While an hour away on foot, Solanum was only half that distance "as the crow flies," as Bryony liked to say whenever Bella delivered messages for her. It would be shorter yet if Bella flew directly, but this had always been the shared secret between them. Only Bryony and Titus knew what drove her to weave over the forest like a drunken housefly, a descriptor that Titus had taken some glee in proclaiming the first time Bella had gotten home and cared to mention the measures she'd taken to avoid her own kin. After that, she'd only spoken about it with Bryony.

When a three-trunked pine rose soft and stately above the forest's canopy, Bella angled her wings and made for a distant mother-oak instead. It would not be the end of the world if she had to face a cousin or two on her way to Solanum, but their interrogations would inevitably delay her, and she had better places to be at the moment. She'd once aspired to visit monthly just to provide updates and keep her extended family off her back. Experience soon made a mockery of that idea. Whatever hope Bella had once held that choosing the path of a familiar might redeem her curse in her family's eyes, it had long since died.

It was just as well, maybe, that familiars outlived their non-magical kin. The position tended to attract two types of creatures: those for whom familiarity ran in the family, and those for whom freedom from kin was part of the appeal. For a young crow fallen from the nest on a Wightnight before fledging age, the dice weighed heavily in favor of the latter.

A cold wind curled beneath Bella's wings. Her gaze twitched downward. A Wight had risen from the treetops some ways below her, shadowing her path on a breeze of its own construction. Bella banked sharply. The Wight struggled to keep up for a while, but soon relented and released its magic. Its light vanished back into the colouring leaves.

Bryony said Bella bore no curse. That being Wight-touched meant nothing unless they led you to your doom. That their magic manipulated the energies of the world, but had little power to cause harm directly. Bella knew the signs of it now—enough to fly over the forest with impunity, and to know just how misguided her family had been.

Another flickering light. This one was yellow; Lumina, not Animata. Bella ignored its brilliant pulsing. The Wight was replaced by another up ahead, again dancing in an attempt to seize her attention. For a moment, it morphed into a crow's form, but the illusion could not hold with the speed of Bella's approach. It distorted, and this Wight too dove beneath the canopy, mingling with the yellow leaves. Bella startled as another crow appeared ahead. This one remained steady. She avoided it.

In another few minutes, a curving flight path brought Bella back into view of the forest road between Hyacinth and Solanum. Flying was easier now; she needed only to follow the winding dip in the trees until a proper gap widened up ahead. The houses of Solanum became visible a moment later, just as the morning sunlight broke over the trees. Bella dove beneath them before it blinded her. She cruised the last hundred meters along the road, imagining herself following in Bryony's footsteps, and enjoying it.

All too soon, the woodsmoke from Solanum's chimneys forced her to circle wide. Bella cruised a lap around the town's center, a cluster of maybe two dozen houses, with more sprinkled through the surrounding forest. Solanum and Hyacinth were once equivalent in size, but Bryony's work in the latter had since drawn enough people to more than double its population. The effect was so strong, old-timers still called their new neighbors "Bryonies," even though after a decade of growth, those newcomers now outnumbered them. Bryony herself wore the title with pride.

The challenge now was finding her. Two hundred people might be small even for a forest town, but it was still plenty enough to give Bella something to search through. She swooped to the nearest house and landed on a windowsill. The family inside went about their morning with no sign of stress; they were unlikely to be the ones housing a member in need of medical attention. The next house proved the same. The search method was imperfect, but unless it cleared all houses without a sign of Bryony, there was no point in more rigorous investigation.

A half-hour's search cleared all the houses. Bella sighed. She could take the tried-and-true route of circling the town until Bryony inevitably stepped outside to collect plants, or she could attempt to ask someone. Solanum's resident Witch, at least, also had familiars. His neighbors would know how to communicate with them. Opting for this method, Bella located his house and landed in a tree outside to scan for lurking felines. Seeing none, she picked a neighbor at random and spread her wings.

"Looking for someone?" said a voice behind her.

Bella nearly pitched beak-first out of the tree before she recovered her composure.

"Sorry," said the cat she hadn't noticed, perched in a tree-fork higher up. A soft purr cast doubt on the sincerity of that apology. "Belladonna, right? You haven't been round here in a while."

"Bella. And no. Have we met?"

"I don't think so. Celandine. Pleasure to make your acquaintance."

The cat rose and stretched. She was white—pure white—but her pink eyes hinted that she may still have black-cat lineage. She felt her way carefully down from her perch. Bella retreated a step before realizing the cat's eyes were clouded, too. She held still and let Celandine sniff her wing, then settle down beside her.

"So?" said the cat. "My question stands. Are you looking for someone?"

"Has Bryony been by?"

Celandine tipped her head. "Not to my knowledge. Why?"

"She was called here last night. I've got a message to deliver to her."

The cat fell silent, head still cocked and tail flicking. "You sure you've got the right town?" she said at last. "Pieris is out, but he left Kalmia to cover for him. His apprentice. If there was enough of an emergency to call for Bry, no offense, but I'd have known about it."

"So she's not here?"

"Let me check with the others. Wait here."

She left without asking if Bella was okay with waiting, though now Bella supposed she didn't have much choice. Pieris's familiars would be more aware of the comings and goings of their town than any human resident; they'd be able to smell Bryony in whichever house she'd visited. How trustworthy their reports might be was another matter. Titus prided himself on being the cat equivalent of nobility, and he was still known to lie when it suited him. Bella had no reason to believe Pieris's cats would be any better.

Celandine was back within half an hour.

"No Bry," she said as she scaled the tree again, almost colliding with Bella as she did so. "She might have been called, but if so, she never got here. Kalmia dealt with the only emergency we've had since yesterday, and she didn't need help."

That couldn't be true. "Thank you," said Bella anyway, then excused herself. She began to check windows again, but a second round of this method only confirmed what the first had uncovered. No sign of Bryony.

Bryony couldn't have gone missing. She'd gotten waylaid in the woods, or given Bella the wrong town name by mistake. That might explain why she said she'd be gone for so long. The only other town she had regular contact with was Wisteria, twice this distance on Hyacinth's other side. It couldn't hurt to check there. 

Bella took the road when she left Solanum this time, flying low where she could see every traveler's face and garb. There was still no sign of Bryony by the time she returned to Hyacinth, so she skipped home and took off up the road again. Midday found her in Wisteria, only to find the same thing. The local Witch here had crow familiars, too, so Bella was left with no choice but to trust their word.

Why would it take Bryony so long to reach either of the towns to which she sometimes lent her services? Four days was long, even for an emergency. Either she'd been tricked into thinking she was needed, or she'd been summoned with the intent to lure her away from home for more nefarious reasons. There were certainly people who had it out for her.

Bella flew home again so quickly, her wings shook from exertion by the time she pushed through her own crow-door. Part of her hoped it had all been a mistake, and that Bryony would have returned by now. But there was only Titus, sleeping in Bryony's crocheting basket this time, leaving black fur all over the yarn. The worst-case scenario loomed large. Bryony had left for Solanum the night before on a false or malicious summons, and never arrived. Hyacinth's Witch was missing.

Hyacinth's first Witch was missing.

And one prime suspect had already lined herself up for investigation.

A/N: This ONC, I'll be promoting other participating novellas in authors' notes like this one. Stay tuned for more recommended books to read!

Dracula and her Bride by itsmeimthevampire:

A sapphic retelling of Bram Stoker's "Dracula." #vampirexwerewolf #gothichorror