“Is that so?”
“Finish your sentence. These things—fucking, and eating, and drinking, and feeling—they’rewhat?” My words are angry. If they were a color, they’d be red.
“I was going to say they’re inconsequential. Is that a big enough word for you?”
I open my eyes, realize I’m sitting in a pool of glowing lavender water which is located inside some kind of cave, and look at the woman. She is very beautiful, but in an older way. She’s not old, per se. I just know she’s older than me and… well, youth is everything, isn’t it?
She’s wearing a tight red dress that is so low cut, her large, round breasts are spilling out of it. She doesn’t have any wrinkles, her body is perfect, and her eyes are bright. So she doesn’tlookold. And now that I think of it, old is the wrong word. I seem to be fascinated with words right now, so I pause here to get it right.
Not old.
Wise.
Yes. She comes off as wise. Which is a good thing to be.
But she’s not exactly…here. She’s mostly intact from the torso up but her legs are a swirling mist of purple.
Witch, she called herself.
But I don’t think so. Maybe, at one time, she was a witch. Just like maybe, at one time, I was a girl named Echo.
“My name is Little Baby.” Once again, these words don’t seem to be my own. “You will call me Little Baby.”
The remnant of the witch smiles and her eyes twinkle. “Oh, that’s adorable. Little Baby. I love it. It actually suits you.”
I ignore her, turning my head to look around the cavern. It’s clearly someone’s home, even though living in a cave is typically a euphemism.
I blink and shake my head. Euphemism? Where the hell did that come from?
Anyway. There’s a lot of furniture here in the cave—couches and chairs, a bed and a desk—so it’s definitely a home.
Whose home? My home?
And then there’s that name again. Josep. This is Josep’s home.
I look down at my body and find that I was right. It’s not all there. I’m in the pool, so for a moment I think that maybe it’s an illusion because of the way the light refracts into the water. But it’s not. I have no legs. I’m a torso, like the remnant witch, but instead of being made up of a swirling mist of purple, I’m made up of water.
Which is the same thing, actually, when you think about it.
A small chuckle forms and then there it is, coming out of my mouth in the form of color. Gold, to be precise.
I feel very smart right now. I mean, refraction? Where did that word come from? I’m not sure, but it does describe the bending of light so I used it appropriately. Anyway. Mist is nothing but water in droplet form.
The magic surrounding my lower body is a concentration of the magic surrounding hers.
Which means I have more power than she does.
Makes sense, since I’m younger and isn’t youth everything?
“What are you, Little Baby?”
I sigh and look back at the woman. Then there it is. The name of what I am comes flowing past my lips, unbidden. “A remnant. Just like you.”
She smiles. “Would you like help out of that pool?”
I look down at the water, then back up at her. “I don’t seem to have any legs. So… no. I think I’ll just stay here.”
The witch laughs. “You can’t stay there, Little Baby. Where’s the fun in that?”
