ġemōt /jeˈmoːt/

Old English

Definition: encounter, meeting

『O』

Alice Wu-Gulliver didn't believe in witchcraft. Magic? Of course. The world was littered with magical superheroes, Doctor Strange to name one. But witchcraft? Voodoo? The rituals that were more cultish than anything? Those she decided were her late mother doing nothing but trying to pass down a hereditary but outdated religion.

Alice had played along. Humored her, even, when the woman insisted on a teenage Alice getting a so-called protection tattoo. They were a family of witches, Lorna Wu had more than once said, and the tattoo was to ward off their generational curse, conveniently being passed down only to women in the family. After she passed, Alice stopped the pretense and hoped her mother wouldn't become a ghost just to chide Alice from beyond the grave.

She didn't.

But she did send a boy who chanted in Latin to the bewilderment of the three adults at the crash site. Stranger even, the chant was one Lorna Wu had passed down, told her to memorize as a child; a healing chant. She had unconsciously chanted it in her mind. When the boy kept glancing at her before immediately returning to the dying teenager, Alice stopped.

The boy too halted, snapping his head at her, eyes wide as if she'd just kicked a puppy. So she kept the chant running again, watching in wonder when the boy followed it word by word.

The other two adults, the parents of the bleeding teenager in the car's back seat, couldn't help but stare in both amazement and relief when their son fluttered his eyes open. When Alice came forward to wipe the blood off his face, she found his minor cuts and scratches were somehow all but healed.

When she caught the definitely not-witch, not-spell-chanting boy staring at her, she could only stare back into those similarly confused brown eyes.

Mother was rolling in her grave, and it was from laughter.

『O』

The boy's name was Billy, supposedly. No last name, no other identification. He was ten years old, perfectly healthy, and didn't suffer any injury from the crash. Yet his memory was missing.

"You can read minds, can't you?" Alice didn't say but projected it out loud as she could in her mind. The boy, nibbling on a bar of chocolate, nodded at her as they sat on a bench outside the police station.

Was he feeling alright? A nod.

Did any memory pop up now that he could relax? A shake.

Did her mother send him from heaven or hell? A shrug.

They must make for a strange pair for people passing by. A policewoman and a boy, both looking at each other in silence while the boy nodded and shook his head at different intervals.

"Is my family in Westview?" he finally broke the silence and looked up at her with his innocent, big eyes, as if she held all the answers to the universe.

This time it was her turn to nod.

A deep dive into their records and files yielded zero results for a Billy in Eastview who was simultaneously underage, blond, and missing. The anomaly at Westview having suddenly resolved opened a possibility that he'd escaped when it shrunk, losing his memory in doing so.

He furrowed his brow, chocolate smudging his lips from being left on them for too long. "What's the anomaly?"

Procuring her notebook and pen, she indulged in his curiosity by drawing a hexagon, dubbed WV, and showed it to him.

"A week ago, this red, hex dome appeared over Westview and hid it away from the world. We couldn't contact anyone inside. We don't know what happened there, SWORD won't tell us. What we know is that the dome suddenly disappeared today, and you were there right as it happened."

"We're not going there today?" He read her mind.

She couldn't keep the guilt from showing up on her face. "I'm sorry, kid. They aren't letting anyone through until the hex situation is dealt with."

The boy was ever so small and appeared all the more so with his shagged shoulders. She tried giving a smile hoping to reassure him.

"My police friends in Westview said they'll let the people in charge know. They're also working very hard to find your family. If everything goes well, we'll get an update by tomorrow." If SWORD would even entertain their request at all.

She found she rather disliked mind-reading as a superpower. Because just when the boy's face brightened a little, it immediately turned sour at her tactless thought.

"It's okay, it's not your fault." He pulled his legs up and hugged them. She didn't know whether he meant SWORD being shady or her not being able to shield her mind. He was only happy to answer. "Both," he said in defeat before sighing.

"Sorry, Ms. Alice."

"Hey, it's alright. I like to blow off some steam too. Maybe just not as polite as you, huh." She chuckled. She was glad to see him lose some of that frown at her joke.

"...Ms. Alice?" he addressed her after a short silence.

"Yes, Billy?"

"I'm just... confused. Who am I? Do I even have a home?" He looked off into space, his unoccupied hand tapping against his leg. "What if... what if I don't? What if we don't find my family? What'll happen then?"

He was begging for an answer she didn't have. But all the same...

Alice remembered being young, remembered being scared to navigate through her unkind world. She feared being lost. She was lost more than enough times to count. When she wasn't lost however...

...was when she had her mother.

"Hey." Alice chanced it by tapping his shoulder and hovered her hand there. When he didn't immediately push her away, she held and gently squeezed it. "Everything will be alright, I promise. Your mommy and daddy are waiting for you somewhere and they'll be very happy when they see you soon."

She believed her words, and that, it appeared, was enough for him to believe them too as he threw himself at her in a teary hug.

『O』

Alice's apartment hadn't had a visitor in so long. With the safety of their resident lost child falling onto her, it was only logical to get him a roof he could sleep under. It would be more logical to drop him off at the nearest Social Services center until they could get in contact with his family, but she suspected there was more to the boy splayed on her sofa.

How, or rather why, did an amnesiac witch child end up on the cliff overlooking the Hex? Before today she wouldn't even dream of accepting her mother's teaching as anything more than a folktale. Now that the world had proved her wrong, she feared what else it was right about.

Tales of witches being hunted throughout history used to keep her up at night. Tonight, decades later, the little girl quivering under her blanket returned, silently looking over the little boy who'd passed out watching cartoons.

Alice turned off the television with a click of her remote, wondering how she should proceed. Would bringing him to Westview be in his best interest? Or would she be placing him in a danger that he'd tried to escape, losing his memory in the process?

These questions ran through her mind even as she walked to open the door, wondering who'd be visiting her at night. Peaking her head out gave her the creeps when all that greeted her was empty hallways. It wasn't until she looked down that she saw a blank envelope.

Inside it? A pair of unknown sigils drawn onto pieces of wood.

Alice couldn't sleep, but at least Billy had someone to watch over him.