Hunter was in what appeared to be an old studio, full of strange tools, also containing an anvil and a furnace, fixing a kind of firearm he had never seen in his life, but which for some reason he knew how to fix. Over his right shoulder perched Winter, who was happily chirping a little tune. Hunter was calm, so peaceful and relaxed that he was even following Winter's chirp with a whistle, which only meant one thing: the boy was dreaming again. And he was probably that man again.

As if to confirm his suspicions, a cute boy with a ponytail, that Hunter had already seen in a previous dream appeared running towards Hunter screaming:

"Henry! Emergency!"

"What happened, Phil?" Hunter, now Henry, asked stopping what he was doing.

"Hardman returned earlier than planned and brought a witch hunter with him!" Philip replied uneasily.

"Which one?" Henry asked worriedly.

"James Hopkins."

"That nut who had five girls hanged in Happyfield?"

"That one!" Philip replied, still agonized. "That maniac is already looking for victims here! Quick! Hide or release Winter in the forest! Do it before Hopkins gets here, sees the little bird and thinks that the little bird is a familiar or any other witchcraft-related madness!"

Henry nodded to Winter while Philip wasn't looking and pushed the Northern Cardinal gently with his hand saying:

"Go back to the forest, little friend. It's not safe for you here."

With that the bird flew out the window, leaving the brothers relieved.

"Fine," Philip said after the bird had left. "Now we just need to get rid of your books and…

"I don't want to get rid of my books," Henry interrupted.

"What?! But what if Hopkins finds them and uses them to accuse you of witchcraft?"

"Philip, I am a gunsmith, a craftsman, not a witch! Besides the Bible I only have two types of books, the ones to pass the time, which are the poems and novels, which I bought when we were still living in England, and my study books, which are basically about mathematics, making weapons, types of useful minerals, types of wood ideal for handicrafts, plants and their uses to cure ailments and diseases, and the like," Henry said, getting offended at the attack his precious books had received. "There's nothing of the Devil or any kind of 'abracadabra' in my books. They are just silly novels and poems and useful studies for my profession!"

"Maybe, but these 'studies', novels and poems aren't considered things of God by the people here," Philip said. "Look, Henry, I know you're a real God-fearing Christian and I believe you when you say there's nothing evil or wrong in your books, but from what I heard about Hopkins is that he's an even bigger nut than Hardman and they said he is always looking for proofs of someone being a witch even when there are no proofs!"

"Philip…"

"I'm serious! He was arresting the Bells' daughter and convincing the villagers to make the girl go through the Ordeal by Water just because he caught her singing while sweeping the floor of her parents' house just now!"

"HE WHAT?!"

"Yeah, he wa- Henry! What do you think you're doing?"

Henry had run to a bookshelf to get a good pistol and was carrying it.

"Going to stop the murder of a child," Henry replied, hurrying putting his coat on as soon as he finished loading the gun.

"You're kidding," Philip blurted out in disbelief.

"Emma Bell is only ten years old," Henry replied, walking hurriedly to the exit. "Ten years, Philip. It's not possible that that madman wants such a little girl to go through the Ordeal by Water in the middle of winter! If the child does not drown, she will die of cold if they break the surface of the river's ice and throw her tied up in there to test if she is a witch!"

"Yes, that's true, but that's none of our business," Philip said, rushing to stand in the middle of the studio door, blocking Henry's exit.

"Get out of the way, Philip," Henry ordered in a low, serious voice.

"I will not leave!" Philip replied, stomping his foot.

"Philip…"

"I won't let my brother face a mob of madmen", Philip said with determination.

"Philip, I'm not kidding. If you don't get out of the way now willing I'll get you out of that damn door by force!", Henry said in a dangerous low-tone voice. "Please don't make me hurt my own little brother."

Philip did not respond or move. He just stared at Henry and the eldest Wittebane did the same. After a few seconds with the two facing each other, Philip got out of the middle of the passage saying:

"Okay, run to your death if that's what you want so badly. But don't cry when they take you in for questioning and hang you."

"I won't," Henry replied as he hurried to the center of the village.

On reaching the middle of the village, Henry saw a huddle of frightened people whispering to each other around a blond, muscular, bearded man in his late forties screaming and clutching the arm of a terrified crying little girl and a blue eyed man in his early fifties years with a graying brown hair.

As Henry approached the riot, the oldest of the Wittebane could finally hear what the bearded man was shouting.

"WHY DO YOU KEEP HESITATING?!" the bearded man yelled. "CAN'T YOU SEE THAT THIS THING IS A WITCH?! DON'T BE TRICKED BY THIS LITTLE GIRL DISGUISE! SHE IS A WITCH!"

The people around him whispered even more fearfully, as Henry inched closer and closer to the trio, pushing people around them away politely.

