Severe Sacrifice

Chapter 7

James' POV

I could feel Mariana's soul reaching its invisible arms to me, offering a cold glass of its solemn drink; feelings of longing, guilt, and despair all mixed in one sad concoction.

We sat in front of the gas lit fire when an idea came to catch up on what happened.

"Hey, I'm really sorry about what happened.... but I think you're just another victim of the curse."

I remarked with a tense tune.

"Curse? What do you mean?" she replied, emotion and basic interest lacking in her voice.

For a moment, I had a slight difficulty in which words to spurt out.

"Can you tell me everything that you remember before... 'waking up'?"

Tracing back what happened before this incident could give us some clues, though I hope I can get her to talk to me, before anything else.

"Why do I need to tell you?"

Alright, I called it.

"Well, because I'm a victim of the curse, too. You have to help me out, please?" 

It was a genuine attempt to convince her with nothing but the truth. 

"The truth is... I know nothing." she replied.

I could not prevent my face to display a stupefied expression. Her face was stuck in the air, early sunlight reflecting on her glossy beige skin. Her hair dangled behind her, falling down to her white night dress, which had numerous streaks of blood on it.

"Care to tell me about all that blood?" 

"Even if I wanted to tell you, I really don't remember a thing." 

Earlier, after asking about my identity, she gazed at nothing but only the sight of the bright, blue sky through the window, all throughout our conversation. Her head became immovable, and so were her eyes and the rest of her body. 

The bitter reality of how intense grief can paralyze someone and leave unrecoverable voids inside our beings unfolded before me. I felt indifferent about her vain replies, though I had a sense of understanding about her current situation.

Not wanting to dwell on mourning for much longer, I stood up without a word. The room was still somewhat dark, yet it was now much brighter than my earlier visits, considering that it was daytime. I approached the bookshelves that squeezed themselves between each other, occupying the latter walls of the room. It was a demonstration of a large collection; books of all colors, thick and thin, clean and dirty were stacked beside one another. Many of them had their spines pressed against the shelves' frail wood, revealing the owner's rather messy demeanor.

I strode like a teacher supervising an examination as I scanned the contents of each bookshelf. A vast number of subjects were kept in such a small space. There were scriptures about philosophy, fine arts, chemistry, mathematics, and religion among many others. The scene could be described as heaven for a knowledge seeker. 

Amidst the chaos contained within the compartments, one particular book stood out to the rickety light of the flames behind me. 

It was a botany book.

I pulled it out with a slight struggle, as it was sandwiched between a substantial dictionary and the fragile bookshelf wall. It was, perhaps, one of the oldest books among the collection. It was naked, lacking protection of a tough cover. A mere piece of string held its pages together as bits of the book could almost fall apart at will.