Chapter 8

Maisha stared at Songbai as the stoic witch quietly ate the huckleberry porridge Maisha had just finished cooking. Two months had passed since she had arrived at Maisha’s house with Morg in tow. Two months had passed and yet, she was still here. She had even built a second room to Maisha’s house, fixing and remodeling things as if her staying here were not a temporary ordeal! Leaning back in her chair, Maisha reached a hand into her pocket and fiddled with the stack of tarot cards hidden there, her own bowl of porridge steaming untouched in front of her. Soon she wouldn’t have to rely on dumb luck and blind faith.

With a flick of her wrist, Maisha initiated the translation spell amongst the four of them sitting at the table. Songbai gave her an inquisitive look.

“Starting today, I think we should try a different style of training,” Maisha said, addressing Morg and Xisa, who sat eating their porridge.

“It’s long been speculated that injuries and physical sensations can be passed between twin souls, but it’s difficult to quantify the extent of this relationship. Up until yesterday, I had thought that sensations could only superficially be shared between twin souls; perhaps a broken arm of one would cause the same arm of the other to feel some slight discomfort… But it would seem that Morg experienced all of Xiaoha’s pain when she broke her arm! This got me thinking, if physical sensations can be shared to such an unprecedented extent, what if they aren’t the only things that can be shared between you two?! Perhaps you can sense each other's emotions and feelings, maybe even each other’s thoughts?!?”

Maisha grew more and more animated as she spoke, clearly excited about her speculations, itching to test out her theories. Morg nodded along, trying her best to understand the babbling exploding from Maisha’s mouth. Maisha turned to Xisa.

“Perhaps you’ve been funneling all your emotions to Morg! No, more than just emotions, you might be pushing all your mana into Morg as well!!” Maisha suddenly paused to reign in her excitement, softening as she continued addressing Xisa.

“If something has been bothering you… something that you’re trying to run away from…”

Xisa shook her head as she swallowed a mouthful of oats. She had always been good at controlling her emotions, not letting them get the best of her. She didn’t fear pain and she didn’t see any reason to run away from it. She was strong.

“If this is the case, then there should be a way for Morg to block Xīsà’s emotions, and for Xīsà to keep herself from pushing them onto Morg… possibly even for their mana to equilibrate, reducing the probability of Morg’s mana surging out of control. So starting today, we’ll be focusing on that.”

Morg, feeling full after eating a little over half of her porridge, snuck a spoonful of the oats under the table where Baigu noisily slobbered it up.

“If that’s the case, then why haven’t we been working on this all this time?” Morg asked, trying to cover up the sound of Baigu’s messy eating. “Shouldn’t you have known our mana might be shared? We’re all witches, right?!?”

Sōngbǎi interjected, “Well there have never been a pair of witches that were also twin souls-”

Morg frowned at the mention of twin souls.

“Twin soul this, twin soul that, what does that even mean?! You throw these words around and boss us around but you never explain anything!” the young girl pouted.

“Ah, well”

Morg abruptly stood up from her seat at the table, thinking it refreshing to vent the frustrations that had been building for weeks.

“I’ve done everything you’ve asked, even when you made me stand on one leg for 5 hours and then the other leg the next day and then squat and concentrate on breathing for a whole week and I still can’t control anything, I only seem to get worse! Why should I even listen to you guys anymore!” Her voice rose a pitch with every sentence and her hands took on a mind of their own, flailing about emphatically, her porridge-filled spoon still gripped in her hand and flinging sticky porridge everywhere. Baigu happily rushed to clean up the oats that landed on the floor.

Sōngbǎi reached out and grabbed Morg’s restless hands with her own, “We haven’t explained much, its true. Part of that is our fault for not setting aside the time. Helping you control your mana has taken priority- as it should, otherwise more accidents are bound to happen. And not just with you- a witch like Xisa, whose familiar found her so early, is bound to have excessive stores of mana within her.”

“And beyond that,” Maisha added, “Our knowledge of twin souls is simply limited.”

Morg opened her mouth to say something but Sōngbǎi interjected before the young girl could get a word out.

“Shut up and listen!” the elder witch scolded before settling back in her chair and patting the back of Morg’s hand. “When a person is born, a soul enters their body. Some speculate that twin souls come about when a single soul splits in two and those two halves enter different bodies. Others claim they come about when two initially conjoined souls are forced apart when they enter the hearts and minds of individuals. But this is all conjecture.

What we do know for sure is that twin souls are two souls born on the exact same day at the exact same time. That’s not to say that everyone born at the exact same time is a twin soul- that’s just one aspect. These two individuals can be born as siblings, or as complete strangers. They can look similar, or nothing alike at all. Perhaps the most interesting thing known about twin souls is that they can sometimes share physical experiences. That is, if one of them, say, breaks a bone, the other one might feel a shadow of that pain, even if the two are continents apart. Apparently for the two of you, the entirety of the pain can be passed to the other person, as we saw yesterday.”

Morg nodded, her eyes glued to Songbai. Xisa, too, was enraptured. Though one wouldn’t be able to tell from the bored look on her face.

