Witch (11 page)

Sam

The pain was overwhelming. Nothing soothed it. He threw up
when he tried to eat and passed out from the pain when he tried walking around.

He felt mortal for the first time.

His shallow breaths worried him and by the look of it
Aimee too.

“So when did you sell your dad’s house?” He asked hoping
for something beyond Hanna filling his mind.

She shook her head, “I listed it last summer. It sold a
month ago. We just closed it.”

“Have you seen the people who bought it?”

A subtle smile crept across her lips, “Maybe.”

“You’ve spied on them?”

She laughed, “It wasn’t spying. It was checking to make
sure they would really love my house. My mother was all over that house. The
curtains. The paint. The carpet. All her.”
 

“Aimes you have to stop living in the past.”

“My sister is taken, my mother is dead and my father is
living with his mother in France. Easier said than done. You don’t even know
what you’re talking about.”

He looked at her fighting the anger in his words, “My
father was one of the fallen. He fell with Lorri. His name was Anthony. He met
my mother and they fell in love. He joined ranks with Jonathan because he
apparently chose my mother over God. Lorri murdered him when my mom was
pregnant with me. She gave birth to me in Greece with the other Sirens. They
shunned us when they saw what I was. We moved to Canada to live amongst the
Wiccan's on an island in British Columbia. When I was nine my father’s friend
Jonathan took my mother as his slave. She has lived in captivity for twenty
years. I thought she had been taken by the government and let myself get
abducted by them. I lived in captivity until you freed me.”

Aimee looked confused, “You always said they were alive.
How do you even kill a fallen? I'm sorry I said that Sam. I didn’t know.”

He sighed, “No one does. I want to believe my parents
loved each but the more time I spend with everyone, the more I think they just
fell into the attraction. He was an angel and she was a Siren. Worst mix ever.
How would you ever trust your love in that situation?”

Aimee blushed, "That's what I always thought about
Aleks. I always thought the love wasn’t real. It was part of whatever we all
are. Is your mother still alive?”

Sam shook his head, “I don’t know. Jonathan is a bad man.
He has kept one Siren for a very long time. He had Daniel turn her apparently.
If my mother, your sister, and Ophelia’s sister are all alive, it’ll be one
huge miracle.”

Aimee flinched, “Alise is alive. I know it.”

Sam felt his eyes grow heavy, “That’s good.” He didn’t
have the same feeling about his mother. He imagined that after twenty years of
horror he wouldn't know her even if he did see her.

xxxx

He woke feeling the cloud of desperation and pain lifted.
He stretched his arms freely. His heart didn’t burn. He felt something he had
never felt before, freedom.

He loved Hanna from the moment he saw her. He knew his
future. His feelings for her had always been in the background. The freedom
came at a price and he could feel the price tag attaching itself to him. He
felt empty. There was no love. There was no possibility of love. Nothing
inspired him. He was calm and even inside.

He took a moment to adjust to the feeling of it. It didn’t
hurt but it lacked joy and possibilities.

Aimee was passed out next to him. He stroked her arm. He
wished he could love her. She was perfect. He saw it clearly for the first time
as the haze Hanna had created lifted from him.

Her face was pretty but her heart was beautiful. He had no
idea the capacity for love she had. She lived surrounded by constant guilt and
pain. She would never find happiness and joy as long as the ones she loved
lived in pain.

She woke with a smirk, “Are you touching me in my sleep
because that’s a little creepy.”

He laughed. His laugh felt hollow. “No. I was admiring
you. I wish I could be like you.”

She laughed, “You wish to be bogged down with too many
people’s happiness attached to your choices and to be heartbroken over a guy
you didn’t choose. Yes my life is admirable, there is no doubt.”

Sam laughed at her, “I like it when you pity yourself. No
I was thinking about how many people you love. It’s astounding. You love Shane,
Aleks, your father and sister, Giselle, Lydia, Ari, Lucas and Ben, me and I
dare say you love Lorri even if she is shitty to be around.”

She smiled, “You forgot someone.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Annabelle. I love Annabelle. Sometimes I go there just
for the baths. She gives these baths where she sings old weird Cajun songs and
washes your back. It’s good. And I love Blake.”

