Family Ties ❍ The Vampire Diaries

Fem

The Delgaard girl hadn't seen much of the two men in her life recently. Her boyfriend had practically ghosted her, and her father had been coming home late. He said he had 'work meetings'. Dafne struggles to accept that, seing as he was a small town lawyer and usually had meetings during the day. Dafne thought, 'If he has a girlfriend, or something, why can't he just tell me?'

Anyway, enough of that tangent, the Delgaard girl was bored. To top that off, all her friends were busy, cheer camp had ending last week as the first day of school was coming up Monday, and she had no shifts at Mrs. Flowers shop. So, like any curious teenager who just read a letter from her dead mother, she was seeking answers. She raised her fist to knock on Sheila Bennett's door, but as her fist was about to hit the wood, the door slung open.

"Dafne. Come in, I was wondering when you'd come over." Sheila greeted her. The younger girls face contorted in confusion. That's not creepy at all...

Dafne took her shoes off at the entrance and nervously shuffled towards the couch where Sheila had wandered. She smoothed out her jean skirt and sat across from the older woman.

Sheila then spoke, breaking the oddly comfortable silence. "So, darling. What brings you here today?"

Dafne spluttered over her words for a second, lifting the crinkled yellow envelope. "My mother—."

"Ah, yes, Mabel." Sheila interrupted.

"Um, yes. My mother, Mabel, wrote me a letter before she died. She told me to speak to you about.. I don't know, family stuff? She wasn't very detailed." Dafne picked at an imaginary thread on her jeans, her usual confidant demeanor disappeared as she shakily handed Sheila the envelope.

Sheila was nodding as she read the letter quickly. "Well you're a witch of course. Had you never figured this out?"

Dafne laughed, "No Sheila. I never knew." She said, entertaining the crazy old ladies ideas.

"Dafne, this is no joke. Surely you've felt the connection to nature. Especially in this town. Our two family's have lived here for about a thousand years." The older woman sat up, her eyes bore into dafne's own.

"Now I know you're messing around with me. Mystic falls is only like, 200 something years old. I'm gonna go now." Dafne stood up and opened the door, but it suddenly slammed shut, her body smacking against it as the force of the door shutting surprised her. She quickly turned towards Sheila with wide eyes. "How—"

"Do you believe me now, child?"

❍

After an hour of Sheila explaining what being a witch truly was, she decided it was time for Dafne to learn a few things.  "Well start off light." Sheila slid an old book similar to her mother's towards Dafne. "This is a grimoire. It has a witches spells in here. Most witches have multiple. These are beginner spells. Let's start with a simple levitation spell." When Sheila looked into dafnes blue eyes, all she could see was worry. "What's bothering you, child?"

Dafne gulped, her gaze landing everything but Sheila's eyes, "Should I be learning this stuff? Isn't this whole magic thing what got my mother killed?"

"Child, your mother died performing a very complex spell. She knew what would happen going into it. But she did it to protect you. You see, your family, your bloodline... it's very old." Dafne's eyes finally met the older woman's. Her brows furrowed in confusion as the elder witch continued speaking, "There was a bad man. He wanted to kill a young girl— no not you. If he had killed this girl, a man would become very angry. He would depend on your bloodline to break a curse he faces. That would've killed you."

"I don't get it, why would that kill me? Who's the man? Who's the girl? Why are you being so vague?" Dafne asked. She knew it was a bit annoying but she was honestly just fed up with being kept in the dark in these situations.

Sheila sighed. "The bad mans name is Mikael. The girl he wanted to kill was Elena Gilbert. The other man's—"

"Wait. Hold on. Elena Gilbert? Like.. Elena Gilbert the elena Gilbert who lives a few streets down from me? I'm dating, well, I don't know. Okay, I'm kinda maybe not dating her younger brother what does she have to do with any of this?" Dafnes mind was running a mile a minute trying to comprehend everything.

"Child none of this matters right now. I want you to know how to protect yourself. We can have story time later." Sheila's voice was firm.

Dafne agreed and pulled the grimoire towards her from its previous spot on the coffee table. "Now," the eldest witch started, "levitation spells."

❍

As Dafne walked home, she couldn't help but practice her newfound magic abilities. Granted, they were always there (Sheila was right, she did feel connected to the earth) she was new at this.

"Casso tor." She whispered, causing a leaf to float up as she walked passed. "Dissulta." She muttered next, the leaf gently disintegrated. Sheila had told her if she practiced enough, she wouldn't need to say anything out loud. She also told her the more strength she channeled from the earth and her body, the more powerful the spell could be.

Again, to another leaf, she muttered: "Casso tor." They began to float. To anyone else, it would've looked like a breeze. With newfound excitement to delve into her mother's grimoire, she ran the next 5 minutes to her house.

❍

As soon as Dafne walked into her house, she took her shoes off, said "Hey Dad." To her dad sitting in the living room watching tv, and ran right to her room. She closed the door by saying "Casso tor" to her pillow and using a sweeping hand motion to throw it at the door. She did a quiet squeal and a mini happy dance.

Dafne quickly walked to her bed, grabbing her mother's leather grimoire from under the bed and carelessly flung it open. She agreed to herself that she'd practice for an hour and then go to bed and get ready for school the next day.

Her eager eyes looked at the first spell on that page. 'Calming spell'. Then, she flipped to the next, 'heart beat spell'. 'Okay, cool.  Whatever that means.' She thought flipping to the next. The next few spells weren't as light hearted.

Dafne's breathing stopped as she began to possibly freak out, reading the next few pages. 'Heart crushing spell' the page read. Then the next, 'Heart ripping spell' and then, 'Neck snapping spell' and finally 'Bone breaking spell'. Was there a spell in here to calm her breathing?

Dafne was now definitely freaking out. She wondered why her mom would ever need those. Had her mother ever used those? Who the hell was Mabel Delgaard?