Desires

•CHAPTER XXIX•

She looks at me with this hope in her eyes. We don't break the contact we have at our hands. Her grasp becomes lighter and I can tell that the words she spoke to me meant something to her. I'm crazy to think that she was telling the truth. But I know deep down that she was being serious, and somehow a weight in my chest felt lightened.

"Say something? I know you think I'm mental now." She pleaded. There's a pause.
"I believe you." I finally say from the back of my throat.

A small smile tugs at the corners of my lips. Happiness is what I feel for her.
She sighs with relief and wraps her arms around me. I gingerly hug her back, feeling her relief come on to me.

We walk side by side through the path of the forest, with full confidence that she wasn't going to ditch me this time. She told me all about the dreams she had prior me moving into Morgenstel and how weird things used to happen to her when she was younger. How she had predicted her granny's death and how she made things move with her mind.
"My mother comes from the strong line of Vissa witches. Descendants from Salem, that's why I took my mothers name instead of my fathers. They explained everything to me. My mother new all along, and she's a witch too. My parents have been waiting for the turning to happen to me, and it finally has. They have you to thank for. I feel bad for how creepy it must have been for you, to see me like that. But I've got it under control now, I mean, I'm still learning."
"So what kind of witch are you? Do you cast spells? Worship Satan?"
She gives me a raised brow and flicks my head like I'm Levi.
"And do I ride a broomstick and groom my black cat? No. I'm a real witch in the real world."

I laugh and she laughs too. I'm beginning to feel like everything is normal, which is absolutely absurd considering I've just found out that my best friend is a witch.

"So what do you do?"
"Okay so we do kind of cast spells? They're more like incantations and potions. Example, the other day a farmer came to my mother from the next town because he had heard of the wonderful things that can happen. So he gave her a female cow, that was infertile. A few days later, she gave back the same cow, but the cow was fertile. I wish to do the same magic she does. She's going to teach me everything she knows so I can be just like her." She chuckles "and all this time I thought my mother was a veterinarian."

"Did you not suspect anything at all?" I ask.
She shakes her head. But then shrugs.
"I mean, not really but now looking back I can tell when things slipped up. Like how she wouldn't let me go to my grandmothers funeral...at the time I was furious...but thinking now, my grandma had to have a proper Wiccan burial. What was my mum going to tell me then?"

We find our winding way to the other side of Stellar River. It's gushing current flows like no tomorrow, pacing fast like a stampede of buffaloes. It must have rained last night.
"Watch this." She said and picked up a jagged rock that was grimy and wet.
She cups it in her hands and wraps her fist round the rock.
Her hands start shaking, like she was trying to contain something inside. The rock was trying to get out and was darting at every corner of her palms, however, she remained still. Her eyes closed tightly until the rock had stopped shaking. She raised her hands and blew into her palms, opening them, releasing the rock. But the rock isn't jagged and sharp or grimy or wet. It is perfectly round sphere, matte and like it had been dusted.
She hands it to me with a proud grin.

"Oh my god. How did you do that?" I say and gingerly shift the new born rock in my hands like it isn't real. I take it up to the sunlight and it's real. It weighs and gives no light.
She flicks her beaded hair and shrugs.
"I'm a genius, I know. But really, you should see my mum do it. She turned a rock into a jewel." She teases and I laugh giving her the rock back but she refuses.
"Keep it. As an apology gift for what happened the other day."
I smile and slide the smooth stone in my pocket, caressing the pebble with care, and grasping it to double check if it was still there.

She offers to walk me back home which I don't decline because I know Romeo can't be there every time I need saving.
We walk through the forest, the wind keeping up with us and the sky loosing its glow as the evening is about to fall upon us.
"Hey, whats that?" Charlie says in mid conversation and points to a silvery piece of string.
We walk closer to it and find that it's actually a necklace with an opal pendant.
I bend down and reach over, my fingers tentatively nearly touching the sliver chain when Charlie yells.
"Stop! Get away from that!" She me back harshly with her eyes wide and staring at the necklace.
"What the hell Charlie?"
She walks closer and crouches over it.
"Do you feel that?" She asks and looks at me with her eyebrows knitted.
I shake my head.
She raises her palm centimetres away from the necklace and I can feel it now. There's a shuddered vibration emitting from the necklace into her palm. The trodden leaves next to us rustle until a gush of wind passes by and breaks the vibrations away.
It stops.

Charlie moves her fingers slowly, reaching for it.
"Charlie, be careful." I mumble but she continues.
Finally she makes contact and grabs the necklace in her hand, we both let out hitched breaths.

"What is it?" I ask as she twiddled with the pendant.
"I don't know. But it's got power, well it had power."
"What are you gonna do?"
She thinks for a second before folding the necklace into a tissue, and then tucks it away in her denim jacket.
"I'm going to take it to my mum. She'll know what to do."

We find ourselves on my street, passing the twins' home where there are no lights on in the house meaning that no one was home. I didn't see a car in their driveway either.

We get to my gate before she looks up at my house.
"Sweet home." She comments and then unexpectedly wraps her arms around me tightly. "Thank you for everything. I couldn't imagine what today would have ended up like if you hadn't taken it so well. You have no idea how many scenarios in my head I made up!" She smiles before letting me go.
"It's okay, text me what your mum says about the necklace okay?"
She nods and turns on her platform creepers.

I punch in the code and the gate opens. The image of my mother in her office with that man alerts me.
I walk over to the garage and stand on my tiptoes, just being able to see that her car is there. She's home.

I walk toward the front door and hesitantly reach for the door handle. Closing my eyes before walking in to the warm light of the kitchen shining through, the rare smell of food flooding my nostrils.

▲▽▲▽▲▽▲
authors note:

hey!

i've been so busy with school and everything. it all seems to just rain down on me recently aha.

please vote/comment, it means the world to me and actually makes something in my life positive !

-kiim