"Good people of our village, cannot you see the truth spoken by this man of God? This man who so bravely risks his life hunting the servants of Satan every day... How can you still doubt such a noble and serious witch hunter?" The gray-haired man began to rant. "How can you consider themselves servants of God when you let something as disgusting as witchcraft enter our village…"

"Well, if it ain't our dear Pastor Hardman fomenting intrigue and persecution instead of praying and spreading the faith within the church again," Henry said, with poison and hate in his voice, interrupting the pastor's speech. "And this gentleman who is grabbing Bell's daughter's arm over there... Witch hunter? I don't know… To me this outsider looks more like a child hunter than a witch hunter."

Needless to say, a lot of whispers began to surface at that accusation, while a couple in their midst, who had already looked anguished before, got even worse when they heard 'child hunter', so much so that it sounded like the man with furious eyes he was making a huge effort to hold the woman (even more furious), who seemed to be wanting to jump on the bearded man's neck holding the girl's arm, being stopped only by the strength of her husband.

"What are you doing here, Wittebane?" Hardman asked, hatred and disgust visible in his voice. "Give up on pretending to be a Christian and finally come to surrender?"

"With all due respect, Reverend, I'm more of a Christian than you ever tried to be," Henry snapped, trying really hard don't lose control.

"What are you implying, witch?" Hardman asked quietly, anger in his voice.

"Is he a witch?!" the bearded blond who held the little girl's arm asked in surprise.

Meanwhile the other villagers just rolled their eyes as if thinking "once again the same rigmarole…"

"I did not imply, I affirmed, dear pastor. I'm not a witch and I'm more of a Christian than you are," Henry replied angrily, but he didn't raise his voice. "After all, I don't go around breaking Our Lord's sacred law that forbids give false testimonies."

"False testimony?!" Hardman exclaimed angrily. "Since when do I give false testimony against anyone?!"

"Well... Last week when you accused Henry Wittebane of performing a witchcraft ritual when he was actually fixing my fence," an elderly man in the crowd replied.

"Also three days ago when you said Henry Wittebane was summoning the devil when he was actually fixing my plow," a younger, stronger man intruded.

"And there was also that day when you accused the eldest of the Wittebane brothers of…"

"ENOUGH!" Hardman yelled, interrupting the other man from the village who was giving his statement. "This man may have deceived the fools of this village, but he can't deceive me! Henry Wittebane is indeed a witch and I can prove it!"

"Good luck trying to prove something I am not," Henry said with a shrug.

"Don't be so arrogant, young man," the bearded stranger threatened. "I believe in the Reverend and I know that if we search your house properly we will find the necessary evidence."

"Really? So let's make a bet?"

"What bet?"

"If you find any proof that I'm a witch in my house, you can do whatever you want with me before you hang me," Henry began the proposal. "Any kind of torture. I don't care. But if you don't find anything, you'll have to free the Bell's daughter, apologize to her parents for trying to tarnish the girl's honor and therefore her parents' honor, and I also want you to admit that you are a hunter of little girls, not of witches, to ALL the village AND you will still have to swear on your honor and the love of Our Lord Jesus Christ that you will never again set foot in this village as long as you live. What do you say?"

People around started making a worried expression and whispering again, while Hardman made a face like he had swallowed a lemon and the bearded man made a very irritated expression.

"I'm waiting…" Henry singsonged, teasing. "So? Are you man enough to accept a bet?"

"Accepted," the bearded witch hunter said. "But if I win (and I know I will) I won't hang you..."

"No?" Henry asked, confused, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh no, insolent young witch. For the audacity of trying to humiliate me, you deserve a punishment far worse than a simple hanging" the bearded man replied grimly. "When I show this entire village that you're just a servant of Satan, you'll be my punching bag and personal test dummy. I will test ALL my interrogation techniques on you whenever I capture a new witch. I'm curious how long you can survive this. I hope my new test dummy will last at least a few days... Still want to make that bet, witch?"

"Of course," Henry replied with determination, hiding the chill down his spine he'd felt at that threat. "And my name is Henry Wittebane, not 'witch'."

"Your name will be whatever I want once I win this bet."

So everyone walked to the house of the Wittebane brothers. Once there they saw Philip sitting peacefully on a stool outside the house, his back against the wall as he read the Bible in such a relaxed way that it looked like he was quite entertained with his reading.

"Aha! We already have the first proof without even entering the house!" Exclaimed the witch hunter. "A woman in men's clothes! How unseemly! An abomination against the laws of the Lord!"

"What?" Philip asked with a raised eyebrow, closing the Bible.

It was enough for the most stoic of Puritans in that village to chuckle, but they stopped when they got a scolding look from Hardman. Meanwhile, the witch hunter hadn't yet recovered from the shock he got when he heard a boy's voice coming from the supposed 'lady in men's clothes'.

