The excitement of getting new housemates had temporarily shaken Zen and Caroline off of Andrew's mind. He woke up to the unfamiliar feeling that he wasn't alone. Voices spoke angrily from somewhere outside his room, loud and with no concern for young sleeping boys. He went down to the kitchen to see Scarlet and Elaine hovering over a pot, green smoke billowing, and bubbles the size of his fist rising from it.

  "Good morning, Andre!" chirped Scarlet. "We're just preparing breakfast."

  Andrew gave a once over at the cliched pot, half expecting a tentacle to rise from within. "What is that supposed to be?"

  "This," gestured Elaine to the pot, "is a potion. That-", she pointed to the toaster, "is breakfast."

  Scarlet made motions with her gloved hands and plates floated out of the rack, washed and dried themselves and caught the toast when they sprang out from the toaster. She hummed as she took out meat from the freezer and cooked it in midair. She took out cheese slices and spread them evenly on the three pieces of toast. Then she put sliced tomatoes and cucumber on them and adorned two of them with the meat, covering the top with another layer of toast.

  "I'm a vegetarian," explained Elaine, as she took the one without meat. They all sat at the breakfast table to eat while the potion stirred itself. Andrew couldn't remember the last time someone made food for him at his house. He couldn't remember the last time the breakfast table had lively conversation. He carefully picked the cucumbers out of the sandwich, but Elaine glared at him until he put them back.

  "I don't like 'em much either," groaned Scarlet as she gingerly took another bite. "But of course, Madam Elaine insists."

  "What's the potion for?" he asked, still chewing on the sandwich.

  Scarlet sighed. "We're still trying to gain intel on the whereabouts of your grandmother."

  "We were up since 4 in the morning looking for ingredients," Elaine said, exasperated. "It was no easy feat. Not in this realm. And don't talk with your mouth full."

  "We're still not sure if the ingredients we gathered will even work," Scarlet said. "The last time we used things from around the farm, we apparently got wrong information. Well, we collected better stuff this time, though."

  "Where did you get them from?" Andrew asked, wondering if the local supermarket sold live octopuses and bat wings.

  "The forest," Elaine answered.

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  Andrew coughed violently as he choked on his food, and Elaine pushed a glass of water toward him.

  "What were you doing in the forest? Don't you know that it's dangerous in there?!"

  Scarlet and Elaine exchanged blank glances.

  "Nobody is allowed to go in there!" Andrew cried.

  "We're not nobody," Scarlet said.

  "People who go there don't return!"

  "Well, we returned," Elaine said evenly.

  Andrew sighed. He tried to explain to them that his grandmother had warned him against ever entering the forest. They waved it off.

  "Do you know what lies deep in the forest?" asked Elaine, an eyebrow raised.

  "No," he admitted. "I'd only been deep inside it once with my grandmother."

  "Do you know why your grandmother forbade you from going inside the forest?" Scarlet asked.

  "No..." he admitted yet again. He didn't really need a reason. The fear he had felt the first and only time he went there with her was enough to keep him away for good.

  The witches remained silent for a short while.

  "Inside the forest," Elaine explained "lies the path to the other realm."

  That was news to Andrew.

  "That is probably why your grandmother did not want you anywhere near it," Scarlet said.

  To think the place he had longed to go to all his life was so close. He had never even thought it to be so within his reach. A loud bubbling noise broke his thoughts. Scarlet and Elaine rushed over to the potion. It had gone dark as black. The three of them peered into it, waiting for something. Finally, smoke billowed out from the pot and enveloped them in it. Andrew smelled something burning. It smelled like wood on fire.

  ---A Mysterious Vision---

  A woman was tied to a stake. A crowd of people encircled her. "BURN HER! BURN HER! BURN HER!" they chanted. It was the trial of a witch. A man lit a match and threw it at a large pile of wood at the witch's feet. Immediately a fire roared to life.

  The flames licked her but spread no further, as though they didn't dare. The witch looked straight at Andrew, and smiled. Andrew stood transfixed. She seemed familiar but he couldn't place where he'd seen her.

  A tall, handsome man walked right through Andrew as though he were made of nothing but light and shadows. Andrew realized that the witch had been looking at that man. The man smiled back and proceeded to walk to her, right into the flames.

  The image flickered off.

  -------

  Andrew opened his eyes and found himself lying on the floor. The smoke was all gone and the potion in the pot had evaporated entirely. Scarlet and Elaine looked expectantly down at him.

  "Are you alright?" asked Elaine. "What did you see?" asked Scarlet.

  He took a moment to compose himself and drank the glass of water Elaine offered to him. A few deep breaths later, he felt that the smoke had left his system, and with it the memory of the faces of all the people in that hallucination. He then proceeded to tell them about it.

  "How come you got such an elaborate cinematic experience?! I just saw some dots!" Scarlet shook her head irritably.

  "I saw," Elaine paused, "a place, but I don't understand." She made a frustrated sound deep in her throat.

  "We need more information," confirmed Scarlet.

  "It's the ingredients. They weren't potent enough," grumbled Elaine.

  The two witches muttered amongst themselves while Andrew finished his breakfast and cleared away the plates.

  "Pack some essentials," Elaine told him after they finished. "We're going camping."

  Andrew dreaded the answer. Still he asked. "Where?"

  "Into the forest, of course."