“You be a good boy, okay? Father is busy. Don’t harry him too much.” Mannat told Bhadur. The horse blew raspberries at him as if telling him to stop joking.

Mannat shook his head. There was a simple smile on his face, and a relaxed current flowing through his veins. His heart had found peace after a myriad of distraught.

He rubbed Bhadur’s cheeks with both his hands and hugged his face. The horse neighed in response, and then they separated. Mannat pulled a fist full of beans from the bag in the cart and feed it to the horse, who decided to lick him instead. The boy giggled and Raesh who was watching them felt like he was back home, his wife was fine, work was good, and life was normal.

“Don’t feed him too much, son. He will start acting raunchy again.” Raesh said. He was surprised at the energy in his voice. He had gone to the clearing expecting many things, but leaving with a smile was not one of them. He was actually sad to leave there, but also knew he was an intruder, not a guest. He could only spend such a long time with his son because the witch had allowed him to stay. He didn’t have a say there. No one did.

Soon, Mannat patted Bhadoor’s head and pulled away from him. The horse wanted more love, but it was time for them to go their way.

“Why don’t you come back with me for the day? Pandit will be happy to see you, and so will be the Old man’s granddaughter.”

It would be wrong to say the boy wasn’t tempted but kept his distance from the cart. Mannat said helplessly, “I can’t right now, but I’ll come down in a month.”

“That’s alright.” Raesh’s words put the calm in Mannat’s chest. He worried his father would not agree. A night ago his father had only left because Bhadur freaked out and Pandit needed medical assistance. Since the witch refused to show up for some reason Mannat believed his father would argue with him. He was relieved and sad that Raesh didn’t.

“I thought about you last night.” Raesh started, staring at Mannat. His gaze had definitely softened. He had given up.

“I had decided to take you back by every means possible when I started from home in the morning.” He hesitated. Mannat was staring at him unflinching. The boy was no longer worried.

Raesh was relieved and continued, “Of course, I was going to look elsewhere for help. I was worried about the Witch’s actions, I still am, but you have changed my mind.”

Mannat was thoughtful for a second then he grinned. “The pump sold you, didn’t it?”

Raesh laughed out loud. The little devil knew him too well. “I can’t say it didn’t, but there’s more. I see reason in your actions. You are doing what you think is right. I am not going to stop you or argue with you. I simply hope you stay vigilant of the Witch.” He paused and said in a heavier tone of voice, “She’s not what she comes out as. Someone like her is bound to have her designs. There’s definitely a reason behind her help.” Raesh pulled the boy close. He tightly held Mannat’s arms and stared straight into his eyes. “Promise me you will look after yourself.”

Mannat bit his lips and nodded. “I promise.” He said and Raesh took him into his arms again.

Mannat felt cold when his father pulled away. He wished to stop him but kept silent. His father was stepping back because he believed in him. Would he trust Mannat with his mother’s life if he asked him to stay? Raesh didn’t say it aloud, but the respect was mutual. They hugged once, and Raesh reluctantly boarded the cart.

“You want anything other than bedding and pots?” He asked taking a seat on the cart.”

Mannat noticed his father’s eagerness. He wanted an excuse to come back to see him. Mannat was all too happy to oblige. “Perhaps, you could bring me a shovel and some planks for the loo,”

Raesh grinned. “How about some meat and seasoning for those potatoes and carrots?”

“Sure,”

“Alright then, I’ll come by in the evening.”

Bhadur neighed. Raesh pulled the reigns and the two, one man and an animal, slowly disappeared down the golden road. Mannat stayed behind, staring at his father’s shrinking back with his fists clenched. His father had brought the smile back on his face, and it didn’t leave even after he left.

Mannat stayed at the edge of the garden until the cart disappeared from his sight before he took a deep breath and opened the fists. His hands were red, as were his eyes; neither shook nor grew wet.

“Thank you,” He mumbled out loud and a whisper arrived in his ear.

