Mari has gone through a lot since she took over this house, but a huge garden appearing out of nowhere one day is easily the biggest shock she’s had so far. She starts worrying about how much work will be required to take care of all these strange plants, and how many more dolls she’ll need to build as a result, but she realises something after calming down a bit. Some of these plants actually look pretty familiar, and they might be the solution to the very problem their presence has introduced.
Several of the plants she read about on that witch website are here, some of them are even ones she ordered when she was making Naomi! She’s pretty sure it said that parts from some of these other plants are often used for trade among witches as well. Between having direct access to certain ingredients, and the means to trade for the rest, making more dolls may have just gotten a whole lot cheaper for fledgling dollmaker. She’s not sure why it suddenly appeared, whether the witch that lived here decided to hide it, or the house itself conjured it somehow, or if this is yet more “Witch Stuff” she’d be better off not questioning, but now that it’s here she may as well make the most of it.
She tells Naomi to keep the rooms they’re currently using clean, but the top priority should be taking care of the garden until they have enough of a workforce to start cleaning more of the house. Before long, Mari needs to return to work, and the rest of the week goes fairly quietly, with her work progressing without issues, aside from her needing to step away at times to manage Naomi a bit. She has to admit that she isn’t entirely focused on her job though, and who could blame her considering all the things she’s learnt, and all the new things she’d been able to do recently? At first she was just eager to build more dolls, but that was quickly pushed aside one afternoon, when a new idea popped into her head while she was lost in thought. This idea will take some practice, but she’s sure it’ll be worth it if she can pull it off.
Much of her free time from that point onwards was spent practising the first spell she learnt for herself, the one that allows her to travel distances in an instant. Jumping as far as Cassandra’s house took a lot out of her, which considering how much she visits would be a good reason to keep practising on its own, but that’s not the only aspect of the spell she wants to improve on. Mari starts bringing things with her when jumping to different places, small items around the house, groceries from the store, packages she picked up from the post office, even Martin was used for practice, whether he enjoyed it or not. The items get larger over the next couple of weeks, the more she takes with her, the more she has to exert herself for the spell to work, so the distance is no longer the only thing she has to factor in, but before long she’s bringing Naomi with her on these practice trips. She’s been so focused on this that she hasn’t started building a second doll, or learning any new spells, but this is too important for her, it could open up so many possibilities. Before long, Mari is able to travel the distance she has in mind with Naomi in tow, making sure to practise late at night as she doesn’t want anyone to see the doll in public and cause a scene. Taking the doll this far takes a bit out of her, but she’s able to manage it better than the original trip to her friend’s house, and after a quick breather she makes the return trip as well.
She’s finally ready, there’s just one more thing to do. Mari gets out her phone, and asks Cassandra if she’d be up to go for a walk next Saturday. The next few days pass quite quickly, with Mari finally getting a chance to relax a bit after all this practice. She does ask Naomi to start harvesting some of the plants she’ll need for the next doll, but she’s not going to focus on that until after she’s pulled off her surprise.
Saturday finally arrives, and when the clock strikes their agreed meeting time, Mari jumps to Cassandra’s place, which thanks to all her training is much easier than last time. She knocks on the door, and Cassandra comes out ready to go in her wheelchair, which her father is currently pushing. Mari takes over and they set out on their walk. Days like these have been pretty common for a number of years now, it’s been quite a long time since Cassandra was really able to leave the house on her own, so Mari likes to walk her around the neighbourhood to make sure she was still getting some exposure to the outside world. They can’t travel too far, Cassandra can only manage sitting up in her wheelchair for so long these days, but it’s still better than nothing, and she enjoys the fresh air.
Mari is glad to see that Cassandra seems to be in a better mood than she was during the last visit, there’s so much weighing her down that she can only ever find so much joy in things, but she seemed genuinely happy to greet her today.
“Marielle, how is everything going with Naomi?” She asks not long after they start walking. Although this is the first they’ve met up since Mari created the doll, she has been keeping her updated on what she’s been doing, having omitted the plan for today, of course.
“It’s been a whole thing, Cass.” She answers with a bit of a sigh. “Having the extra help is definitely useful, but she- sorry, it… is a lot to handle. I don’t know how much of it is just how dolls are, or if Naomi is just a bit much, but it almost feels like I’m spending as much effort on managing it as I would be if I just tried doing everything myself.”
“But it is helping out, right?”
“For the most part, yeah, but then there are times where it suddenly just collapses on the floor, like it just lost all motivation or something, and I don’t even know until I find them a few hours later. And get this, for some reason the only thing that brings it back to normal is putting a sticker on it, like it runs on them or something! I had to buy a bunch of packs from the supermarket the other day to make sure I won’t run out.”
Cassandra giggles. “Maybe Naomi just wants to know that you appreciate its work.”
“I mean yeah, that’s certainly a part of it, the doll made a huge deal out of pretty much exactly that after I made it. I still don’t really get dolls, but I’m trying to do what I can.”
“You’re doing great, Marielle.” Cassandra says to reassure her. “You’re such a kind hearted person, and you deserve to have someone help you out like that, I just wish there was something I could do for you as well…”
“Come on, Cassandra… you know how I feel about you… and about all of this. If I can make things even a little nicer for you, then that’s all I need. If that’s not enough, then consider this my way of saying thanks for how much you helped me out growing up… Especially when all that stuff happened with my old family.”
“I know… I just wish I could go back to being able to help you out like I used to…”
Mari decides it would be best to change the subject before Cassandra starts spiralling.
“Don’t worry about it, and besides, all this magic stuff means it’ll be even easier for me to help out in different ways.” She starts getting a little sheepish. “I’ve… actually been working on something I wanted to surprise you with today…”
“Really?” Cassandra asks, having expected this to be a normal walk.
“Yeah, it took a bit of practice to get right. Let's find a decent spot first.” Mari wheels Cassandra behind a large tree, where anyone who may be around is less likely to see them.
“I want you to close your eyes, okay Cass?”
“Okay.” She closes her eyes and waits for something to happen, there’s a moment where she feels a change in the breeze, which she can’t focus on for long, as the sound of coughing and wheezing start shortly after.
“Ah fuck.” She hears Mari say.
“Marielle, what’s wrong?!” She opens her eyes and sees her friend on her hands and knees beside her.
“D-Don’t worry… about me…” She says between breaths. “Forgot… to account for… the wheelchair… Gimme a… minute” She had only practised taking the weight of one other person, so this jump is hitting her much harder than she expected.
“Hey Cass…” She starts again after a few seconds. “Do you recognise… where we are?”
Cassandra had been so focused on Mari that she hadn’t even noticed her surroundings, but now that she’s taking a look she realises that they’re somewhere far from her neighbourhood.
“This is… the park near where we grew up…”
