6. It Will Exist

Felicia was forced to introduced Catia to everyone as her sister. If she went looking for ingredients now, she pretended to pluck flowers for her poor, sickly sister. Dormas played along with this lie, although his waking hours diminished, and so did the clarity of his mind.

Catia had been with her for a week now. So, today, they tried the seventh medicine: an orange potion which boiled thanks to the heat of a candle below it.

Catia needed convincing, a lot of convincing and time to prepare herself for yet another attempt.

“The pain is less. But am I really getting better?” she asked cautiously.

“It’s so hard for me to judge,” said Felicia. “From the outside—I can’t look into your body.”

She offered the potion again. The bowl hung from a cord around her neck, for it was too hot to touch with her paws.

Catia sighed and drank it. She retched and nearly spit it out.

“I’m only drinking filthy liquids! And it doesn’t help!” she screeched. “Why are we doing this? It’s all useless.”

Felicia stayed calm. “Useless? A week ago, you didn’t even have the energy to scream like that.”

Catia hadn’t noticed. Looking back, she had to admit she was better. Then why didn’t she feel that way?

“Nothing is ever useless,” Felicia said. “We have now found seven medicines that don’t work. We’ve found a hundred things your illness is not.”

Catia blew out the candle. “Great. I’ll die before we’ve tried the thousands of things it is not. Just great.”

“Every illness has a medicine. It will exist. All that matters is today and the next thing we’ll try.”

“Aria doubts that, and you claim she has the powerful Book of Meaning.”

At the mention of that name, the conversation ended. Today was Aria’s court case. She’d probably keep lying, saying she was the Fishkiller. Oh, how far the once great leader of the Council of Kame had fallen.

Surely Felicia wasn’t worth that? Or did the Book of Meaning know something she didn’t?

They went outside together, where they met Fonza and the others. Some animals from another section of the River District visited to gossip about the news of Aria’s case.

“Weren’t you close when it happened, Fonza?” a small giraffe asked.

“No! Me and Felicia were taking a walk, as we do every night, all the way in the district of the landlord.”

“Yes,” Felicia said reluctantly. “Always very nice. Every night we walk in a place very far away from the river.”

“Oh well,” Fonza said playfully, “Felicia is going through puberty. She’s a bit moody.”

Felicia rolled her eyes and spoke without emotion. “Sorry, Fonza, you are a true inspiration to me and I’m extremely happy you take care of me.”

“See? Inside, she’s a sweetie,” the Fox said. “And a terrific witch hunter. Thanks to her, we caught Dora before worse!”

Felicia’s face contorted upon hearing that name. She turned as if giving Catia something, and only turned back when she’d composed herself.

“Yes, I have lots of experience with witches from Amor. If you see something suspicious, let me know. I will keep us all safe from that big, big danger.”

“And her sister,” Fonza said, “is actually cursed by a witch! Truly! Wouldn’t you believe it?”

Catia could throw up. “Me is woe, such a tragedy, my heart beats too fast since the witch touched.”

Felicia contained a smile. “The curse also makes Catia speak in rhymes. Very odd.”

“Pain consumes me, a true catastrophe,” Catia said as she almost performed a play, including wild paw gestures. “But it was a witches curse which I just cannot flee.”

The animals grunted in response to this partially successful rhyme.

“Felicia’s parents worked for the church,” Fonza kept lying. “That’s why she has … developed her own prayers and hymns.”

“True,” Felicia said, pulling at her whiskers in frustration. “And when I grow up, I will be a nun. Oh I’m looking forward to it. I cannot wait.”

The others patted her and Catia on the head. They almost seemed an attraction meant to entertain the others. They waited until they were gone, en route to the place where Aria’s case would be held.

“I am going insane! I want to scream it from the rooftops!” Felicia hissed, her eyes aflame. “Everything said here is nonsense and lies.”

“What do you mean sister, do you ignore my curse for sure?” Catia said playfully.

“Not. Funny.”

Catia thought so. Felicia was always so serious. With difficult words and scientific things she didn’t understand. She teased her the whole way with rhymes, until Felicia smiled too and forgot for a moment how Aria’s case was likely to end.

