sleeping beauty [the originals]

xxvi.

Rebekah and Isla helped Hayley into her bed. Hayley seemed very agitated, tossing and turning as soon as her head hit the pillow. They had been informed that Sophie was stuck with a needle that would raise Hayley's body temperature until she miscarried. Now it was up to Isla and Rebekah to delay that until Sophie and Elijah got back. 

"Stop fussing, will you? Elijah will be here any minute." Rebekah pressed a wet sponge to Hayley's chest. Hayley sighed. 

"I feel like I've been microwaved." Rebekah paused for a moment, looking Hayley in the eye. 

"Hey, just because you're carrying a baby doesn't mean you get to act like one. I'm sure my little niece is healing you up as we speak." Hayley smiled weakly, before turning her attention to Elijah, who had just walked in the room. Rebekah stood up once she saw Sophie. "What the hell is she doing here?" 

"I'm trying to help." Sophie argued. Rebekah scoffed. 

"Help? You're the reason we're in this bloody mess." She looked at Elijah. "Why aren't we unlinked with this witch already, Elijah?" Elijah sighed. 

"Rebekah, let her do what she can." He looked at Sophie. Isla folded her arms. She wasn't sure how well Sophie could handle this if she couldn't use magic. 

"I may know a way to slow the fever down. But I'm going to need some special herbs. I'll text you a list." Rebekah looked upset and annoyed, but Elijah shot her a look. She sighed. 

"Fine. Happy to play the fetch girl." She walked past Elijah out of the room. Sophie went over to Hayley, and Isla remembered a section in her mother's grimoire that involved cooling down something. She dashed upstairs to get the book. 

Opening the book, Isla skimmed through the pages until she got to the Adair section. Isla found the specific paragraph she was looking for. 

"Adair told me that he knew of a way to cool water." Isla read to herself. "When I asked him how he did it, he said he would place his hands in the water, and focus on how the water felt. If he wanted it to cool down, he would think of how lakes freeze over in the winter, and if he wanted to warm it up..." Isla kept skimming the paragraph. This seemed easy enough. "Unfortunately, I have tried this method to no avail. It seems that witches do not possess this power." 

Isla sighed, closing the book. She had found something that could help Hayley, but apparently witches couldn't do this. She got up to go downstairs, feeling dejected. Until she remembered something her mother had told her right before putting her under the sleeping spell a thousand years ago. She said that Isla could do things that no witch could do. 

So maybe this was something Isla could do. She ran downstairs and outside to where Hayley, Elijah, Rebekah, and Sophie were sitting by the pool.

"She's burning up. We need to do this now." Elijah said as he took off his jacket. 

"Get her in the water." Sophie ordered, and Elijah picked Hayley up. Isla stood by the edge of the pool. 

"I have something that I can try." Elijah looked up at her. "I'm not sure if it's going to work, but it's better than nothing." Elijah nodded, and Isla jumped into the pool. As soon as she got in, she immediately felt confident in her ability. Something about being in the water made her confident. Rebekah turned to Sophie.

"I don't see how a midnight swim is supposed to help." Sophie kept mixing herbs. 

"Her temperature is sky high, and the water, with the help of the herbs, should cool us down." She went in the water and walked over to Hayley. "Drink this." She handed the cup to Hayley, who immediately downed it. Sophie looked around. "This water might not be cold enough." Isla sighed, putting her hands in the water. 

"I might be able to fix that." She closed her eyes, focusing on the feeling of the water around her. Every move the water made, the temperature of the water. As Sophie spoke to Elijah, Isla let her mind think. 

She thought of the winters she experienced as a child. She thought about the snow falling and how she would play in the snow. She thought of how cold the air was. 

"Isla." She heard Elijah call out to her. "Whatever you're doing, it's working." Isla smiled. She heard a yelp from Sophie. 

"Wow. This is really cold." Isla opened her eyes, ready to stop what she was doing, but Sophie shook her head. "No, keep going." Elijah also looked uncomfortable, but he was more focused on Hayley, who seemed to be cooling down. "Just don't freeze the pool." Isla nodded, closing her eyes again. Truthfully, she wasn't uncomfortable with the temperature. 

After a while, Hayley's screams stop. She opened her eyes, and looked at Sophie, who was looking up at the sky. 

"I just felt it lift." Sophie exclaimed. Isla sighed, taking her hands out of the water. She then got out of the water to dry herself off. Elijah got out of the pool, but Sophie stopped him. While they were talking, Rebekah looked at her younger sister. 

"That thing you did in the pool, how did you do that?" Isla shrugged. 

"I saw something like it in mother's grimoire." Rebekah folded her arms. 

"Well, whatever you did, when you opened your eyes, they were glowing." Isla tilted her head. She wasn't aware her eyes could glow. She would have to go back to the book to see if there was anything about that. But for now, she could just enjoy the fact that she helped in saving her niece's life.

Later that night, Isla was reading through her mother's grimoire when the doorbell rang. Hayley went to open it and found a young vampire on the other side. He looked nervous. 

"Where is he?" Isla assumed he was talking about Klaus. "I've been trying to find him all day? Marcel knows that Klaus lied about where he lives." Hayley sighed. 

"I'm not his damn keeper, Josh."

"Fine, just tell him to call me, please." 

"Okay." Hayley closed the door and went upstairs. After a few minutes, there was another knock on the door. Isla stood up to go answer it since Hayley was upstairs, but the pregnant werewolf ran down the stairs before Isla could get to it. "What the hell, Josh?" She opened the door to find not Josh, but Marcel. Isla's eyes went wide. Marcel smiled. 

"Hi there. I'm Marcel." Isla took a step forward behind Hayley defensively. "I don't think we've met." Hayley looked back at Isla, then at Marcel. "You two friends of Klaus's?"

"What do you want?" Marcel chuckled. 

"I just came by to see if Klaus was around. Is he here?" Isla shook her head. 

"No." Marcel's eyes darted to the witch. 

"Oh. Guess I must have missed him." He started to turn around to leave, but then stopped himself. "I didn't catch your names." Hayley looked a mix of annoyed, scared, and wanting to tear his throat out. 

"I'm Hayley." Marcel nodded, looking at Isla. Isla gulped. 

"Isla." Marcel smiled. 

"Well, nice to meet you both. And tell Klaus I say hi." He then turned around and walked out the door. Isla sighed as if a weight had been lifted. She went over to grab her things, and when she turned around, Hayley was no longer there. 

"Hayley?" Isla asked, looking around. Suddenly, Isla heard a thunking noise and felt a sharp pain on the back of her head. Then, everything went black.