Chapter 3 - Cape of Storms

The next day I woke up early in the morning, but my mother was gone, I only found another note saying that she had gone to the outskirts of the city to see the house she had found for us. She was probably going to buy it right away and enroll me in some school, because my papers were gone.

I sighed heavily because I didn't feel like going to high school here. While we were still in California, Johnathan got me a place in a high school he went to himself. I was glad that I would join him after the holidays, but unfortunately, fate had other plans for me and I landed in Rome, Italy.

I wasn't feeling very well that day, so I stayed at the hotel. I spent most of the day lying on the bed, staring at the TV and watching some shows or parts of soap opera's. Then I started flipping through channels mindlessly, not even looking at what was being broadcast. Finally, I turned off the TV and tossed the remote on my mother's bed.

As I lied down there, staring at the white ceiling, thousands of thoughts flashed through my head: first about my dad who died at the hand of a demon when I was six; then a sister 50 years older, whom I did not even meet, because a few years before my birth she ran away with the demon she fell in love with, which made her banned not only from the family but also the whole community in general; then I started to think of Johnathan - my beloved Johnathan. I remembered his gentle kisses, his touch on my skin... I plunged into dreams and almost felt him lying down next to me, but I knew it was only an illusion. Opening my eyes and seeing the same hotel room around me as before, I groaned in pain as my heart seemed to be pierced one more time by some poisoned dagger, and my eyes lit up with tears again. The pain in my heart was so excruciating that I curled up on the bed, naively hoping it would help.

I really hated my mother for what she did to me. Everything that happened to me then was her fault, her and that eternal paranoia she was getting carried away by. And I felt as if a knife had been stabbed right into my heart. It was my mother who stabbed it into me, and thought that she was doing the right thing. It was so easy for her.

"You will forget about him as soon as you meet someone else... You are still very young and exaggerate everything, including such infatuations. It is no great love."- I remembered the words my mother said the day we left California. She kept telling me that I exaggerate everything like a typical teenager, adding that understood it because she was also like me once - young and silly.

But she didn't understand that I was really suffering. When you feel such pain, you know it is real, and at first the only thing I wanted was death. I thought to myself that if I die, this pain will go away, but suddenly a thought popped into my head - what if even on the other side I would feel it? After all, this was where the vengeful spirits came from - their tremendous suffering or sense of injustice kept them on Earth, and they felt these emotions even more than in life, seeking revenge. Of course, this was the case with human souls, but I didn't know if the sorceress's soul behaved the same, but I couldn't fully rule it out either. This uncertainty kept me from taking my own life, and it wouldn't be that easy anyway. In order for a witch to take her own life, she would have to use a spell that belonged to black magic, and just looking for it could be a lot of trouble if someone found out about my plans. As a last resort, I could expose myself to any better demon, and then he would gladly help me out. However, mostly weak demons roamed the Earth, the ones that could only threaten people, but fled when they saw the sorceress. So I would have to look for a powerful demon or try to summon one, but for that I would need a black magic spell again.

Ultimately, however, I made a decision that I would stay here and will stand it all. I had to be strong and couldn't do it to my mother, after all, she already lost one daughter. Despite all my mom had done, she didn't deserve to lose another child. Besides, I didn't want to be like her - I wasn't going to make anyone suffer the kind of suffering that I experienced.

~~~~~~~~~

At about 8 o'clock in the evening my mother returned to the hotel. I still lied down on the bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to her chatter about our new house and the local high school she enrolled me in to. I didn't want to hear it, so I put the pillow over my face.

- Christina, give it up now...- my mother began in a soft voice, coming to my bed and sitting on the edge of it.- In this school you will definitely find other friends...- she said, slightly putting her arm around and wanting to hug me.

- Stop it! Let go of me! I don't want you to touch me!- I shouted, breaking free from her embrace.- I won't have any friends! I don't want to! Why should I have them? To suffer again later when we will have to leave?- I asked, looking at her bitterly.

My mother said nothing, though I noticed a scowl of pain flickering across her face. She stepped away from me and went back to packing our things. I turned to the other side so as not to look at her and pressed my face against the pillow to muffle the sobs that escaped from my chest. I was heartily fed up with tears, but there was no way I could stop it, at that moment this was just like an involuntary reflex.

After a fairly short time, the pillow got wet from my tears. I heard my mother taking a shower before going to bed and she didn't say a word to me for the rest of the day. Then I heard my mother go to bed and turn on the TV, watching some dumb soap opera and after an hour she turned off the TV and fell asleep.

Unfortunately, I was not able to fall asleep, because various feelings swirled inside me. I hated my mother, but at the same time felt bad after our argument, which left me torn. I had no idea what to do with these two such extremely different feelings, how to arrange them sensibly? I thought about it for at least an hour, staring up at the dark ceiling, where only the lights of the cars passing by the hotel moved from time to time. In the end, I didn't think of anything, only my head ached and it was so bad that tears almost pressed into my eyes again, so I dragged myself silently from the bed, sat on it and reached for my bag, taking out a packet of pain pills from it. I got up and went to the dresser where the maids placed two bottles of water every day - one sparkling, the other non-sparkling. I took this still water and washed the pill down with it, then I went back to bed, hoping the headache would end soon because I felt really tired.

Around 2 a.m., as the clock on the wall showed, my headache had completely subsided, and at last I was overtook by a blessed sleep.