Disclaimer: (holds up signboard) I wish I owned God Child. But I don't. So I only drool over the manga.

Author's Notes: Hello, I'm Hypnotic Prism. This is my first God Child fanfic. I am DESPERATELY praying you will like it. Constructive criticism is welcome. Flames will be ignored. And please read and review—reviews make me very happy. :)


Inficio

God Child Fanfiction

By: Hypnotic Prism


In the lifeless branches of the forest near the riverbank, the sunbeams seemed to bend its way through to cast their solemn early glimmers into the waking world, still wreathed in mist, still blanketed by the dew. Dawn in this part of the town was never as well-thought off as in the other parts. Everything here was always damp, and cold.

A young boy sleepily trudged from a small settlement of woodcutters' homes nearby, carrying a pail. His mother had told him to fetch water for cooking breakfast that day. Grumbling and still rubbing his eyes, he walked with his shoes on the wrong feet down the damp soil path to the direction of the river, the wooden pail dragging behind him and carving a trail on the wet earth.

The sound of the river could be heard now, although it could not be so easily seen due to the mist in the wood. The boy glanced around for a bit, not as perturbed as he usually would be, his senses still fogged by sleep. There was a strange scent in the air.

Sighing, he squatted at the riverbank and lifelessly dipped the pail in, eyes still half closed and drowsy. He leaned an elbow onto his knee, and nearly nodded off if the pail hadn't nearly gotten tugged away from him. Jerking awake, he groggily opened his eyes and pulled the pail up.

He stared.

The pail was not a new one—it was old, and wood. The metal on it had not rusted much, though. So he could not understand as to why the water contained within was stained red. Something was floating on the surface, and he gingerly picked it out and held it up. It was strands of gold.

"…hair?" he muttered to himself, puzzled.

The sunlight came through the trees. The mist lifted and dissipated, as though fleeing the warmth. And the river revealed itself to the boy.

In the dark water rushing past, sharp rocks protruded like many little gray islands around which the water raced past. On one of the rocks was hooked a pale, vein-ridden arm in a ripped sleeve. The boy dropped his pail with a clank in horror. The face of the blond youth that floated on the river—glassy eyes bloodshot, open but unseeing, his body colorless, and every vein on his body emphasized like so many dark roots under the translucent skin nearly bursting in saturation of the water, and the entire jaw all the way to his neck, rotted black with flesh tearing away in the water.

The boy raced back, screaming. The body continued to float in the water. And from a distance, watching in the shadow of the trees, a figure, contented, walked away.


"Brother!"

The voice of a young girl came ringing down the halls of the manor, accompanied by running feet. "Brother! You would never believe it! Brother—oh, where are you?"

From the study, a young man looking into a microscope sighed and glanced up slightly. "You make too much noise sometimes, Merry…" he looked yup and called, "I'm in here, Merryweather! It's about time you returned—I had been starting to wonder."

At that instant, a little girl with piles of long blonde hair burst into the room, her face flushed with excitement. Her entrance was accompanied by the smell of the outdoors—of sunshine and flowers and earth—and something else that made her half brother look up from his work.

"I went out on the carriage to-day—I wanted to get a new box to put in those little pearls and my cards," she said excitedly. She held out on one small hand a silver box with delicate engraving. "Isn't it lovely? But oh, that wasn't what I wanted to tell you."

But her brother's green-gold eyes were not looking at the box—they were staring at the flowers that Merry gripped in the other hand, looking freshly picked, and highly unusual. I've only seen those in journals…never around these parts… he added in wonder to himself. The resplendent colors of some mushrooms and blossoms, some laden with seeds, some with petals curling like feathers. They were not ordinary garden plants. And extraordinary things were things Cain Hargreaves would know about.

He looked up at her. "Merry—those flowers—where did you get them?"

The younger of the sibling pair looked irked. "I was getting to that before you interrupted."

And her brother sighed. "Sorry. Go on."

"After I got my little box, the carriage hit a bump in the road and the wheel had to be fixed. So the driver took it to this place a little way off from town—I'd never been there before, but it was lovely, brother, it really was!" her little face was flushed and alight. "There was a quaint little cottage by itself under a big willow and it had the oddest garden."

"I assume that's where you got those? You should've asked before you picked the flowers."

"Of course I did! Why, Julianna gave them to me?"

He blinked. "Julianna?"

"She's the one who lives in the cottage," Merry responded happily. "She lives by herself, but you know what?" and here she dropped her voice to a dramatic whisper and leaned closer to her nearly indifferent brother, "they say—she's a witch!"

Cain stared at her, disbelieving. "Who is 'they'?"

"The people in town. Why—don't you know? You really should get out more."

Ignoring the comment, Cain asked, although he knew the answer, "And why do they say she is?"

"They said it was because she lives on her own and at night strange sounds come from her house," Merryweather affected a scary tone that only made her brother resist to smile. "Strange smells come around, too! They see her brewing something in a large pot!"

"And…you like this?"

"Of course!" she said happily. "After all—they used to say I'm a witch too, because I'm psychic! Isn't that wonderful? Now there's two of us!"

"Wonders never cease…" Cain said blandly to himself.

"What was that?"

"Nothing, Merry… Why did she give you those flowers?" he plucked one blossom off a stem.

