Chapter 26

 

Amirya felt weightless. 

 

When she opened her eyes, she realized she hovered slightly off the ground - the ground covered in a few inches of clear water. She returned. She stepped down; the water sloshed at every little movement. 

 

No memory boxes, nor the image of her mother, were here this time. The view stretched endlessly, beautiful stars speckling the shifting kaleidoscope sky. She wandered aimlessly for a moment, anxiety rising. She wasn’t conscious when she had drifted here. She tried to wake herself up, return, but nothing happened. She drifted too far, like Elle warned.

 

When she spun around, several yards above the ground - over her head, a door was opened. Inside, she saw a yellow tinged room with shelves - a small library.

 

“Wait,” Amirya mumbled. That library was the one she and Elle visited; the one that had the book of her life in Aurelius. She tried to levitate like she was when she awakened, but she couldn’t.

 

“...Mom?” She tried. “Mom!” 

 

She was here last time - in her magic room. She could return again, right?

 

She called out, louder and with more emotion, troubled as she turned her cries towards the empty horizons. Overwhelmed, she craved the comfort of her mother’s guidance. 

 

She felt even further away. She couldn’t control it; she couldn’t even access her witch’s space.

 

The space in front of her shifted. Stepping back, her heart pounded with expectation. As though the space itself was pulled apart, a woman in a resting, sitting position appeared, though the edges of her body trailed off like wispy clouds like she was part spirit. Long, green hair spilled out around her, and she was beautiful.

 

“Mom!” Amirya called, relieved.

 

The woman opened her eyes, and they were a bright, lime green instead of pink. Amirya paused; confusion painted her face. The silence stretched between them. The woman rested her cheek against her palm and crossed her legs. Her expression was lax, edging toward boredom as her eyes scanned Amirya up and down leisurely. Then, she clicked her tongue.

 

“I thought something that was partially created from me would be more interesting than this,” she said. Her voice was deep and flat, “It’s so barren here.”

 

A hundred thoughts and questions sped through Amirya’s mind. She quickly grasped that this woman, who looked just like her mother, must have been her grandmother or an ancestor, who she suspected was related to the witch of the forest. There was so much she wanted to ask and know, but she did not want to drive away the already unimpressed witch. Amirya’s curiosity mounted so high, she did not feel even a drop of offense.

 

Finally, she settled on, “Do you know where ‘here’ is?”

 

She frowned, “You’re the one trying to summon a soul here without a proper ritual or spell, and you don’t even recognize this place innately?”

 

Amirya stayed quiet as she tried to make sense. 

 

The witch spoke again, exasperated, “This is your dimensional place. You’ve been here plenty of times already.”

 

But wasn’t her witch’s space that small room? How the hell could this wide, expanding landscape be hers?

 

She remembered Elle vaguely explaining this to her, but the details kept escaping. The woman sighed and waved her finger toward Amirya, a small memory box appeared. Her mind filled with several of Zee’s memories. 

 

There were multiple types of witches in the cosmos. The most common were world witches, those were witches that the individual world itself birthed. A being that contained some of the world’s energy and thus, was able to bend the energy of the world to create magic. They were supernatural.

 

The most powerful witches were dimensional witches, born out of the universe itself. They were immortal; their lives incomprehensible to such linear-focused beings. They were created in a ‘homespace’ outside of space and time and freely traveled through it - through all dimensions and universes, even their parallels. They could have become masters of the universe, but witches were not human and by nature, too blithe and blase for such laborious things.

 

‘Immortal, old beings like that,’ Elle had explained, ‘have long since only cared about what could possibly entertain them. They don’t have feelings like love and justice like humans. They’re selfish, whimsical creatures who see and treat the universe as their playground.’ 

“It’s so small and empty,” the witch remarked, “though, for a creature like you, I suppose that’s to be expected.”

 

She leaned forward, inspecting Amirya a bit closer. She smirked. “At least Chia tried to do something fun with you. It wasn’t a waste to make her, after all.”

 

“Make? You made my mother? Then… are you my grandmother?” Amirya said. “The witch of the forest… No… are you a dimensional witch?”

 

There was no way. They were impossible beings to comprehend.

