Wanda groaned as Poppy tugged on her sleeve, dragging her through the trees. “Are you _sure_ this is a good idea?” She hadn’t been out for ages, longer than she could remember. She kicked at the leaf mulch with a frown.

“Come on, it’ll be fun!” cheered Poppy, “Don’t be a grumpy Gus.”

_This Gus guy seems to have the right idea,_ groused Wanda to herself, but she let herself be pulled towards the town.

They emerged into the sunlight, and Wanda gasped.

The town had certainly changed since she’d last been there—what had it been, two, three centuries? The buildings were affaced with brick and roofed in steel, a cold differential to the mud-and-thatched-roof style of the past. She gaped in wonderment at the sheer _scale—_did all this really exist just outside her forest? If she didn’t know any better, she’d think they’d used magic to mash together these technological wonders. It put her cozy stone-brick cottage, once years ahead of its time, to shame.

“Let’s go to the park, we could get hot dogs or ice cream!” smiled Poppy.

Wanda stuttered, “Y-you didn’t say everything was so—big!”

“I guess it probably has changed since you last went out,” she mused. “When was that?”

“I think—1729? 1739? Hard to keep track.”

Poppy made an “O” with her mouth and nodded. “Yep, things have definitely changed in the last three hundred years.” She giggled, and grabbed her hand, tugging her along. “C’mon, let’s go!”

Wanda watched her frantically lick around the ice cream cone with exasperated fondness, drips of sugary soup trickling down her hand. Out of all the visitors to wander their way to her cottage, most of them had been hurt or sick in some way. In fact, all of them had, except Poppy. She had been different. She was hurting, but it wasn’t some cancer or laceration, it was grief.

She’d sheltered from the rain, red-eyed and sniffling, as she told a story of her parents being killed in a car crash mere hours before. She was only nineteen, and she couldn’t take it, running away from her university, from her grief and problems, feet pounding on the wet forest floor until she came to her senses and realized she was lost.

Wanda had brewed her a warm cup of tea and told her she’d be okay, then activated a simple Path spell to lead her out. A few days later, Poppy proved extraordinary in another respect—she came back. She was the first, in Wanda’s six hundred years of living here, to come back. They grew to be close friends, as Wanda helped her study for exams and Poppy laughed and told her stories from school. It was a warm, comfortable companionship Wanda hadn’t had in a long time, and Poppy seemed to feel a little less alone in the cottage, too. It felt like no time at all before Poppy had graduated, and Wanda’s only regret was she couldn’t be there. When she confessed that, Poppy proposed this trip.

Poppy stretched, wiping her sticky fingers with copious amounts of napkins. She shot Wanda a wry look, and Wanda snorted. “Need some help?”

“No,” Poppy huffed.

“You’ve got something—“ Wanda pointed to the corner of her mouth.

“Here?” She licked at it, missing.

“No, here!” Wanda grabbed the napkin and poked at her face, laughing.

Poppy swatted her away. “I can get it, _Mom_.”

“You shouldn’t speak to your elder like that, it’s rude,” she said loftily. Poppy rolled her eyes.

“You and I both know you’re mentally twenty-four.”

“Well then, you shouldn’t speak to your partner like that.”

Poppy threw up her hands, conceding, and brushed her pants free of crumbs from the cone. “That place across the street makes the greatest pretzels, wanna come?”

Wanda hesitated—it was sure to be busy in there—but shrugged. “Why not.”

The door squeaked as it swung open to reveal a dusty, dimly lit pub. It was sort of nostalgic, actually; pubs seemed to be the one thing that hasn’t changed much over the years. From the not-so-subtle way Poppy was gauging her reaction, Wanda guessed she’d been counting on that. She smiled, sending wordless gratitude her way. They settled at a booth, and Poppy pointed up at a small, bright screen. Wanda nodded, guessing this was a television (from what she’d heard, televisions were like Poppy’s phone, but bigger).

The tiny people on the screen were singing some jingle and seemed to be advertising cars. Before she could fully figure out what they were saying, though, it switched over to a news report; two figures sat at a desk smiling too wide with a moving picture behind them.