Sam winced, “He’s done so many terrible things Aimes.”

She shook her head, “I know but in my heart I know it’s
not him. He didn’t do it because he wanted to. They’ve done something to him.”

“You’re setting yourself up for some serious
disappointment my friend. When we finally find our way into their lab and we
see he is there for his own selfish reasons you’re going to be hurt. Prepare
yourself for the worst.”

She shook her head, “I can’t. I just can’t. Not with him.”

Giselle poked her face in the room, “Guys Hanna won’t
leave the castle. Sam you have to talk to her.”

Sam nodded and got up from the bed. He walked toward
Giselle who was grinning at him, “You two got a thing going on?”

He frowned, “No.”

She shrugged, “She’ll tell me.” She walked into the room
past him.

His feet padded along the cold floor.

He had hated the castle.

He had hated his memories.

He had hated Hanna.

Suddenly it was gone. The hate was deflated and pathetic.

He couldn’t bring himself to get past her betrayal. His
emotions attached to it felt weak. Not poignant and deep as it should be. It
was shallow and barely there. He felt hollow.

He walked to the room he knew she would sleep in. The room
she had been held captive in. She would torture herself by sleeping there.

The candles had snuffed recently, leaving a smell of smoke
in the air. She lay on the bed in her clothes. Her red hair was splayed out
around her. His stomach didn’t ache and long the way it had before. Her ruddy
skin didn’t move his fingers to touch her.

He barely registered her smell in the air.

“Hanna.” His voice was flat.

She turned over revealing her red and puffy face, “Sam.”

She reached for him but he stepped back and walked to the
armchair beside the bed.

Tears started to flow from her eyes, “Sam I’m sorry. I
need you to hear that. I love you. I love you so much.”

He nodded, “I know you are. Hanna I can’t forgive you.”

“I know that. I see the blank stare in your face. You
don’t see me anymore. I don’t know how to fix it.”

He grinned wishing he could enjoy her pain, “You can’t.
I’ve broken the match. You’re free to live in Greece and torture men to your
heart’s content.”

She shook her head, “I don’t want that. I want you.”

His smile felt stuck on his face, “You had me Hanna.” He
laughed bitterly, “Correction you never had me. You wanted space after Aleks
and Marcus died. You wanted to figure things out. You wanted to catch up with
your emotions.”

“I just wanted to start over.”

He shook his head, “There is no starting over. I’ve broken
the match.”

“Sam why would you go to such extremes?”

“Hanna you told me that you wished you never loved me.
What did you think I would do?”

Her eyes grew cold, “Understand that I was drunk and
confused. I just said those things. I never meant them.”

He nodded, “Okay, well great you never meant them. That
doesn’t change what is done. You have a lot of growing up to do Hanna. You will
get past me just like I’ve gotten past you.”

He stood and walked from the room.

She called out to him, “Don’t do this Sam.”

He muttered, “It’s done.”

He flashed to Lydia’s house. He opened the fridge and
pulled out the chocolate almond milk that he loved. He drank from the carton.

“Sam you knows I hates that.”

He glanced at Annabelle and pulled the carton from his
lips, “Sorry Annabelle. I’ll finish it.”

She pointed to the table, “You wants some breakfast?”

He looked over and nodded at the plates of pancakes and
bacon and eggs and sausage.

“No home fries?”

She pulled them from the oven, as he spoke, “Don’t be
getting picky on me Sam. Yous lucky you getting breakfast after what you done
to Miss Hanna. You conned that girl into doing that spell. You thinks I don’t
know yous took my plate. Yous lucky she never died.”

He frowned, “From scrying?”

She put the plate down on the table and snapped at him,
“Sam that be my plate. It be tied to me. My power be in there. You put her
power in there. Now it be her plate. Her magic is stronger. You ruined my
plate. And yes she coulda gone and died on all y’all. Witches scry after years
of training.”

He blushed, “Sorry Annabelle.”

“What’s done is done is all. Eats the breakfast Sam before
I gets mad. You shouldn’t have took my plate and you shouldn’t have took her to
Giselle's.”

He noticed things on the back counter floating. Annabelle
angry meant the house would get trashed, which made Annabelle angrier. It was a
lose lose situation. Annabelle disappeared into the wall.

