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It had been a little over three years since Agatha had been stuck here.
Almost three years since Wanda had trapped her inside of this wicked spell, one where she had no free will whatsoever, a spell that had convinced her that she really was a facade she crafted during her attempt to trick Wanda; Agnes. For the first couple of months, she had remained as the nosy neighbor persona. Eventually, the spell began to falter. She was still named Agnes O’Conner with a nearly identical personality, but it was different. She was a sitcom character no longer, instead, she was a baker. Another couple of months passed and it changed again, and that's how it always happened. A little over a year after the spell was originally cast, months turned into weeks, another year went by, weeks turned into an inconsistent amount of days.
For Agatha, time flowed by excruciatingly slow. A small part of her mind screamed out in fury, begging to released from this spell. But there was no response, no one to get her out of it. Wanda wasn’t coming back, why would she after all Agatha had done to her? Still, she expected to be freed at some point. Surprisingly, she missed being Agatha. She wouldn’t miss having to remember the trauma that she was subject to, but rather the schemes she put up. Any sort of trick was impossible to pull off now because of her lack of free will. What a shame. What little thoughts she had as herself began to blur into Agnes. Upon every shift in the spell, there were cracks of who she really was, but she couldn’t remember anything about herself.
Now, Agatha had a little wiggle room. True crime was always intriguing to Agatha, she thrived in hearing about the thrill of the cases. Subconsciously, her mind took the path of a detective. Perhaps that wasn't the likely choice for Agatha to take with her life, but she didn't have control over everything. Unlike the last few rounds of the spell, there was an unidentified body, which was fitting for a detective role. However, Agnes could’ve sworn she knew who this woman was, but nothing came to mind when ‘working’ on the case. Another strange occurrence happened; Agent Vidal was a woman she hated, but she had no recollection of any specific events with her. She was strangely drawn to her, couldn’t get enough of seeing her but also wanted her to leave as soon was possible whenever they locked eyes. Whatever it was, it was making her terribly frustrated.
Following the next day, she was wearing the exact same coat as she always did as a detective and a gray and black flannel. Agatha wouldn’t be too fond of this outfit, she would like the masculine aspects, but it wasn’t nearly as fancy as she would hope it would be, as a matter of fact, none of Agnes’s outfits were acceptable in Agatha’s eyes. Internally, she wished her wardrobe was fixable.
She stepped outside and was immediately greeted by one of her neighbors, ‘Herb’, who was a cop assisting her with the ongoing investigation. Herb was chill, Agnes didn’t have a problem with him as opposed to everyone else. Unlike Herb, most of them couldn’t put up with her cocky personality. The setting, to Agatha's vision, was in office. She didn’t understand why Herb was coming by to visit.
“Hey neighbor,” He said, walking in with a pack of donuts, “Want one?”
Agnes sat up. She was studying the records that she had been handed the night before. The records that were placed on her desk specifically listed the forensics report, timeline that they were aware of, and photos of the crime scene. As of now, there were no suspects, no physical evidence, and no photos of the woman’s face. Agnes could swear that she had seen this woman, knew what her face looked like, but any information she knew prior to a few days ago was lost.
“Why are you here, Herb?” Agnes asked.
“I was just stopping by, wanted to see how the case was going,” He carefully placed the box on her desk, trying not to cover any important files. Of course, Agatha couldn’t resist a donut. She opened it and pulled out a glazed chocolate before shoving it into her mouth.
“Chief doesn’t want you eating at this desk?” He asked, knowing the answer was yes.
“What do you think?” She mumbled, her mouth full of food, “Anyway, nothing new has popped up, but I have a hunch,”
“Great,” He picked up the box, “Well, if only you can solve this case, wouldn’t be surprised if you were onto something,”
Agnes was ignoring him now, getting back to her job. She was delirious, but she wouldn’t let herself get distracted.
“Agnes–”
“Come back later, Herb,”
“I just wanted to ask if you were okay?” His voice was still calm, as usual.
She didn’t know the answer to that.
“Doesn’t matter. Thanks for stopping by, I guess,”
Herb was unamused, but he gave her a silent nod before walking out of the office. As soon as he left, the theme song rolled. Agnes couldn’t see it, but in a way she could feel it. There was a sense of familiarity that she couldn’t quite place her finger on it.
She didn’t understand why everyone was visiting her today. First Herb, now Dottie? The two of them didn’t even get along. Agnes wasn’t in her office this time, in fact, she wasn’t on the job as of now; she was at the convenience store.
“Don’t you have a shift at the library?” Agatha questioned when Dottie approached her.
“I took off today,” Dottie spoke quickly, “I just wanted to ask you a few questions,”
Agatha was taken aback by this, she cocked her eyebrow curiously.
“What?” Usually as a ‘detective’, she was the one to ask questions, “Why?”
“A few people told me you don’t seem like yourself recently, I was just coming to check up on you,”
Didn’t seem like herself. She didn’t know who that truly was, Agnes barely had a past that she could fill her memories up with.
“Who?” Agnes demanded. Her voice was rough and blunt. It would likely startle anyone else, but Dottie seemed used to being spoken to like this.
“Oh, you know,” She said, “Just the other neighbors,”
The sound of her voice was more than enough to send Agnes into a fit of rage.
