The Power Field

Chapter 3

Almost two weeks have passed since the last conversation with her mother. Josie still stays at Salvatore's school. She hardly talks to Caroline and spends most of her time in her room or in the library.

That day after the fight with her mother, Josie swore to herself that she would take revenge on Alyssa as soon as she will have such an opportunity. Of course, the bullying witch received her symbolic punishment in the form of correctional labor and suspension from classes for a week. However, Josie is convinced that this is too low a price to pay for her crime. Alyssa must answer for everything she has done. She must experience the same pain and humiliation that Josie was subjected to. And if her parents can't stand up for their daughter, she herself will do everything to turn Alisa's life into hell.

The voiceless Josie missed the last qualifying round of the musical. But she still attends Mystic Falls High school returning to boarding school every night.

Lizzie supports her sister as much as she can. They often spend time together, hang out in the city with Maya and Ethan, and at boarding school they are near Jed and his pack almost all the time.

Because of this, Josie constantly has to come up with a thousand and one reasons to dump in the library, where she can safely look for the solution to her and Hope's tattoos.

It's really not easy to live with these marks. Josie constantly tolerates the presence of dark magic in her body. And the effects of the hiding spell always make her uncomfortable.

Burns and itching are added to nausea and rash. It seems to be getting more and more unbearable every day. If earlier there were only pinkish spots on the site of burns, now her skin is periodically covered with blisters. Scabies is now Josie's constant companion. She can't eat or sleep properly. Constant nausea makes traditional eating impossible. Josie seems to have lost a lot of weight in the last week. Restless sleep, often accompanied by nightmares about some dark entities, doesn't give her the banal strength to live normally and at the same time create dark magic.

It is unbearable for the brunette to hide all this from her sister, but she doesn't dare to dump tons of meaningless information on Lizzie. To protect the twin from the tides of black magic, Josie uses a double cleansing spell. At the same time, she spends twice as much energy, which only exhausts her body more.

Hope, meanwhile, seems to be living her normal life. Her numerous relatives have not yet left the boarding school. They often spend time together with the twins' parents, locking themselves in their office. Lizzie is still angry at her mother for the fact that she, having only recently returned from another business trip, spends little time with her daughters. Josie, on the other hand, is glad that at least her mother isn't bothering her with idiotic questions. Anyway, she doesn't talk to her parents. Another fight with her mother, her body, tired of everything in the world, simply could not stand it.

The brunette is immensely glad that she has a lot of free time, which she spends looking for answers.

During her insomnia, Josie sneaks into the library and reads for hours about terrible curses and ancient rituals. But none of the many books she has read gives any useful information about soul mates.

Josie honestly believes that she searched every corner of their school library, looked through every shelf, read everything that more or less fit the description of her problem. Nothing, not a single word, not even the smallest mention of these unfortunate marks.

The brunette was ready to give up everything, when an incredible thing happened on one of her trips to the library...

Josie is sitting in front of the "Legends and Myths: Throw away" section when her last hope of salvation collapsed. A thick leather book with the eloquent title «Curses as a way to influence appearance» has been rudely discarded somewhere far away.