𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟏

𝙈𝙖𝙙𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙗𝙡𝙤𝙤𝙙

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╰┈˚ · ° .  I FELT MANY TIMES IN MY LIFE THE NUMBNESS SPREADING over my heart and mind. It had always been how I coped with things, I desensitized myself from what was happening, anesthetized my feelings until nothing hurt.

The first time I did, I was too young to remember clearly how I had done it. There had been shards of glass in my skin, underneath the sole of my feet, in my hands, in my knees. My ribs ached and I knew soon a bruise would bloom there. Everything was so much, everything was too painful, my body hurted, my mind, my heart... I just wanted to not feel that way.

And it happened, I was like a ghost in my own body, watching, not feeling. I couldn't even feel when Sam had tried as gently as he could to pry away those little pieces of glass, or when even breathing was hard because of my bruised ribs.

It happened again, my bottom lip had been split open by a hard slap that had made my teeth chatter together. And then again when I was trembling with fear when my father had started to yell and nothing and everything. It started to become a habit, numbing myself everytime I stepped inside my house. It had gotten better when he had finally moved, left us before it got worse and I wasn't feeling anything at all. It made it easier to live that way, even the whispers and the bullying at school didn't touch me anymore.

When the supernatural was brought into my life, that numbness had started to recede a little bit at a time. Friends, family that wasn't just blood, love. I had fallen in love and the last piece of anesthesia to my feelings had melted away.

Now it was back.

We were in The Clearing, Maddison with us because we didn't want to leave her alone. It was night, but we didn't care, there was a spell to do that would determine the rest of our sister's life.

The spell wasn't easy, or safe—not that we had shared that particular with Maddison—it needed a person to enter a state of hypnosis so that they could transcend down between the spirit world and ours. The spell consisted in the rest of the three witches changing, their strength keeping the fourth alive all while simultaneously bringing forth a spirit to meet their hypnotized sister. If we were right, there should already be someone waiting to speak.

I clicked open the zippo in my hand, it felt so familiar and at the same time not. I rolled the flint wheel with my thumb, the friction creating hot sparks that lit the fuel infused lick bringing fire to life. I closed the lid, snuffing it out, and then I reopened, repeating the process over and over again.

I couldn't think about him, I shouldn't think about him. Not now, not when I wasn't sure that he could ever look at me the same way. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. No it didn't, I couldn't feel anything at all.

I closed the lid one last time, the girls around me preparing the ritual as I collected my thoughts. I was going to be the one to fall underneath the effect of the spell and travel through my consciousness.

I could remain blocked there, my body alive but without my spirit, without me, asleep for eternity.

I touched the necklace around my neck that I never took off, a simple triangle made with metal rods. Nothing about it was meaningless. It was a symbol, my fire, my coven, my sisters.

We had to do this, there was no second thought or regret.

I love you. I love you. I love you. I wrote underneath the sketch that I made of Paul. He needed to know even if I wasn't coming back.

"We are ready." Amelia announced.

I closed the sketchbook, and I got up. "Let's start."

══════ 🜂🜁🜃🜄 ══════

╰┈˚ · ° .  Fire– Fire was everywhere around me. Fire was the only thing that I could see. I could feel the heat of it on my skin, in the air surrounding me. I expected it to burn me, for screams of agony to slip past my lips, but none of that ever happened. It was the opposite of it. I found myself craving the heat that never seemed to burn my skin, for the flames to dance across my fingers as my heartbeat lowered its frequency. Because when I was surrounded by the bright red and orange flames of the fire element... I felt at home.

I didn't know where I was when I opened my eyes. Fire, fire and fire. Just fire. It was safe, it was home, it was my whole being.

I could faintly hear the whispered chants around me but I didn't want to listen. Fire, fire and fire. Nothing was hurting here. I could feel nothing but peace.

The chants continued and my ears rang with white noise. Fire, fire, fire. It was so beautiful, there was no darkness here.

The skin on my chest suddenly tingled, and when I tried to scratch the spot, I felt metal underneath the pad of fingers. The three rods that formed a triangle. A symbol, my fire, my coven, my sisters.

Oh.

Fire was safe and I didn't want to leave but... so was the air and earth and water. So were the girls that embodied those elements, and so was the girl with blue crystals in her eyes.

I was here for a reason, I had to remember that.

Suddenly the fire was snuffing out, slowly, the darkness surrounded me. No, no, no. I didn't like the dark, the shadows, I needed fire, more and more and more.

I touched the necklace again, my coven.

"You are here for a reason, remember." I told myself.

Darkness surrounded me for what felt like an eternity, fear, I was so afraid.

