In that moment I realized that she wasn’t jealous because of Paul, but because of my very existence.
I replied with a groan. “It’s not my fault if people usually hate you, since you always want to go over everyone’s head for your own personal profit. You proved me right, especially in the last few weeks.”
Clara gently smiled at me. “If Hecate let you levitate during the ceremony, it means that you really have a pure heart. I have always believed in you, Zelda.”
“There, you see?...” Sheila angrily pointed at Clara. “There’s always someone defending and celebrating you. I can’t stand it anymore!”
The old lady gazed at her with a blank face. “Sheila, tomorrow you’ll be excommunicated. You will not be part of the Cabal anymore.”
She closed her fists and the woman continued “I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt. I have always seen an evil shadow in your eyes. Zelda’s eyes, on the other hand, are clear and I will appoint her as the head of our clan.”
“But Zelda is a disgusting mortal’s daughter! I am a pureblood witch.” She said.
Clara gazed at me with love. “It’s precisely because of it. Her best side is her human side. But you will never be able to understand, Sheila. You crave for power and you have no mercy.”
I couldn’t fathom it: I will become the head of the Cabal? I wasn’t able to be a leader, I would blush and stutter even during oral tests in school. I was clumsy, messy and I always got in trouble.
How could I lead an army made of witches and wizards?
I noticed Sheila’s gaze: she was enraged, pure hatred was pouring out of her. Her grudge exploded, after being fed for years.
It all happened in a moment.
I lurched toward Sheila as soon as I noticed that she was fiddling with her hands behind her back.
The knife sank to the hilt in Clara’s chest. Sheila backed away, taking out the bloody blade and leaning against the wall.
The woman tried to close the wound, but the blood started gushing out profusely. She fell to the ground, in fetal position, with a gurgle and her eyes became vacant and liquid.
I sighed with anguish and I felt my heart breaking to pieces. Clara was like a second mother for me, she had always loved me. Every time I paid her a visit she always had caramel cookies, my favorites, waiting for me.
“Murderer!” I shouted.
“This is still nothing.” She replied.
She got near Clara’s body and put her hands around Clara’s head. The energy was flowing out of the old guru’s body into Sheila’s, through her arms. When the light dimmed, the dead woman’s skin became grey and wrinkled.
I was speechless. “Black magic.” I mumbled in shock. “We are not allowed to use it. In the end it always backlashes on the user.”
“I don’t care” said Sheila sniggering.
“How did you acquire this power?”
She pointed at the encrusted display cabinet that was in a recess in the basement: the glass was shattered and the curtain that used to protect it was torn. “From Clara’s forbidden books, before she arrived and found me. I wanted to steal them for a long time, but I never had enough courage.”
She lifted one arm and made me fly against the wall. I felt intense pain on my shoulders and I remained there, sitting on the floor, pressed against the wall. I tried to stand up again, but a sharp pain stopped me and tore a grumble out of me.
She stole Clara’s power and sold herself to the darkness. I couldn’t think of something worse, but I was wrong.
Sheila bent down and grabbed my hand, crossing our thumbs. “Now I’ll show you a nice game I recently learnt.” She sniggered sadistically.
My temples were burning and everything faded to darkness.
When I opened my eyes again, I felt different. I was wearing leather pants and my hair was black, straight and with a purple lock.
“Enough with this pranks, I want my body back, right now. You’re a psychopath!” I shouted. I tried to stand up again, but it felt like an invisible force was pinning me to the floor.
“What have you done to me?” I asked, furious.
“I blocked your powers. You know that I can’t take them from you until you die. Unless you give them to me yourself.”
“No way.” I stuttered. I cleaned a drip of drool from my mouth.
She started laughing, now wearing my own body. She fixed her blond hair and bent down to reach my ear.
“Sorry Sheila, I’d like to remain here to chat, but my boyfriend is waiting for me.”
“No! Don’t you dare getting near Paul!” I shouted. I banged my head against the wall in frustration and lifted my bust, only a few inches. I touched my temple and my fingertips were covered in blood.
She immobilized me with just one gaze, using black magic.
