“Ughhhhhhh, what is it now?”

 

Mari can’t hide her disdain for this new development. First it was the garden a few weeks back, and now a brand new door has suddenly appeared in the workshop and there’s a strange song playing somewhere, is this going to become a regular occurance? She doesn’t get why these parts of the building couldn’t have just been there when she first moved in. Why does she have to deal with all these discoveries, all these changes, all these secrets within her own house, the one place you’d think would be safe from this sort of thing?

 

The worst part is that it had to happen when she already had plans for the day, now the new doll is going to have to wait until this is sorted out. As much as she’d like to just carry on as she had been, it’s not like she can just ignore the new room, and she’s not going to be able to focus on building the doll with this music playing. So, with a sigh, she trudges over to the door to see what secrets the room on the other side holds, and upon opening it she finds…

 

Oh…

 

This only raises more questions…

 

On the other side of the door isn’t a room, it’s… a void?

 

There seems to be some kind of pillar a fair distance away that stretches as far upwards and downwards as she can see, but other than that there’s nothing here at all, no floor, no ceiling, no walls, and when she leans through the doorway she can’t even see the wall the door is connected to on this side. It’s just an empty, dark void that has nothing but a huge pillar in it, unless you want to count the ominous, deep blue glow that’s coming from far below.

 

Wait, that’s not quite true. There’s a section of the pillar that’s completely missing, leaving a gap about a metre high right at Mari’s eye level, and it almost looks like something is floating there, but it’s too far away to properly make out. For just a moment Mari is worried about what that gap could mean, especially if this is some kind of load bearing pillar, but if that was the case then surely there would have been problems already, right? Besides, considering the size of the pillar she’s not sure how it could be physically connected to the house in the first place, unless the stairway leading to the basement is way longer than it looks.

 

What’s more important than that is the fact that the music is louder in here than it is in the workshop, so both anomalies definitely have something to do with each other, it’s just a matter of figuring out exactly what. That being said, there’s really only one thing in here that she could really investigate, which makes it pretty easy to figure out what to do next. The real problem is figuring out how exactly to get over to the pillar, it’s not like she can just walk over there, can she? Maybe it’s worth checking if the dolls know what to do? Naomi was the one who showed her the garden, after all.

 

Mari calls out for a doll, and Leona runs in not too long after.

 

“How can this one help Miss?” It asks.

 

“Hey Leona, do you know anything about what’s going on here?” Mari asks, pointing towards the doorway.

 

“About the wall, Miss?”

 

“About the door that just showed up, and whatever’s happening on the other side.”

 

“This one doesn’t understand.” The doll says with a puzzled expression “This one doesn’t see any door there.”

 

“You don’t?”

 

“This one does not.”

 

“Okay, do you hear the music?”

 

“What music would that be, Miss?”

 

“I guess that’s a no then.” It seems like Mari will have to figure it out on her own.

 

“Well, thanks anyway Leona, feel free to go back to whatever you were doing before, I’m gonna see if I can get to the bottom of this.” She leans through the doorway again to get another look at the other side, but Leona gasps loudly as soon as she does so.

 

“What happened, Miss!” It calls out. “Did you get yourself stuck in the wall!?” The doll’s inability to see the door is clearly causing it a lot of confusion right now.

 

“No, I’m fine.” Mari explains. “There’s a doorway here that you can’t see and-”

 

“Don’t worry Miss!” Leona interrupts. “This one will assist in freeing you!”

 

With that, the doll grabs hold of Mari and starts pushing and pulling in an attempt to free her from a predicament that doesn’t exist.

 

“No, listen to me! I’m not stuck, let go!”

 

But Leona continues the misguided rescue attempt. “It’s okay, Miss! This one will show you that it’s capable of helping!”

 

The tussle continues until Leona suddenly loses balance and falls backwards, letting go of Mari. Unfortunately, the sudden shift in balance causes Mari to fall forwards, and she starts screaming as she tumbles all the way through the doorway and into the seemingly dark space within, with no way of knowing how far it goes or if there’s any way for her to get back once she falls in. Luckily for her the fall ends up being a rather short one, and she hits the ground within mere moments as she finds that this mysterious room does in fact have a floor she can walk on, albeit an invisible one.

 

“Holy shit… I thought… I was gonna die…” Is all Mari can manage to say at first as she pants on the ground, short of breath thanks to the panic and the screaming. Her heart is beating out of her chest and her mind is racing, her own fear and confusion only getting further amplified by an outside source.

 

“Miss!? Where did you go, Miss!?” Mari looks back through the doorway to see Leona panicking on the other side, the doll’s emotions mixing with her own. She needs to get Leona out of here, she can barely think like this.

 

“Ughhhhh… I’m okay, Leona!” She calls out. “Go… Go check Martin’s litter box or something!”