“Good evening, citizens of Guildford, my name is Sarah Scott, and today we’re continuing with the shocking but unresolved case of the Invisible Death, as it has been called by the papers. In the last decade, more than forty people have passed away for seemingly no reason, and examiners studying the deaths are stumped. There seems to be no pattern of age, race, gender, sexuality, ability, nationality, or anything of the sort; the only identifiable similarities between victims is that they live near or in Surrey, and they have some sort of healing ailment or injury at the time of death. Over to Jerome on the scene of the Royal Surrey County Hospital for more.”

Wanda wrinkled her brow. “Have you heard of this?” She gestured at the TV.

Poppy glanced up from the menu. “Oh, yes. Terribly tragic, and they still don’t know what’s causing it. It’s a bit scary. I wouldn’t worry though, you’re so isolated there’s practically no chance you’ll catch it.”

“So you think it’s a disease?”

Poppy tilted her head. “Not much else it could be, I think.”

The man on the TV, Jerome, Wanda assumed, was talking to a nurse, who seemed rather shaky and wide-eyed. “We have no idea,” she was saying, “what’s causing these deaths, but rest assured, we will find out.”

Sarah appeared back on screen, somber now, as she announced, “If you may have any information on the deaths of any of the fallen, please contact us.” As she finished speaking, a small image grew to the size of the screen, and Wanda froze. The drink she’d been sipping clogged up her throat and she choked, gasping and retching. Poppy looked over, concerned, but she waved her off, heart hammering.

That face—

Dark, straggly hair, and a pale, ashy complexion, as he’d lost a lot of blood in the fight he’d gotten into. She’d healed him, twenty years ago, and there he was on the screen, Paul Miller.

She stared in horror as the next victim appeared—eighteen years ago, frostbite, sparkling dark eyes and frosty glasses, a laugh like tinkling glass, Jane Li.

Every face she knew, every voice, from the last two decades all swimming up to the surface and smacking the air out of her lungs. John Pious, Ren Osborn, Alice Turner. Not a single person was absent, the roster all full except—her eyes locked on Poppy, who was still obliviously drumming her fingers on the table, looking around for the waiter. For a heartwrenching second, Wanda panicked, thinking that she had doomed her as well, that she was going to be ripped away and that it was her fault.

But something was itching at the back of her mind, something the news person had said—_they all have some sort of healing ailment or injury at the time of death._ Mere weeks after seeing her, after letting her magic seep under their skin and walking away better, it turned rotten and shattered them from the inside, she was sure of it. She glanced down at her trembling hands, which she had always thought were kind, but now seemed to be covered in blood, innocent blood, stretching back centuries. Would she have even known-? She never saw any of them again, except Poppy—

Poppy was saying her name, but it sounded like she was underwater and far away. She suddenly felt very old, despite the fact that her mind was young, she was aware of the years sweeping past her. Poppy directed her outside, tugging her to sit on a bench. “Wanda? What’s wrong?” she murmured, brushing her partner’s dark hair away from her eyes.

“I…I killed them,” she gasped. “I- my magic- they- _I’m_ the Invisible Death.” She broke down, sobbing into her palms, their faces burnt into her retinas.

“Oh…oh no…Wanda, I’m…I’m so sorry…” she wrapped her arm around Wanda and pulled her close. She felt bad for accepting the embrace—she didn’t deserve it—but was too weak to resist. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t know,” insisted Poppy, and Wanda met her eyes, sniffling.

“How is it not? If you’d needed healing, I mean…if I’d used my powers on _you…_” she trailed off, imaging Poppy lying limp in the hospital bed, and held back another sob.

“But you didn’t, and now I’m here to help you do the next right thing, okay?” Poppy smiled at her, wiping the tear from her cheek.

“But-“ Wanda blubbered, but Poppy shushed her with a finger to her lips. “I…okay,” she conceded, and she felt a weight lift from her chest as she tried for a smile. “We’ll figure it out.”