"Wear whatever you want to," frowned Nathan, while flipping through the pages of a hefty book kept on the top shelf of a wooden rack.

His eyes moved from the novel to her and squinted. His head shook slightly.

"Mhm, I bet the dwells wouldn't be acquainted with sneakers, let alone chokers," Sarah said to herself.

"All right," he smiled weirdly and patted the book. "I think you can wear Ava's dresses. They'll fit you, hopefully. Uh, the wardrobe must be upstairs." His eyes again focused themselves on the book.

"Which room?"

"Haven't you seen the house yet?" said he, not looking up. Nathan spoke very fast when he was either thinking too much or when he wanted a riddance. This time it clearly wasn't the former.  "There are only two rooms upstair. You're looking for the one on your left. It has a joint balcony and staircase leading to—"

"Thanks. Got my answer," she smiled. "What are you going to wear?"

"What do you care, Sophie? I think you are—"

"If you don't want to tell me, just say it. My bad, I asked." She expected him to say something but he only exhaled and said that they were running late. 

***

French Capital Tower, Bordeaux, France

"The Human Faction has always suffered losses because of those half-man creatures who steal our kids. Terminals crawl upon this Earth with a repulsive and abhorrent scent. They have made allies with power, but we've made with intellect. 

"I am a Witch, but no monster. However, proudly, and at some point, most arrogantly, belong to the Human Faction. Men! Prepare yourself for tonight, as every beam of sunlight shall stop touching our ground, we are to spread fire upon these bastards."

Romain de Fontaine walked down the vestibule stairs of the French Capital Tower. He'd seen her while giving the speech, her silver necklace shining the way that night fire would. However, right now, she was no where to be seen. And that was a cue for him to know that she wanted to talk to him. 

Returning to his car, he found a girl leaning against the car with her eyes closed. Arabella. He frowned seeing her feet crushing half-smoked cigarette butt. "You don't have to hide it. I allow females to, you know, have a puff."

She lightly shook her head as her mouth formed a half-smirk.

Instantly, Romain could hear some whimpers. Then some short breaths. They were like rustles of trees--soft, yet sharp and clear. Before he could push Arabella aside, and look near the wheel of the car, she cleared the way herself. There knelt a man, almost licking the bloody tyres. His body trembled as though he had seen a ghost. Perhaps, he had. Streams of thick blood mixed with saliva, ran down the corners of his shaking mouth, his hands covering his stomach as if there were a knife twisting into his body that he couldn't take out. Romain knelt down and took the man's other hand off his face. It was then when he saw a certain mark at the back of his palm. He tried to trace it was his fingers, his stealth hands making sure they weren't pressing the victim's eyes too hard. They didn't have to, for there were none left. 

Romain's heart sunk and he went white, seeing the eye-less body. He gulped, and turned to Arabella. He tried to shriek, but he couldn't. His body was too disgusted. "Why?"

She clicked her tongue and said, "I detest smokers."

"You little—"

"Shush, now. I don't allow men to, you know, cuss."

***

Ava Romain Clair's house, Bordeaux, France

Sarah climbed the stairs slowly. The upper part of the house was quite discreetly made with a splendid mixture of pastel colours—mauve, lavender, creamy mint and peach. "This part of the house must be belonging to Ava," thought Sarah. As she turned left, a door appeared in front of her. She touched the two cold knobs of the door which opened with a creaking sound. As she pushed the door open, she was flabbergasted.  This room completely defied the dark, damp colour combination of the house.

They were painted with different dazzling bright colours. There was no specific pattern—every colour was spilled here and there, though, in an eye-catching way, like an abstract graffiti. There was a small bed and a polished nightstand beside it. The wall behind the small bed portrayed a gorgeous girl laughing—presumably, Ava. Of course, it wasn't a photograph, it was a painting. It wasn't perfectly done, few colours had started to wear out, but it was truly bewitching. Sarah couldn't imagine a girl like this being in love with a guy like Nathan. 

Sarah opened the vintage closet and saw a variety of dress pieces of various colour—crimson red, champagne green, golden-amber, off-white, royal blue, dull silver, dark sparkling green, and a plentiful more. She chose the one which took away her heart at once. It was a dull yellow gown with a layer of embroidered net over it and colourful miniature flowers and tiny butterflies stitched on it. A thin black-coloured belt went all round her waist.

She closed the door and changed her attire. She shoved her jeans down and pulled her T-shirt over her head, and wore the enormous dress. It was the first time she was wearing something as heavy as this dress. Her late father's voice rung in her head- "One day when you'd meet your mother, and both wear the same dress, it'll be difficult to distinguish."  She gulped and shook her head.

Sarah walked towards a small dressing table accompanied with a round mirror. The mirror was dusty but its clarity sufficed for her to get acknowledged of how big her eyes looked. Bigger than they usually appeared. Her fingertips touched the curves of her face as she imagined how her mother would've looked like. She wished she had remembered.

She had no tool to make something of her hair but she knew that not making buns out of hair on special occasions made people frown. She had seen a video on how to make a bun without pins and hair bands thanks to her incessantly helpful friend 'YouTube'. For shoes, she searched a lot but guessed that Ava didn't have the practice of keeping her shoes in this house. So she went with her sneakers which she was initially wearing.

