Chapter 4
When Eason woke the next morning, his head was foggy, and his body felt drained. His legs still tingled with numbness. Yet, using his arms, he managed to sit upright and scan the room for Lumi.
The fireplace crackled, and the kettle gave off a far more pleasant aroma than last night—scents of chicken soup filled the air. But there was no sign of Lumi. Vague memories of the evening bubbled in his hazy mind as he turned toward the nightstand, only to find the mysterious book from last night gone.
He sat up straighter, shivering as a cold breeze from the open window brushed his neck. He felt feverish and nauseated, though the smell of soup was enticing. Two bowls had already been set on the dining table, and beside one of them lay Lumi's book.
Cautiously, he swung his legs off the bed, his toes meeting the ground with a strange sensation. He shifted his weight onto them carefully and stood, but his legs quickly gave out. Grabbing for the dining chair and tablecloth, both proved inadequate to hold his weight. He crashed to the floor with a loud thud, the empty soup bowls shattering around him, and Lumi's book landed right before his nose.
Outside, Lumi had just placed her hands on the neck of her chicken, Brita, ready to slaughter her with a sharp knife. The sound of the commotion inside caught her attention. Knife still in hand, she let Brita go, the bird quickly escaping from the chopping block. Lumi raced through her garden and climbed the steps to her house two at a time. Inside, she found Eason sprawled on the floor, his fingers reaching feebly for her spellbook. But her first emotion wasn't empathy.
Eason's eyes widened in terror as Lumi stormed toward him, knife in hand, her apron stained with blood. "I'm sorry!" he whimpered. "Please don't kill me!" He curled into a fetal position.
Lumi glanced at the knife in her hand, realizing the impression she must have made. She quickly set it on the table before crouching to snatch the book away from him. With a distrustful glance, she walked out of his sight to hide it somewhere he couldn't find it. It wasn't so much that she didn't trust Eason, she realized, but her ancestors had treated the book with such secrecy for a reason. She couldn't just share it with this intruder.
After securing her spellbook, Lumi returned to Eason, knelt beside him, and wrapped an arm around his waist to help him up. "Of course I'm not going to kill you, you idiot. But if you don't stay still, you'll bring disaster upon yourself," she muttered, more concerned than threatening.
Eason watched her as she tucked a blanket around him and adjusted the pillows at his back. Modern fiction had long since convinced him that witches weren't inherently evil, but it hadn't prepared him to believe they truly existed. Still, he had to ask; his sanity depended on it.
"Are you really a witch?" he blurted out, mustering a shred of courage as she bent to pick up the shards of the broken bowls.
Lumi froze for a moment. His tone carried far less disdain and fear than the first time he had asked. Still, she knew her family had lived on this island for generations, isolated from the world for good reason.
Sighing, she placed the shards on the table and turned to him. He had seen too much for her to deny the truth. But what was she to do with him now? She wished her mother were here, she would surely know how to handle him.
She nodded hesitantly. "But I mean no harm like you might think. Well, not intentionally, anyway," she added, twirling a lock of her blonde hair with embarrassment. "My ancestors fled when my great-great-great-grandmother was beheaded for witchcraft in 1674—Brita Alakärpänen of Ostrobothnia." Her throat tightened as she recalled her ancestor's tragic fate.
Eason offered her a sympathetic smile. "I'm sure your great-grandmother didn't deserve that. She was probably a kind herbalist who healed people. But back then, people were afraid of what they didn't understand." Then it hit him what this must have meant for Lumi.
"Your family must have been terribly lonely," he said, his eyes wide with pity. Yet a spark of excitement flickered within him. This meant Lumi could rejoin society. He could take her back to Helsinki, and his parents could transform this place into a breathtaking spa resort.
To his surprise, Lumi shrugged. "It wasn't lonely... until," a faint sparkle played in her sad eyes. "Will you... stay with me?"
Eason swallowed, his heart warmed by her request, but he knew he had no choice but to refuse her. "I'm sorry, but as soon as I'm able, I have to go home." Panic briefly flashed through his mind—what if she bewitched his legs so he couldn't leave? His parents would come looking for him eventually, and they would know they'd find him here.
"Why don't you come with me?" He offered her a hopeful smile, which she disappointedly met with a shake of her head.
"They haven't hunted witches in a long time," he quickly added, hoping to convince her. Although, the truth was, people simply no longer believed witches existed. Lumi might change that perception, but that didn't have to be a bad thing, right?
He imagined taking her home. His parents would see him coming, with a girl who was practically homeless. Depending on how much Lumi revealed, they'd send her to a research lab or an asylum. No, he concluded, it was a bad thing.
At the same time, he realized staying wasn't an option either. His parents had their sights set on this location, and her hut didn't exactly fit into the image of their luxurious spa resort. It was as if wolfsbane poison was being injected into him all over again. Paralyzed, he stared blankly ahead, overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness.
"I can't leave here," Lumi said somberly, kicking off her shoes and pulling two new clay bowls from the cupboard. "Not yet, at least." She sighed despairingly and filled the bowls with soup. Carefully, she handed a bowl to Eason and nestled beside him cross-legged, her back leaning against the wall. The steam from the soup sparkled like magic in the sunlight streaming through the window.
Her bare toes rested just a small distance from Eason's bowl, but oddly enough, the smell of cheese seemed to complement the soup. His nausea, strangely subsided.
"Why not?" he asked, bringing the bowl to his lips and sipping. The clay left a strange taste on his lips, yet the soup was surprisingly good. Unlike meals prepared by their personal chef, for the first time, he tasted something he had never tasted before: love.
Lumi slurped loudly and then gazed outside. "I can't leave the island until I've mastered all my spells. I have to carry on my family tradition, you understand?"
Her words struck him deeply. He understood all too well. Something built over generations—how could he bring it to an end just like that? He cast his eyes downward and nodded. The warmth of the soup settled pleasantly in his stomach, but it also felt like a heavy stone. For a moment, there was silence. A comfortable silence.
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