The Sound of Our Souls

In the darkest of souls and the glow that it brought

Josie didn't quite understand at what point things had come to this. How it was that she went from having a horrible fight with her sister, to sharing a heart-to-heart with Hope, to learning that the magic she had siphoned from the prison world was dark. To be honest, she didn't understand what the implications of such a thing were but judging by the expressions that graced Freya and Davina's faces, she knew it couldn't be anything good.

All Josie wanted to do was go back in time. Back to when she was inside her mind palace, or to when she had the aforementioned talk with Hope. Maybe the conversation they had wasn't the most extensive or romantic, but it had been meaningful. At least for Josie, who decided to lose herself in that moment once again. So she closed her eyes and remembered as best she could.

She transported herself back to the moments that proceeded her fight with Lizzie. She remembered hearing someone knocking gently on the door. Josie thought it was her sister, who after a while had calmed down and was finally ready to talk.

"Hey, Lizzie, I'm sorry, I really didn't mean all that stuff," Josie began.

"Oh, sorry, wrong person. If you want to talk to Lizzie, I can go get her," Hope responded restlessly and started heading out of the room.

"No no no, it's okay. It's just that... Lizzie and I had a fight and I thought she would come back, but now I see I was wrong. I wanted to apologize. I wanted to apologize," Josie said, the distress still in her voice.

"Everything all right?" Hope said, genuinely concerned.

"Yes, yes, it was just weird. Lizzie just wanted to know if she was a good sister, but things went south"

"Oh, I understand. You want to talk about it?" Hope said carefully. She was acting strange as if she was afraid that saying the wrong thing would make Josie explode

"No, I don't think so

"Okay," Hope was not intending to push her, and Josie appreciated it.

They were both silent for quite a while. Waiting for the other to say or do something. Josie's interest was the first to lose the battle, so she asked Hope.

"So, um, what brings you here?"

"I just wanted to check up on you," Hope said, looking down at the floor.

"Well, I'm fine," said Josie, holding out her arms as if to give Hope a chance of seeing for herself. She immediately regretted the goofy gesture.

"I can see that, cool," Hope replied and returned her gaze to the floor.

Soon silence fell again. Josie didn't know what to say. She didn't like how anxious she could get when Hope was around. However, putting aside the nervousness she was experiencing, she couldn't help but enjoy the peace and comfort her presence brought.

"In fact... I wanted to talk to you about something I saw when I was under that spell the witch cast on us," Hope finally said, still looking away.

"Oh, that's okay.

Josie began to feel beads of sweat gather on the back of her neck. She held her breath. She was agitated. What she witnessed in her vision was not something she wanted to share with Hope (with anyone, in fact) but definitely not Hope. She conjured up in her mind everything she had seen, reminisced about how she navigated endless fights with Lizzie and her dad. Those were somehow easy to overcome, she realized that all she had to do to conquer them was to raise her voice. To say what she truly felt and believed, to trust herself.

That was simple until she reached the last setting, where she found herself outside Hope's room holding a note in her hands. She knew very well what it contained, it was the note where she confessed to her that she had a crush on her. It was nothing extremely deep, just half of a white sheet that said "I think you are very cute and kind and that's why I like you, do you feel the same?" followed by two boxes where she could check yes or no. It seemed silly now, but back then it was terrifying.