a/n: So sorry for the long wait, this chapter took way longer than expected and it still doesn't have everything that I wanted it to. Oh well, the next chapter starts the first important arc in the story and I'm pretty excited about it, so it will be up either Saturday or Sunday. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Chapter 2

Ollie woke with a jolt and a stifled scream. Her heart was pounding furiously within her chest and thin rivets of sweat running down her back had her shivering as she struggled to jerk herself up into a sitting position. Huffing Ollie tried to ignore the shaking in her hands as she used them to push her hair off of her clammy forehead. With a frown she cast gold eyes towards the figure lying beside her and breathed a sigh of relief that Bonnie was still asleep. The last thing Ollie needed was her cousin trying to poke around the meaning behind her frequent nightmares, again. Especially since last night's had been so straight forward.

She wished she could say that last night had been her first time dreaming of black smoke, fear, and the stench of death. She wished she didn't know what evil felt like when it was running its tongue over her crawling skin. But most of all she wished that it hadn't been two months since she'd been able to sleep through a night without guilt filled nightmares and dark seductive words being whispered in her ears.

Shuddering Ollie peeled off her red overcoat, shirt, boots, and trousers. Between the grim from their hasty escape at Dawn's Crest and the sweaty dampness from her night terrors Ollie figured now was as good a time as any to try and get a little cleaner. Still trembling with the memories of the nightmare Ollie felt along the side of the boat and nodded to herself when her fingers found netting strapped to the side. She fumbled with the thing for a bit, the tepid water of the river splashed against her fingers as she tried to configure it like she supposed the fishermen did when out working their trade. In the end she got it settled enough that she was sure her dirty clothes wouldn't escape from the net once she set them in.

Turning back to her pack she dug around inside it until her hand hit something smooth and cool to the touch. She gripped it and pulled out a creamy brown colored bar of soap made from herbs, sandalwood, a little lye, and ground minerals from the rocks at the bottom of Amber's Lake. Frowning Ollie blinked down at the bar, angry at the fact that her eyes watered at the sight of it and that she felt anything at all about it. What had happened hadn't been her fault. It hadn't.

Clutching the soap Ollie contemplated tossing it into the river, but it seemed like such a guilty action, so she didn't. Plus she was tired of smelling. So she forced her feelings, memories, and nightmares aside and began to scrub her clothes relentlessly until she couldn't smell the salty stink of Dawn's Crest on anymore and the skin on her fingers was beginning to be rubbed raw.

She was still doing it forty minutes later when Bonnie spoke.

"I think they're clean enough Ollie."

Ollie jumped, jerked her head towards her cousin, before blushing sheepishly. "Right," she muttered as she stuffed her clothes into the netting on the side of the boat so that the river could rinse them clean.

"So," Bonnie began slowly while running her eyes over her cousin's tense form. "Where are we?" She asked as she turned herself around when she noticed that Ollie was beginning to wash herself. Her green eyes swept over the steadily moving waters of The Great Tyson River. She'd been surprised to notice just how large the river was after the pale yellow sun had risen over the horizon early this morning. It had only been a few hours since they'd jumped aboard the stolen vessel in Dawn's Crest and both of them had been half out of it with delirium and fatigue. But Bonnie remembered thinking that she'd never thought she'd see so much blue water moving along in one place. Even now the sight was no less lovely even if she could feel the beginning rumblings of what she suspected was hunger.

"I guess we're a couple dozen miles north of Dawn's Crest. We're lucky the river's current is so strong since we both stopped paddling ages ago," Ollie answered before she dunked her soapy curls in the river. She came back up minutes later finger combing her hair until the curls loosened to fall in soft waves down her shoulders. If she was lucky the strands wouldn't lock up too badly as they dried. "But," she continued after passing the bar of soap to Bonnie along with an apple she'd dug out of her things, "We'll have to get to land before I'll have any idea exactly where we are."Ollie muttered as she rinsed the soap from her skin with a damp scrap of cloth she'd found in the boat. This wasn't the cleanest bath she'd ever had, but she both felt and smelled better.

"Thanks," Bonnie smiled as she began to eat the apple. She wrapped the soap it a piece of cloth she kept for bathing. She wasn't as dirty as Ollie had been, but she'd wash her face and hair once she was done eating. "So which side to we need to dock on?"

