“The Witch.”

Lia uttered before she could stop herself.

The person before her widened her eyes and put on a smile that did not reach her eyes. That meant Lia was right. But it did not mean that what she said was not wrong either.

She cringed and kicked herself mentally.

“I-I mean…”

The witch placed a distance between them, her beautiful face sagging to that look of pain and hurt. There was an odd sense of resignation and familiarity in her eyes as if she was called like that all the time.

That did not make sense. Lia’s image of witches were those from picture books from her childhood. Long face, grizzly hair, wicked eyes, pointy nose, with an equally pointed hat matching the black attire and rode brooms.

They were nowhere near this lady who made beautiful an understatement. She was beyond that. She wore her platinum blonde hair braided on both sides, making her looked like those princesses in her picture books. The witch looked a lot like an enchantress with her ever-knowing yet understanding grey eyes. She was like an embodiment of Aphrodite with the aura of Athena, graceful, noble, and wise.

Her skin! Gosh her skin. She did not even have wrinkles or blemishes or pimples. She might as well be only a few years older than Lia. If they were in her previous life, she would have chatted her for her skincare regimen.

She was not even wearing black. She wore an aquamarine long dress. And she looked divine. A goddess indeed.

Lia gaped at the woman, dumbstruck. She thought she was beautiful earlier. What a joke. She looked like a ragdoll compared to the witch.

Witch. A name that was far from what she really was.

‘But maybe, she has a cauldron and does wicked things,’ she reminded herself.

“I know you hate me. But please, don’t scare me like that,” she looked at Lia with pleading eyes.

Lia could only nod her head as if entranced.

The woman gave her a small smile and reached out her hand, but decided against it before Lia could even take her hand.

“Lia? Let’s go home?”

Lia followed the woman home while keeping a watchful eye. Didn’t they say that witches can change appearances and pretend to be young through a spell or something? What if she was luring her in? What if she was taking in a young woman to eat them, thereby preserving her own youth? And there was something really odd about her that Lia could not put her finger to.

And why can’t her memories become clearer when they needed them to? Ever since this woman appeared, Lia put in all of her efforts to remember the original body’s life to no avail. It all came back to her in a muddled mess, blurred and choppy. She could not make heads nor tails at those resurfaced memories. She just hoped that those would come back to her before the witch decided to make her into a delicious meal.

They were almost a few feet when Lia noticed a cloud of smoke coming out from a house, which brought her to a stop.

‘Shoot. She’s really going to eat me!?’