4 Chapter IV - Close Ties

Nature's Magnum Opus finally appears on the horizon, the mighty sun once again begins its daily cycle, its light gracefully invading every bit of darkness that sneaks around corners. The nocturnal animals retreat to their burrows, it is time for their moment of rest; the great silver wolf rests his eyes - ironically golden like the sphere of fire - isolated on the highest point of nearby hills. The orange colored snow that at night covered all flora, now its crystals slowly crumbled into droplets of water, in a slow process the strong phosphorescent orange turned to an almost imperceptible indigo tone, approaching the flowers on the ground it was possible to see the orange in the suspended crystals dissolving and turning another color.

In the middle of a wood, which is on a detour from the road to Central City, was Catherine's house, where Max and Sophie were resting. After a night of heated arguments the two children were exhausted, in a single day they had both experienced a supernatural and near-death situation.

The night before when Sophie was giving Max a hard telling off, little by little her voice is lowering in pitch, she begins to look away slightly instead of facing him directly, between words she begins to press her molar teeth into the lower right hand corner of her mouth and as a result it is possible to see a slight movement in her jaw; at this moment she is in a state of mixed emotions, little by little the pauses between each speech were accompanied with a long stretch of the last syllable; Max soon realizes what was going on, the girl began to show the signs she always demonstrates when she is close to crying, the movement of her jaw could be called a "Sophie classic".

Max and Sophie have been friends for as long as they can remember, at the orphanage the two were almost inseparable, when they were younger the mother tried once to separate them, because together they were very naughty and messed everything up, she left them in separate rooms and changed their study schedule so that they would only see each other at lunchtime, but nothing worked, at the first opportunity they both tricked their teachers to play outside the orphanage, so even though they are still young there is a mutual concern, besides, both of them have already been through traumatic moments, and instinctively know what it is like to lose someone.

- Sophie calm down, I'm fine, look at me... - Max was leaning a bit as he said this, but leaping up from the improvised place Catherine had made for him to rest, he stood in a heroic position with his hands on his waist. - And thanks to this kind lady and this strange young lady. - He pointed to Catherine and Blair respectively.

Throughout his speech Max tried to use a comforting tone of voice, Sophie giggled a little when he struck that pose, which on his not-heroic physique just gave it a ridiculous tone.

- Weird? - Blair mutters in a tone of stress, but is quickly rebuked by his mother.

- I don't know why I bother with a fool like you. - says Sophie, running her fingers lightly over her lower eyelid to wipe away any tears that didn't flow.

After the brief moment they had there with Catherine and Blair just watching, the children finally realize that they were not in a familiar house, they quickly come back to reality and are a little stunned. Now that the storm of emotions was over it was time to put cards on the table, in this case literally, right after explaining the reason they were there, and how they stopped in the middle of a blizzard, the red-haired witch was intrigued with those two, especially about the lucid vision they had of an angel, so she decides to do a tarot session.

- I love Mom's sessions! - Blair says excitedly as her mother makes the preparations.

A completely different atmosphere settles into the place, all four people were standing around a table that seemingly came out of nowhere, in fact Max and Sophie were facing Catherine and Blair. Suddenly everything around becomes a complete blackout, the two children momentarily felt slight breezes of wind passing through their bodies, it was as if spirits were passing through them, "shall we begin?" Catherine asked taking the deck from a hand extended at her side, which belonged to no one in the place.

Now it was morning, the sunlight penetrated the glass windows in the witches' house, the makeshift place Catherine had made for Max was now where Sophie also slept. The boy had his head resting lightly on her stomach while she wrapped her arms around his neck, both were half covered.

Max is the first to wake up, with his eyes still half-closed he slowly gets up, undoing the position of the arms that were around his neck and expresses a slight yawn, after the morning drowsiness phase he notices his surroundings, the memories are coming back until he is at the point of being completely awake; looking slightly to the side he notices that Sophie was still sleeping, so he tries to get up as smoothly as he can, without making sudden movements so as not to wake her up. Already standing up, the first thing the boy does is go to the window that woke him up with the sunlight, and while looking outside the house, his eyes catch something interesting; Blair holding a huge book with old and yellowish pages, the cover looked like black leather and silver details. The witch was really amused, until she apparently tries to recite some words from the book:

- Da mihi potestatem... and... e... what is written here? This is very difficult - Blair mumbles into the wind.

The boy just keeps watching her so as not to disturb her, she continues to practice for a while until she gives up and decides to go home. As Blair walks toward the door, she notices someone snooping at the window.

- I knew you looked like a pervert doing that.

She says just before entering her house, loud and clear for Max to hear, and as she enters she walks quickly straight to where the boy was, which was the room on the left just past the entrance.

- I just got curious, that book was the Grimoire Diaboli? - Max asks after a brief fright, because he didn't realize that she was already close to him.

- How did you know?

- There was a girl at the orphanage, actually a witch, she told me about this book.

- Well, yes, it's my mother's, from time to time I sneak it out to try to learn something, but it's complicated and written in several languages that I still don't understand.

- Speaking of your mother, where is she?

- She went to Central City and told me to keep an eye on you, when she gets back she will take you both back.

Max remembers that just before they went to sleep, Catherine said that she would take them back, because she couldn't in her right mind let two children run around as they please.

- We can't go back, we still have a lot to find out.

- And who says I care? - Blair lets out a soft laugh as she turns around.

At that moment Sophie suddenly arises from her sleep, the girl was completely breathless and dazed, she also sounded cold and expressed panic on her face.

- Sophie are you alright? - Max runs towards her and puts his hands on her shoulders.

The girl doesn't answer anything but just stares in one direction, it was as if she had seen the devil himself.