As I lay down in the safety of my exterior, my head resting on a velvety pillow, I’m almost too out of it to realise that she has begun her nightly flick through my memories. Mist can be pretty secretive, sometimes. I never fail in picking up her presence, though. Every night she comes and goes. Sometimes we exchange brief telepathic conversations. Sometimes I’m too tired to talk or can’t find the rights words to express my true feelings. Sometimes I forget she even exists.

But tonight, the moment I feel her, my body tenses up and I open my mouth to speak.

 “I told someone, today.”

No hello, no greetings. Mist doesn’t mind my way of making conversation. She’s put up with my boring life since a toddler, anyways. Not that she has to stay in the form of a baby, though. Witches can meddle with most things mortals and nazarees have no control over. They can speed up their age, change their appearances and tamper with time itself. If Mist’s powers had developed enough in the timespan of four years, she could be anyone, old or young. It’s unnerving, knowing that anyone black haired and female could in fact be my curser.

Mist registers my statement almost instantly, and I hear her gasp through my mind. 

“No screams?” She asks, half in shock.

“Only one.” I clarify.

“I knew you could do it!”

“But I don’t love her.” I butt in. “She found out by accident. Besides, I couldn’t just pretend I wasn’t real, Mist. She’s sick with Gastroparesis. It’d be wrong to lie to her face…….”

“What’s Gastroparesis?” Mist asks, her soft voice projecting through my mind.

“Oh… Sometimes I forget you’re only six.”

“I’m seven.”

“Sorry.”

I can feel the young witch perk up in my head, almost as if she is part of me. She is, sometimes. A nazaree and a witch are bound from the moment their wrong ends meet. As long as I’m under her spell, Mist and I are connected; weakly, but definitely there. If we saw each other on a particular occasion, I would know her identity in a heartbeat. And, well, at a glance at my eyes and stature, I’m pretty easy to spot, too.

“What’s her name?” She asks.

The word tastes weird on my tongue as I utter it out. As if it isn’t meant to be there. “Emily.” I whisper, pursing my lips. The world as I know it is swallowed by darkness, not even a crack of light seeping through the cracks in Andrew Jr.’s eyelids. Sometimes, when I squint hard enough, I can see Mist in the shadows as we talk. Only faintly, but still real. I see streaks of violet, too. Maybe it’s just a sign that she’s present.

“Emily.” She says, repeating me. “Who has Gastroparesis.”

“She saw me, you know. Did I tell you that part?”

“I kinda guessed that part, Andrew.”

“Well, I was just checking.”

I feel her roll her purple eyes. “So… was she curious?”

“Very.”

“What’d she do?”

“She freaked out a little and put a glass over me.”

“What about Andrew Jr.?”

“He’s okay.”

“Say hi to him for me, Andy.”

“You do know he can’t reply, don’t you?”

“I thought you did something that made him talk…?”

“I project my voice through a speaker and sync it with his mouth. It’s just me speaking.”

“Oh. Well, I knew that.”

“You didn’t.”

“I did!”

I pause, wondering what to say. Over the years, Mist and I have gathered up just about every little piece of information about each other, to a point where there’s really nothing neither of us don’t know. For instance, I know for a fact that her favourite colour is purple, hence her hair and that she doesn’t like strawberries because the seeds get caught in between her teeth. She knows that my least favourite colour is yellow, hence the curse and that I’m afraid of cockroaches because they always seem to want to eat me. We exchange a few comments here and then, but really, it’s just words. Well, words projected into my head.

I haven’t seen Mist since she was three. I try imagining what she’d look like sometimes, in whatever form she has chosen to take. I never picture her as an animal, which she could very well be at present, but I see her as a teenage girl. Black hair, violet eyes, thin, angular face. Pale white skin, almost like porcelain. Long, slender fingers and perfect nails. Teeth straightened to perfection. She’d have chosen to appear as someone who’d have boys drooling over her. Even as a seven year old, Mist would be into things a teenager would usually crave.

See, age doesn’t dictate one’s life in the magical world. Mist may only have the brain development of a seven year old, but it all comes down to the body. If a witch passed another witch, in the form of a newborn baby, they’d treat them with the same level of maturity as they would the elderly. Seeing as a witch can take whichever form they desire, human, plant or animal, there is no separation. They all have the powers, and that is all that matters. Besides, with her telepathy, it wouldn’t have taken Mist long, anyway, to learn the ropes of maturity. She’s already smart for her age.

Well, she was smart enough to curse someone at three.

She was smart enough to do something that can never be undone.

Okay… maybe that wasn’t such a smart thing to do to a guy like me, as much as I know I probably deserved it.

“Andrew?”

I barely register the soft voice in my head.

“You’re still there? I thought you’d be asleep by now.” I mumble, my eyelids drooping. I fumble for the scrap of material I use as a blanket and pull it over my worn body. It’s a miracle that I could see where the thing was, with the cockpit so dark.

“I just realised something…” Mist’s childlike voice is sheepish. I sigh heavily, rolling over on my side.

“What’s that?”

It takes a while for Mist to transfer the words into my head. “It’s been four years.”

“Yeah.” I say softly, through a yawn. “Four years.”

“I’m really sorr-“

“Don’t worry about it.” I cut her off. “I know you’re sorry. It wasn’t your fault. I was a stupid kid.”

“And I was a stupid toddler.”

“Yeah.”

“So… what are you gonna do about this girl knowing about… your size?” Mist asks. I can feel the tiredness ebb into her voice, through my own brain. I wonder if she’s been waiting for me to go to sleep so that she can talk.

“I don’t know…” I sigh, answering the question. “I guess I’ll just see it all through. It feels good to have someone accept me, though. I’m kinda sick of hiding.”

“You think you’ll break the curse with her?” She asks.

My forehead creases. Me? With Emily? Why is it that I can’t see this working? Then again, it’s never worked so well for me before. “I don’t know, Mist.” I mumble. “I don’t really care anymore. I mean… it’s kind of impossible to break a curse.”

“You’d be the first, Andy! I believe in you!” She says.

I wish I could take the encouragement on board. I really do. It’s just… It’s just… impossible. I’ve been thinking this through, over and over as the years tick by like a clock. Every night it crosses my mind. Every night I’m forced to face it, head on. I can’t escape from it.

The truth.

The truth that there is no end to this; Andrew Jr., the hiding, everything. There is no end to the tiny guy who has become who I am. As much as I believe in myself, as far as I go to get what I want, it’s just a waste of time. I’m doomed to this state, whether I like it or not. And soon, after the year is up, I’ll accept that. I’d answer the countless phone calls from my grieving parents and tell them I tried. And then I’d find other yellows and make some kind of living. After all, I’ve made it this far on my own.

“Goodnight, Mist.” I say.

My head is a clock. And the time is almost up.