 

“But Miss, what about y-”

 

“That’s an order, Leona!” Mari raises her voice, her patience wearing thin. She feels Leona’s shock as if it’s her own as soon as the words leave her lips. “I’m fine, please… please just go take care of whatever you need to do somewhere else…”

 

“V-Very well, Miss. This one understands…” Leona says before walking off with a downhearted expression. Mari feels a gross, unpleasant feeling wash over her, but it starts to fade as Leona leaves the basement, along with the emotions the doll was unintentionally broadcasting. Mari sighs, she didn’t like doing that, and maybe there was a better way to go about it, but she had to say something to get Leona to leave, what other option did she have?

 

Now, with her mind clear once more, Mari gets back up and starts walking towards the pillar, and hopefully the source of the sad melody. She can’t help but look around as she closes the distance, there’s something strange about this place, it’s unnerving. Why would something like this exist in this house? Is she even still in the house to begin with? It’s not like the building has space for a room like this. Was the doorway a portal? Maybe some kind of hole in reality itself? How many rules of physics did the witch have to break to create this? No one told Mari that witchcraft was capable of anything like this. At least she has plenty to think about while she walks.

 

As she gets closer to the pillar, it becomes easier to see that there is indeed something small floating within the gap, that at least means there’s something here for her to check out that’s not a featureless square pillar. She picks up the pace a bit since there’s not much further to go, and before long she’s able to make out the object.

 

It’s an old music box, the crank on the side constantly turning on its own, which Mari can only assume is thanks to some kind of magic. Well that explains where the song was coming from, but what is it doing here, floating in this empty space? There’s also something else, some kind of square object on the front of the pillar itself. Once she finally reaches the pillar, she leans over to inspect what it is.

 

Oh.

 

It’s a sticky note. Strange place to leave one.

 

Mari removes the note from the pillar so she can better read it, and much to her surprise, it’s addressed to her.

Dear Mari,

 

I do hope you’ve been settling into your new home.

 

If you’re reading this, it would mean that you’ve managed to discover the house’s core far sooner than I would have expected. I must admit, I admire your resourcefulness! That being said, I’d suggest you avoid touching it until you’re ready to replace it with one of your own. I’ve set up an enchantment that will send that core back to me once it’s removed, so unless you want the house to run out of magic you’d best leave it be until the time is right.

 

Don’t take this as a sign that you need to rush to make your own core, though, you are more than welcome to keep using that one for as long as you need to. You likely wouldn’t be able to create one of your own until after you’ve earned your hat anyway. I have already made preparations to handle everything at my new home with my own magic for the time being, so there’s no need for you to worry about me, we witches are quite resilient. Don’t forget that you can call me if you ever run into any problems, I look forward to hearing about your progress.

 

-M.

 

Not until she’s finished reading the note does Mari stop to wonder how such a large message is able to fit on something so small, and by that point she’s already too confused by the contents of the note itself to care too much. This was clearly written by the witch, but what is she talking about? Cores? Earning hats? What does any of this mean, and why is it written like the witch knew that Mari would be learning more magic than the one spell she taught her?

 

She also got a strange feeling when reading the initial, not because there’s anything unusual about the initial itself, but because she suddenly realises that in all the years she knew the witch she never once heard her name, or thought to ask what it was herself. Why did that never strike her as strange until now?

 

The only useful information she was able to glean from the note is that assuming this music box is indeed the core, it’s tied to all the magic she can feel around the house, and likely the enchantments it has going on as well. That being said, all of this only raises more questions for her to think on as she stares at the music box floating in front of her. What exactly does the core do, why is it a music box, and why does it play such an emotional song? It probably has to do with the whole witch house thing they were talking about on the forum, but how does it all fit together?

 

That’s when she notices, there’s an engraving on the inside of the lid. Mari leans in a bit to read it, making sure not to get too close in case that enchantment activates.

 

No matter what happens, you shall live on forever in my heart. I love you.

M + N

 

This seems… really personal, is she sure she doesn’t want this back anytime soon?

 

Maybe the music is getting to her, maybe she’s just frustrated, maybe it’s the sentimental message, but she’s starting to feel like she’s spent enough time here for now. Sure, she did get some new information out of it, but that doesn’t help much when she doesn’t know what most of it means, not to mention it’s not clear why this place showed up now of all times, or if there’s a way to get the music to stop playing in her workshop.

 

Mari wonders if she should just call the witch after all of this, but she’s still apprehensive about the idea. She might just be feeling resentful about how the witch essentially left her to figure out all of this herself, especially now that it seems like she might have planned for all of this to happen, but she feels like if she has to ask for help she’d prefer to stick with the forum, if nothing else they’ve at least been pretty understanding of the situation she’s found herself in so far. And it’s not like Mari has much of a choice but to ask for help at this point, there’s too much going on right now and she’s completely out of her depth.

 

There’s one thing she can say for sure though, whatever the deal is with this core thing, it’s clearly very important if the witch actually bothered to leave her a note about it, that’s for sure.