“Come back now. Time is not waiting for you.” It was the Witch. She wasn’t around. He couldn’t see her, but it was her voice. She might have disappeared from their sights but hadn’t left the clearing. It was her home; she lived there. Why would she leave to accommodate a pest and an intruder? However, Mannat knew his father wouldn’t have been so accommodating if she was around. Only because she had given them space was the two able to make up. That is why he was thankful to her.

The hut was still empty when he returned. A thick plaster of aged, hard dirt covered the wooden floor. The bird-stand was empty, the window closed, the air still and lifeless. He was alone inside, but no longer lonely. He knew there were people who cared for him, openly and in thought. They gave him strength.

His eyebrows twitched when he took a thorough look around at the room’s condition. Just how had he managed to sleep inside and not suffocated was a mystery in itself.

The picture book he had been reading was still sitting calmly on the tabletop, along with the stack of yellow paper and charcoal sticks.

He didn’t go to study straight away but decided to clean the hut first. Yes, it was too dirty. He was definitely not right in the head yesterday. Otherwise, how could he have ignored the years-old brown muck sticking out so conspicuously in the morning light? He might have forgotten his manners for a day, but his mother had done a good job of straightening his three views. Someone else might get away with keeping their residence dirty, but he couldn’t. His conscience wouldn’t let him sit still.

Therefore, for the sake of mental peace, he went outside, picked the bucket, and went around the house to get water. He had seen a mop around somewhere. It was by one of the bookshelves. Someone --probably the previous inhabitant of the hut-- had hidden it well, but he still found it.

Time passed away quickly once he started cleaning the room. By the time he was done with cleaning the sun outside had moved slightly to the western hemisphere. It was already past noon and Mannat was a sweating, stinking mess. He heaved the bucket of black tar up, and carefully took it out of the hut. He didn’t want to drop the bucket of mud inside. That would be hilarious. Yes, he had lost it a few times in the middle of cleaning and now he was starting to think such a situation --where all his work was for nothing-- would be hilarious.

Only he knows how frightened he was when the raven decided to barge inside while he was cleaning. It could have created a bigger mess, but it saw him, noticed him working, and left the same way it had come.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he finally rolled the mud in the bushes, away from the hut and his senses. It stank worse than he did, and he didn’t want to smell it around all day. He would build the loo there. There was none in the hut. He didn’t know how the witch dealt with her waste, but he didn’t want to think about it until his father arrived later with the necessary building materials. He also relieved himself there like an animal after a lot of internal discussions, and then returned to the hut, bathed with cold water from the pump, and started studying.

Heat sparked inside his chest when he compared his penmanship to the characters drawn in the picture book. Mannat was not greedy, but he was prideful and perfection was his weakness. Although he mentally understood, the author had probably spent years practicing his penmanship to have such fine control over the letters, that didn’t mean he couldn’t yearn for it.

As for the necessary acceptance of knowledge, the learning of words and characters, he was only getting started in that department. He was still far from decoding all the characters. As for analyzing the sentence structure, grammar, and other rules, it was at best a discussion for the future.

Loudly, he spoke the letters drawn under the majestic quadriplegic, phantom black, sharp-eyed beast. “H-o-r-s-e,” He spoke the alphabets separately, stressing each of the characters to understand their pronunciation. He had filled three yellow pages with letters and the sounds they made. It took him much contemplation, headache, and luck to derive the method.

On the first of the three yellow pages, there was a list of alphabets from A to z, written one after the other in a single file. Some of them, mainly A, P, L, E, T, D, and O, had various versions of sounds written in front of them, like ‘ehh, aeh, Aee,’ for the first letter A.

The following two letters of the word ‘Apple’ had him straining his head for more than an hour. That was a day ago, and now he finally had some work done. He wasn’t planning to solve the problem in a day or two. He knew it would take him at least a week to categorize the letters alone. However, he was excited. Once he had the complete hang of the letters and words, he would get advance to reading books. There was a treasure trove of books around him in the hut; he himself was the only limiting factor.

