Chapter 61: The Witch Has Come

“What is that noise?” I whisper to Arabella before climbing out of bed.

It is 3 in the morning and everything else is quiet except for a scratching sound in the wall. Hearing it again, we glance at each other as I walk over to the wall to investigate further. When it stops suddenly, I stand still in hopes of finding what is causing it.

The minute it starts again, I rush towards the wall and then thump on it to scare whatever is inside. Then I hear it, the soft scurrying of little feet. “Shit!” I exclaim when I see the mouse run across the floor just below me.

Now we must get a mouse trap and see if we can catch it. If we are lucky, it won’t take long, and I don’t have to lie in bed another night with that awful scratching. It is times like these that I really wish I didn’t have inhuman hearing, because every scratch or scurry of little feet, sends chills up and down my spine in the middle of the night.

When I was a little pup of 4, I remember hearing a mouse in the wall just like this one. I ran to my father’s bedside and pleaded with him to take care of it. He did of course. It was the middle of the night and he said in a low voice, “Go back to bed Julian, you will be fine. Don’t let a little mouse worry you so much.”

Hearing us talk, my mother woke up and patted the bed next to her, so I climbed in. Father was not happy, so he groaned and got out of bed, before picking me up and taking me back to my room. He set a few traps that night, and the next morning there were a whole family of mice in them.

I had felt so bad afterwards. From then on, I decided if I heard something like that, I would just let it go. It is different now though, because I have my own pups and the last thing, I need is a family of mice inhabiting the walls and spreading diseases. Not to mention, they multiply like rabbits.

Shaking my head, I furrow my brow and mumble, “I knew it.” To myself before climbing back in bed. Tonight, I will have to suffer with the noises, but tomorrow they will be exterminated.

Sliding back under the covers and curling up behind Arabella, I listen to her snore softly and it makes me want to do evil things to her, like kiss the back of her neck and give her good dreams. As I lie there, I smile and then start to laugh before I catch myself. She starts to wake up, so I close my eyes and pretend I am asleep.

It works, because the next thing I know, she is snoring again, and she is cuddled up against me. For the rest of the night, I have disturbing dreams of something coming out of the darkness and stealing the pups from their rooms. Waking up at the crack of dawn, I feel like I didn’t sleep at all.

I figure I might as well check on the little ones, so when I do, I find that they are all gone. When I panic, I cry out before looking down and noticing something on the ground. Picking it up, I smell the herbs inside the satchel, and I figure out quickly, that there is a witch on the grounds, or there was recently.

“What would a witch want with my babies?” Is the only thing that keeps circulating through my brain.

When I turn around, I see Arabella’s pale face. She is in shock and can’t even say anything. Instead, her eyes fill with tears and then they cascade down her cheeks.

In silence, she suffers and then I watch as she walks into the room and over to their cribs. She lovingly caresses the sheets with her fingertips and then sighs before stating, “We need to find out who did this and kill them now.” At that moment, I believe she has fully grown up and has decided that this is the only course of action we may pursue at this time.

Knowing that she is right, I nod and start a chain reaction that would end up in finding them alive. After several hours of searching the castle grounds, we hunt down the witch and warlock. They were hiding in the basement where they thought no one would find them, but I did.

Me and my trusty sense of smell, sniffed out the pups. When I caught their scent, I alerted the guards, so that we could find them and kill whoever was the culprits. “There they are.” I yell loud and clear, before leading the group, who would tie them up and wait for our decision to kill them or not.

Arabella rushes over to the pups, who are fast asleep still. When she picks up Juliette, she doesn’t want to wake up for some reason, even though Arabella is talking to her, while trying to wake her. “Please, what is wrong?” She cries out while holding Juliette out for me to take ahold of.

“What do you mean, my love?” Confused, I don’t understand until I see that she is limp in my hands despite our trying to wake her.

I feel her breathe, so at least she is still alive and breathing, but why won’t she open her eyes? I hand her back to Arabella who is starting to panic and say, “Go take her back over to the others and watch them. I need to have a little chat with our guests.”