 

The woman blinked, unmoved, “Is this that human attachment coming out? Vuschia had that nature too.” She sighed, like this was tiring, “Strange, weird creatures you are. I’ve had many names across all sorts of times and spaces, but shortly, yes. I’m those things too. It’s fresh in my mind. Very fresh. It wasn’t long ago at all from this own timepoint.”

 

“Where is mom?” Amirya asked, quick and hopeful.

 

“‘Mom’.” She repeated. “Right, you were trying to call Vuschia’s soul so crudely.” The bright, green eyes set on Amirya again. “You’re so weak, but the call was quite loud. I came to see, thinking maybe it would be at least a little amusing. I suppose that spell is cute enough.”

 

“Spell?” Amirya asked. The witch pointed at her, and her chest glowed, and strange luminescent markings appeared. The same ones she saw within the dragon heart.

 

“A clumsy rebound regression spell,” she said. “Not perfect… maybe not even good, but adequate to get her desired result, to ping you back after your next life. Well, your soul is a bit… patchworked right now, but it’s been healing itself well enough. If your body wasn’t crafted like it was, it wouldn’t have been able to handle the synchronization.”

 

Amirya breathed deeply; her chest rose and fell at a fast pace, and she shakily touched where the spell showed. That was why she came back to her first life, but… her eyes rose to the witch. The witch watched her with a bored expression. She hadn’t done it, so it was her mother. A strange kind of warmth filled her.

 

“Do you know why she did it? How…” Amirya forced herself to trail off so she would not bombard the witch, fearing she would get annoyed and leave. But a rebound regression? Why just not a regression? But, if Amirya simply went straight back to being Amirya - she doubted she’d be able to change much at that level of maturity and ignorance.

 

The witch looked up to the sky and watched the atmosphere. “It’s so inconvenient to be called in this state,” she complained instead. “Ugh, I thought you’d be able to call the rest of me…”

 

“Yes?” Amirya questioned.

 

“Yes, you and your linear timeline focus, you called out, but with your current time in your head. You’d pull the current states for that time. Which is why I’m like this.” The witch motioned to her body. “And you’re not even here,” she frowned, “you can only astral project yourself instead of shifting dimensions. Well, Chia couldn’t do it either… too bound to that primordial power core…”

 

“...why are you like this?” Amirya stepped closer.

 

“Eh, got killed. It happens.” She replied vaguely.

 

“Killed?” Amirya asked in alarm. “You’re immortal… you’re here.”

 

“Well, killed as much as a dimensional witch can get killed. Physical bodies are fun. I made one when I played around in that world you’re in currently and tied my being to it. Well, you might call it a ‘soul.’ It’s just a bunch of Aether that is sentient. That’s all I am. If an entity is capable enough, they can blast even my soul to all over the universe. Damn gods not knowing their place. I’m still piecing it back together. It’s so arduous. You’re obviously incapable of calling the rest of me. How annoying.” The witch closed her eyes, looking aggrieved. 

 

“Who was capable of killing you?” Amirya asked in amazement and disbelief. That seemed to perk the witch up slightly who smirked. “A god?”

 

“Ah, I just let my guard down, and one of those pesky gods took advantage. He was upset about this or that. Been chasing me around for a millennium now.” She sighed. “They about shattered that dimension when they did it. Instead, they ripped open a thousand portals to that world, and of course that thing found it. All my experiments left in the dust… Not even devils are this annoying to deal with.”

 

“Devils,” Amirya breathed. A creature she recognized, knew about. Zee’s memories flooded in. 

 

Heaven and hell existed, but they were mirror dimensions to each other. Unique in their nature that they did not have any parallel dimensions, they were the only one to exist across the omniverse. They were found in the fourth dimension, which was a level above the third dimension that earth - and this world - existed within. The other unique thing about those creatures was that they lengthened their lives and strengthened their powers by consuming energy of other organisms - and some could travel to the third dimension to do so.

 

“Oh yeah,” the witch said like she just remembered. “You got involved with two little archdevils over on Earth. That hell dimension, and heaven too, is so troublesome. There are lower level dimensional beings created in those places, so they think they’re like me with their crude magic. It’s so…” the witch raised her hand in a claw motion and shook it. “Jumping into this and that dimension, meddling around and making themselves into gods or legends, all while trying to snatch up souls.”