Ollie shrugged as she pulled her clothes out of the water and narrowed her eyes at them until the fabrics magically dried. She pulled them on quickly afterwards and let out a little happy sigh before turning to Bonnie and pulling out another apple for herself. "Hmm, I'm not really sure," she began as she tried to think back to all the different maps she'd seen. "I think it's the eastern bank."

"Are you sure?" Bonnie raised a skeptical and unimpressed eyebrow. She didn't really want to be lost on the wrong side of this massive river. Who knew where they'd be able to cross if they landed on the wrong side.

"Nope." Ollie grinned popping the 'p' in the word happily.

"Of course not," Bonnie sighed with a roll of her green eyes. "Why would you have anything completely thought out?"

"Gee, I don't know, maybe because this whole thing was actually your idea Bon Bon?" Ollie frowned in response.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Bonnie snapped.

"Oh, just that I never wanted to go on this 'quest'." Ollie hissed back.

Bonnie jerked up until she was standing tense and angrily over her cousin. She glared down at Ollie as she spoke in a frosty tone, "You mean you don't want to find out who broke the Circle? Who killed Grams?!"

"No!" Ollie shouted jumping up until she was standing toe to toe with her cousin.

"What is wrong with you? That woman raised us!" Bonnie was furious beyond words and as a result of her rage the water around them began to bubble and boil. Neither cousin noticed even when the river began to hiss as steam started to rise off of it.

"Oh, please, Bonnie. That woman raised you. In case you never noticed Sheila was never my biggest fan." Ollie's fists clenched as she thought about the older woman. She'd been judgemental in every sense of the word and had made it more that clear that she would never be okay with Ollie's existence. To this day Ollie still couldn't understand why the old woman had even bothered to take in something she'd clearly happily watch burn to Hell.

"How can you say that? Ollie, you have to understand the things you did. She had no choice, but to punish you for –"

Lightning struck the boat and the rest of Bonnie's words were lost in the flash of light and an explosion of wood. Bonnie grasped as she was literally blown out of the exploding watercraft. She soon found herself struggling beneath the scorching waves of the river trying not to swallow anymore of the burning liquid and marveling that she could feel the coolness of her pained tears as they leaked out of her closed eyes. 'Oh, God. Why is the water so hot?' Her arms and legs began moving in a more synchronized pattern, but with her eyes closed she wasn't sure if she was heading to one of the banks and relief or swimming along the river and prolonging her agony. With the hotness of the water she also wasn't sure just how long she could take being practically boiled alive. So she opened her mouth to scream in pain when a hand gripped the tender skin on her wrist.

Scalding water happily gurgled down her throat and Bonnie could practically feel it forcing out the little oxygen left in her lungs. She feared drowning and tried to fight off the hand on her arm, but failed hopelessly and found herself being pulled roughly through the water. She was almost sure that this was the end when her head broke the surface of the river. She had seconds to cough and sputtered before she was literally flung out of the water and onto the riverbank. Bonnie groaned as her head thudded on the sand and her vision swam.

"Bonnie!" Ollie screamed. She shot out of the water, ignoring her protesting limbs and the burns dotting her skin, and ran to her cousin. Bonnie was stretched out on the sandy riverbank and looked out of it, but not nearly as bad as Ollie had feared. "Bonnie, oh Bon Bon, I'm sorry. Come on you have to heal yourself. I can't do it," Ollie rushed her words out hovering over Bonnie. She frowned ignoring her own wounds knowing that they would heal on their own with time and that Bonnie's injuries actually needed care.

"Ollie," Bonnie winced she struggled up to a sitting position. Her hands began to glow a soft green seemingly on their own and she gingerly began to tend to herself.

Next to her Ollie breathed a sigh of relief as Bonnie's angry red skin soothed into caramel colored perfection once again. Then she turned to stare moodily out at the now innocently calm river and the floating splinters of their wreck. She couldn't allow herself to lose her temper like again. Just how many times was she going to let her nature get the best of her?

"Ollie, don't." Bonnie's voice jolted Ollie out of her thoughts and she jerked around to face her cousin. Thank God she looked good as new again.

"Don't what?" Ollie muttered.

"Blame yourself," Bonnie sighed and stood up. "You weren't the only one to lose control of your magic on the boat. So I'm sorry. Are you okay?" Bonnie asked as she tried to look over Ollie's body for burns, but found that impossible as her cousin jerked away from her and pulled the hood of her coat low over her face.

