The door to the mansion was still open, the same song was playing, and the witch was even still leaning on the cabinet. Nothing inside had changed since the morning, except that the room was now much darker since the sun had dropped in the sky.
Upon noticing our arrival, the witch said nothing, simply standing and lighting a lantern on the wall. I sat down on the sofa, and Nito followed suit, still confused. The witch sat opposite us and looked at us with a gentle expression. She didn’t ask us why we were there.
I rubbed at my left wrist, thinking of the watch I always wore as a faint connection to my original world. It was certainly a precious item. I unfastened it and placed it on the table. The witch looked down at it and broke out in a smile.
“A tool from another world? It must be very precious to you.”
“It is. I inherited it from my grandpa.”
“He must have been a good grandfather.”
“The best,” I answered, looking back at the witch, trying to confirm whether my assumption was correct.
“Very well, I will answer any question for you. However, the answer will only be either an affirmative or a negative, and you only get one question. What is it that you want to know?”
“Well, there’s a mountain of things I want to know.”
I’d been thinking about what to ask the whole time. However, I was sure that whatever question I chose, it would have been pointless. There was only ever one question worth asking.
“Are you...a real witch?”
Nito let out a gasp—almost a scream, in fact. The woman and I merely held each other’s gaze, saying nothing.
My palms were sweaty with nerves. Maybe I’d been wrong. If I had, then I’d wasted such a precious thing and such an important chance in one go, all on a worthless question. Still, though. I clenched my fist. This was the right question.
The woman smiled at me like a teacher praising her student.
“That is the best question I’ve ever been asked,” she told me. “You’re quite right. I’m not a witch.”
I let out a deep breath and wiped my hand on my leg. I glanced at Nito to see her with her mouth agape, looking between the two of us. Her face certainly was a picture.
“You see?” I asked.
“See? See...what?”
“She’s not a witch, just pretending.”
As Nito closed her mouth and searched for a response, the woman interjected.
“How did you know?”
The inscrutable expression she’d worn until now had vanished as she looked at me with interest.
“The first thing that bothered me was how you’d acted when you took Nito’s notebook.”
“Her notebook?”
“You said that there were pictures inside, and that it had been her mother’s... She was surprised you got it right.”
“Th-That’s right,” Nito exclaimed. “I didn’t say anything, but she still knew that it had pictures and that it was mom’s!”
“It’s a common technique among fake soothsayers and stuff.”
I’d seen it on TV, and I was pretty sure I’d read about it too. That’s how common it was. Even so, I hadn’t picked up on it at all when it was being done right in front of me.
“That notebook’s fairly heavy, and the cover’s stiff. The paper itself is pretty thick, so you can guess that it’s not just a normal notebook, but one for art. Also, watercolors use a lot of water, right? The paper distorts when it absorbs the water, so you might even be able to see the edges of the color.”
I’d thought of this on the trip to and from the bridge with Jack. Driving was more time than I knew what to do with, so I’d had plenty of opportunity to think. Still, I wasn’t sure that I was right, and the woman’s expression was just a faint smile on her lips as she watched me.
“Then how did she know it was my mom’s?”
“It looks fairly old, and there aren’t many people who’d offer their own paintings as something precious to them. Besides, think back: you told her.”
“I did?”
“She said that it was your father’s first, but then noticed that was wrong from your expression and corrected herself.”
Nito didn’t respond. I continued anyway, wanting to get everything out at once.
“Jack asked her a question too, and she told him that his father had died without reading the letter he’d sent. That was wrong, though. He’d read it, drawn a map, and been heading to that bridge.”
That was what had cemented it. The people of this world believed in witches, but they weren’t something I’d come across before, so I could doubt them more easily. I’d started to wonder if she really was a witch.
“This watch,” I added, looking at the woman, “is something I bought myself. You used the past tense to talk about my grandpa, but he’s still alive.”
“So you set a trap?”
“I did, and it confirmed my guess. You just pretend to have some mysterious power, but you aren’t a real witch.”
I was done. I’d spewed out all the words that had crowded up inside of me, and felt an almost physical weight of exhaustion settle onto my shoulders. The woman raised her hands from where they’d been resting on her lap and clapped.
“You’re right about me just being a soothsayer. I’m not quite so happy about the ‘fake’ part though.”
“Why pretend...?” I asked.