“Twin souls are exceedingly rare, and the bond usually forms between two mortal humans, which are of no real consequence. There have been several reports of two monks being twin souls, but these reports are more like legends, not having any real basis or evidence. However, nearly 1000 years ago, a witch and a monk emerged as twin souls.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Morg interrupted, “What… is a monk?”

Sōngbǎi looked between the two bewildered faces of Morg and Xīsà.

“Ah… Okay. In this world, there exist humans, ghosts, demons, monks, spirits, and witches. We all know what humans are. Ghosts are deceased humans with unresolved conflicts or strong obsessions that keep them from moving on to the afterlife. Demons are a little more difficult to categorize. They may be as small as a beetle or as tall as a skyscraper. Some of them are weaker than humans and some are stronger. Some of them were once human themselves. Some only live a couple days while others may live to be hundreds of thousands of years old. Demons have a nasty reputation of stealing humans and eating their flesh, though only a minority of them actually do this. Monks, on the other hand, are humans who, through discipline, meditation, and training, have gained divine magics. They aim to help humans and ghosts alike find the path to peace and to exorcise any demon that poses a threat to humankind.”

Maisha snorted. “They exorcise any demon they come across, nevermind if it really poses a threat to humans or not; if it's a demon, it doesn’t deserve to live.”

Sōngbǎi tsked, “Not all of them are like that. And they’re held to such a high standard, if one monk mistakenly kills an innocent demon, the entire community doesn’t live it down for the next century.”

“The high standard is their own fault! If they weren’t so high and mighty and pretentious about their so-called ‘good deeds,’ maybe they wouldn’t be so harshly judged when they make mistakes.”

“Fine. But you can’t tell me you’ve never met a truly kind-hearted monk. Some of them really do make a difference.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

With a huff, Maisha fell silent.

“So, as I was saying, 1000 years ago-”

Morg cut again, “Wait, wait, wait. Can boys be witches too? And can girls be monks? Can I be a witch AND a monk?”

“Well sure,” she chuckled at the silly question, “there are of course many male witches, maybe women are the majority, but there are plenty of men who are witches as well. And similarly there are fewer female monks than male monks, though there do tend to be fewer female monks than one might expect-”

“Why’s that?”

Maisha replied with a sneer, “In short, monks, priests, they’re all sexist.”

“Well not all of them, and there are still plenty of nuns and even female monks or priests, but-”

“What’s sexist?”

“Aiya, Morg, how about you let me finish explaining twin souls first, okay?”

Morg clamped her lips shut and nodded obediently at Songbai’s request.

“So 1000 years ago, this twin soul bond appeared between a monk and a witch. No one knows why, but for some reason, this bond gave the couple unparalleled power. The pair could take on entire sects of monks, even a handful of witches at a time if they wanted to. This wasn’t a problem until-”

“What’s a sect of monks?”

Sōngbǎi bapped her with her fan, then snapped it open and started fanning herself. “Stop interrupting! A sect of monks is a group of monks training similar techniques under the same master or masters- uh, same leaders. Anyways, this unparalleled power of the pair wasn’t a problem until the witch was assassinated. The monk went into a furious rage, wreaking havoc across the land and nearly destroying an entire continent. She wiped out half of the witches and the monks, killing anyone who got in the way of her revenge.”

Morg wanted to ask how such a powerful witch could get assassinated, and was curious about the monk who happened to be a ‘she,’ but held her tongue out of fear of upsetting Sōngbǎi again.

“In the end, the monk was killed by her own sect, and the true assassin was never discovered. Ever since, the witches and monks have agreed to kill any such powerful twin souls to prevent another deadly massacre from ever happening again.”

Maisha added bitterly, “It’s just a power struggle. Witches and monks are the most powerful people alive. They want to keep it that way.”

“So that’s why you told us to never ever tell people that we have magic yet?” Morg asked wide-eyed.

“Indeed.”

“Oh. So,” Morg continued, trying to wrap her head around everything, “Twin souls can share physical sensations, and maybe even thoughts and emotions. And for some reason, twin souls are extra powerful, so the other witches and monks are scared of them. But how come if there were twin souls before, we don’t know more about them? Surely they also would have been able to share feelings? And you guys even seemed surprised when I felt all the pain of Xīsà’s broken arm, wouldn’t you have expected it?”

Maisha answered patiently, “We’ve never met twin souls in person before. Besides, those two were outcasts of a sort, keeping almost entirely to themselves. They weren’t exactly forthcoming about their lives.”

“Well then how do we know that being twin souls made them more powerful, maybe they both just happened to be really powerful?”

“Sure, many speculate about this, actually,” Maisha replied, “But seeing now just how powerful you two are, and that you two are twin souls, I would say it’s a safe bet.”

Xīsà huffed at Maisha’s statement. Morg was the powerful one, while Xīsà couldn’t do any magic no matter how hard she tried. Were they sure they had the right person? Xisa absentmindedly stroked Yuzan on his slimy frog head with a gentle finger as Morg prattled off more questions and Songbai tried her best to patiently answer them.

