Half of What I Could Be

Chapter 27

Chapter 27 Katelyn

She never had much company. That being said, she would get some random customers every once in a while. The last customer that she could remember, which she could barely do, was a woman trying to find a way to bring her husband back from the dead. Stupid girl, she would think, as necromancy was nothing a witch could do.

She lived in a small hobble-like house. It had two bedrooms, but the second one was barely classified as an office. She used that room to think, but then again she could barely do that. Thinking was a tricky thing if you thought about it. Neurons connect to neurons, as scientists say. But she didn't think she had any left. She was around 400 years old, or so she thought. She could be only 18, but she paid no attention to the time around her. Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok were all things that her era never knew. Or did it? She never knew. She remembered her birthday, or that of her sisters. She just remembered the date of October 20, 1713. She remembered her sister and her family. It was the only thing after drinking Demon Blood that she remembers.

Her mom was a tall woman for the time. She must have been 8 feet. No, that was not right. Okay, maybe she was 5 foot something. She had brown hair with golden wisps that would perfectly reflect the light into her iris. That she was sure. Her sister got that, the hair. She got her fathers hair: think dark black. She used to say she was a raven, flying in the sky watching over those she loved. Sadly, she never did. Her sister was gone, her family was far from dead, and she was alone.

Demon blood was her only way of staying alive, but she felt more dead now then the shallow graves of the rabbits she killed. Her memory was all but gone. She couldn't figure out if that was a good thing or not. The one thing she did know was that she was content. She was content with her flowers, with her music, and with her quietness. That was until she heard screaming.

She heard screaming a lot, don't get her wrong. Sometimes it was loud and deep, screaming for someone to help them. Sometimes it was whispery and shallow, like an old woman on her deathbed struggling to pass her voice around the mucus clogging her lungs. Either didn't phase her as much anymore. This scream was different. This scream was directed towards her. Toward Katelyn.

Katelyn was drinking her tea, or maybe it was water. She could never tell the difference. She could always tell when a scream would start. The walls would start weeping. It was their cries she didn't like. She swore the walls would frown at her, but she knew that was just imagination. Her whole life was imagination now.

The voice then intruded her ears. She knew right away it was a girl, but she wasn't the one screaming. She was close, she knew that much. It was a man who was screaming. Katelyn didn't know if he was screaming for himself or the girl. He was sad. He was scared. She could tell that.

"Mae, run!" she heard that much clearly. Everything else was jumbled. Everything else was a mix of need, lust, and a total annihilation of fear. He wasn't scared of his death, but the death was going to take the woman away. Or maybe it was a girl.

She placed her hands on the counter, mixed in with the stalks of lavender and dill. She swore there was a rabbit's heart somewhere mixed in as well. She grasped the wood, not because she was losing her balance, but because it helped her focus on the voice.

She squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt to put a face to the voice, but she could never do that. Yet, she also never tried. Who would want to see the face of a person screaming for their life? It wasn't because she was scared of blood or possible injuries that would lead someone to the door of the grim reaper. It was because she didn't like seeing the eyes bright one second, then dim and idle the next. It felt as if someone composed a whole symphony. It was beautiful, long, and depicted the highs and lows of one's life. Then death grabbed the composition and threw it into the fire, leaving it lost from the world forever. Only some could remember parts of the composition, but never the whole thing. She hated seeing the composition thrown in the fire.

She couldn't see anything, but could sense more about the situation. She could tell it was in the woods. Her woods. She could discern that there were three souls. Two that belonged on this earth, and one that was derived from somewhere else. Somewhere dark, scorching, and sinister. This soul was jumbled up, and messy. It felt as if thousands of people were talking at once. Or like someone took the color spectrum and viciously threw them all on one canvas.

It was a beast... but so was she.

She felt his pain the most. It was pure, emotional torment. She could feel his heart screaming. It was an emotional pain for the other earth soul. She has felt this emotional turmoil before, it just was not as strong. It was from that woman who tried to raise her husband from the dead. It was her mate.

She was around 86% sure that his pain was toward his mate. This was the most sure she has been of something in a long time. They needed help. That she was also sure.

She quickly scrambled her hands across the counter top. Her hands became entwined with the lavender and sheaths of lemon grass. Goddess Tyche must have a liking of her today, because luck and chance had never been on her side. Her hand grasped a slimy slightly squishy item. The slime was from blood... It was the rabbit's heart.

The heart was a necessary ingredient in any portal spell. She placed the small heart in front of her, reached for her 100 year old gavel, and smashed it.

Bang, smash, wack!

She smashed the heart into a pile of arteries, blood, and myocardium. The red pigment was still heavy. She could use it to paint. Maybe she would paint a heart with a heart, she would think. Then she laughed.

"Okay, okay okay, charms charms charms," she would chant to herself as she ran half way across her kitchen to her shelves of herbs and charms. She never knew exactly what charm she needed, but it always worked out. Even if her consciousness didn't work, her subconscious did.

She grabbed a small quartz like statue of a god with a winged hat. She thought his name was Hermès. Or it could be Harold. Jeff? She had a Minotaur named Jeff. He died.

She quickly placed the charm in the pile of death and rolled it around. Harold or Jeff the God really likes death. Within seconds a golden light appeared in front of her. It was shimmery like water dropped on a mirror.

Without a second thought, which she also never had, she stepped in to help the screaming boy and his mate.