He wished someone could teach him how to read and write, as his father taught him forging. He had spent over a year learning the art of shaping metal from his father. He didn’t dare think he would manage to teach himself to read and write in a single month.

“But I have to do It.” He mumbled and drove right back into studying, picking a letter, speaking it loudly to separate the sounds, and then writing it down on the paper. That was his routine for now. It was repetitious, mechanical, and boring, but he was meticulous with the details. He didn’t dare lose focus for even a single moment, lest he accidentally noted down the wrong information. He checked things repeatedly for mistakes before moving on.

After a long time, Mannat finally had enough of reading, writing, and singing words for one day. Even the birds tire themselves out after a few hours of singing and he was only--

Mannat chucked and shook his head.

His focus was lapsing, and darkness was slowly growing and engulfing the room. There was still enough light for him to move about, but it was impossible to continue reading-- unless he lit a candle. Then he could carry on studying well into the night. Essentially, he was exhausted. It was funny how his physical condition was limiting his training of the mental faculties. At least he no longer believed all the time he had spent working out was wasted.

“Father was right. Hard work does pay off in unusual ways.”

He stacked the papers together and gently closed the book to prevent wrinkled pages. That one time it happened made him value the book even more. He no longer dared to be negligent.

He let out a big, loud, and reverberating yawn, rubbed the back of his head, and started gathering the page. The wind was strong outside. He didn’t want a wayward gust to pass through the room and have fun with his hard work. They would be a hassle to collect from under and behind the cabinets.

The chair screeched when he stood up. He picked it up and put it under the table. The book and the pages he returned to the shelf and walked out of the hut. He yawned again. That was how tired he was. Really, physical tiredness was not even comparable to mental fatigue. At least, the former didn’t make his sight blurred and movements uncoordinated. He needed to wash up. That was the only way to get the sleep out of his eyes. There was water in the bucket and some roots in the pot. He wasn’t hungry, but tired. He believed the mana-enriched roots were healthier and more filling than normal crops.

If only I could see the difference in their nutritional values. He thought and said aloud, “I hope ‘examine’ will give me that information.”

Outside, the sun looked like a phoenix departing for the day to slumber for the night. The sky was orange as if a fiery storm had passed by. The tree was glowing again. At least, the clearing wouldn’t be completely dark in the night. The tree was washing its surroundings in a faint, but ghastly red glow. Mannat was not faint-hearted, but even he felt the light uninviting. The other colors would glow as the night deepens; for now, it was all he had to work with.

He remembered the evening the tree roots had erupted from the ground, enraged and out for blood. They had separated the two worlds and opened a hollow dark entrance to its womb. He wouldn’t have dared go down the stairs if the tree was glowing red at that time.

He also remembered the naked angel that slept inside the womb made of roots. She, who was, the personification of beauty looked at peace, but he had felt the terror sleeping inside her chest. It was but a speck of darkness, of unbound malice, yet he knew it could turn the most beautiful of souls into a rotten, vile pest.

There, in the garden underground, he had left his mother. She also suffered from a similar, if not the same perturbation. He didn’t know if the angel, whom the Witch called the ‘Flower of morality’ was alive or not. He hadn’t heard the sound of her breathing or saw her soft and bare chest undulating, but he knew his mother was still with him, though lost in a long dark dream.

There was no time to waste. Less than a month, that’s all the time he had. He wanted to see his mother healthy and smiling, cooking him food and ordering him around the house. He yearned to hear yelling at him for keeping a dirty house. He was so close to her; he would have been urging the Witch to let him see his mother once more if she was around.

That’s to say, he did notice something. The Witch’s magical staff, the key or the artifact she used to open the underground chamber, was right there in front of the tree. It stood tall at the same exact place where she had stabbed it to open the chamber. It was waiting for someone to hold it in a tight nourishing grip and quench its thirst.

Perhaps, it was waiting for him. The staff and its magical charms definitely attracted Mannat, and he approached the staff with bubbling anticipation.

