"She craved his twisted darkness, the same way he grasped at the light in her shattered soul."
Natalie Gilbert has spent her entire life putting everyone else's needs before her own. So much so, that it ended up costing her the one person she couldn...
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KAI
"This should be the last of it."
I glanced up from the cramped scribblings of Sheila Bennett long enough to watch Natalie drop a handful of logs and twigs on top of the mountain she'd spent the last hour collecting, looking more than a little nervous as she dusted her hands off anxiously.
She'd changed from earlier this morning, opting for one of my sisters flannels and a pair of jeans to try and fight off the slight chill that had entered the air once the sun set.
She'd rolled up the sleeves, and braided her back in an attempt to keep the longer strands out of her face.
A futile effort really, since the second she started helping me collect all the items for the spell the front pieces had easily become untucked, causing her to reach up every five seconds and swat them away angrily.
It was a good look on her if I was being honest, all disheveled and outdoorsy. Like a cute little lumberjack with anxiety.
"Kai-" Natalie repeated, gesturing towards her pile of wood impatiently, breaking my train of thought, "Is this enough for the ritual or not?"
I tore my eyes away from her, looking back down at the scattered list reluctantly, clutching the bound edges of the grimoire with a great deal of uncertainty.
If I was being perfectly honest, I had no idea if it was enough firewood.
I didn't even know if we needed firewood.
That's how absolutely vague and unhelpful this 500 year old instruction manual currently was.
All Bony's Gram Grams felt like putting down in the margins about the subject of this memory spell was that sufficient "kindling" would need to be provided for the "flame of consciousness to burn through."
Whatever the hell that meant?
I was only about 42% sure we were on the right track here, which was pretty fucking unsettling, even for me.
And exactly why I wasn't going to mention it to Princess Panic over there.
Anymore curveballs thrown her way and I was sure she'd get spooked again, probably try to club me with one of her logs and take off for Canada like she had been thinking about all day.
I couldn't deal with that right now, especially given all the curveballs she'd been throwing my way lately.
"It should be fine." I concluded, trying to relax back into the easy confidence I had convinced her of earlier, "Remember we're trying to start a fire, not an inferno."