"Sorry Phil, looks like our guest from another village doesn't have good eyesight or just doesn't know how to tell a man from a woman," Henry said. "Apart from the fact that he has no manners either. Poor thing."

Needless to say, this fake apology from Henry drew more smirks from the crowd, making the two accusers even angrier.

"I see…" Philip replied, his voice low and emotionless, cold as ice, but with a slight expression of irritation in his eyes. "Ignoring the display of extreme rudeness, impoliteness, and insults directed at me just now, what do you want, gentlemen?"

"We're here to find evidence that this man is a witch," the witch hunter replied, pointing to Henry as he said 'this man', not even bothering to apologize for the offense he directed at Philip early.

"Again the same story…" Philip blurted out with a tired expression and an emotionless voice. "Okay, do whatever you like, but get it over with quickly because I want to get back to my rudely interrupted reading of the Psalms and the Acts of the Apostles."

Wordlessly and extremely rudely, witch hunter and Pastor entered the house, followed by a few men who asked Philip and Henry's permission and made sincere apologies for the rudeness. The dismayed couple from before also stood outside, the man still clutching the woman tightly. Noticing this, Henry turned to the couple and said:

"Don't worry, you won't find anything suspicious at home. Soon you will get your daughter back and the due apology."

"Apology? Ha!" The man disdained. "What I really want is to do to that bastard what he said he is going to do to you if we found out you are really a witch!"

"Tell me about it... I'd love to do that to him too, Mr. Bell, believe me," Henry replied sincerely. "But we have to remember that we are Christians and that is why we cannot give in to our most animalistic desires and lower ourselves to the level of those two depraved ones. Remember that killing goes against the law written in the holy scriptures."

"I know…" Mr Bell spoke in defeat. "Looks like we're going to have to settle for the apology."

"It's better this way," Henry said softly. "Unfortunately it's better this way..."

Hours passed after the witch hunter, Pastor and their group began to search the house, but no one found anything out of the ordinary for any Calvinist settler, meanwhile Henry stared at that group from a distance while Philip continued to calmly sit in his stool reading the Bible, as he had said he would.

"WHERE THEY ARE?!" Hardman's yell went along with his steps closer and closer.

"Where are what?" the Wittebane brothers asked in unison.

"The heretical books I saw at the witch workplace last week!" Hardman replied, pointing a finger at Henry as he walked back to the entrance, followed by the witch hunter and the men from the village who had entered the house.

"Heretics?" the eldest of the Wittebane asked raising an eyebrow as the younger turned his attention to the Bible again.

"Yea!" Hardman exclaimed. "Don't pretend you don't know about them" You had weird plant books on your desk last week! I bet they were for some macabre ritual! I saw it with my own eyes! But now they are gone!"

Henry looked at Philip discreetly for a few microseconds, not moving his head, moving only his eyes and his younger brother looked at him with an expression of 'Don't even think about retorting that there's nothing wrong with that books, you imbecile! Pretend that books don't exist' and so the younger Wittebane turned his eyes to his cherished holy book again. With that it was pretty obvious to Henry that Philip was responsible for the disappearance of these books (and maybe of all the others, if they had disappeared too), it was more than obvious! But the eldest of the Wittebane brothers could not question the younger at that moment.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Hardman," Henry replied, lying deliberately, following what his brother had asked with his gaze.

"Listen here, Wittebane," Pastor Hardman began. "If you don't stop with this little act and surrender now, I will…"

"ENOUGH!" Mr Bell yelled, still hugging his wife strongly. "Stop this nonsense and give our daughter back NOW!"

"But…" Hardman tried to retort.

"Enough, Matthew," the witch hunter said in defeat. "We didn't find anything wrong in the witch and the effeminate's house."

"It's because I'm not a witch," Henry snapped, earning a glare from the pastor and witch hunter.

"Then I'll have to fulfill my part of the deal…"

"But James, what this disgusting witch demanded you do is humiliating!"

"I know and I won't forget it," the witch hunter said. "Are you listening, witch? You may have won this battle, but you didn't win the war. Here in this horrid village you may be protected, but once you set foot outside Gravesfield, I will hunt and torture you, you will die at my hands as slowly and painfully as possible."

"Okay, okay, let's skip the boring threatening part and get to the part where you free the girl, apologize to her parents, admit to EVERYBODY in the village that you prey on little girls instead of hunt real witches, and swear you will never step foot in this village again, please?" Henry asked ignoring James' threat. "It's getting late and Philip and I have a lot to do now that you've messed up our whole house looking for something that doesn't exist."

