Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Dafni
My eyelids wouldn’t cooperate. I told them to open, and they flat-out refused.
Though I felt weak, it was disorienting with my eyes closed—not knowing if it was day or night, not knowing who spoon-fed me broth and gently wiped the drips that fell down my chin with a cloth napkin.
I could’ve been on a boat in the middle of the sea or deep underground.
But I knew I wasn’t. I could hear birds chirping through the open window, letting in a warm breeze that tickled my nose.
Day.
I didn’t have enough strength to scratch it with my fingers, so the itch festered.
The crickets were loud, playing in their own orchestra with their back legs.
Night.
There was a constant buzzing noise in my head, faint but still loud enough that I knew I’d overdone it. I was lying in this state because I’d used too much of my magic.
I let myself relax a bit and my body replenish. No one was hurting me—in fact, they seemed to be taking care of me. I was somewhere quiet, maybe even pleasant. Somewhere that felt comforting, like my grandmother’s cottage, once again hidden from the real world.
After the first few cycles of bird calls, followed by the chirping of crickets, my limbs stopped aching and my head cleared.
My thoughts were no longer slow, like they were trudging through thick fog.
They were quicker, my hearing clearer. I could understand what was going on around me.
The scrape of a chair, the clink of silverware being set on a table.
Quiet conversations and the occasional outburst of laughter. The stir of a wooden spoon in a pot.
Grandmother. A single tear fell out of the corner of my eye, making its way down my cheek and neck. I felt it pool along my collarbone.
“She still hasn’t woken up,” a male voice said—the first voice I’d heard clearly in days.
My mind snapped to attention.
“She’s awake. She just isn’t ready to open her eyes yet.” This voice was female. Warm.
“Do you think she can hear us?” The third voice sounded honeyed. A young girl, perhaps.
“You know, I bet she can.” The warm woman’s voice drifted closer. A cool washcloth met my forehead, cooling my body. It was hot in here. I suddenly realized I didn’t have any sheets draped over me, just the light draping of a nightgown perhaps.
Warm air brushed my ear. “You can open your eyes, you know. You’re safe here,” the young, honeyed voice whispered. She breathed softly again into my ear before she pulled away. The breeze her body made as she retreated sent goose bumps along the side of my arm.
I tried. I really tried to open them for her.
“Give her more time, Emily. She’ll come back to us soon.” A hand brushed my cheek before I heard the shuffling of feet and the door closing.
I was alone. Safe.
Still, my eyelids wouldn’t open. I needed more time.
“So fierce even without your poison—no one could ever tell that you didn’t have it.
But we all know that you lack it, don’t we, Dafni?
Lack what makes a witch a witch.” My mother opened her mouth.
Green liquid dripped from her gums and down her white teeth.
“You may as well stay with the dogs; you no longer have a place among the Coven.”
She threw her head back, cackling into the void. Every vibration of her laugh sent tremors through my body, making me shake uncontrollably.
I came to, gasping for air, my hands supporting my body behind me as I sat up in bed.
A bad dream. It was just a bad dream. The sun was shining through the shades of a small window high near the bed.
The pale yellow shades billowed in the breeze.
As the curtains blew into the room, I caught a glance of the window that was propped open by a piece of wood. The glass was hazy, covered with grime.
Slowly, I took in my surroundings for the first time.
It was a simple room. I was in a single bed with a pillow behind me and a quilt now covering me.
The quilt was off-white, clean, but obviously aged.
The walls were also a stark white with a few oily handprints and black scuffs.
A wooden chair covered with scratches sat in the corner, and a bucket with a dry cloth draped over the side sat on the seat.
A simple table sat next to my bed with an illuminated lamp on—just like the one back in our cottage.
There was still buzzing in my head. I reached over and pulled the chain that turned the lamp off.
With a click, the room darkened slightly, still lit by the sun streaming through the curtained window.
The buzzing sound continued in my ears. It was probably my body telling me I wasn’t at full strength yet.
Warning me to take the time to rebuild, regroup, and strengthen myself.
I couldn’t take on the Coven, let alone a single witch, if I hadn’t fully recovered. I needed more time.
The door handle jiggled, turning back and forth.
A few muffled curse words met my ears before a man fell through the door, his eyes on the handle that had just wronged him.
He twisted the knob back and forth with his wrist, testing the latch.
Blond hair fell into his eyes as he leaned over.
He shook his head, rearranging his hair away from his eyes.
With a swift twist of the wrist, he let the door handle go, sighing deeply.
My mind froze, though my arms moved, pulling the quilt on the bed tighter against my waist, as if it would afford me some sort of protection.
Without looking my way, he walked over to the chair, took the cloth that was draped over the side of the bucket, and dipped it in.
He looked so large standing there, his back to me.
He wore a cream-colored shirt that almost matched the quilt covering my legs.
Sweat had soaked through the fabric covering his lower back, creating a line of circles along his spine.
Tan baggy pants with lots of pockets covered his lower half, the right side sagging a bit with the weight of a large ring of keys clipped to his belt.
That’s the man who found me—the one I pushed away with my magic, I realized.
I figured I should lie back down, pretending once again I was unconscious, void of the world. Instead I sat there watching him.