Merry laughs. "She said they're potion herbs. I can use them to cast all sorts of spells on people! She let me take this much because she has about a hundred more in her garden. Mind you—it's not really that big, her place, but it sure is unusual. Why when I went there…"

As his sister continued to prattle on, Cain stared at the blossom in his hand. He recognized it and many others in Merry's bunch. It was called acelis, and it was one of the more 'common' flowers among the list of unusual herbs. Merry most likely thought this was a fun game, but the woman who gave her the flowers certainly didn't. Anyone who knew anything about brewing herbs for unusual reasons would know that acelis was a flower that can induce nearly instantaneous trance if powdered and inhaled.

Among the other flowers were nightshade, belladonna, an African herb and others that Cain remembered seeing in his research books. The last two were poison-making herbs, while nightshade and belladonna were indeed heard of in the witch world as common.

Certainly an odd garden…and Merry said there were hundreds of these? That person…is she merely some eccentric or is she as they said she was? A witch? If so…then the rumors…

"Are you listening, brother?"

Cain snapped out of his fantasy with a question. "What does she do for a living—this…Julianna?"

"Be a witch," she shrugged.

"What?"

Merryweather sat on the ground, tucking her feet under her. "Some people come to her and ask for things. They believe she's a witch so they ask for herbs. Mostly to help sick people. But some of them were looking for spells and such things. Julianna doesn't say yes to them very often though. And she's always brewing something in a big black pot."

Cain blinked and shook his head, patting her heavily on the head, making her blink. "Huh?"

"You have a very hyperactive imagination," he told her.

"It's all true!"

"I'm sure it is. But I've also known you to have given me the most gruesome mother goose rhymes. Go along and play in our normal garden."

Merryweather got up and stuck her tongue out at him. "I'll make a potion—you'll see."

"Be careful, then. Don't burn anything."

With a 'humph', the Hargreaves daughter left the room, but there was a happy twinkle in her eye. After she had left, Cain looked up. "Riff!"

The butler was almost instantly at the door with a familiar smile. "Yes, Master Cain?"

"Please keep an eye on Merryweather…"

"Because of her playing with fire to make her little brew?"

"No…because those plants are real. With real effects. Mind the red flower. If she manages to powder it and inhale it, it'll put her to trance."

Riff stared. "…and here I thought they were wayside blossoms…"

Cain shook his head and sat down, deep in thought. "African herbs and Asian berries don't grow by the wayside…" he murmured. "They're potion and poison plants…"

"If they are real, then hadn't I better take them away from Miss Merryweather at once?" Riff asked, looking concerned as he glanced out the window where Merryweather had taken a small cooking pot and putting it over a circle of rocks she would use as a 'furnace'.

"No. Those flowers aren't particularly dangerous, though particularly effective. And I doubt Merry will prepare them correctly…" He sank into thought again. After a long pause, he added, "…a witch, eh? Maybe it has something to do with the rumors in town…?"

Riff looked up. "You've heard about it too?"

"Very little, in truth. As I've heard from the town, a woman had been stealing away men, seducing them away from their wives. This would've been completely uninteresting gossip if the husbands didn't turn up dead a night after they are found missing. But that's about all I know. Do you know any more?" he glanced at Riff.

"As a matter of fact, the servants have been feeding each other gossip and rumor of it daily…" Riff responded.

Cain gave him a flat look. "Why am I not surprised?"

"From what I gather, this all happens at the riverside area. It's not a witch, master—they say it's a naiad. A river nymph. Men would be lured into the forest at night—moved inexplicably. The victims were seen following a specter of a woman through the deep woods, and then in the morning, they would be found dead in the river. "

"Drowned?"

"No… poisoned. They were dead before they were left in the river. They say that the naiad must be quite a temptress—so far, the body count is eight."

Cain stared. "Eight…? I had last heard seven. And the police?"

"Inspectors were sent but…whenever they came back, they could never remember anything," Riff murmured. "Certainly odd." He paused. "Do you think Julianna may have something to do with it?"

"Well she does seem the likely suspect, doesn't she…? Irregardless. If the murderer deals with poison," and here he smirked and picked up his staff. "I'd like to pit our abilities against each other, then."


"Hey brother? Can I go visit Julianna again today? I told her I would bring her some nice things to eat." Merryweather was looking up at him appealingly from where she was hanging over the sofa armrest.

Cain looked up at her from where he was picking up his coat. "When? Today?"

"Of course. Can I?"

He paused. "…nice things to eat?"

"You see… I've been in her house… I didn't really see much food. She's a very poor person you know. She spends all her time taking care of her plants that she doesn't attend to other matters. It's her obsession." Merry laughed.

"All right then." Cain nodded after a moment's consideration.

"Where are you going, brother?"

Cain paused and glanced at the table on which the morning paper was. Another life had been taken by the river nymph. It was a young aristocrat named Godfrey Bowles. With the murder of an aristocrat, high society thundered at the police's door and the rumor now flew from mouth to mouth as though it were alive. "I'm going to the funeral." Godfrey was an acquaintance of Cain's.

"Oh, this is about the nymph, right?" Merry animated herself again. "I've heard of her. Julianna says that the nymph mustn't be real. Nymphs don't lure people. Sirens do."

"Oh, and a siren is most certainly a more probable explanation…" Cain smirked. He received a raspberry, but his sister went to hug him at the door.

"Thanks for letting me go," she said with a bright smile. "I really like her. You should meet her!"

"You know what?" Cain said as he slipped on his coat with Riff's help, "I think I will."


Man, that chap sucked. Still, I'm working on it. Ahehehhh… Also, there is a significance to the title that might be made clear in the next chapter. I'm not too sure because I'm not good with languages, but it's Latin for two things. Please review… :)