"I'm fine," Ollie snapped. She couldn't let Bonnie see, not what she was. Her cousin was practically Sheila's twin in terms of morality.

"Ollie…"

"No, really. I'm fine and I'm sorry too." Ollie sighed. "I don't want to fight with you Bonnie. You're the only family I have left." And Ollie meant that with nearly everything she had.

Bonnie could feel the sincerity behind the words and found a smirk growing on her face. "You're it for me too Ollie." She paused as she looked around before speaking again. "So what are we going to do now?"

"You still want to find out who broke the Circle don't you?"

Bonnie nodded stubbornly. She loved Ollie, but she wasn't about to let Gram's murder go.

"Right," Ollie sighed before pushing back her hood. Bonnie blinked at the clear unblemished brown of her cousin's skin and wondered if she'd been hurt at all. "So," Ollie continued, "It looks like we're walking with nothing."

Bonnie cocked her head to the side in confusion. "Nothing?"

Ollie just hitched a thumb in the direction of their destroyed boat sinking down into the river and Bonnie realized that everything they'd owned had been on it and was now definitely lost to them.

"Great."

If Ollie passed that same damn ash white oak tree one more time she was going to zap it to ashes. Huffing in annoyance and flicking a spiral lock of hair out of her eyes for the twentieth time Ollie finally allowed herself to admit that she had no idea where she was or where exactly she was leading her cousin. They were lost and rather hopelessly at that since everything on this damn riverbank looked the same. The Great Tyson River was rushing along on her left; it was wide, vast, and looked nothing like any river Ollie had ever seen. Not that she'd seen all that many, but it sure as hell didn't look like those skinny blue lines she'd seen on maps; little tiny things they were that made it seem like crossing or traveling along side them would be a breeze. Its riverbank was normal enough though, with its mixture of smooth, slippery river rocks, gritty sand, debris, and mud puddles. From behind Ollie could hear Bonnie mumbling to herself as she tiptoed around the lost wooden planks of damaged ships, never read messages in glass bottles, and sea creatures unlucky enough to get washed up inland. Ollie didn't mind the junk so much – what she minded was being lost and unfortunately the view on her right was the problem.

Apparently either ash white oak trees weren't that unique around these parts or she and her cousin had been repeatedly traipsing over the same stretch of this riverbank since their stolen boat had literally fallen apart on them. Obviously the second scenario bothered her more, but unfortunately that was also the one Ollie was leaning towards actually being the case. So she stopped dragging her soaked, sore, and tired ass along and faced the blasted tree. Its pale trunk was littered with small nicks and tears, but what drew Ollie's attention were the few large jagged cracks and holes which almost resembled a face. Realizing that was enough to make her wary and that had sort of a light bulb effect as Ollie realized exactly what she and her cousin had stumbled into.

"Ollie," Bonnie began, but Ollie sent a lazy wave her way to let her know that they were already on the same page, paragraph, sentence, and word.

"Yeah, I know, we've somehow walked ourselves right into a spell," Ollie sighed as she pinched the bridge of her nose and cocked her hip out in annoyance. "But," Ollie continued as she glared at the tree in front of her, "what I don't understand is how."

Her cousin saddled up next to her smoothly with her perfect eyebrows furrowed lightly in a musing expression. Ollie was almost content to just find a log or something, park her ass, and let Bonnie sort the whole thing out. But Ollie knew that she was the better illusionist out of the two of them even if she was a little confused with their current predicament.

"What do you mean you don't understand how?" Bonnie questioned with her Chinese jade colored eyes slanted sideways at Ollie in disbelief. Ollie quirked an annoyed eyebrow in response. "Illusion magic is your area of expertise." Bonnie huffed in exasperation.

Ollie stiffened at the subtle reprimand and narrowed her gold eyes at Bonnie in warning. "Yeah, at casting it, Bon Bon. This is obviously something different. Plus I've only been caught in an illusion once," Ollie muttered thinking back on her days spent in the Circle. "And I've never been caught in one this good. I mean the caster is no where around." Ollie finished with an arm sweeping out across the area to showcase the fact that the cousins were very much alone. Besides the soft twittering of birds fluttering through the trees and the happy gurgles of the river as it rushed along the riverbank was silent.

