The Witch's Toy ✔

36: uprooting the past

I, like some other kids my age, didn't prefer to make conversation. We spent most of our time at primary school studying and listening to teachers before promptly going back home where we felt the safest. And when we were prompted to speak, all we would utter were a few words — say the bare minimum before shutting our mouths again, zipping it, glued together as if it wouldn't open until prompted again.

I wasn't outspoken. I wasn't the one child who wanted to share ideas and let the rest of the class know. I just sat, listened, watched, and observed. Over and over and over again.

And Mina was like that too.

In fact, Mina was a lot shyer than I was, a lot more quiet that sometimes she would just shake her head violently whenever the teacher wanted her to share something.

Doe eyes, white skin, and dark hair that curled just slightly at the ends, I always thought Mina was the cutest. She had this splattering of freckles just across the bridge of her nose and a few down her neck and across her shoulders.

Sometimes we would talk during break times or in between classes. We'd say "hi" to each other in the mornings, smile as we left for the day.

And so even when I disappeared for a few years before finally moving back with my mother, Mina was the first to welcome me. We had assumed a sort of detached companionship that easily blossomed into full-fledged friendship.

Because my mother wasn't at home for most of the time, being called away to meetings or exorcisms and whatnot, I stayed at Mina's house for sometimes weeks. Her mother was wary of mine because of her chosen profession, but she didn't think of me more than just a simple girl — one who she probably thought was deprived of the normal childhood most had. And I guess it was true to some extent.

Back then, I'd lost most of my memory up to when I was eight; it'd been buried somewhere deep inside of my mind, the files covered in years of dust and multiple cobwebs, roots growing from the bottom and wrapping securely around them.

I'd gone to the nurse's office a few times as suggested by my school. They didn't want someone... odd amongst their student body.

But it was soon discovered that there was nothing wrong with me — in their eyes at least. I completed my studies and made high marks on all my exams and though I never participated in any club activities, I displayed normal attributes similar to my peers. I could walk around without hearing that gossip I was now used to, pull my hair back into pretty braids and wear my bangs short and just above my brows. I laughed, ate lunch with Mina and some of my other friends, hung out with them on the weekends and found it increasingly easier to talk to those around me.

It seemed that, even after the mystery of what had happened to me for those lost years, I was doing fine. I was well and healthy and better than before, this time a lot more outspoken.

Mina remained herself, still hiding behind me at times, fingers laced with mine, hand grasping my shoulder. She was as sweet as ever and still terribly shy, flushing red whenever someone wanted to talk to her and stiffening when the teacher called on her to answer a question or read something out of the textbook.

We were really good friends. The best of friends, nothing less.

But then, halfway through our last year in middle school, almost at the height of our youth, he happened to waltz by, seemingly unnoticed — some kind of driftwood that was ever so softly and slowly brought on a calm shore by waves the color of moonlight.

He was the sun; there was no better way to describe his aura. I could see it — a shining hall of light around his features like some kind of angel. It was almost cliché, how someone who looked so innocent could just appear that quickly and ruin something that others treasured.