Water dripped from the cloth into the bucket as he squeezed it, taking his time folding it before turning around.
“Ah!” he yelled, dropping the washcloth. It landed on the floor with a splat.
I screamed. The sound leaving my throat before I could stop it. He stood there. I sat there. Our eyes locked, terror on both of our faces.
“What in the world…” A woman ran through the doorway, looking back and forth between the man and me. She wore an apron, the same discolored white as the quilt. Her hair, a light-red color, was tied up in a bun on top of her head, tendrils of hair that had escaped, framing her face.
“Luke, get out of here.” Her voice was authoritative.
Luke, the young man with the washcloth, the one who’d found me in the woods, picked up the cloth from the floor and set it over the side of the bucket and walked out of the room, glancing back at me before turning the corner out of sight.
“You’re safe,” the woman said. “No one’s going to hurt you here, especially not my son.
” She walked over to the chair and bucket, taking the discarded washcloth in her hands.
“I promise you he’s a kind man.” After re-dipping it into the water, she squeezed out the excess liquid and walked over to the bed. “Lie back.”
I lay down without a fight—I knew not to mess with a maternal woman. My grandmother had been the same way.
With the back of my head framed by the overly stuffed pillow, she pressed the cool washcloth against my forehead. My eyes reluctantly closed. The cool cloth felt amazing against my skin, which was covered in a thin layer of sweat. I might have moaned a bit.
“It’s about time you opened your eyes,” she said. “Your body’s been ready for a while, but your mind just hasn’t.”
I opened my mouth to speak. A few incoherent sounds emerged. She put her index finger under my chin, closing my mouth. “Shush, now. You need your strength. We’ll talk when you’re ready.”
“Can I come in?” That small, honeyed voice came through the doorway.
I turned to see a young girl, standing in the doorway with a steaming bowl in her hands.
“Come in, set it here.” The woman motioned to the side table alongside the bed.
The girl set the bowl next to the lamp. She backed away several steps, her hands toying with the apron she was wearing over her cream dress.
The girl had the same blonde hair as the man who’d found me—who the woman had just called Luke.
They were probably siblings, although at least a decade apart in age.
“Now that you’re awake, what would you like to do first? Eat?” The woman motioned to the steaming bowl of broth. “Bathe?” She looked toward the bowl of water on the dresser. “We have a shower, but I don’t know if you feel strong enough to stand yet.”
I sat under the quilt, frozen at their questions.
They were asking me what I wanted to do?
I scrunched my nose. Having choices had never been an option for me.
I’d never gotten to decide anything—and now they were just going to let an inexperienced decider…
decide? What if I made the wrong choice, did something that made them unhappy?
I sat in the foreign feeling. What did I want to do? I couldn’t find the words.
Instead I reached over to the bowl of steaming broth and shakily brought it to my lap, careful not to spill a drop on the quilt.
I looked up at the woman and girl for approval.
The woman nodded, and instantly, my shoulders relaxed.
“We didn’t want to change you while you were…
sleeping.” She looked over my green plaid dress I still had on.
It looked wrinkled and stained. My skin suddenly felt dirty.
“Emily, will you fetch some clean clothes?” She looked up and down at my form beneath the quilt.
“A few items from your closet should work.”
Emily nodded and disappeared for a few moments before she returned with a set of folded clothes, the same off-white shade that everyone in the house seemed to wear.
The woman nodded at me again. “We’ll leave you to it,” she said before they both left, shutting the door behind them, the latch clicking closed.
I took a minute, my breathing going from rapid to measured. The broth was warm in my lap, and the steam brought the scent to my nose.
My eyes darted around the empty room. There was no one here to tell me to eat.
No one watching me to make sure I finished my food.
I raised the spoon to my lips. It was the same broth I’d remembered tasting before, when I’d been in a semiconscious state and the family had dribbled the broth down my throat.
My eyes closed involuntarily as I savored the rich soup.
It was thick—full of fat bubbles and minerals I could taste on my tongue.
I gulped down several more spoonfuls before I set the bowl back on the side table, only half empty.
Grandmother had always made me clean my plate, not wanting to be wasteful, and I hadn’t dared to question any of the food the shifters had provided me with.
This was the first time I’d chosen to be done simply because I felt full.
The green plaid dress suddenly felt repulsive to me, something I needed to remove so I could be clean, unburdened from what had followed me to this place.
I stood up on wobbly legs, letting the dress fall off my shoulders and down my slim frame to the floor.
I stepped out of the dress, my footsteps surer, sturdier.
I was naked, though suddenly stronger than I’d ever been.
Leaving the dress on the floor felt like I was leaving my old life behind.
I was free. Free of the life I’d been living for eighteen years.
In a new world where I wasn’t some innocent, sheltered child. I was a woman. Dafni Sarracenia.
I took the washcloth from the bucket of water—the clean water against my skin was soothing.
I pressed the cloth harder against my skin, trying to scrub away not only the dirt but the film of my mother’s wrath that never left my skin.
The water turned gray, a color fitting for the filth that was my mother.
With each pass of the cloth, I felt more alive. I could do this, be on my own, take over the Coven.