 

Amirya was speechless. She wanted to know more, to know everything, but there were things more important than that. She put it all to the side, and cautiously, she asked again, “My mother… and this spell, everything…”

 

The witch turned to her again. She cocked her head. Finally, she said, “Why?”

 

“Why what?” Amirya asked, confused.

 

“Why do you want to know?”

 

Amirya gaped for a second before collecting herself. Why wouldn’t she want to know? She was a mess of confusion, and of course she wanted to know her mother’s intentions. It dawned on her that all the information provided so far wasn’t even intentional - this was small talk for the witch.

 

“If it’s too vexing, just leave,” the witch scrunched up her face, “well, you can’t shift. You could just kill that body over there. Being that your soul was created with aether, you’re part dimensional witch, so your soul won’t split or be absorbed into the world line. You’ll reincarnate… Most likely. Somewhere. Most of you.” She shrugged. “Ah, but. Well, in your case. Some of you? Chia bound a piece of you to that world. Too bad, considering that thing is eating it. And that body is special, too… you’re interesting just enough to not be a waste, I suppose. Well. The first incarnation of you.”

 

“I… don’t want to leave the people I care about behind.” Amirya said. “Or the kingdom, I have responsibilities.”

 

“How absolutely bland and boring,” the witch said in a dissatisfied, harsh tone. “Ugh, Vuschia was just like that. A perplexity. Always cared so much about that particular world and its fate. I used too much primordial power from the land to create her. Thinking she was the planet. She should know things like that have no matter.”

 

“If it’s so meaningless, why did you have her in the first place?” Amirya argued. For the first time since the conversation started, she got defensive; she did not want her mother and all the good deeds she committed written off as something insignificant.

 

The witch looked down on her, “I was curious. I heard a rumor about a sentient star my sister stitched into a body. I wanted to bind a primordial power into a body, too. This world almost met the conditions.”

 

That was it. That was all any witch needed to do anything, whether it was to save or destroy an entire world at their mercy. Her blood ran hot, thinking of how her mother was nothing but an experiment to her grandmother.

 

“Gifted,” the witch suddenly said, unprompted. “Vuschia had the gift of knowing. Not even all dimensional witches have that. I don’t. And what did she use it for? A janky spell so poorly done it sucked up all the vitality in that partially human body.”

 

Amirya froze, eyes wide. What? She clutched her chest where her chest had glowed with the spell earlier.  The witch seemed mildly interested.

 

“Does that bother you?” She asked curiously. “That her body was susceptible to the world after a spell made for you? She was so young, too. Gave most of her power to create you, then the rest for a rudimentary, half-baked spell. Only a few centuries old-”

 

“What?” Amirya balked. “A few centuries?”

 

“Well, that body should have lasted a lot longer than that. I created it, after all.”

 

This was too much to process at once, especially the ‘gift of knowing.’ Didn’t that just mean foresight? And the rebound reincarnation spell had her mother’s centuries old body weak? Wouldn’t she foresee that? Then, why-

 

“You better wake up in your world if you’re not planning to move on from it just yet,” the witch advised. “You’ve been in the abyss for awhile.”

 

“Can’t you help me?” Amirya whispered. A dimensional witch may very well exist as one of the most powerful beings in the universe.

 

“Why would I?”

 

“...I am your granddaughter, your kin,” Amirya tried.

 

“Is that supposed to mean something to me? Didn’t I already tell you so much you didn’t know? I only bothered to talk with you because you could become something fun. Something that might be worthwhile to see. Besides, do you have any idea how many creatures I’ve made throughout my time? You are by far, nowhere near my favorites.”

 

“You’re probably just using this as an excuse not to look for the rest of your soul,” Amirya snapped back.

 

“Well, yeah, I hoped you’d be enough to solve that issue.” The witch said point blank.

 

The witch sighed and stretched, “...Since Chia was interesting, I’ll tell you this much. We’re dimensional witches. Well, you partly. We’re part of the universe. You keep trying to move the space around you like a sword when it’s another limb.” 

 

She then raised her arm. On the side she raised it, the space there warped and folded in on itself, showing a portal to somewhere else. “Even with an incomplete soul, I can at least do this much,” she said. “Understand?”

 

Amirya was about to say no, and wait, but the witch smiled as she vanished like the air around her soaked her up. She reached out, but there was nothing there any longer. She needed to go back, to wake up now.