Katherine's Tale

---Indigo---

Why is it that trouble finds us everywhere we go? First at Northbell, and now at Hamberg. Why does everyone figure out who we were despite all that we do to try and hide it?

I still can't believe Madeline Rowan was here. In my opinion, she was the greatest sorceress of all time, and she was my idol when I was little. I was shocked when Ashley and Rachel transformed into twin powerful sorceresses in their battle against the evil smoke. I was even more shocked when Madeline morphed from an old woman into a beautiful maiden. But what surprised me the most was that Katherine seemed to know her, and not in a good way. They were facing off in the middle of the room, and Katherine looked ready to charge at her without any weapons. I didn't think that was a good idea.

"Child, I am not here to fight you," Madeline said. "I have my own mission to carry out."

"I don't want to fight you either," Katherine said calmly. I saw that she never relaxed from her battle stance. "But how can I trust you, after you left my sister and I to die?"

A collective gasp rose in the room. I looked between Madeline and Katherine, shocked. Madeline looked exasperated. "You're exaggerating. The magical maze was harmless, and if you didn't manage to break out, I would've set you free anyway. I was trying to see if I could identify any potential candidates for the Rosewood Seven; you can't blame me for wanting to see if you were one of them."

"I was five years old. My sister was three and a half years old. You trapped defenseless kids in your magic maze with frightening monsters!" Katherine clenched her fists and glared at Madeline. "Then when we finally reunited with our parents, you had the audacity to emerge and tell all the townspeople that we had wandered into your domain where you were trying to cast spells to ward off Evils! You blatantly lied to everyone!"

Something tickled in the back of my brain. What Katherine said sounded weirdly familiar. But why would I know? Her story took place eleven years ago. I didn't know Katherine until year three in the Academy, when we were thirteen. Aaron was also looking at Katherine with a quizzical frown.

"Why don't you show everyone what happened, from your perspective," Madeline said. She flicked her fingers, and a silvery wisp floated out from Katherine's temple. We watched in stunned silence as it attached itself to the wooden wall behind Katherine and expanded to fill the entire area. We all saw a young Katherine, who wore a cute red jacket, holding the hand of a toddler. They walked into the entrance of a hedge maze. Beyond the tall hedges, the edge of a forest could be seen. A small wooden sword was slung across Katherine's back. We were watching Katherine's memories.

"We had just moved to Roseland. It was the annual autumn festival, and my parents took Holly—my sister—and me there." Katherine began to speak. "I won the wooden sword from a game booth. It was getting dark, but Holly wanted to go into the maze. My parents, wanting to talk with some other parents, let us go by ourselves. After all, a lot of other kids were going into the maze as well, so it should be safe, right?

"That's what we thought. But as we approached a fork in the path and I tried to figure out which way to go, Holly wandered off. One moment she was right behind me, and the next moment she was gone. I panicked. I couldn't figure out where she had gone, until I discovered a third path, mostly hidden by the hedges."

In the memory playback on the wall, we saw Katherine peer down this third path, which was lit by ghostly will-o'-wisps the size of my fist and glowing a light blue. A toddler would definitely have been attracted to these glowing, floating orbs. Without a second thought, young Katherine ran down the path, calling out Holly's name. Eventually, the path led to a clearing illuminated by moonlight. This was no longer part of the hedge maze; this was deep in the forest.

"Imagine my shock and fear when I arrived to find my little sister floating three feet off the ground and encased in blue magic. A lady I didn't know was standing with her back to me and peering at Holly. Then she turned to speak to a large will-o-wisp the size of a pumpkin: 'You've brought me the wrong child. She isn't the one'." Katherine's angry gaze never left Madeline's face. Madeline looked back at Katherine with slight amusement, which angered Katherine more. "That lady was Madeline, though I didn't know at the time. I wanted to sneak past her and figure out how to get Holly out of there, but Madeline discovered me before I got too far."

I watched young Katherine freeze in place as a glowing blue boundary appeared on the ground under her feet. A string of flashing symbols appeared in the air. Madeline whipped around. "You've disrupted my spells. Who are you, child, and why are you here?" she demanded. Young Katherine was obviously frightened, but held her ground.

"You're a witch!" She shouted. "Give me back my sister!"

Katherine watched the memory play on the wall as she narrated. "Obviously, Madeline didn't. Instead, she yelled at me about how I've ruined her entire magic formation and how she'll have to recast all her spells. I considered running back to get my parents, but she pulled me into the center of the clearing and told me that as punishment, Holly and I will be trapped in the maze forever."

In the memory, Madeline raised her arms, said a string of incantations, and disappeared in a swirl of magic. Katherine and her sister was left in the center of a new maze, with the only light coming from will-o'-wisps along the paths. I frowned, a distant memory resurfacing in my own brain. A maze with will-o'-wisps and lost children…could it be a weird coincidence?

Holly had been released from her magical bonds. She woke up slowly, and seeing that they were in a dark, unfamiliar place, began to cry for her parents. Little Katherine soothed Holly, grabbed her hand, and began trying to find the way out. "There had to be a way out. I refused to believe the witch-lady's threat of trapping us forever in the maze. But it was so dark and so scary in the maze. Monsters popped out from every corner. How did you expect two little kids to ever find their way out?"

"They weren't really monsters; all of them were illusions," Madeline cut in. Katherine ignored her, obviously still pissed, eleven years later. I sympathized with her; watching Holly cry and Katherine hold out her toy wooden sword with shaking arms at a growling three-headed monster in the middle of a dark maze made me a little angry at Madeline. How could she do this to them?