It All Started With Magic

If I Can Find Her...

The smell comes first. It always does. Like the hollow, harrowing ditches of forgotten remorse that creep up on people at random times, when one is completely immersed into the world that has elated their hearts and taken their minds off of the worry, it comes then.

The ditch.

Like the smell.

"Fiona, if we succeed," Amber spoke in hushed whispers, from the right corner of the sharing room, "we can finally know what we've been deprived of for so long, don't you think?" A soft rustle reached Fiona's ears. It smelled like freshly wet grass and earth. It was Amber. She always smelled like that.

Amber was excited at the treacherous plan. So was Fiona. But she didn't show. She had to calculate the ways it could go wrong. But could she? Was it possible? Her mind was more excited than what she'd like to give credit to.

A sigh came close to her ears. When had Amber slithered out of her bed?

What if Sister Florence came in...to check?

"Go back!" Fiona whispered in urgency.

But the slim moonlight, that peered into their attic room from the only window they had, made it evident. Amber wanted to talk. And she wouldn't hear otherwise.

So they had talked.

In whispers.

In hushed voices.

Silently.

"They'll let you out soon. Your friend said everything they needed to know."

Fiona's eyes flicked open. She gasped for air.

Like a fish out of water. Her mouth ajar, gulping in air like a fish does.

How had she fallen asleep?

Well, to her justice, she was starved and hurt. Both good ways to bring upon the 'small deaths' one took whenever their brains were out of enough energy to move or think further.

Wasn't that the reason why Sister Florence always made the girls sleep with their arms crossed over their chest?

So it would be easy to carry them out, if one died. Rigor mortis, wasn't it? Fiona could not assert upon the term's legitimacy.

But in Fiona's case, her brain had lulled her to sleep with the constant running of the memories. Of her and Amber. In the attic room. Whispering their plans and sketching out their idea of gathering information from the 'Sacred Covenant'.

The smell was real. Somewhere it was raining. The petrichor had wisped into the lockroom that she was in and was bellowing her to dance. A smell she was most fond of. It was Amber's smell.

Fresh tears stung her eyes.

Maybe it was all a lie.

They had caught her, made her speak and then...and then...disposed of her.

No!

She sat upright.

The white was too bright.

The light stabbed at her eyes.

Her body ached with sudden movements.

She groaned.

Teet! Teet! Tint! Tini dit!

The door unlocked.

A figure peeped in.

Her head buzzed.

She felt as though she was falling backwards, like into the pond water, in autumn, near the Sanctum.

Then she saw the darkness. Like an old friend, within the depths of the waterbody, when nothing moved and yet all did.

She fluttered her eyes close.

She was back. That was all it mattered.

If she was back, she could find Amber as well.

Yes, she would.

The last thing she remembered was a cold grasp of warm fingers and a husky, muffled voice calling for someone.

She didn't care.

She was back.