He stopped a few feet away from the staff, scared and vigilant of the consequences. What would he do if the ground swallowed him? He wanted to touch it, however, use it to open the chamber and meet his mother. It took him a while to made up his mind and stop hesitating. Four steps and an eternity later, the staff was half an arm’s length away from him. It looked like a stick stuck in the ground. It didn’t look special. Neither was its crystal head glowing nor was the staff pulsating with life.

Mannat inhaled a deep breath, held it, and calmly put his hand on the blue crystal globe head, and… nothing happened. He exhaled the breath in relief. He had no idea what he would do if there really were some fluctuation of energy in response to his presence, distance, especially touch.

However, it would be wrong to say he wasn’t disappointed. He was. He wanted to open the tomb without the Witch’s help. However, there was also an attraction of control over power. He shook the staff and pulled it out of the ground. “Is it broken?” he mumbled and stabbed it back it in back in the grove with a click of his tongue. The failure squashed all of his hopes.

There was no lightning or shaking, quaking and tremors. The only thing there was, but the tweeting of a bird that had decided to take perch on the glowing tree, even though it should be frightened, or at least vigilant of the faint red, yellow light flashing through the leaves and the trunk of the tree.

“Can’t even figure out this little thing, dull boy?” The voice, hoarse, sharp, and grating, was like a thorn in Mannat’s ears. His ears twitched, his face fell, heartbeat rose. A shiver took his back and his hair rose wherever it passed. He jumped back, shook his head, and searched for the demon. He was caught red-handed handing the Witch’s property. She was bound to be furious!

He found her, not somewhere else but right behind him! He hiccupped. Her torso was slouched forward since she didn’t have her staff to hold. Her eyes were yellow and piercing, the skin was old as the trees, and dark hairs were disheveled and thick like blades of grass. Her hands were hanging by the side, the first time he had seen them so lifeless. Her arms were long, dispiritingly so. She had thin, bony fingers. Her nails were dark and pointed, like the claws of a beast.

For a second Mannat’s heart rate climbed to the high hundreds. The Witch stared without blinking as if waiting for him to act. The old hag was going to give the poor boy a heart attack!

So much drama for a piece of wood; she should have taken it with her if it was so precious. Why leave it out in the open for crows to shit at and rabbits to drill?

Mannat pulled the stick out of the ground and steadily walked toward her. She didn’t say anything and simply took the staff from him. She looked it over, snorted, and then bopped it at his head.

Mannat cried in pain. He put his hands on top of the head to shield it from another blow. The crazy Witch didn’t hold back. She hit him hard. Was there any blood? At least Mannat didn’t feel his hands grow wet. That was a relief. Nevertheless, the pain was harsh. Maybe she liked his cry because she didn’t hit him again, but spoke to him.

“Are you so tired of living that you wanted to blow yourself up?”

“What?” Mannat was so astonished he forgot about the waves of pain rampaging in his skull. BLOW UP! Well, that would have been a quick death. Mannat gulped a mouthful of bitterness, but couldn’t take his shocked eyes off the Witch. She was not kidding.

The Witch smirked when she saw his reaction. “It would have been an accident, of course.” She said smugly. Mannat frowned, and she added, “What? Do you think you can use the staff? It wouldn’t even light up with your paltry amount of mana.”

Mannat wasn’t impressed. She was speaking gibberish again. “It was not funny.” He said. His voice was cold, as was his heart. He really believed her. His father was right: there was something wrong with the old woman. No one sane would make such a selfish joke.

The Witch didn’t take his tone to heart, but sneered, showing her gaping black teeth. Standing so close to her Mannat noticed that though black, her teeth weren’t rotting; and it wasn’t only her teeth that were black, but her whole mouth, including her tongue and throat. That was even more shocking than her joke. He didn’t know or remember what, but her mouth reminded him of something … something equally dangerous. The name was on the tip of his tongue but he couldn’t put a finger on it.

The witch asked, “Do you want to see your mother so badly that you decided to give wind to caution and act stupid?”

“I was curious.”

“Blunt,”

“It’s far better than being sly.”

The witch’s lips twitched. This was why she liked the kid. He didn’t fear her.