He sat at the table as Sarah materialized. He smirked at
her, “Hiding?”

She nodded, “They have all been feisty since yesterday.
You guys did a bad thing Sam. They said it’s a bad spell to do. You could die
from it.”

He frowned, “What?”

She nodded, “Lydia said she did it once before. The woman
hung herself. The sadness of not feeling anything, it gets to you.”

He ruffled her hair, “Don’t worry about it Sarah.” He
didn’t feel anything. Even the sentence she spoke didn’t worry him.

“It’s not possible to feel sadness if you can’t feel
anything.”

Sarah’s little face didn’t look convinced. She ate a piece
of bacon and shook her head, “It was a bad thing Sam.”

He pointed, "You shouldn’t be eating that bacon. Your
mom would be very angry."

She smiled, "I'm not a vegan here. I'm a flexitarian.
I eat what I'm served."

He piled food on his plate and shook his head.

The other kids started to pile into the kitchen where the
table expanded as always. The small kitchen always accommodated everyone.

Danny raised an eyebrow, “No more you and Hanna?”

"Not so much."

Danny shrugged, "I like Hanna. She makes me feel
happy when I look at her."

Sam coughed and changed the subject, "You guys all
been in contact with your families lately?”

They nodded. Sarah smiled a toothy smile at him. Her teeth
had grown in too big for her small face, “Aunty Beth said to tell you she
expects a visit sooner than later. She said she wants to talk to you about
something.”

He shrugged, “Okay. Maybe I’ll see if we can both go.”

Sarah shook her head, “I don’t wanna go. I started a fire
yesterday when I was mad at Danny.”

Danny’s chubby face turned red, “She burned my World of
Warcraft poster for the Mists of Pandaria.”

Sarah looked down at her plate, “It was an accident. I
said sorry Danny.”

Danny glared at her, “And yet your apology didn’t bring it
back.”

Sam frowned, “Be nice both of you. It was an accident.
Sometimes we can’t help what our powers make us do.”

“Is that what you told Hanna when you apologized?”

He turned to see Lydia standing in the kitchen with her
arms folded across her chest and a truly pissy expression plastered across her
face.

“No. I never apologized. I’m not sorry.”

Lydia shook her head, “You will be Sam. Even I can’t save
you from what you’ve done. There was a reason I told you no witch would ever do
that spell for you.” Her eyes burned, “We all know the cost of it.”

She turned and walked away.

He looked at the frightened looks of the kids at the
table. Even Dawn looked upset. He picked up his fork and started to eat.

After breakfast he walked into the sitting room where
Lorri and Lydia had their heads pressed together.

“Can I help?”

Lorri glared at him, “You’ve done enough kid.”

He sat beside Lydia, “Look I don’t regret it. It was the
right choice. I’ve freed her.”

Lydia sputtered something in hysteria and left the room.

He looked at Lorri who cracked her bitter grin, “You
fucking idiot.”

“What? It was my choice.”

She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, “Sam you
have no choices. None. You are a slave to this fate just as we all are. When I
fell I was terrified. I am not exactly a people person.”

Sam snickered, “No kidding.”

She glared, “No. None. Anyway, when God asked me to fall I
had to trust he was making the right choice. I had to assume he knew best. If I
had defied him where would humanity be right now?”

Sam went to speak but she slapped him, “It was rhetorical
dipshit. Humanity would be fucked. They would be up hellfire shit creek with no
paddle and a vampire dry humping them in the boat. The point I’m making is
Lydia told you ‘no’ because she knew what was best. You should have trusted
her. Instead you defied her and have left us a giant goddamned pile of bullshit
to clean up.”

He shook his head, “How? I don’t want to love a girl. Big
deal. It’s my business. It’s my choice. I still have freewill.”

Lorri growled, “You don’t deserve freewill. You destroyed Hanna’s.
You took away her choice to love you. You moron. Her mother matched once a long
time ago. She hated her match. She made a mistake and asked Lydia to do the
spell. Lydia did it not knowing what would come of it. Hanna’s mom committed
suicide. She was tired of feeling nothing. It was a dark magic spell. Darkness
is what killed Lydia's baby. You brought dark magic into Ophelia. Our fucking
savior.”