Crossroads of Two Worlds

28-Home is Where the Heart Is

Chiron ordered me to stay home with my mom for the first few weeks of the summer. The house that I had dreaded coming home to every day was now where I was stuck. I didn't hate it anymore though.

My mom took off as much work as she could afford and people came to visit me every day, but I was stuck alone in a big house, bored to death.

My leg had almost fully healed by the end of the second week I spent at my house. The huge, ropy scar stretched from my hip bone to the middle of my thigh. I had gotten used to walking and feeling the stretching of the scar tissue. Because the wound had been... different, the only person able to really heal it was my mother, but even then it took a while. I began working out again about halfway through the second week, taking it easy on my leg but not wanting to be totally behind when I got to camp.

Which was today. I was going to camp today.

I hadn't seen Maya or Adrian in too long and I missed them too much. Rose and Kaley owled me as often as they could but I'd told them my letters would be less frequent when I got to camp.

I wasn't sure how behind I would be when I got there, but I needed to go home. Rose had said that her mother would come to pick me up and transport me, probably by apparation. I had only apparated a few times before and it was with Mcgonagall. It had felt like as soon as I touched her arm, a hook wrenched me by my gut to and nearly made me sick for a few seconds and then I was home.

I had gotten dressed in my camp t-shirt and black jeans, tying my hair into a braid that fell over my left shoulder. When I saved the school (though that was a generous description for my act), several more gold streaks appeared in my hair, pegging me forever as the granddaughter of old man sunshine, even more than before.

My swords were stowed away in condensed form and my bags were by my side as I sat waiting in my living room. My mum had redecorated while I was away, for no reason that she could seem to give. It was a totally different atmosphere, which may have been why I didn't hate being at home so much anymore.

The house used to be cold. Filled with stainless steel, glass, devoid of most color and everything organized to a T.

Maybe it had been a part of her trying to get me to not be too attached because we often picked up and moved. But when I'd returned from school, my mom had informed me that she really liked it here, and wasn't planning to leave any time soon. It hadn't bothered me as much as I had anticipated it might. Maybe it was because I had adjusted to the idea of a school where I felt loved and appreciated, and had finally connected that the school was here in the UK. England didn't seem so bad anymore.

The house was now much like an older antique house, finally matching what it looked like on the outside. The outside was stone, with pillars and turrets and looked almost like an old castle, but when I came home the inside looked like a famous person's house, a famous person who was never there. Or at least it used to look like that.

My mum had added rugs all around the wood floors, replaced glass tables with dark mahogany and some pine. Stone was again the base of the spiral staircase, and my room, the light, sky blue shade on the walls and open skylights were due to her good decorating taste. It still felt too big for just us two, but it was much better.

Lost in thought, I sat on our couch across from the fireplace, and suddenly, a witch came calmly walking through bursting emerald flames. The witch had long curly brown hair and kind brown eyes that told too many stories.

She wore normal clothes, which surprised me, but allowed me to see the scar on her arm that read in crude letters: mud blood.

Rose had told me about her mother's blood status and all the trouble it had brought, but had never mentioned this. This poor woman must have been through so much! She found me staring at her and must have assumed it was about her clothes.