Hallow's: Witch's Brew

Thirteen

Chiodos- Is It Progression If A Cannibal Uses A Fork?

Noah

Gastly fucking Periwinkle. 

This girl has been on my mind since I was fourteen years old and even when someone else held my heart, I couldn't forget her. I didn't think I'd ever see her again and sitting here telling her about my life while she wasn't in it seems surreal. 

How do I even begin to explain to her that what I did was to get her the fuck away from these people? That her grandmother's death wasn't natural. That her mother killed her father. That she's surrounded without even knowing it. 

She's changed so much since the last time I saw her. Gaz always seemed so invincible, unshakeable. Yet, this girl is nothing like the one that walked out of here after blowing up her sister's brand new Ford Focus in the middle of town to announce that no one here ever meant shit to her. 

This girl has been broken. Her spirit isn't even a fraction of what it once had been. The worst part is that I had a role in it. She's severely underweight. Her beautiful mismatched eyes are sunken. I doubt she gets more than a couple of hours of sleep a night. The way she's brought this little cottage back to life in the few days she's been here speaks volumes. Her once-pretty chocolate-brown hair is ashy. The Gaz I knew wouldn't be caught dead with split ends. 

Yet, there's a very predatory demeanor in the way she moves. How she handles a knife to make whatever the fuck she's baking. Her footsteps are precise and with purpose. The way she speaks is guarded and cold. Whoever the fuck she is now, is not the girl I fell in love with when I was twelve years old. 

"Let me take a look at these," she says popping a tray into the oven before taking a seat in front of me. 

"I didn't get a chance to thank you," I say. 

The screaming had been constant for the past two years. Wailing women are relentless when they have unfinished business. I only wish Natalie would have been able to see her vengeance. One thing I know hasn't changed about this girl is her sense of justice. When she sees something unfair, she won't stop until it's been settled equally. Even if it means losing a part of herself to get there. Especially if it means losing a part of herself. 

"You're welcome," she says without looking up at me. "September eighteenth, two-thousand two?" 

"What?" 

"That was the night she died, yeah?" she asks. I nod. "That was the day of ascension," 

"What? What does that mean?" 

"Regardless of where my magic had been, it ascends for the first time when its wielder turns twenty-six. I'm twenty-eight now," she sits back. "It's why I'm having trouble reconnecting with it physically. I'm too weak to properly host it. I've been hydrating and trying to put on some more weight, but it's going to take some time. 

"Whoever had it, it would have been too much for them to handle. Lady Marianne isn't strong enough to house my magic. She's too old for it to adjust to her body. Whoever held my magic was around our age and has to have had the ability to handle a lightning affinity," 

"That narrows it down to about twenty-two other witches. You have that ability?" 

"The storm is several affinities in one. Wind, water, lightning, and a telepathic ability strong enough to be able to control any storm in any environment," she sits back tapping on the papers in front of her. "The lightning is the roughest. It's why that man turned to ash," she pulls up her t-shirt to show me the red patterns across her belly and over her chest. She's tattooed over them but the scarring is terrible. "He wasn't the only one struck by it that night. Had I not made it here when I did, I probably would have died myself,"