let me see the dreams I might find.”

Grizabella tapped Mena’s head and a rainbow bubble arose from it. Inside, her dream flashed by. “Fabius the Famed, eh?” Grizabella said quietly, causing Mena to cover her blushing face.

“At least,” her auntie added. “You listen to your auntie in your dreams when it comes to drinking.”

She laughed, but suddenly, her mirth was cut short by a gasp. When Bubbel appeared in place of Fabias, Auntie Grizabella stammered. “N-n-no,” she said, as Bubbel exclaimed, ‘Endless rain of blood.’

The words seemed to perturb her more than the actual witch that was speaking them. “What?!” Mena asked, as her auntie’s face turned pale.

“Mena...” her aunt said, quickly tapping the rainbow bubble causing it to pop. “Mena, we may have less time than I thought. Please track down some magicaps for me…Real ones this time…”

Mena looked up skeptically as her aunt covered her whole face. Her eyes peering through her fingers. “What’s going on, auntie?”

Grizabella placed her hands on her shoulders. She was visibly shaking. “I’ll tell you when you get back. Please take Straw-Woman with you and shoot up a blast of fireworks if anything happens.”

“Uh…okay?” Mena said, utterly confused.

“Phenomena, this is urgent,” Grizabella said, and though her mind was hazy from sleep deprivation and baffled by Grizabella’s sudden change in behavior, she resolved to get those magicaps for her.

As Mena walked through the midday woods, crunching over leaves in the dry heat, her mind drifted away from what her aunt said. She still searched the ground for the elusive mushrooms, but she took a more lackadaisical approach, skipping and talking to Straw-Woman about matters that pressed more on her mind than mushrooms.

“You know what my life needs more of, Straw-Woman?”

“What Mena?” Straw-Woman asked in her flighty voice, caring not a whit more than her creator.

Mena turned around, holding her chest and one hand up in the air. “It needs the thrill of romance!”

“Mena, Mena, Silly Mena,” Straw-Woman scoffed. “Methinks you got your nose so deep in those silly loves stories that you don’t notice the true issue for your generation.”

“Mmm?” Mena asked, feeling slightly insulted by Straw-Woman’s dismissal.

“The liberation of all Straw-Kind,” Straw-Woman exclaimed. So many scarecrows sit idlely in fields not realizing the importance of having a brain,” Straw-Woman’s stitched on eyes opened wide and so did her mouth as she pumped a fist full of straw in the air, “Once we free their minds, we will free them all!”

“You don’t care much about romance at all,” Mena muttered.

“Mena,” Straw-Woman said, returning to a quieter voice. “I may not look like it, but romance is always on my mind.”

Mena raised a thick, triangular eyebrow in skepticism.

“Ok,” Straw-Woman said as her voice got all bubbly. “So, you know that crow with the dapper fashion sense? He visits me every day. I think he likes me!”

Mena rolled her eyes. “I think he likes that you don’t chase him away when he eats auntie’s radishes. Most scarecrows raise their arms menacingly. You simply try to start a conversation with him.”

“Men!” Straw-Woman growled. “You think they’re interested in what you have to say, but really, they just want your radishes!”

In a split second, Straw-Woman did an about-face. “Hey Mena!”

“What?”

“Aren’t theses the mushrooms your auntie was talking about?

Straw-Woman pointed to a pile of scarlet and white magicaps piled up beside an old, hollowed out tree. “Whoa!” Mena said, “…and I didn’t even have to use a tracking spell.” Suddenly, she heard a bunch of nasty high-pitched cackling. Mena quickly slid up against the dead tree.

The three witches who pursued her were standing around what looked like a tear in reality. It was like a black piece of fabric, jaggedly cut out of the air with a knife. It moved up and down like a floating mouth, and the voice that came from it made Mena’s spine tingle like she had rubbed barebacked against an icicle. “Surely, Grizabella has a weakness?” the voice said.

Bubbel hissed. “Of course, your Darkness. The young one is her weakness.”

In between her giggling, Toila added, “We saw her collecting mushrooms so we laid out some for her”—Mena swallowed hard—“Once she comes, we’ll catch her, and Grizabella will be forced to drop her guard”

Mena looked again at the unguarded mushrooms and a thought popped into her head. Those dumb witches weren’t even looking at the mushrooms, they were much to focused on the talking portal. “Levitate to me,” she whispered waving her wand. “Quickly, defy gravity.”

As the magicaps floated silently into her basket, the voice from the void grew deeper and more threatening. “Bubbel, I hope for your sake, this plan of yours succeeds and I didn’t free you for nothing.”

Bubbel trembled and knelt before the void. “I assure you Anguish that…”

“DON’T SPEAK MY NAME,” the void howled, causing Mena to shudder as she collected the last few mushrooms into her basket.

Bubbel whimpered in her raggedy, crone-y voice, “Please have mercy, your Darkness.”

“That’s better,” the void said, as if it couldn’t stand an inferior creature speaking its name.

Mena stood up and Straw-Woman gave her a thumbs up. “Wow,” Straw-Woman said quietly. “I can’t believe they didn’t notice at all.”

Mena snickered quietly as she tip-toed away. “Dark Witches, more like dumb bi…”—Crack!

The sounding of a twig crunching beneath her boot, caused Bubbel and the witches to face her, their eyes bulging (or in Karen’s case, staring) over the disturbance.

“The child!” Bubbel exclaimed as the shadowy void vanished.

“Heh heh, and she’s got our mushrooms,” Toila said, laughing though her face wore a scowl.

Karen tried as hard as possible to make her sweet face look menacing. “Let’s get her, my precious!” Bubbel took her broomstick and whacked Karen on the back of the head.

Bubbel gritted her remaining teeth. “It’s ‘my pretties,’ Karen. Did you not get past the first page in the Witch Handbook?!”

Karen sighed, rubbing her head where the broom hit her. “Let’s get her, my pretties,” she said with a sad look.

Mena looked around. There was no way she could escape these green witches on foot. They all sported broomsticks… Mena gazed at Straw-Woman. “Wait a minute,” she said, whipping out her wand with a sly expression.

“Fly, fly, fly, make this scarecrow soar through the sky!”

Suddenly, Straw-Woman levitated, turning parallel to the ground like a broomstick. Before she even mounted her makeshift broom, Mena turned around and crossed her eyes and stretched her mouth open with hands, sticking out her tongue. “Basic witches, not wanted!” she said laughing and jumped on Straw-Woman, who began to protest, much like in her dream.

“Why that miserable little runt!” Bubbel screamed. “After her, my pretties…and Karen.”

Mena had already flown away, but despite having a burst of confidence from her mischievous and daring behavior, she wondered, “What was that chilling void, and why was it called Anguish?”

As she flew left and right dodging trees, the already dark roof of the forest darkened even more, and rain began to drop through the trees at an alarming rate. Mena wiped her face and looked at her fingers. The drops of rain were not clear at all. They were blood red.