Court case was a big word. Aria’s status as the best healer was the only reason there was a case at all, and that the landlord had been asked to visit and perform the judgment himself. Everyone was invited to come to this “great event”, because the landlord loved showing off how just he was and how criminals would be punished.

And so, all inhabitants of the city had come,

Felicia had to climb a tree near the edge and pull Catia after her. They weren’t able to get any closer.

Aria walked to the center, her legs chained to a pole, but her wings free. Another nicety an animal of lesser status would not have received.

“Aria the Healer stands trial today,” the landlord said, a wolf with a clear voice. “She is suspected of fishing in our River, for months, and eating the spoils. One such murder, God might forgive. Two murders would be jail for life. All murders combined mean the death penalty.”

Several Crows accompanied him on his ornate throne, which had been carried all the way to the public square by his assistants.

“She was found at the crime scene, surrounded by recently killed fish,” one said.

“She has admitted guilt!” the other added.

“But Aria, my friend,” the landlord said in a kinder voice. “I don’t believe my ears! Why would you do this? You? With all your riches and wisdom? Speak and explain yourself.”

Aria walked in a circle, making an effort to look at every single individual who came here today, every corner of the crowd.

“I didn’t do it,” she said calmly.

“Said so!” the landlord said with a nod.

The crows interfered. “Then why admit guilt initially? This means you have now lied against the Crows, at least once! And that is surely punishable!”

“No, no, I just said it to receive this stage a few days later,” Aria said with a slight grin. She turned to the bystanders.

“You’d rather listen to the words of a criminal than that of a scientist. You come here for sensation and entertainment, not justice. You betray friend and neighbor on nothing but the assumption that they’re a witch! You live in the most stupid of ways and then visit me to request healing!”

The landlord shook his wolf head. “Take her away, now.”

“And when I heal you, I am a hero. When another woman does it, she is a witch and killed without hesitation.”

“She gets a fair Trial of Witches!”

“A Trial you cannot survive!” Aria yelled. “Listen to yourself. Look at yourself. Is there something true out of all you say, think and do? Are there any brain cells left? Or did you also transfer those to a vacant God who just stays silent?”

The Crows dove onto Aria to pull her away.

“Blasphemy! That will be a death sentence anyway!” they crowed, seemingly happy that Aria had gone this far.

Several bystanders fled the scene before bad turned to worse. Some nodded with her, or whispered their agreement to friends. Most of them, by far, joined Aria in her cries.

“Witches aren’t real, and if they were, they’d be heroes. Your medicines, your recipes, your potions, they’re all nonsense designed to make the poor even poorer! To keep the ignorant in ignorance!”

Catia and Felicia’s tree shook from the beating hoofs and screaming beaks. Most animals completely agreed it was nonsense. Many called for Aria to be forgiven and released, and the witch hunts to stop, and the landlord’s hesitation before sending all the Crows revealed his doubt.

Felicia smiled and hugged Catia—unfortunately, however, it took Aria’s sacrifice to break this lie.

Her wings were pushed against her back, glued to it with a smelly black material. The Crows nearly pulled all the feathers off her skin, as the landlord commanded them to bring Aria to the dungeons. Even her death sentence would be a ceremony and an example—tomorrow at dawn.

“I have seen the beauty of the Council of Kame! I have led this world and all its beautiful animals into peace and prosperity for many, many years. I look at what you’ve become—and I’d rather go blind.”

Aria’s eyes, enlarged by her three glasses, shortly found Catia and Felicia. She mouthed Bella at them. They didn’t understand why.

Aria fought ferociously against her arrest. “There will be an empire where God has no power. Where honesty and logic reigns and all may be and think what they want. No lies. No peer pressure. That I dare call a heaven. Arrest as much as you want, burn all the witches, it doesn’t matter. It—will—exist!”

All Crows were called upon to spread the present mob of animals and calm them down. The landlord quickly fled into his estate, while Aria vanished.

Something shook their tree; Catia nearly fell out.

Fonza looked up. She cried.

“Things … things are not going well with Dormas.”