Siren

Expression and Brown Eyes

**For those of you who read this flashback chapter back when it was first published I'd advise you to read this chapter because it's basically re-written.

Flashback chapter takes place the same time as the prologue.

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New Orleans 1820.

It had been five months since my return to New Orleans, Yuletide had come and gone, the leaves had gone from golden brown, to falling to the dusty ground, before finally growing back to their natural green. I had watched from my stylish mansion in the centre of the city as towns folk bustled through town in the cool autumn air, sang carol's in the crisp winter breeze, then strip out of their winter layers in the warm spring climate.

For five months I had locked myself away in my large estate, hidden from the outside world, alone with only my maid Laurel for company.

Laurel was a slave who had been thrown onto the streets by a local plantation owner because as her owner had put it she was useless. Due to this no one would hire her, that and the fact her skin was a dark coffee colour not that I cared. I found laurel living in a small shack on the outskirts of town when I was looking for wild plants to use in a spell and hired her on the spot, she had her own room in my home and was allowed to come and go as she pleased, I only needed her to clean, cook occasionally, do laundry, and go on errands around town.

Laurel was fully aware of who I was and what I could do, yet unlike most it didn't bother her which made me like her even more.

Thanks to my father's money I lived a very comfortable life; my home had six large bedrooms, a massive dining room, kitchen, a drawing room, living area, study, a cellar, four washrooms and a small ball room.

I had converted one of the six bedrooms into a room to, do magic. It held all my grimoire's, magical items, the odd cursed object, herbs and other witchy things. I had spelled the room so only I could enter, as it would be a disaster if the wrong person got their hands on some of the things I had accumulated over the years.

I spent most days and nights in this room trying to get control over my powerful magic, trying to make sure the magic itself didn't fully possess and rot my soul like I knew it eventually would.

It seemed ever since I came back home my magic had taken on a mind of its own, it was more unpredictable than ever, on the brightside I no longer needed to rely on a bunch of dead hags to do a simple locater spell, my magic was my own bubbling inside me, running through my veins.

When I had left New Orleans seven years ago I travelled to New York, to stay with my father's cousin and her family, after I took time to grieve I started working in a local chemist, hoping working with different herbs and making concoctions for different aliments, would help curb my longing for witchcraft.

I thought I would never be able to wield magic again how wrong I was, all it took was a strange woman dressed in all black to enter the small shop, and completely change my life.

"You have a gift do not waste it".

The mysterious woman whispered as she stood facing me at my counter, her dark brown almost black eyes felt as if she were staring into my soul, before I could even get a word out she was gone leaving a slip of paper with an address and a small drawing of a pentagon.

I mulled over the strange encounter for a week before packing my things, leaving my distant relatives and travelling to Franklin Massachusetts, I figured I had nothing else to lose as I made my way to the place the strange woman had told me go.