BEWITCHED

2- There's Always A Loophole

The mid-day sun glowed from the sky as another clear day sprung onto the land. As the wind blew through the trees, a song of air could be heard, gracing Octavia's ears with a bit of whistle. Sitting in her small bedroom given to her by her mother, Octavia grasped tightly to a journal made with deerskin and dried canvas. With the writings in an ancient witch script, she couldn't help but think of many things. Alec's clear indication he was trying to remember the night before, how one vampire took an interest in only her, how one of the two vampires named Godric took to her blood, and lastly, the invisible bond between her and Godric supposedly shared now. 

Octavia touched the wooden frame around the window sill and reached out into the magic around her and sensed for him. To every witch, magic flowed everywhere. Through the trees with the wind, flow with the water in a river crawled with every insect on the ground; magic was found in anything and everyone. She could sense he was near, along with his progeny. Feeling them, she could sense their presence underground, laying in the dirt, somewhere north of her home. They were safely hidden from humans and the blazing sun. Her mind raced with questions about how they lived as she eyed the sun. 

No one in the village knew of them being so close to home. With the knowledge she had learned from traveling groups,  these witches had told her much about the world beyond the walls built to keep monsters out. Thinking back to Godric, she remembered his brand but was still unclear of how long he's had it for. Looking down at her bare legs stretched across the bench, she was covered in bruises, mostly hits from her father whenever she disgraced him. To Octavia, it was the markings that showed how different she was from the other witches, how she was treated for being different...an outcast, a black sheep amongst white. Snapping back to earth, she looked frantically around the room as everything was levitating off the ground. Octavia could feel the bubble from within starting to blow up, waiting for the right moment to pop. Fear crept into her mind as she glared at every object to try and force it back down to where it sat before, controlling her breathing as she did. 

Within several minutes, every object was back in its place, but Octavia knew this wasn't the end. This was the precise reason why she found it hard to be a witch in this particular coven. While much of what she knew came naturally thanks to her bloodline, it didn't come without a consequence. With all the magic she had power over, she couldn't control it with her emotions, as magic was powerful conduct with human emotions. For almost every species, it was their weakness and downfall. And for witches as young as Octavia was, it could overwhelm her and kill her within a second. With her breath hitching and her heart beating rapidly, Octavia closed her journal and her eyes. She thought of other things to keep calm. Otherwise, everyone would know she had no control, and that couldn't happen. She didn't need to be seen as uncontrollable and weak. A knock snapped her from her thoughts as Octavia used magic to swing the door open to reveal Alec's gloomy expression. Tapping into his thoughts as he calmly sat on the edge of her bed, Octavia could see the missing memory of the night before. 

"Something must be on your mind for you to come all this way, Alec." Octavia tried to come off as observant without letting him know she had something to do with it. 

"I'm just having a hard time remembering what happened last night after dinner. Did something happen when I was with you?" Alec was genuinely confused as he stared down at the floor, twiddling his thumbs. Octavia had to think fast to come up with a lie that would be believable. 

"We left the village for half the night. I wanted to see if our names were still etched into the stone wall of the cave system up North." 

"The same caves the werewolves transform in? But that's dangerous and against the rules!" Alec somewhat shouted but luckily, no one else was home. But as he started to think about the first time they snuck out and the sins that had followed them afterward, the shorter it took for him to understand if she erased his memory. It scared Octavia a little to know he always suspected her when his memory was erased.