Strolling over to where they lie on the ground tied up and gagged, I lean down and rip off the gag from the witch before asking loudly, “What did you do to them? Tell me now before I kill you where you lie.”

She cackles and then smirks before giving me the silent treatment. The warlock though, stares at her with a warning glare and then mumbles something into the gag. I can’t hear him because of it, so I replace hers before pulling on his. The last thing I need is a duo of a witch and warlock throwing around spells and incantations.

“You will never wake them up without us, so I suggest you untie us, or you will never hear them speak again or see their sweet smiles, because they will be in that spell forever. They are in an eternal sleep, that only we can undo. Do you want to be able to see them grow up and have families of their own someday?” He hisses as he speaks with a strange old European accent, that is hard to understand.

Knowing full well what he is getting at, I replace his gag and walk over to Arabella and console her. Rubbing her back, I hold her and then kiss her lips sweetly for just a second, before I tell her what they conveyed to me. Her eyes tell it all when a single tear forms and then disappears just afterwards.

She realizes that they probably will never wake up and that these two if released, may kill us all if given the chance. What I cease to understand is why? Why the pups of all things?

Not knowing is eating me from the inside out, so I decide right at that moment if the pups won’t wake up, then neither will the witch and the warlock, but first. First, I am going to have fun with them and make them tell me why they did this and why the pups. So, I go upstairs and grab a few things while the guards watch them.

When I come back down, I notice two things before I begin to torture them. The minute I walk back downstairs with a hammer, chisel and pliers, the witch glares at the warlock before closing her eyes and starting to cry. Can witches cry? I didn’t think they feared anything or even had emotions? Perhaps I will work on her first and see if I can get her to tell me something.

Having the security squad place, her in the chair in the middle of the room, I pull out the pliers first because they do the least damage of the three and I start to do my dirty work. A strange thing happens though, as soon as I pull her gag down, she cries out, “No, stop. There is no need for this. He may not tell you, but I will.”

Figuring that she will lie to get out of punishment, I keep going and use the pliers to pull off her nails slowly and surely. After the first one, my ears ring while she screams her fool head off. Then when I pull off the next one and the one afterwards, she begs and pleads with me to stop. “Please.”

Shaking my head, I lower down to her ear and whisper, “When I am finished with you, you won’t have any way of closing your eyes to the pain and a way to tell me what I need to know, so you had better tell me now and get it over with. If you do, I will kill you quickly.”

She sighs and then says in a pained tone, “Yes, now please stop. You want to know who had us do this, correct?”

I hesitate before answering and lift the hammer up before she cries out, “It was the doctor.”

Hearing those words, confirmed what I had suspected him of for a while and it shocks me to my core, because he was right under our nose the whole time. Every time, I suspected that he had something to do with things, he came out smelling like roses. But now I can prove it and he will pay for everything he has done.

“Will you reverse the spell on the pups? I won’t stop till you do?” I ask her as I stare into those dead eyes of hers and raise the hammer again.

This time she cries out, “Wait. Yes, I will. But I need the use of my hands to perform it and my book.”

Weary of what she may do, I try to figure out if she is telling the truth or trying to make things a whole lot worse than they are. I stand there watching her for a moment, and then decide. “I will do this only if you swear that you will not try anything funny. I will be watching every move and standing right behind your back as you read the incantations.”

“Fine!” She exclaims as I watch the two of them glare at each other.

I can tell that he wants to kill her right now and is warning her to not do it. But, when I untie her and stand her up, she honors our agreement. She stands up and stretches, before rubbing her wrists and then she walks over to her bag on the floor and pulls out her book of spells.

Always Standing next to her, I watch her constantly as she prepares for the spell and then starts to speak. “Hear me now. Let what has been done, be undone, and made right. Shall the spell be broken, and no harm come to them.” The minute she says the words, I hear Arabella’s voice.

“They are waking up!” She exclaims.