Christmas Eve, one day before the Witch Games were to be held. One day before I was supposed to help Lady Kuro carry out her plan. That was also the day I met Lady Kuro’s other familiar. Since I still hadn’t mastered Vera’s powers, he agreed to take me under his wing. And it was quite a large wingspan that he possessed. Raven Poe, a fellow kinkind and some dark-winged demon apparently called a “crow tengu”. His long, black hair and leather trousers made him look like a rockstar, but his demeanor was anything but “rock ‘n’ roll”. Before becoming a kinkind warrior, Raven was apparently a politician, which probably explained the air of authority he exuded in spite of his goofy appearance. As Lady Kuro had told me, Raven’s ability wasn’t as useful as Vera’s – all he could do was use his wings to fly, a feat many other demons could do by riding brooms, giant wands or any other number of items. Still, he told me he had to learn to use his wings as any other kinkind had to learn to use their respective power.
As Raven tried to show me how to focus to the point of manifesting Vera’s power, we got to talking about our lives before becoming Lady Kuro’s followers. This was when I learned that he was a former-politician from South Korea and when I told him that I was just in Phantasia for the duration of the holiday season because I hated Christmas.
“Oh,” Raven tilted his head in confusion, “you hate Christmas? Why is that?”
I supposed that I’d been talking to him for long enough that I felt comfortable going on one of my tangents. I didn’t even try to change the subject, I was so happy to be talking to someone who didn’t seem like they’d brush off my woes and would actually listen to my story. And so I told him about the previous year’s holiday season. It was late December 2019. School had just wrapped up for the year, and I was excited to see my mum waiting for me when I arrived home. She was visiting from America for the holidays and I hadn’t seen her since the Christmas prior.
“But if you get to see your mother at Christmastime,” Raven interrupted, “shouldn’t you love Christmas? Or do you not get along with her?”
I rolled my eyes and sighed as I looked him in the eye and muttered “She died.”

It was when I arrived home after last year’s final school-day that I opened the front door to find two gardaí talking to my sobbing dad. Immediately, my mind jumped to the conclusion that he was being arrested for something, so I tossed myself to the floor and grabbed hold of one of the guards’ legs trying to pull them away from my dad while protesting his supposed arrest. My dad took a deep breath and walked up to me, pulling me off the floor and taking me aside. That was when my whole world changed. My whole life. That was when my dad told me the gardaí weren’t here to arrest anybody. They were here to ask my dad and I if Mum had contacted us or not. As it turned out, the aeroplane that she was on had crashed, killing everyone on board apart from my mother, who was unaccounted for. While most of the plane was successfully located, officials couldn’t track down my mother or the aeroplane’s blackbox. And ever since that day… I have always hated the holiday that took my mum from me.

I could tell that Raven was at a loss for words. Without warning, he wrapped his arms and wings around me and just held me until I told him to get off. Then, as if nothing had happened, Raven went back to trying to teach me to use Vera’s power as if nothing had happened. I breathed in, assuming Vera’s form. Apparently, I had learned to turn into Vera surprisingly quickly. Lady Kuro and Raven said that I shouldn’t have had too much trouble learning to use her power as a result. Yet however hard I tried, I just couldn’t.
Just then, Lady Kuro teleported into the cabin and flashed me her usual toothy grin as she started congratulating me on how much of a good job I was doing.
“But,” I hesitated, “I still haven’t learned to time-travel.”
“Just,” Raven began, “try thinking about a day you wish you could do-over or something?”
With that I closed Vera’s eyes as my mind wandered to that December day the previous year when I had found-out about my mother’s passing. And… poof! As I opened my eyes, I realized that it had suddenly turned to nighttime and Raven and Lady Kuro had completely disappeared. From out of the corner of the wooden room, I heard what sounded like snoring. I cautiously peered over my shoulder only to find myself sleeping in the cabin’s only bed! Was this what they called an “out-of-body experience”? I looked down at my hands. No, they were slightly see-through. Vera’s hands. But if I was still Vera, then who was in the bed? As I thought about every possible explanation for what had happened, I figured I must have time-travelled. My suspicions were confirmed as I hovered over to the calendar and saw that the page for December the twenty-third hadn’t been torn off yet. Elated, I phased through the cabin walls – so as to avoid waking my past-self up by opening the door – and headed to tell Lady Kuro that I had done it!
When I arrived in her castle, I found Lady Kuro – or more appropriately “I found Chloe Webber”, as she was in her human form – sitting on her stage holding a prop skull… or at-least I hoped it was a prop, anyway. She stood up as she noticed me approaching, hopping off the stage and walking over to me with her arms folded behind her back.
“Guess what?” I grinned as Chloe stared up at me as I floated above.
“What?” Chloe inquired.
I proceeded to inform Chloe that I was from one day into the future and that I had learned how to traverse time.
“Excellent! And has’t thee figur’d out how to returneth as well? If so, then I shalt seeth thee tomorrow to praise thy success.”

I closed my eyes and thought about the cabin I had come from, where Lady Kuro and Raven had been with me. And… poof! When I reopened my eyes, I was standing back where I started, mere moments after I had left.
“Forsooth mine timing wast slightly off,” Lady Kuro chuckled, wrapping an arm around my shoulder. “Now congratulations are in order!”
Indeed, Lady Kuro was right. As I morphed back to my human form, I couldn’t help grinning from ear to ear. With Vera’s power on my side, Raven and I were ready for whatever tomorrow threw at us. We were ready to scour Old King Hamlet for the information on Sumire that we required. …Hmph. Although I thought it at the time, the truth is that I never could’ve been ready for what that Christmas would hold.