James Hopkins and Matthew Hardman were furious at Henry's teasing but could do nothing. So James had to fulfill what he had promised in the bet and as soon as he did it he left Gravesfield. With that the villagers were relieved and went back to their homes, followed by Hardman, who was still furious with Henry but could do nothing about it.

When everyone was far away, Henry asked his brother:

"What have you done with my books?"

"I burned them," Philip replied, no expression on his face, no feeling in his voice.

"WHAT?!" Henry yelled in shock.

"Kidding," Philip replied with a smirk.

"Do you want to kill me?! I almost had a heart attack now with this prank of yours!" Henry snapped.

"That's good," Philip said without pity. "That's what you did to me when you played the hero running into the enemy's clutches earlier."

"Philip… I'm so sorry…" Henry said feeling guilty.

"Your books are buried in the yard," Philip said, still cold, interrupting his older brother. "Luckily for you it snowed while you were pissing off crazy bastards in the middle of the village and it snowed so much that the snow covered the exact spot where I buried the books."

"It snowed?" Henry asked thinking that was strange, as it hadn't snowed in the rest of the village.

"Yes," Philip replied thinking that his brother's question was strange. "Why are you… Never mind, I'm too tired for this nonsense right now… Listen, this time I just buried your books, but if I have to get rid of them to save your neck again, I'll use them for firewood."

"You're still mad at me for what I did early, aren't you?" Henry asked, feeling bad for threatening his brother that morning so he could get out of his workplace and go save Emma Bell. Perhaps he should have asked his brother more politely to get out of the way, rather than using a threat.

"Very much," Philip admitted with a tired expression. "But I don't think we should have a deep conversation ending with a plea for reconciliation and a hug coming from us both (as always) right now. I'm too tired for this and we still have to clean up the mess those scums left... So today I think we should just clean up our rooms. I clean my room and you clean up the mess they must have made in yours. Tomorrow we'll clean up together the mess they did in the rest of the house. What do you think?"

"I think that's a good idea."

"So that's it. Good night, Henry."

So the youngest of the Wittebane brothers entered without waiting for a 'good night' from his brother. A few seconds later Winter came flying out of the woods, landing on Henry's shoulder.

"Hey, there you are, buddy," Henry greeted the palisman.

"Don't be upset with your brother, he's just worried," the Northern Cardinal said. "I watched from the forest, and as soon as you left he ran to look for your books to hide them while muttering how much he was afraid of you being hanged."

"Oh, Winter…"

"The worst part is that his fears made sense and scared me a lot too, so I went deeper into the forest looking for your Ava."

Hearing this, Henry blushed.

"It wasn't hard to find her, because for some reason she was building a small, hidden cabin in the woods nearby," Winter continued. "So I told her what was going on and we headed back here as fast as possible. When we arrived Philip had already finished burying his books, so Ava made a circle with her index finger and the snow began to fall around the house and yard and continued to fall until there was no longer any difference between the ground that had been dug and the that it did not have. After that we were waiting for you in hiding."

"I see... So you guys helped Phil save me..." Henry said blushing, thinking of Aveline. "Even after I fled her indirect marriage proposal like a coward two days ago, she still protected me…"

"Yep."

"Is she still here?"

"No, she left as soon as she saw you were no longer in danger."

"Dang… I'll talk to her tomorrow," Henry decided determinedly. "I'll thank her appropriately, apologize for the shameful scene I made the last time we saw each other and help her finish building her cabin."

"Can I go too?" Winter asked excitedly.

"Sure! I need you so I waste no time looking for where she is!"

"Yeah! But thanks, H…"

"Hunter." Winter's voice from somewhere far away interrupted the Winter on his shoulder.

"Hunter!" That mysterious voice of a distant Winter called again.

And so everything faded away…

"Hunter!" Winter called. "Wake up! Wake up, wake up, wake up!"

"Is it six already?" Hunter asked, yawning and sitting up, still clinging to the plush Sprig.

"Actually six-twenty," Winter replied. "I've been trying to wake you up since six. This time you worried me."

"Sorry, Winter," Hunter said. "I don't know what's been happening to me lately… From what you're talking about it's been getting harder and harder to wake me up from these recurring dreams."

"Recurring dreams?" Winter asked, worried.

"Yes," Hunter replied. "Remember when I said I had a weird dream where I was an adult human witch who had a weird and funny little brother?"

"Yes," Winter replied. "Why?"

"Because, ever since that day, I've dreamed of being that guy every time I sleep," Hunter explained.

"Okay, this is weird, really weird, but it doesn't seem like something to worry about.

"I didn't think it was either, but then you said that your old witch was human and had a brother and…"

"Aaand?"

"Winter, tell me what were the names of your old witch and his brother?"

"Henry and Philip Witteban… Hunter, what's wrong?! You look pale!"

"Winter… These are the names of the brothers from my recurring dream."