The Ties That Bind

Chapter 4✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

Since Alma had been expelled from Elderwood Hall, she now spent her days all alone in the manor, thinking about what had happened. She remembering the face Ilythia made while falling from the stairs. The memory of it gave her chills. Despite everything Ilythia had put her through, Alma was still relieved that she had recovered. But as if it wasn't enough that people already thought of her as a freak, now they would gossip about her being an attempted murderer. Alma screamed into her pillow from the humiliation she felt. Was anything in life even fair anymore? She asked herself which star she had wronged to receive such bad luck since her parents left her. Despite the heartbreak, Alma had always strived to be a good student, but now even her future was compromised. She felt like crying all the time, especially now that she had nothing planned anymore.

Days blurred into each other as Alma wandered through the grand, empty halls of the manor. She tried to occupy herself with drawing and reading, activities she once loved. But now, they seemed to have lost their charm, and she found herself doing them more out of habit than enjoyment. Each room she entered held echoes of her past, filled with laughter and warmth that now felt like distant memories.

She spent hours by the window, staring at the sky, wondering where her mother and father were. Were they happy? Were they healthy? Did they think about her as much as she thought about them? These questions had haunted her every day since their departure. The manor, once a place of comfort and magic, now felt like a lonely fortress trapping her within her thoughts.

Alma's mind often drifted to Robyn. She wondered what could have happened between them if they had more time. She spent many hours daydreaming about prom, imagining him asking her to go with him. It felt almost delusional, given that Robyn was much more popular than her (or at least in a good way), and many girls had a crush on him. But was it really that unlikely? She had never seen him with any other girls, and the rumors of him being with someone always turned out to be false.

As she lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling, she imagined what prom night would be like. She pictured Robyn walking up to her, his eyes meeting hers with that familiar warmth. He would ask her to dance, and they would move gracefully across the floor, lost in their own world. The thought brought a small, bittersweet smile to her face.

But reality always brought her back to the present. Robyn might take someone else to prom, and if he did, who would that be? The idea of him with another girl sent a pang through her heart. She longed for the comfort of her parents, for the warmth of their love and the security of their presence. But most of all, she longed for answers, for a way to mend her broken heart and find a path forward.

Alma spent her days in a haze of longing and regret, trying to find solace in the remnants of her past. The manor, with all its secrets and memories, became a silent witness to her sorrow and her dreams. And as the days turned into weeks, she held on to the hope that somehow, someway, things would get better.

                                                          ⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆

Now that she had plenty of time on her hands, Alma decided to take action. Determined to revive the dormant magic in her manor and, perhaps, reunite her family once more, she knew she had to start by understanding the inexplicable betrayal that had torn her parents apart. How could her vampire father have been disloyal to her mother, the very person he was imprinted upon? It was an anomaly in vampire lore, an unheard-of occurrence that defied all natural laws. Yet, it had happened, shattering their once-happy family and leaving Alma to pick up the broken fragments of their lives.

With nowhere else to turn, Alma resolved to seek answers in the only place that might hold the key to her family's shattered past — the town's library. If she could uncover the truth about vampire imprinting, perhaps she could begin to unravel the tangled web of deception that had torn her family apart.