Foreword.
If you're reading this; Thank you. It means the world to me that you would still come back after the [unspeakable] wait. But this is it. After much procrastinating, I'm finally releasing the long-written end of this story, with, as always, a few surprises along the way. I hope you enjoy and I'll see you at the end :-) I'm not gonna put any other "Author's note" along the way since I'm releasing the whole thing in one go - my thank-you/sorry gift to you. Plus I suck at deadlines so let's just put the whole thing up and be done with it :-p.
Side-Note:
Yes, the chapters are as short as for the previous story, but they'll get bigger along the way. I promise. Any typo and/or mistake should be blamed on me, because it's mostly all unedited. I'll be glad to edit any you might point out, though. Also, be kind; this was written so far as almost three years ago and I like to think I most improved since then - oh, and don't read too far into some of the titles; some of them I don't even remember what the pun was supposed to be, it's been that long...
Chapter Three: Cutting to the Chase
As they dragged each other along the shore, the closest to natural hideouts being waist-high shrubs, the old man nearly stumbled on a particularly smooth piece of rock and grabbed the first thing reachable – the witch's wrist.
A scream. A thud like a hand being pressed against a mouth.
Amos steadied himself and looked, without seeing, at Phoebe. He still had the lady's wrist in his grip and could not see the paleness of her face hidden behind her free hand.
"Yeh're bleeding," he said, nearing the woman's hand to his nose as if to smell the icky substance; he now what knew had dripped on himself earlier. "I have a few remedies tha' should help yeh, let's hurry."
Phoebe took her uninjured hand off her mouth, nodding before remembering the blindness of her companion. "It's just a scratch, really. But let's hurry alright," she said faintly.
The wound on her wrist was not what frightened her the most – she had seen worse … But had she seen worse than what was coming for her, than what was maybe right now lurking behind one of the trees, biding its time? She wasn't sure.
On they limped, the best they could. They nearly tripped once more but with no shouts from any parts and soon Phoebe saw Amos's home village hovering in the dissolving fog, in the valley at the end of the sloping path.
"Over here, lady," the stranger lowly hissed, pulling her into the trees that boarded the side of the trail. Phoebe didn't know how he had known the side path was exactly there but said nothing, after all it was normal for someone his age to know the little differences the ground offered after living all of one's life in the same place – Piper herself had known how to move around the manor when she had been hexed with blindness by a cursed monkey totem.
"We're gonna take this way to the back door of me house so nobody sees yeh and they'll all think I'm still fishin'."
Phoebe nodded once more at the explanation and was about to speak her answer when Amos said, "Alrigh' then," like replying to her untold agreement.
They reached the door to the back of the house, after checking no one was there to see them cross the clear way between the tree cover and the shack.
"In here." Amos led her into his home, even less hesitantly than out on the road. "Lemme take care of yer injury, then we'll skim through Grandma's charms, 'kay?"
"Sounds good to me."
"Yeh'll have to describe yer wound to me if I'm ter do a proper job, miss."
"Oh, okay," Phoebe nodded, holding her injured hand on the mahogany table. The "scratch" was quite big. "Well, it seems a little deep alright."
"Deep how?"
"Half an inch maybe?"
"I see."