Even if they did get the wrong person, Xisa found herself thinking, there's no way I’ll let them take me back to my hometown. I’ll run away if I have to.

*

“If my theory is correct, then perhaps the reason twin souls are so powerful is that twin souls share their magic- you have access to more or less twice as much magic as any normal witch would,” Maisha eyes sparkled with excitement as she spoke, “So if all of one’s power is continuously pushed onto the other, of course it will become difficult to control…”

Songbai pursed her lips in thought. The four of them sat amidst the grasses and fern fronds in front of Maisha’s garden as Maisha explained her new training ideas for the girls. Morg, while eager to learn to control her abilities, had grown distracted playing with the foliage around her, splitting open bits of leaves and tying blades of grass in knots, hardly paying attention. Xisa similarly absentmindedly picked bugs off of Maisha’s pumpkins and fed them to Yuzan.

“Then considering this is the case,” Songbai interrupted, “why have the girls’ abilities shown up so early?”

Maisha paused before adding thoughtfully, “There’s a lot we don’t know about how a witch’s power grows… perhaps something about sharing mana allows it to grow faster?”

Songbai nodded, tapping her fan on her chin as she did. She had been thinking similarly.

“Then, let’s start.”

Morg immediately straightened her posture and Xisa shoved Yuzan back under her shirt.

“So… so what should we do?” Morg asked hesitantly. Songbai and Maisha both paused. Maisha took a slow breath.

“I bet it's like learning to wiggle an ear or raise an eyebrow- there are small and specific muscles that you have to learn to control step by step, eventually making them stronger until you can control them completely.” As Maisha said this, she started waggling her eyebrows up and down, making the girls giggle. “The trick is finding that muscle and figuring out how to move it. Once you can move it just a little, you can strengthen it easily!”

“Nonsense,” Sōngbǎi said with furrowed brows. “They ought to meditate long enough to gain complete control over their minds. It must be something in their subconscious. They just need to become aware of that mental faculty, then they’ll be able to control this sharing of emotions and pain and mana and whatever else just like thinking.”

“How is what I said any different from that? Don’t you control your eyebrows by thinking? We’re saying the exact same thing, you can’t call my logic nonsense,” Maisha rebutted playfully.

Sōngbǎi side-eyed Maisha with a look of exasperation, but couldn’t think of any clever response.

Maisha continued, “Well, we can at least agree that they ought to meditate,” she turned to the girls, “Listen to your heartbeat, your breathing, know your body and your mind. Try and feel the magic in your veins.”

And with that meager amount of guidance, the two girls wound up sitting cross-legged in the garden for six hours. Morg felt extremely bored. Maisha had come out to garden for a little while earlier, and Báigǔ played with them for a time before Sōngbǎi noticed and scolded them. But now everyone else was inside while the two sat on their own. Based on what Morg could make out from the muffled voices coming from inside, Maisha was making Sōngbǎi play cards with her again. They usually played with Maisha’s tarot deck, though Morg always forgot what the name of the game was.

“Wow, I won this round!” came Maisha’s delighted voice.

“You win every round. If I win, it’s because you let me.” Sōngbǎi’s voice was so sardonic that Morg could practically hear the woman rolling her eyes.

“What? That’s silly, this is a game of luck!”

“…Exactly.”

Maisha laughed and the two grew silent again. Morg peeked at Xīsà, then gave her a nudge with the elbow,

“Psst, you feeling anything yet?”

Xīsà stared at Morg, not understanding a word coming from her mouth. Morg sighed, wishing she could speak Chinese. Songbai had been teaching her, but learning a language without the help of magic was slow going. And she was far from good enough at controlling her mana to use the Book of Erudite like Maisha had to learn a new language. Morg made the hand symbols for ‘rock, paper, scissors,’ a game Sōngbǎi had shown them a week or so ago.

Xīsà nodded, happy to have a distraction from her thoughts. When she closed her eyes, she could see that abyss where she dumped all her sadness, all her pain. She did it without thinking now. Could this be what Maisha and Sōngbǎi wanted her to block? Was she dumping all her magic in there, as well? But if she didn’t push all the sadness down the abyss, what should she do with it? Where else would it go? It couldn’t just stay with her forever, could it?

Morg won the first round. Then the second, then the third. When Morg won five rounds in a row, Xīsà began feeling a little frustrated. Without thinking, she pushed the frustration away, refusing to acknowledge it.

Morg closed her eyes when frustration welled up in her chest. She took a deep breath and tried to sort out her mind, attempting to control her emotions like Maisha and Sōngbǎi wanted her to, trying to find exactly where these emotions were spilling in from. Morg grabbed at a rock and clutched it in her hand, trying to use the sensation in her palm to focus and control herself. The rock turned to sand in her grasp, which seeped through her fingers like a liquid. Morg frowned, upset that she couldn’t even play a silly game without losing her mind.

“I don’t wanna play anymore,” she mumbled to Xīsà, even while knowing conversation was useless. Xisa stared at the scattered sand with a troubled look on her face, an uncomfortable itchiness emerging in her heart.