During her meticulous search, she found a diary. Perhaps it was Ava's. Her hands hesitated before touching it. "This is wrong. Very, very wrong," she thought. She could hear Nathan calling her. She drew a deep breath. "First page only,"  she commanded herself. On opened the first page, a small loose parchment paper was attached to the page. Sarah sniffed. It smelt empty and morbid like a grave, yet enchanting and bewitching like a fresh and moist rose over it. It read:

Dear Ava Clair,

If tomorrow were the apocalypse, it would be an utter shame for the world to end before the feeling of alienness between us does. Illuminate the seas and oceans with your charms and smiles. You, Ava Clair, are the greatest bond to an aspect of humanity I pray to hold on to forever. I shall never put you off because you are what I am made of. I will be with you even after forever refuses to live forever.

With love and respect,

An ocean wave

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sarah's face turned paler as she read every next word. Who was the writer of this letter? An Ocean Wave? Huh? 

She flipped to the second page. A new letter. A romantic one. This time by "A gentle breeze." Although all the letters were laced with different scents—the first one smelt like nothingness, the second as flowers, and lemons; the third as rain, maybe?— there was that  certain cold aura they impregnated. There was not even a mark of ink in the diary— just letters like these, written by some ambiguous admirer. Had it been written by Nathan, then Sarah had miserably failed to picture the character-sketch of Nathan. Had she been too incredulous? But was it even written by him? She again heard hear Nathan asking her to come (this time he used the name "Jane"). She force shut the book and tossed it back to its place.

As she walked down the stairs, Nathan stood there with one hand in the pocket of his trouser. He opened his mouth to say something as he saw her coming down but somehow words didn't come out so instead he shut it, as well as his eyes. He thought of Ava. Sarah usually didn't look anyway like Ava but today she did. He had a flashback moment—He and Ava were going to Sancia's wedding (Ava's friend). She'd worn a taffy pink sleek gown. Her eyes alone could convince any two twig to rub and cause forest-fire. He inhaled as he thought about Ava, while Sarah exhaled, guessing he was thinking about Ava.

"Hi," she said awkwardly and waved her gloved hand.

"Hi," he said as if he had gone into another world for a moment. He snapped his eyes open, forced himself back to present and offered his hands to Sarah as she stepped down the few steps.

"I don't need that. I can come down by myself."

"I know. It's—"

"Courtesy, chivalry, diplomacy? I know. I ain't much of a fan of diplomacy. It's more like the talk of hippies and devils—"

"You look impeccably gorgeous," he said, out of the blue.

She imagined him to smirk, or frown, or raise his left eyebrow, like he always did. However he did smile a little. Compliment then a smile? That was enough for Sarah to burst. 

"You know, you remind me of someone. He didn't have a speech like yours but intentions were the same. As far as I remember, he died."

"That— oh, lord, that's not a well retrospected story. Good for me, I can't perish." After a long pause, he mumbled, "unlike witches who haven't mastered the art of controlling their tongues." There was no rage in his voice which made Sarah shake even more.

"Excuse me," she said, her voice breaking. "I'm not your little Witch friend who's going to nod on everything you say forever. You don't give me these empty threats and I don't show you my side you don't want to see. Moreover, don't try to seduce me even after knowing it won't work. Deal?"

He flinched and gave a nod. Nathan was talking quite calmly. He reset his jaws and said, "I ask for your forgiveness. I should never have done that but I can't bear to think the fact of you leaving and not bringing Ava back. She just—she means a lot to me. I give you my word that I will act like who I truly am," he said with desperation explicably visible in his voice and words.

She nodded. "Forgiveness granted. And I won't leave you here because, first, I don't know the spell that can help to get us out of here. Second, I need something from my ancestor. Not categorically my ancestor, though."

He flinched again and asked in a voice that almost touched Sarah's heart's surface, "If the idea of I knowing doesn't bother you, will you give me at least a glimpse of that desired device or service of yours?"

"It is a vial of potent magic. It would make me more powerful than Elliot Smith and at last I'll be able to step out of that house and see the real world. The two thousand sixteen real world, to be precise," she added.

"Wouldn't you get that from just any witch? I can arrange one myself and you happen to know that quite clearly, don't you?" He sounded impatient, but not impertinent.  

She wanted to say, "Are you done with your questions because I have many of my own?"  Instead, she said, "I need a piece of magic from any old Witch."

"No matter how far waves take the sand, one day they'll have to return it to land," Nathan whispered as to not let Sarah hear it.

"Where are we going, by the way?"

"An island nearby. You'll like it."

They took a canoe to the the island. Although Nathan, out of courtesy, asked Sarah not to row the boat, Sarah insisted that, though she presently was in the nineteenth century, her predisposition was still of the twenty-first one, and helped him row.

 It was a rather exquisite scene. The sun had commenced to set while the clouds came down to greet it farewell. Sky scattered colours of lavender, pink and orange as it looked down at the picturesque world.

***

Thank you so much for reading till here. It really means a lot to me.

Question: After reading the letter Nathan had written to Ava, do you think my story is a love story? I'm pretty pumped up to know your opinions on this one in the comment section. 

Have a gorgeous day!

***

Please DO NOT promote plagiarism AT ALL. It is a punishable offence. If you do, serious action may be taken against you.