Escape the Covenant || Shawmila [Completed]

Chapter 21

My skin tickles and I feel extremely hot. A pair of smooth, sweet, plump lips leaves a trail of wet kisses down my neck while two big, strong hands caress the curves of my frame. I sense his warm breath near my earlobe, and the moment I hear a gasping moan, I clench my tights together. I close my eyes and let him worship my body as he wishes, touching me, caressing my skin, kissing every inch of me. Passion overwhelms me, clouding my senses and making me dizzy.

Then, just like I feared, a big untamable blaze bursts from my body. The pain is unbearable, ripping through my skin, stealing my breath, tormenting me with a burning rage. I scream and I curl up, pulling my hair and praying for this agony to end. I see my skin being covered with sores and burns. Finally, a thick layer of smoke surrounds me, my vision goes blurry, and I'm swallowed by darkness.

With a cry, I wake up in the middle of the night, cold sweat covering my tired body. I look down, but I see no trace of that fiery violence on my skin, which is as pale as ever. No red scar, no ugly burn, no painful sore. I breath out in relief, feeling the wetness of the tears that have slipped from my eyes while I was asleep. I can't get rid of this nightmare, a mix of a steamy repressed passion and the memories of what happened a few days ago.

When Shawn brought me home, unconscious in his arms and drenched in river water, we were really lucky. My grandma wasn't there, so there was no need to make up some excuses or lies. Shawn was beside me, sitting on the edge of the bed and waiting for me to wake up. He was making sure I was okay, or at least that I wasn't in pain, but he didn't try to touch or graze me. He was too scared of hurting me. His face was a mask of regret, and I know he was blaming himself for what happened. I'm sure he's still doing it. He left short after, aiming to never come back to me.

Too bad I'm not allowing him to leave me. That same night I called him when I was confused and a crying mess, after I woke up from that same horrendous nightmare. I begged him to come to me and soothe me, telling him I was too scared to be left alone. I couldn't rely on my gran, otherwise she would have been the one to kill me. So, he sneaked out in the middle of the night, and knocked on my window. He laid beside me, he brushed my hair with his long fingers, tracing patterns on my scalp in order to relax me, and he waited for me to close my eyes and fall asleep again.

«You know it's not your fault, right? » I whispered to him.

He frowned and glared at me sternly. «But it is my fault, Mila. I've been the one who pushed you to kiss me. You told me everything, every risk and possibility, and at the end you almost died»

«I don't want you to blame yourself. It's not you, okay? It's this damned curse». But my words were useless.

Night after night, I called for his help, and no matter what he run to me. Right now, I'm tempted to reach for my phone and dial his number again, but I shouldn't do it. It's time for me to take courage and face the aftermaths of my reckless behavior. Also, I won't convince Shawn of his innocence if I keep on calling him to soothe me.

Instead, since I won't be able to close my eyes again for at least a few hours, I take this opportunity to read. My mother's grimoire lays forgotten on my desk and it seems like it's screaming at me to be read. Funny how I've never really paid much attention to it, with the exception to browse it for some simple spells or to catch a glimpse at my mom's personality. I don't think I've ever read it properly. Sure, sometimes I read a few pages just for fun, but I've always tried to pretend my mom's thoughts weren't really important to me. Maybe I was affected by all those comments my gran has constantly made about her, or maybe I was just scared to find out I was like her.

I knew my mom had her head in the clouds and had built a fictional world around her in which she believed there was no curse. But I think that, if I dig a little more, I could understand her. I've never really been in love until now and I've always criticized her for her unconscionable choice, but now I think she could help me.

I light the lamp on my bedside table and dive into the grimoire. The first pages are not that important as they guard her first attempts at magic as a young witch, but I read them nonetheless. They make me smile since I imagine my mom as a kid stomping into a scary world with her heart full of hopes. Her curious nature and her wonder for life reminds me of myself. This is the first time that I allow my mind to make this connection, usually I don't like to be compared to her under any aspect. Those first spells are pretty rudimentary and I'm curious about how many attempts took her to find the right spell. I stifle a laugh when I saw some silly doodles on the corners of the pages.

I keep on reading for hours, until my eyes get tired. I'm fascinated by how emotional and passionate she was, it's like her feelings were magnified. She wasn't happy, she was joyful; she wasn't sad, she was melancholy; she didn't despise something, she absolutely and utterly hated it. Thus, she didn't simply like someone, she loved him with her whole heart.

Reading my mom's grimoire feels more like reading a secret diary, and sometimes a poetry book. She was very talented and, I never really paid much attention to it, but she seemed to be a skilled poet. In particular, one page catches my attention.

Sometimes I wish I was someone else, anyone else out of my head,
A memory between faded faces because
Inside of here is a Hell made of endless expectations and carved in marble.
Out of my head, words have room to move
And they fly away without rumbling, without reporting any meaning or consequences
Here, every sentence is forever

Words turn to smoke
A constant chatter that sounds like a buzz,
I would be different out of my head ,thankfully
There it seems to walk without gravity.
If there's a window, lead me to one, do me a favor
I just want to take a look, I just want to see.

That's why I show half of me
You only see half of me
In my head, the flowers wither without time ever passing
That's why I show half of me
But it is all negligible
So on and on, something is holding me hostage in here
It's all my fears.

No rhyme and no prosody. Just rough, hurtful words smeared on some crumpled paper. But they aimed straight to my heart, making it ache.

I read until the sun begins to raise and I finally realize that our lives follow the same pattern in a strange, twisted way. Just like me, she grew up only with the love of her mother, who constantly reminded her of the dangers of our bloodline. Then, when she became a teenager, she learned how to hide things from her, how to sneak out and challenge her fate, and that brought some tension between her and her mother.

Unfortunately, her grimoire ended too soon. The last pages show her torment towards the injustice of our curse, which was making her lose her mind. She literally went mad. As I turn the last page, I feel my heart sink and my chest is pressed under the weight of her sufferance, which  now is also my sufferance. Then I stop on the spot.

Right before I close the book, I notice that some pages have been ripped from it.

********

A.N./ I'm not the author of the poem, in fact I just translated (with some adjustments) an indie italian song by Willie Peyote, called "Giusto La Metà Di Me".