The Witch.

John must be rather prophetic, as nearly a week later I did in fact meet his master, or rather mistress, barely a week later. Sul says I collapsed due to overexposure to dirty energy. I think I know what he was talking about though, as it was weird em frequencies coming off electronics.

 I suppose I should back up to the beginning first. The day started off like any other, I was sitting in the back row of one of the classes, not one I was taking but one I work as a TA in for credits. Because of renovation we were in a different lecture hall than usual, this one the overhead projector was damaged apparently since it was giving off an annoying whining noise to everyone else, while to me I was getting a terrible headache, and eventually collapsed, managing to knock over a lamp which did get someone's attention. One of the football team had apparently got some training in first aid and directed two of his other team-mates to roll me onto my back before sliding me onto a folding table and using that as an impromptu stretcher before taking me to the school medic.

And so I awoke to a familiar ceiling. Familiar being that it wasn't the first time I had passed out in a class and been taken to the school nurse, though the other times had been from over-stressing with an overloaded class schedule and not exposure to wild and unrefined electromagnetic fields.

"Welcome back to the waking world again Ser Bookworm." My unofficial moniker on campus was the Library Knight Sir Bookworm due to my penchant for spending so much time there. I sat up and rubbed my forehead.

"I bite my thumb in thy general direction Madam Patches."

The nurse laughed as she looked up from her desk, barely a bit older than I was, her hair was a gold tinted coffee color tied back professionally with a sharp hawkish face and dark sea blue eyes. The school nurse, a student like myself but fully qualified medically due to her tour in Afghanistan probably had enough credits in medicine to graduate with a masters by now. She had a simple black T-shirt that didn't cover up the scars from her previous job and olive paratroopers pants with an inordinate amount of pockets, which she probably carried any and all medical tools she might need on a given day.

"So... of all the people John could have been describing I never actually thought it would be you to wind up stumbling into magic....You always seemed rather boring."

"That was rather straight to the point."

She shrugged, "My mother did say I was subtle as a blind mallet at times. So what was it? Did I miss one of the occult books in the library? Did you go off hunting for stuff of lore and legends with no preparation?...Or did you just pick up on the arts yourself on your own? A freak accident?"

I sat there confused trying to sort out things. "So you're John's Witch?"

"I prefer Wicce, but yes, he's bound to my service until I either find a different spirit to make a contract with, or he gets bored and asks to be released from it., anyway I'm the one asking the questions here."

I tried to move into a more comfortable position but found that I couldn't move much more than sitting up. It didn't take long to make sense of it as there were shadowy purple "chains" holding me down on the bed.

"Ah, so you can see and feel them? A precaution, I wasn't sure if you were going to be hostile once I realized you had some magic to you, had a run-in with a priest a few years back, he tried to take my head off with a bayonet." she tilted her head some showing a silvery white scar just barely visible above the neckline of her shirt.

With that revelation I decided to play it safe from that point on and choose my words carefully. "Um..right so anyway...it was an accident to say the least, I found a trinket in a pawn shop and bought it, when I brought it home I accidentally broke it..stepped on it, and after a while found myself to be changed some, I could see and manipulate electromagnetic currents a little, and so a bit of research later at a used books store I figured it was magic."

She sat there quietly for a bit before shrugging. "seems to be the case with most people I've met. Accidents mostly, though some of them do in fact have the sight and gift from birth, but the vast majority of people don't.... you're not going to try and attack me are you?"

"No. Should I?"

"Just making sure." With a flick of her hand the chains holding me down vanished.. melted really, and I was able to sit up properly with my legs folded. "So, now what?"

"Mmmm....tell me your story, how did you become a witch? If it's not troublesome."

"See that's a private story that you won't be getting even if you are one of my most regular patients... You'll have to work for it."

I sat there quietly before shrugging. "Ok, what's the cost?"

"You've got to got to collect some materials for me. I don't have the time since my full time job is school nurse now, and John has taken off somewhere in the body of a cat and might not be back for a month or two. I'll have the list ready tomorrow."

"Sounds good. I'll be back."

And so, after an actual check of my health, no fever, just a little dehydrated and a bruise from where I landed on the lamp, I wandered off questioning the world even more.