Crystal Claw

The Bird

After having enjoyed two fantastic nights of camping fun with Anna and Grace, Ella knew that it was finally time to pack up and travel back home to her beautiful Lawndale.

It was a totally peaceful morning as a lonely Ella Anne enjoyed a walk outside between the gardens and the trees, with nothing but a vast open sky and the whispers of the wind, and Grizzly Lake looked like a dream and Ella just could not stop thinking about the life and experiences of her most recent victim...

Ella looked up at the cold November sky as she explored yet another layer of her most recent discoveries in Quinn's memory bank, since now that she had unlocked everything the sheer knowledge of all that was indeed quite an experience, and it was then when the eerie astral entity began to feel something that she was not exactly familiar with.

It was indeed curiosity about her victim, and about everything that could have happened in the life of Quinn Alice Morgendorffer if she had just been allowed to continue... 

Who was Quinn, really? What were her actual dreams and aspirations in life? Would she become one day a lawyer like her mother? A doctor? An architect? What would her college life had been like? Who would she marry? Would she have chosen to have kids, or perhaps not?

Even questions as casual as who would Quinn be dating that November now awakened the greatest curiosity in Ella, and this was so strange to her since normally she did not care about her victims at all, and yet Ella knew that all of that was now pointless...

So many questions that would forever remain without an answer, all thanks to what she had done, all thanks to her practice of life-snatching, all thanks to the eerie art of stealing somebody else's life in order to live it as your own.

"I know why you helped her out of Sallakovia" Ella whispered, and it was then when she sighed to the sky as she thought of her friend of dazzling green eyes- "What I do is dark, what I do is twisted... and yet... this is still the best way, to live again..."

Ella felt a little sorrow as she thought of the lonely and tearful ghost that now resided in the shadows of her attic, and even though she did not know remorse for real, the strange feeling was deep enough that she even started to consider the idea of letting the poor Quinn go free.

"I shall release you, then... but only if you promise to be a good ghost!"

The gardens and the beautiful cabins looked so sleepy as Ella continued her walk through Camp Grizzly, just a few birds had began to sing and chirp here and there since it was still so early in the morning and then Anna's high and mellow voice came to her all of a sudden.

"Ella! Ella, over here!"

Anna and Grace awaited not far from the fateful tree with the camping bags already packed and everything, the forest morning was still so cold though already starting to feel warmer, Anna waved and so Ella slowly made her way towards her friends in silence and curiosity...

"I see you have packed everything already!"

"Yeah, we're almost ready to depart!" Grace said, and then she checked a handwritten list just to make sure that they had not forgotten anything important at Cabin 317- "Anna wants the three of us to try something first, while we are still here in the forest..."

"So what is it?"

"Here Ella" Anna exclaimed, and Ella could tell that her magical friend looked and felt even happier than she had ever seen her before- "Let's hold hands, the three of us!"

Ella and Grace did not question her at all, and so, the three of them held hands and formed a triangle as the wind cried and howled between the trees...

"Oh thou mighty Great Wolf, Guardian of the Astral Garden and Keeper of the Tower" Anna began in a high and clear voice, and after that she looked up at the sky with tears quickly flowing from her eyes- "I now realize that Ella and Grace are the friends that you have sent to me, as you agreed that night so graciously... I thank you, oh thou mighty Great Wolf!"

"You see, Grace? That's how we found this world so easily!"

"That's cool!"

"We thank you, oh thou mighty Great Wolf!"

"Yeah, thanks... oh thou mighty Great Wolf!"

At that moment the wind became a lot stronger, the nearby birds flew away so fast, the three of them could hear something like a growl so high in the sky and after that there it was, this feeling like a flow of electricity that glowed and sparked between their hands...

"Great Wolf has approved of our friendship!"

"Well, it's all thanks to him that we are here" Ella replied, and just like her apprentice Grace, it was clear that she was quite more than surprised and happy after the experience- "I think this is the real start of our coven! Hey, Anna..."

"What?"

"What is that in your hand?"

"What do you mean?"

"Those sparks in your hand!"

Anna was indeed taken aback at the sheer beauty of the silvery sparks that glowed between the fingers of her right hand, it felt like the sheer power of this thing was flowing through every little part of her body, Grace gasped in surprise and then it happened so fast...

All that Anna could do was to shoot a few dazzling sparks to the sky, and the three of them looked up to see how a great black bird was falling, and it fell lifeless indeed just three or four yards from where Ella was standing-

"What a strange bird" Anna whispered, since this was indeed a species that she had never seen before- "What do you think... Wait! Grace, don't touch it!"

"Why not?"

"Stay clear, Grace!" Ella commanded, and so the three of them casually retreated and placed a good certain distance between them and this cold and strange bird- "Just... leave it there..."

"Alright..."

"Ella, Grace... Lawndale awaits!"

Anna took the lead with Grace whispering something as she trailed her, Ella carried the heavy camping bags, they disappeared somewhere in the distance and that was all...

The bird was still there.