No, I wasn't. I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid. I repeated it over and over again. I'm not afraid.

"It's okay to be afraid sometimes."

I snapped my eyes open, I hadn't even noticed that I had closed them in the first place.

There was a woman in front of me, and a fire in the corner of this expanse of darkness that lightened it slightly enough for me to see.

Her dark brown eyes showed her deep knowledge of millions of lives, they seemed to see everything.

I swallowed around my dry mouth, "Who are you?" I asked.

The woman let out a melodic laugh, it rolled in her mouth before spilling in an ethereal chime, "You know who I am, my child. You called me." The woman couldn't be older than thirty, and yet her age didn't reflect how deep her knowledge ran through.

It took me by surprise that I knew the answer to her question. "Tayen." The sister of Taha Aki, the first witch. The one who possessed all the elements herself. She had split them into her four daughters—all of them not related by blood but taken under her protective wing—and the gene was passed down from them, randomly appearing in the girls of the tribe after that.

"Yes, yes I am." the woman caressed my cheek like a loving mother, "I'm here, my child, I'm answering your call."

I cleared my throat to dispel the fuzzy feeling in my head and heart that her touch had caused, "I'm here because we need to-"

"Beak an imprint bond, I know." She sighed sadly. "Few times this has happened before, and every time my heart breaks more." There was so much sadness showing on her features, "Do you know what our role is?"

Our. The witch's role.

"To protect our land." I replied.

"And?"

I felt a bit under pressure, so I looked away, "Help the pack?" I tried, posing it more as a question than an actual answer.

"The shifters have a wild spirit in their soul, the one of a warrior, and sometimes that makes them rash, quick to anger. Our role other than to our land, is to guide the pack. We exist with them as they do with us. If there is no harmony between the two, then it's our land and our tribe that suffer the consequences." She explained, "You failed to do that, you're not only there to calm their anger. The coven does not fall under the alpha's jurisdiction, you have the power to decide." Her tone turned gentle, motherly like, "Wolves are stubborn, headstrong, going against them even if for their own good can be hard, I can sympathize with that. I do understand the struggles of making your voice heard, but you did. You did when you chose to contact me to ask to break an imprint bond. It can be convenient to just listen to what someone else decides, but this is not your role as witches."

I looked at my hands in shame, "We failed with Jacob, we should've helped the pack to make him feel at home with us. This is our fault too." I admitted, "He feels like he got robbed of his life, of his freedom to love Bella. We should've made him see that there were good things in this too, not just show them to him."

"Yes, you should've done more, but Jacob is a hard case. I'm not sure you would've been much help anyways. And you did it in good faith, your hard feelings against him weren't for nothing."

For Maddison. I hadn't needed to say her name out loud, Tayen just knew from the way she smiled.

"What do we do now?" I asked, seeking her council.

"Are you sure that this is the right thing to do? Breaking an imprint bond can have repercussions."

"Yes. Even Jacob deserves more than to be chained to someone and resent them for the rest of his life." I replied, knowing with all my heart that Jacob was just too stubborn to ever let go of Bella, or maybe one day love Maddison—surely not in the way she deserves.

One, two, three seconds passed in silence before Tayen spoke, "You have my blessing for the unlinking spell." She said, "But you still need the blessing of the ancestor of the wolves."

"How do I get that?" I asked.

"You'll know if they will give it to me, I'll make sure to relay your words, do not fret. When you'll wake up you'll know. The bond will be broken or not."

"Thank you," I bowed my head in reverence.

"Remember something, my fire witch. Tell your sisters as well. Stop trying to use your power, be it. You are magic, not a tool to wield it."

Fire crackled loudly, heating and lighting the space. Her words were the last thing that I heard, her eyes that last thing that I saw before I was gasping awake.  

✎

˗ˏˋ 𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞 ˊˎ˗

Hello everyone!

This is my favorite chapter ever. Yes, the prologue is in this chapter! There are so many details, and the beginning just broke my heart for little Beatrice. Poor girl. Derealization and dissociation from my feelings it's something very close to me since it is my chopping mechanism as well. It can be so hard to live with it, and there is so much stigma and not many people know what it is. If you went through this you know how bad it can feel like. 

Paul please don't be angry with her. (He is, little spoiler)

I can't wait for you all to read something about a certain witch-wolf couple that is coming soon!

Thank you for reading this chapter, I'll see you on Thursday!

˚ · ° . 𝐔𝐩𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐞 . ° · ˚

𝐓𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 

𝐓𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲

 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐲 𝐬𝐚𝐟𝐞 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞!

– 𝐋𝐨𝐥𝐚 ☾