Bonnie bit her bottom lip and shifted her feet as she glanced around. Ollie was right - there wasn't a witch or anything vaguely humanoid in sight. "Is that possible?" She wondered aloud. She'd never heard of such a far casting being possible.

Ollie shrugged in response. "I don't know. Maybe," Ollie began as she walked around the rather curious tree. "Can you sense anything off of this tree?"

"The tree?" Bonnie questioned.

"Yeah, it's not only seriously creepy as hell, but we've passed it over five times now." Ollie answered still peering at the ash white oak tree. She was almost sure that the thing was the caster's trigger for the illusion spell, but wasn't entirely sure since she wasn't as in tune to sensing magic in things as Bonnie was. So although she thought she felt something she wasn't going to sign off on it without Bonnie's input.

Bonnie said nothing but began to move her five foot two frame around the tree in a similar manner as she too began to examine it closely. She made a full rotation before speaking. "There is a magical energy coming off of it. Not a lot, definitely not enough for this strong of a spell, but still it is there."

"Well, that's good. Nearly perfect, actually. It fits with the theory I have going," Ollie began as she ran her slim sienna colored fingers along the strangely smooth bark of the tree. "I think this is a trigger for the illusion spell, but since this spell is so strong it's clearly not the only one. So there are likely other creepy ass trees in this forest that are also triggers picking up the rest of the magical load for this spell. This, I think, might also give this spell an incredibly large area of effect. Which is why we can't see or feel any spell caster – he or she is nowhere close to this area." Ollie finished rather pleased with herself.

"Ok. So each trigger for the spell has its own area of effect and the total area of effect for the spell is the culmination of all of the triggers' areas. Right?" Bonnie followed.

"Right."

"So whoever casted this spell could be anywhere within this area?" Bonnie asked.

Ollie nodded.

"So how are we going to get out of this illusion without locating him or her?" Bonnie pressed.

"Oh, that's easy," Ollie muttered and brought her hand, lightning crackling between her fingertips, up to the tree. The blue and yellow sparks seemed to ignite the thing instantly and before either cousin could blink the ash white oak tree was gone in a column of smoke. "See? Easy like pie," Ollie hummed.

Bonnie found herself rolling her eyes. "Sure."

"What's that supposed to me-" Ollie's words stuttered into silence as a blood curling scream ripped through the air.

The cousins tensed and blinked at one another.

"Well, someone's party's over," Ollie muttered in the silence that followed.

"Really Ollie?" Bonnie chastised. "Let's go find out where that came from and see if we can help."

Ollie snorted. "Bon Bon, that ship has sailed, trust me. No one screams like that unless they're being butchered."

"Ollie…," Bonnie growled.

Ollie shook her head stubbornly and continued. "Plus, take a look around Bon; we are nowhere near the riverbank. I haven't the slightest fucking idea where we are. That was a damn good spell, Bon Bon." Ollie gestured to the area around them for emphasize.

Bonnie blinked and realized that Ollie was right. They definitely were not along the riverbank any longer. The sound of rushing water was gone and there was a notable absence of twittering birds as night had fallen. Shaking her head Bonnie glanced around trying to make sense of the fact that they'd lost hours of the day thanks to the illusion, but all she could make out in the sudden darkness surrounding them was trees. Tall, thick, dark brown oak trees with heavy red and orange leaves that looked seconds away from falling upon them. Ollie could make out a bit more with her unique eyes. Her tawny gold orbs noted the scorched ground in front of her signaling where the damn ash oak tree had stood, the absence of the moon in the sky (definitely a bad sign she figured), and the fact that on the branch of a fallen tree a few feet ahead of them was a bloody scrap of torn cloth. Nodding to herself Ollie figured that it was time to go.

She began tugging lightly at her cousin's arm. "Come on Bon Bon, let's get out of here."

"Wait, I think I hear something," Bonnie returned her short, petite form firm and for the moment completely immovable.

Ollie rolled her eyes. "Yeah, someone out there is breathing their last, remember? Now I'm trying to make sure we aren't next, so let's go!"

Ollie's words fell on deaf ears. Bonnie wasn't listening to her, hell she wasn't even standing next to her anymore. Bonnie had shot out of Ollie's hold and was sprinting between the trees towards what Ollie already knew was going to be a grisly scene.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," she grumbled as she took off after her cousin.

A big thank you to Yaoi4596 and a lovely guest for being my first reviewers!