Chapter 6
Strangely enough, Billy and Agatha always encounter some evil witch groups these days. In Agatha's words, these witch groups are even more crazy than themselves - how can there be witches who are not enough to harm living people, but also want to try to catch wandering ghosts to perform some rituals for unknown purposes! What's even more weird is that they can always find Agatha accurately, as if she was marked with something.
This is the sixth time that Agatha and Billy have been chased. It has only been two weeks since the first time they were chased by witches and Agatha was forced to absorb magic power. Five powerful witches formed a formation to trap the two of them at the seaside. Agatha's magic has not been used at will since her death, and even the transparency of her body is not very stable. Although Billy is born with strong abilities, he is not familiar with the precision of control, and often just wastes his magic power. Agatha had been dodging the spells that caught ghosts, while trying to guide Billy to fight back, but the five witches were too powerful and they worked well together, so Billy was eventually defeated by the witches and pinned to the ground. Agatha wanted to escape, but she was hit by a special spell. The witches watched as Agatha's outline became fainter and fainter, and suddenly, Agatha's body glowed brightly. The purple and green mixed light strung all the witches together, and Agatha's magic began to surge wildly. The witches struggled to cut off the magic that connected them but could not escape. After more than ten seconds, Agatha's magic finally stopped, and her form gradually stabilized and looked more like a human with flesh.
Agatha laughed happily and kicked the shriveled witch's body at her feet with the tip of her boot. When she found that she could actually touch those pockets, her eyes lit up - her fingers nimbly searched and stuffed the dimly shining gems, old coins and notebooks full of spells into Billy's dropped backpack.
"Catch!" She threw it back without looking back. The backpack drew an arc in the air, just brushed the hair of Billy who was struggling to get up, and fell heavily into the sand.
"Agatha! Seriously, can you be more mature! Throwing things around? How old are you?" Billy picked up the bag and put it on his back.
"Oh teenager, if you still can't learn how to control magic accurately, sooner or later we will die on the way to find Toby. Being hit by a small backpack? That's just a kind reminder."
Before she finished speaking, the beach suddenly trembled. The fine sand seemed to be stirred by an invisible hand, swirling and collapsing into a deep pit. A pair of familiar hands stretched out from the sand, followed by messy black hair - Rio, or Eyre, crawled out like a gopher. She patted the sand on her green robe randomly, and when she raised her head, her puppy-like eyes stared at Agatha, as if waiting for a compliment.
"Hi, Agnes!" Rio's smile was like the sun suddenly jumping out of the sea, and a cornflower was lifted from her palm like a magic trick, "Are you in trouble again?" Her eyes were wide open, and there were still a few grains of sand on her eyelashes.
Agatha's fingertips pinched herself secretly under her robe - but her hand still took the flower on its own initiative. When she pinned the blue to her ear, her hair felt a slight stinging sensation, as if mocking her hypocrisy.
"Just some blind witches," she deliberately kicked the nearest corpse with the tip of her boot, "trying to catch ghosts but ended up becoming ghosts themselves." She didn't notice at all that the ghosts floating in the air were baring their teeth and claws at her.
Rio's fingers drew a lazy circle in the air, and the ghosts suddenly looked like insects nailed in amber. "To be honest, I admire you very much," her eyes fell on the blue flowers in Agatha's hair, "you wear this..." she suddenly stuttered, "I mean... you have always been beautiful, and now you are especially beautiful..."
Agatha felt her face getting slightly hot, but she still pretended not to care and waved her hand.
"Then Agnes, I have to do my work. Can you wait here for me? I will be back soon, I promise." The hem of her green robe was still stained with sand from the sand pit just now.
"...Okay, Eyre, come back soon, I won't wait for you too long." Agatha allowed herself to loosen her fingers that were clenched so hard that they hurt after Rio disappeared behind the reef - the cornflower was lying in her palm.
Agatha felt that her willpower was still not strong enough, so she made a "shut up" gesture to Billy who was about to say something, and Billy rolled his eyes and walked to the other side.
Just after five minutes, the figure in the green robe came back bouncing. Rio took off her outer robe without saying a word, and spread a soft oasis on the beach. She suddenly pressed Agatha's shoulders with both hands - the force was just right between invitation and coercion - and when she pressed her person to sit on the robe, Agatha's boot heels still left two protest marks on the sand.
"Have you seen enough?" Agatha stretched out her hand to cover Rio's face that was too close, but her fingers let out the other's brilliant smile. This damn familiar feeling made her teeth ache - it was like this before she lost her memory, and it is still like this now, like a piece of sticky candy that can't be thrown away.
Rio held her chin, her eyes glued to Agatha's wandering blue eyes. The pupils were like the sea before the storm, which suddenly reminded her of a forgotten night... The sharp pain immediately pierced her temple. She clenched her cuffs tightly, and her nails pinched a crescent-shaped red mark on her palm. Agatha felt that the people around her were a little frozen. She turned her head to look at her and found that Rio was trying to endure something while pretending to be indifferent: this person's hands were clenched but she was still smiling, and her smile was really ugly.
"So, Eyre, why don't you hate me? I'm a ghost." Agatha really didn't want to see that stupid smile, and guessed that Rio might have remembered something, so she deliberately said something irrelevant.
"Why should I hate ghosts? They are just obsessed and lost for a while. One day they will return to my territory, and most of the time they are harmless. You are an exception, but you are the only one who still retains the power."
Agatha's pupils shrank slightly. For three hundred years, she was used to hearing the harsh comments of the goddess of death on wandering souls: "dirty parasites" and "stains that destroy the balance"... Now this naive version of Rio said the most unlike the words of the goddess of death. "You really... don't hate me?" Agatha's voice was so light that it was almost drowned by the sound of the tide.
"Agnes, I never hate you. Although I have lost my memory, I think I really have never hated you." Rio looked at Agatha seriously, and the two were speechless. The waves broke into foam in the long silence between the two.
Rio first looked away and looked at the waves hitting the beach not far away. "But I do have a very annoying ghost, but unfortunately I don't remember who she is. Maybe she will recognize me one day." After a moment of silence, Rio spoke.
Agatha's throat tightened - if ghosts also have throats. Her dead lungs held her breath reflexively, and her fingers curled into fists under her black robe. Of course she knew who Rio was talking about. The name that had been cursed by the goddess of death for three centuries exploded in her mind: Evanora Harkness.