“I really want to have fun with your body.” She whispered, lustful. “I’m sorry, you’ll have to stay here, at least one day or two. I absorbed some of your life force, so that you won’t be able to interrupt me while I’m having fun. It seems like I’m back to being a novice, a pure and uncorrupted girl...I’ll have to start over. Paul is hot, but there are other boys in Salem that are not bad.”
The only sound that came out of my mouth when I realized what she wanted to do with my body was a devastating wailing.
I tried to scream in panic, but my mouth was full of blood: “I swear, if you dare to...”
She hit me with a punch on the cheek and I lost consciousness.
***
When I woke up, it was already evening.
Luckily Sheila always had a watch on her wrist and I could check the date. I spent almost two days in that basement. I felt weak, hungry and in pain.
The wound on my head was almost healed and my hair was dirty with dried blood.
I wouldn’t have survived if I were not a witch. There was still Clara’s corpse in front of me, motionless and bony.
Suddenly I heard banging on the door.
I lifted my eyes and I saw some words written with magic floating in the air, they were made with a luminescent purple fluid.
“Welcome back, baby. My proposal is still valid. The enchantment will last a couple of days at most, I hope that this nice sleep will help you take a decision. See you at the lighthouse, you take your powers and I’ll take Paul (or what’s left of him).”
This was followed by a drooling emote, which made clear what was the meaning of that last phrase.
As soon as I finished reading, the writing dissolved in tiny sparkles. She was clever, she didn’t leave traces.
I opened the door and I was faced by my mother, Thelma Carpenter and the whole Cabal. After seeing Clara’s lifeless body in the center of the pentacle, they brutally got hold of me.
“It is true, then!” my mother shouted. “Zelda told me that you killed Clara. You murderer, now you’ll stop tormenting my child!”
“Mom, look at me! It’s me, Zelda!” I shouted. “Sheila switched our bodies with magic. We have to stop her!”
My mother’s slap hit me as fast as lightning. I was dumbfounded. She never hit me, she had never used violence on me.
“No one believes in your lies anymore, stop it!” Thelma twisted my arm, hurting me.
The other witches got closer. I received insults and offenses that no one said to me before.
“We need to put her under trial, we have to take her to the magic jury.” Thelma shook me violently. Then she looked in my eyes with disgust. “You are just scum. You’re not my daughter anymore, just a useless pile of shit.”
She spit in my face. My arms were pinned and, in humiliation, I let the spit drip down my cheek.
Two other witches pulled my hair, swearing at me. Now I knew how Sheila felt all those years, and why her heart had turned into stone.
They dragged me up the stairs. At that point I realized that I had to run away, no matter what, otherwise I would never be able to stop my enemy.
I tried to think as fast as I could: levitating w
as the kind of magic that I could do better, after the initiation.
As soon as we arrived in the front porch, under everyone’s bewildered eyes, I bent slightly, put all of my strength in my knees and jumped, bursting out over the crowd. On all four, I climbed on the roof of the Victorian house. My powers were returning.
“What’s happening? My daughter has never been able to levitate.” Whispered Thelma in surprise. None of the witches that were there could explain it, not even my mother.
With light and fast steps I started jumping from house to house, like a cat gone wild, until I left the neighborhood behind my back. I had to arrive to the beach soon.
I needed to take back what was mine.
Sheila had always wanted my life and, in the end, she took it.
******
The lighthouse kept illuminating the bay, the foamy waves looked like silver while shattering against the cove, I can see it from the window of the tower.
We gaze at each other, eyes in the eyes.
“Well, are you going to give me your powers or what?” Sheila asks again.
“First you let Paul go.” I say again, obstinately.
She throws a fire ball at me in reply, which I promptly destroy with just a wave of my hand when it gets near my face.
“I see that your magic is back.” She says. “Good. It will be more fun”
I send Sheila flying through the room. She doesn’t lose one moment and gets up with agility. She breaks a nightstand with a fist to vent her frustration. “I hate you!”
She attacks me and we roll on the floor, fighting. The knife slips from her hand and I lose sight of it.
She tries to hurt me in every way, with fists and kicks, but I give back every hit. Her anger is rising.
She climbs on top, pinning me under her legs.
“I’ll finally get rid of you.” She shouts fanatically, while smacking my head against the floor. “No one will ever tell me to be more like you, because I will be you!”
A hot stream flows from my left temple, enters my ear and I stop hearing. I almost lose consciousness. Everything is confused and in a haze.
