Call the Witch

Chapter 16 Reproaches

I saw her emerge from the water and I leaped up, as the blanket slipped from my shoulders. Immediately I regretted doing so. My head hurt me even more.

She, standing several meters from me, was looking at me in sorrow. I didn't know whether to kill her, hug her or throw her in the river again. Finally I decided to do none of the three things. Now that I knew she was alive, the panic was gone, and the emptiness it left was filled with fury, but my head hurt too much, inclusive to speak. I turned off the gas lamp and I went into the tent. I laid down on my side, getting ready to sleep. And she could do whatever she wanted.

Fay changed outside the tent before enter.

"Take that, get freeze." I thought, enraged. But if she hadn't got cold on the water, she wouldn't now.

"Evan..." She whispered, placing her hand on my shoulder.

I slapped her hand.

"Let me heal your wound and the headache, that's all."

I lied on my back and faced her. I nodded.

"Yes, heal me the headache and you'll find out." I thought spitefully.

Fay put her hands over my injury and I felt the cephalea vanishing slowly. As soon as the pain was gone I sat bolt upright.

"You demented! Psycho! How could you struck at me with a dagger in the head?! You could have kill me!" I shouted with anger.

Fay, on her knees inside the tent, shrank.

"Are you crazy or what?! I would have got the car, went away and left you here! And where the adventurous idea of entered the river to search for a mermaid, who could have been carnivorous, came from?!"

"Actually..."

"Shut up! What's with you?! You don't care if you die?!

Her silence was more eloquent than words. That left me speechless. So I lied down in the previous position and I tried to sleep, but I couldn't. I felt that I was with a stranger. That wasn't the girl I'd spent several days with in Cork. I didn't know if she was brave or reckless or if she was completely nuts. What has led her to do such a thing? And then I remembered all the things I yelled at her when I came back home and saw blood on my brother's pillow. And, although I didn't consider it sufficient motive for attacking me, I felt a little guilty.

"Is not that I don't care..." She whispered behind my back. "It's only that..."

I waited.

"Only that what?" I asked finally, given that she didn't continue.

"I'm afraid of what I will become if my grandmother triumph... And now my live... since my parents died... Anyway, if I can't find and defeat the one who we are looking for..."

"Don't speak." I interrupted her.

And I tried to sleep again.

When I woke up, it was already daytime,but I didn't want to move. I didn't know how to behave with her.

"Good morning, Evan." She greeted me hopefully in a thin voice, sitting inside the tent.

I sighed.

"You are unaware of how much hurt me that you hit me."

I was wounded, but not physically.

"And you have no idea how I have fretted over you. I don't have words to explain to you. I don't know how to make you unders..."

And then a thought occurred to me.

I quickly sat up and I grasped her hand.

"No, Evan!" She pleaded me, trying to release herself.

But I didn't give in. As Fay pulled and writhed like a fish out of water I shoved her back against me.

"No, please!" She begged me, crying.

I freed her hand and I walked out of the tent. Later, I sat by the river's edge to wait till she came out or I got tired of being there.

Although I didn't want to put off any longer holding her hand, now she must have knew how I felt and for what she put me through. I hoped that, not having been taking her hand for so long, she didn't delved into my feelings and she had seen only what was under my skin.

In a while she got out and started to pick up. I approached her and helped her to take down the tent, without speaking. Her eyes were red, although any mark on her pale and perfect face was seen from far away.

She climbed into the car and hugged herself, looking away from me. We didn't said a word all the way. During the journey, at least the view of the mountains and pastures, covered by snow here and there, and the beautiful lakes like mirrors relaxed me.

"Fay." I called her, as soon as I parked the car.

Hastily, she stepped out of the car without looking at me and went into the house.

As I was passing through the forest I wondered how we would reconcile this time. We found ourselves too wounded.