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“Guardians?” I wondered.

“Perhaps. We need to see more.”

* * *

The memory dissolvedinto the next.

I saw Aradia in the kitchen of the tiny house where she’d raised me. She wore an apron over a stylish summer dress. Her red hair was braided over the top of her head, like a headband. She looked exactly as I remembered her.

A fire was lit below the large black cauldron that she stood over. A thick, blue liquid bubbled inside. She gave the potion three slow stirs with a long, metallic spoon. Then she filled up a small glass and carried it over to the ten-year-old girl seated at the small kitchen table.

I knew that girl. I had been that girl. I looked at young Leda’s pale hair, divided into two messy braids. My clothes were full of holes, my knees scuffed, and my head bleeding. I looked so out of place next to Aradia’s stylish, witchy wardrobe and the immaculate house.

Aradia set the glass down on the table.

The girl frowned at the potion before her. “It looks like cooler fluid.” She sniffed it, and her nose scrunched up in disgust. “It smells like cooler fluid too.”

“All actions have consequences, Leda,” Aradia said. “The consequence of picking a fight with children bigger and stronger than you—well, that happens to be injuries which require an unpalatable remedy.”

“You could have at least tried to make it palatable,” young Leda said.

“And you could have at least tried to not get into a fight. Again.”

“Hey, they started it. I just finished it.”

“Finished it indeed.” Aradia tapped a wet cloth to the deep cut on the girl’s forehead. “A few more hits like this to the head, and you would have been finished.”

“You should see the other guys.” Young Leda flashed Aradia a smile. “They look much worse. In fact, they’re probably still unconscious.”

“Do you mean to tell me that you fought two fourteen-year-olds and won?”

“Try not to sound so surprised, Julianna.” The girl used the name I’d known Aradia by.

“But how did you do it?”

“They jumped me,” young Leda said. “My head hit the ground. It really hurt, but I knew that I had to fight back, or it would hurt even more. They weren’t going to stop hitting me. I was on the ground. When they moved in closer to kick me, I grabbed two fistfuls of dirt and threw them in their faces. That blinded them for a while, long enough for me to get up. My head was ringing pretty badly.”

Aradia frowned. “You probably have a concussion.” She put her hand in front of the girl’s face. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Twelve,” young Leda said flippantly.

“Concussions are no joke, Leda.”

“You asked what happened, and I’m telling you.”

“At least drink some of your medicine.”

Young Leda lifted the glass to her mouth and took a sip. “This tastes like cooler fluid too!” she exclaimed.

“Don’t spit it out, or it won’t heal you.”

Young Leda took another sip, shook herself, then continued her story. “So my head was ringing, and I was getting real dizzy. Luckily, the two bullies were rubbing their eyes, trying to get the dirt out of them. They were shouting bad words at me so loudly that they didn’t hear me throw a few rocks in front of them. They tripped over the rocks and hit the ground.”

“That wasn’t very sporting of you, Leda.”

“And it wasn’t very sporting of them to gang up on someone so much younger and smaller than they are,” young Leda pointed out. “I had to take every advantage I could get.”

“Why did they attack you anyway?”