“We were just talking about–”
“So what, do you guys just have secret meetings to talk about me?” She snapped, her tone was over the top and dramatic, and in a way, false,
“Do you just sit together and discuss me and my oddities and how miserable I am? ”
Dottie didn’t answer at first, she paused before speaking again, “Well…not exactly?”
“Oh, fuck off Dottie,” Agnes brushed past her, purposefully bumping into her shoulder as she did so. She walked up to the check out center and.placed her bag of chips down. She didn’t recognize the cashier
“Agnes, I just wanted to-”
“I said fuck off,”
The cashier looked off-put, but it also seemed like it was a common occurrence for people to scream at each other in here. Dottie stepped back, before she could say anything else Agatha expeditiously stormed out of the store. Her head was spinning.
“What the fuck was that?” She whispered under her breath. Agatha speed-walked all the way back to her house, it wasn’t too long of a walk from the store to her house. She didn’t understand why they were so close to each other, unaware of the fact that in reality, she had walked into a random neighbor's house.
As she walked into her house, she slammed the door shut, not caring enough to lock it. She rapidly threw her coat onto her couch, slipped her shoes off and carelessly chucked the bag of chips she just bought onto her kitchen counter. Agnes opened the bathroom door and stared at herself in the mirror. Upon laying eyes on herself, she felt discombobulated, her knees wobbly.
It was then that she realized that the neighbors were right, she didn’t seem like herself. She didn’t even know if she was herself, whoever that might be. She pressed her shaky hand against the mirror before curling it into a fist, her knuckles pressed into the glass, she automatically removed her hand as the cracks began to spread at a rapid pace. She wasn’t interested in having bloody hands at this moment, or maybe she was, she couldn’t tell. Her mind was a dissonance of noise, too many thoughts were wandering around, clashing into each other.
The longer she stood there, the worse she felt. She could have sworn that for the smallest moment, she saw the reflection of her true self in Agnes’s place, but when she blinked, it was gone. She believed she was going to faint until the doorbell rang and suddenly, everything was back to normal. The derealization that previously embodied her had vanished. She attempted to brush it off as she made her way to her door.
She knew exactly who it was, Agnes Vidal. The past couple of nights, she stopped by and visited her. Their conversations were always short, it always ended with Rio saying ‘Te Veo’ before she left.
“What do you want?” She asked as she opened the door. Normally, when she would open the door Rio’s facial expression would be flat, one time she came across as cheeky, even, but not today; today she seemed somber.
“Hey.” Was all she said as she walked into her house. Agent Vidal walked over to the couch and sat down. Agnes frowned, she probably liked having the couch all to herself, Vidal sat on the chair that was placed across from it.
“What, you want this spot?”
“Maybe.”
“Okay,” They switched spots. Agnes didn’t really sit, she lay down on the couch instead, Rio on the other hand sat with her legs crossed. Agnes gazed at the alluring woman across from her. She felt her heart throbbing in her chest as she looked closer. She saw well applied red lipstick Vidal was wearing before the sudden desire to jump into her arms struck out of no where. However the urge to push her away was still going strong. Those thoughts battled each other as she opened her mouth.
“So, why are you here, Vidal?”
“Oh, you know,” She didn’t know, “Everyone was telling me about how you seemed off, so I wanted to check up on you,”
Agnes didn’t understand why she didn’t feel the need to cut Vidal off, although she didn’t know why she continuously let her walk into her house. Whenever Agent Vidal was around, she somehow felt calm and rigid at the same time. The tension in the room was uncomfortable on Agnes's end, possibly not for Vidal.
“What?”
“They told me that recently, you’ve been acting more..grumpy lately, to put it lightly,”
“You can call me an asshole?”
The agent scoffed playfully, a smirk emerged on her face, “at least you’re a bit self aware,”
Agatha blinked slowly, “I’ve always been this way,”
“Really?”
“Yeah, Vidal,”
The woman sitting across from her inhaled in a manner that almost seemed painful or sorrowful, “Can I ask you something else?”
“Go ahead,”
“Whats my first name?”
Agnes' mind was blank. She searched her mind for answers, but it was empty.
“R…r…” Her name was on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t quite recall what it was, just like how she couldn’t remember why she hated her. It appeared that the first letter was correct, as Vidal’s eyes were filled with hope, her gentle smile emerging onto her lips.
As she continued to ponder, a sharp pain shot through her head.
“Agh…” she groaned, wincing.
“Shit, are you okay?” Vidal stepped towards her. She began to reach out before retracting her hand when Agnes showed disdain.
“Fuck, yeah. I’m fine,” She wasn’t fine, it was apparent to both of them, “You can go, Vidal,”
Vidal was disappointed, but understanding. Rio wanted to be patient with Agatha, she would take as much time as she needed to help her get out of this hex. If she wanted her to leave, she would.
She nodded, “Okay, Agnes,”
“Bye,” Agnes couldn’t look at her.
“Te veo,” She shut the front door.
The moment both of her feet were out of the door, Agnes' headache subsided. She groaned in frustration, not having the slightest idea of what was happening. It was driving her insane.
Before she could dwell on it, she heard footsteps on the floor above her, followed by the sound of a flower pot shattering.