“We’ll see how far it takes you.” She said passing him by. The Witch slowly made her way to the place where the staff was resting. She raised the stick in the air and stabbed it back in the grove in the ground. She didn’t let it go and suddenly, the staff flashed in a vibrant blue. Mannat backed up urgently and shaded his eyes with a hand, believing she was opening the door to the underground chamber. To his disappointment, the ground didn’t shake and the roots didn’t appear. Instead, a ring of blue light seeped into the ground from the staff before vanishing.

Then nothing happened afterward. Mannat waited, but the world had come to rest. The wind was blowing again and his heart was bitter.

“What did you do?”

The witch ignored his question and slowly stammered toward the hut. She was slower than turtles and snails. Even clouds were faster than her. Mannat didn’t understand what she was doing. “Why are you leaving the stick behind?”He asked in confusion. Did she not need it? Was it for him?

The Witch kept walking. Perhaps, she couldn’t stop. Mannat watched her sway away from him. It was only when he thought she had forgotten about him, her voice drifted over the wind and met his ears. “Use it whenever you wish to meet your mother.”

Surprised, happy, and then distraught. Mannat ran after her yelling. “I don’t know how to do it.”

The witch flinched at his words, stopped walking, and looked back. Mannat also came to halt almost instantly. They were close enough to hear each other's breaths. “It’s simple,” The Witch said. Mannat’s ears perked up. He was ready to receive guidance, but he forgot he was talking to a selfish old coot. The Witch’s eyes turned into crescents when she smiled and haughtily said, “Use your wisdom and figure it out.”

Seeing Mannat frown, she nodded to herself, turned back, and ambled toward the hut. Mannat stood behind dumbfounded until the darkness beyond the wide-open doors swallowed her.

Left with no options and pending doom, he followed the Witch. She was inside and sat on the other side of the table. She was using a hand to support her back, and the other was rapping the tabletop, probably waiting for him. With only a little light from the window, she was a frightening figure in the dark. Shadows converged around her like demons. The glow of pale multicolored light gave depth and texture to her wrinkled skin. It was not difficult to understand why Mannat stood at the door but didn’t go past the threshold.

“Do you want something?”

“I--” Thoughtlessly he stammered out some words then shook his head and simply left. It helped that he had already decided to sleep under the tree. The Witch only made the decision easier. He was hoping to see his mother, but that was obviously not possible anymore. The Witch had clearly shed the responsibility and put it on his hands. Now, he could see his mother whenever he wished, the only problem was his lack of knowledge.

Left with no choice, Mannat sat under the tree with his back resting against the trunk and crossed his leg. He closed his eyes and started trying to improve his mana sense. This was his third objective besides studying and gardening. Mana in the air was free and under no one’s control, hence the easiest to perceive.

The giant tree behind his back was oozing a huge amount of mana into its surroundings with every breath. He used to think of mana as something otherworldly; now he wondered if mana flowing in the world had similar origins to the Witch’s growing tree. He found it incomprehensible to even imagine the sheer size of the monstrosity that could fill the whole world with mana. It would have to be big enough to touch the sky; perhaps, big enough to pierce the ceiling!

Such a tree would have braches thick enough to for people to build homes upon, and its root must have dug deep enough to touch the earth’s heart.

The normal-sized tree behind him –though its trunk was big enough to need three people to wrap their arms around—could barely meet the requirements of the area around the village. There was a reason his village had not suffered a drought in years. The same couldn’t be said about the other parts of their backwater region. Their evergreen land was the biggest reason behind the dispute between them and the neighboring villages.

He wondered if he would see the monstrous tree someday.

Such thoughts filled Mannat’s mind. Some excited and others depressed him. Nevertheless, the one flash of brilliance he wanted to witness evaded him incomprehensively. His mana sense remained stable at level 8 even after the night passed and morning came.

Perhaps, the truth that he had evidently fallen asleep sometime in the middle of the night had something to do with it. Whatever the case, he had one less day remaining to become the Witch’s apprentice.