“I never called myself a witch. People just started doing so themselves,” she admitted with a reluctant smile. “I started off as just a soothsayer. What I did didn’t change—the world did. Soothsaying is just providing a little push, showing someone the way when they’re lost or worried. That little push can show people what they’re really looking for.”
“That...sounds complicated.”
“Essentially, they can decide what to do with what they hear. If they don’t like it, they can just ignore it,” she said, then laughed. “But, once they knew the world was falling apart, people started searching for salvation outside of themselves. Giving someone an answer that comes from outside their own heart can set them at ease.”
I’d never understand that logic. When I’d arrived here, the world had already ended, and everyone I’d met had accepted that.
“I just kept up my soothsaying for anyone that arrived. The people that come to me don’t want to hear what I have to say. They already know the answer they want, even as they ask someone else for it, so I just infer that answer and give it to them. It puts them at ease, and they leave happy.”
“But...isn’t that...” I said before trailing off.
“Fraud?” she asked with amusement. “People will believe what they want to believe. That’s always been the case. That’s why people started calling me a witch—after all, isn’t a witch more trustworthy than a soothsayer? I didn’t deny it, just played the role for as long as there were people that needed me to.”
“Then why?” Nito asked, finally opening her mouth and breaking her silence.
I’d thought she might be angry because of being fooled, but her voice was the same as always.
“Why what?”
“Why did you tell me that the Golden Sea doesn’t exist?”
“Do you think you actually wanted it to?”
Nito’s breath caught.
“You were traveling in search of it, but the question you asked wouldn’t have told you anything about where it was or how to get there. You couldn’t simply believe it existed. If you’d wanted it to, then you wouldn’t have asked, you’d have kept your belief and just searched, right?”
The woman smiled.
“Even as you asked whether it existed, you didn’t think it did. That was the answer you wanted, from the absolute authority a witch represented to you. Then you could stop clinging to your mirage of hope and escape the fear of betrayal. That’s why I gave you the answer I did,” she finished with a helpless shrug.
I’d ruined that.
A shudder ran down my spine at her words. It was from shock both that she’d read so deeply into Nito in that single instant, and that I didn’t understand Nito in the slightest. I bit my lip. I’d screwed up. Maybe it had been a bad idea to just drag her along and unveil the witch’s tricks. I’d just assumed that I could play detective for my own satisfaction, flush with the triumph of my deduction.
I was wrong, though.
Nito hadn’t wanted the truth, she’d wanted an answer. Whether the answer was correct didn’t matter, it just needed to be one that she could accept. The correct answer wouldn’t necessarily help the person that had asked for it.
“You...might be right,” Nito said. “I wanted to come here as soon as I heard the rumors. Then I’d know. I was devastated when you said that it didn’t exist...but I was also relieved. I didn’t have to worry about hating myself for doubting and believing her in turns.”
She cast her gaze down. The room was silent. Still, her eyes were alight as she raised her head again to look at the woman.
“But now that I know that what you said was a lie, I’m even happier, even more relieved. It might still exist.” For some reason, she paused to look at me there before continuing. “I can still travel with Keisuke.”
Searching for the Golden Sea was her goal, her reason to travel.
“I guess that deal’s on, then?” I smiled. “I don’t want to travel alone, so I’m really glad you’ll be coming with me.”
“I’ve got no real choice, especially if you’re going to go this far.”
Slow applause broke across us like a wave. I looked to see the woman clapping with a bemused expression.
“I couldn’t read that at least. Right, it’s my loss,” she said, standing and walking over to the cabinet.
She opened the door and removed something before placing it on the table.
“I’m returning this, and yours as well.”
I took the watch back off the table and refastened it around my wrist, nodding. Nito reached out hesitantly, picking up her notebook and clutching it to her chest.
“Um...” she said eventually, looking up at the woman. “Can I ask a question?”
The woman looked slightly puzzled before smiling.
“You still have one? Sure, I’ll even answer it for free.”
Nito’s gaze wandered for a moment before she spoke.
“Please would you tell me your name? I can’t call you ‘the witch’ anymore.”
The woman’s eyebrows rose before she suddenly gave a languid smile. I wondered if the loneliness in her expression was my imagination or not.
“I’m Olympia. It’s been quite a while since I’ve introduced myself like that,” she answered. “Perhaps that’s the question that I was waiting for.”
As she spoke, Olympia offered her hand to Nito.
“Nice to meet you.”