In that moment, in between my moans, in pain, I catch a sight of the knife on the floor, a few inches away from my arm. I move my arm, searching for it without looking.
With a firm movement, I grab it and I stab myself in the stomach.
The pain is unbearable and, for a moment, I can only feel my body suffering. The blood starts gushing out.
Paul’s eyes are terrorized while he’s looking at us from the closet; Sheila, on the other hand, gazes at me in disbelief at first, then “Wonderful.” She says euphoric, sitting on the floor in front of me. “I could never guess that you would make things so easy for me.”
I lurch forward and grab her hand.
The energy starts flowing, enveloping us. She understands what I’m trying to achieve and tries to back away, but our hands are stuck.
The heat in my temples explodes, I shiver uncontrollably, everything fades to darkness for a moment.
I return in my body again, and it’s like being born a second time. I feel stronger, with more self-confidence.
Sheila is dizzy, she tries to back away and stop the blood flowing from her wound. “How did you do that?”
“Are you so arrogant that you used a spell that you didn’t know perfectly?” I ask, still panting because of the fight. “You should know that the shifting body enchantment can be reversed if the two people are in the same exact position.”
This time it’s my turn of being sarcastic. “You would have known too, if you paid attention during Clara’s lessons, instead of swooning over boys.”
“Shi...”she can’t talk anymore and collapses on the floor.
I rush to release Paul, I undo the ropes that are blocking his wrists and take off the gag.
He gazes at me, reassured. “Forgive me, I didn’t imagine that...”
“Don’t worry.” I whisper.
“She is insane and out of control.” He says shaking his head. “When she came to my house, a couple of days ago, I immediately realized that there was something wrong, because she tried to...” he sighs, guilty. “I backed down. She got mad and knocked me unconscious. I woke up here, gagged and tied down.”
I smile, reassured, at last. Nothing happened between them, in spite of what she tried to make me believe.
Sheila is lying on the floor, in a pool of blood.
I bend over her and hold her head in my hands. I feel a profound agony. “I never wanted for things to turn out like this.” These are the only words that I am able to pronounce.
She looks at me, with two eyes that don’t look like her own, full of bitterness. “It was destiny, we had to clash, sooner or later.” She takes a big breath, with difficulty. “When they will know it...”
“No one will ever know this story.” I stop her. “I promise.”
She strains to smile, a bitter smile. “You are really a bitch, because if you tell nothing to my mother, I can’t help but say thank....”
She can’t finish her phrase.
I can feel her expiring in my arms. She stays motionless, a cold body.
I try to cry, but no tear flows down my cheek. I lay her head on the ground and turn to Paul, getting up.
We gaze at each other in silence, none of us wants to talk.
“I think I owe you an explanation.” I start saying, stuttering.
“It’s not needed anymore.” He says in a low voice. “I understood. You are a witch. And your friend, too. And you fought for you powers.”
“And for you.” I lower my head.
Paul holds my head and kisses me. Then he holds me close. “I am happy that you are alive. Everything else doesn’t matter. We will talk about it, but not now. Right now, I just want to hold you.”
“Okay.” I say, my voice broken by tears. “My mother will be glad to meet the boy who made my magic bloom.” I conclude, with a sob.
I hold Paul close and, finally, I burst out crying.
My tears flow uncontrollably, like a river of liberation, I could go on for hours. I have held them for a long time, maybe too long.
I have the boy that I love, I have the power. I became head of the clan. But a groan of pain escapes my lips nevertheless. Because I will never forget the price that I had to pay.
My innocence.
THE END
Connie Furnari – Bibliography
http://www.amazon.it/s?_encoding=UTF8&field-author=Connie%20Furnari&search-alias=digital-text
Romance:
“Temptation”
“Kiss the Rain”
“Secret Heart”
“Only in my Dreams”
Paranormal Romance:
“Stryx”
“Angeli Ribelli”
“Moonlight”
“Zelda”
Fantasy:
“GoldenWorld” Trilogy
“Kingstar”
“Hamilthon”
“Lynterwood”
“Anderson Castle”
“Fiabe”
Sci-Fi:
“Star Kid”
“Infinity”
Poetry:
“Attimi d’Amore”
Zelda Page 3
