All Your Little Quirks • h.ravenclaw ✓

⚪ten

For the next few days Arven lives in constant fear, thinking that Helena will emerge from the forest, seeking revenge, and will burn the whole village down. Her mask will drop and her true face will show, just like his parents' stories have described. She will be beautiful no longer, her voluminous hair will be replaced with snakes, and her skin will be nothing but rotten meat. Her sweet voice will seethe with rage, and she will make him cower at her feet until he gives in and agrees to do her bidding.

Of course, Arven is only saying these to himself to push away the guilt and regret that keep clawing at his heart. Somehow, he feels that Helena is not a horrific witch capable of destroying villages and eating cattle. If she were, why would she live in a forest and eat meagre amounts of food each day, when she could simply steal a cow or a goat from their village? Why would she enjoy his mother's byrek so much? Why would she bother kissing him?

But all the stories he has heard since childhood – all the gossip, all the eyewitnesses swearing upon Lord's name that the witches they saw being burnt had long, spindly nails and sharp pointed teeth – all the horrors inflicted upon him when his mother told him that the angry witch would come and take him away if he didn't finish his lunch, all of these come back to him, playing in his mind, pushing his fears deeper into his brain, winning over the plain, crystal clear logic that Helena isn't – cannot be – a witch.

He recoils in disgust as he remembers Helena's kiss. Her soft lips that had tasted of mint now makes him want to throw up his insides and clean his mouth with gallons of water. Her fingers that have held his hands feel coarse and rough, and he continuously rubs his palm on his body, on his table, on the wall, anywhere he can reach, just so that he can stop feeling her touch. But it remains stubbornly, lingers on his skin, and reminds him of her. Her hair no longer seems beautiful to him.

One morning, as he is having his breakfast, his mother asks him what is wrong with him. She wants to know what has been bothering him, why he is so reserved nowadays, why he doesn't smile at all, or go to the forest, where he liked to spend his time. He merely stares at her and doesn't respond in any way. This is something he cannot tell her with a simple nod or shake of his head, and he cannot write his answer because she cannot read. Therefore, he keeps all his thoughts inside of him, where they slowly pour down the edges of his memory and spill into the void that isn't accessible to him, where they would, one day, become nothing but forgotten thoughts of a lifetime ago.

He doesn't finish his breakfast and stands up to go to the farm. The sun burns his skin and blinds his eyes as he steps out of the house, and he can already hear the whispers starting. But he has learnt to ignore them, and he walks with his head down, toward the gate.

He is absentminded, and thus, does not notice where he keeps his hand. A protruding end of a nail pierces the skin of his palm and digs into his flesh. He cries out in pain and looks at his hand, where pools of blood flow out and stream down the side. Gritting his teeth, he pushes open the wooden gate and hurries over to the farm where the other farmers would help him treat the wound.

Once the wound is tied up by a fresh piece of cloth, he sits down on a mound of soil and drops his head into his hands, suddenly feeling extremely frustrated and exhausted. He holds his hand out in front of him and begins to play with a dangling length of cloth.

A sudden memory strikes him and he sits bolt upright. He remembers Helena's fingers being tied with a cloth, and spots of blood were visible on it. But according to the stories he has heard, witches can only be killed by burning them at the stake, and nothing can hurt them other than holy water and the scent of garlic. If that is true, how was Helena bleeding?

Abandoning his work, he dashes out of the fields and runs to the edge of the forest, before he begins to follow the path that leads to Helena's hideout. This isn't a very good evidence to support the fact that Helena isn't a witch, but what if their stories are wrong? What if witches are just like them, humans with magical blood, as Helena has said to him? Maybe she is a witch, but their legends of witches have been incorrect all along.

Arven only hopes that she hasn't left Albania.

His hope is fulfilled. Just not in the way he has expected.

A strong odour hits his nostrils as he nears his destination. He rucks the front of his attire and presses it to his nose, before continuing to walk. A formidable dread washes over him, and an irrational fear plays in his mind. He somehow feels that something is wrong, even though he has no reason to feel that way.

He reaches the clearing and registers how odd it looks in daylight. The fire is out, and burnt, charcoal coated logs lay in the middle. He tentatively moves forward, before a horrible sight meets his eyes.

A body lies in the ground, no, two bodies. He realises what the source of the stench is, and his heart dropping to the pits of his stomach, he rushes over and finds Helena there. She is lying on her back, her hair spread out like a fan beneath her head. Her eyes are wide open, bloodshot and panic stricken, but her face looks extremely pale.

On top of her is the body of a man, stomach downward. He lies just by her side, one arm slung over her stomach, which is covered in a pool of half dried blood. One of his hands holds a knife and its blade is covered by a thick layer of blood. Helena's blood. His blood.

Horrified, Arven drops down to his knees and leans over Helena. A terrible, twisting pain grows in his gut and begins to crawl outward, and hot tears force themselves out of his eyes. He wants to cry out, he wants to call her name, he wants to call out for her until she wakes up and admits this to be some sort of sick joke. But he does nothing, and a choked cry leaves his mouth. The sunlight somehow disappears and he is left in horrible darkness. The ocean that had taken him in as his own, begins to evaporate, and he is left standing on dry, deserted land, his feet burning up, his throat parched.

The tears continue to flow down his cheeks, but he is unable to cry. If only he had told her how much he loved her voice, her touch, her laughter, how much he loved her. Didn't she say he was her only friend? Now she has died thinking that he hates her, and he cannot change it anymore.

His head falls onto the spot just beside her own, and he begins to weep. The strangled breaths drift through the air and silences everything else. The trees stop moving, the wind stops whistling, and nature itself bows down to mourn with him. A pure soul such as hers deserved all the happiness in the world, all the laughter and joy, but just like all the unfairness of the world, she is the first one to depart. She is the one to suffer, live through hardship, and die thinking that the only person she thought was her friend hated her.

Arven may have been lying there for hours. He doesn't know, and he doesn't care. He cries until his tears have dried up, he cries until he hears the howling of the wind, and the mournful whimpers of the trees as they bend forward. He cries until a cold wave washes over him, and he shivers uncontrollably.

Someone places a hand on his shoulder and he jerks to look back. There is no one, but the weight on his shoulder remains. Surprisingly, he doesn't feel scared. He knows that this is Helena, and he knows that she wants to speak to him. But he cannot see her, nor can he speak. How will he tell her everything he wants to? It will take eons just to go through half of what he has in mind.

The weight is removed and he turns around, desperately, for another touch. It does come, but this time in front of him, on his face, and he feels a ghost of a touch on his cheek. He closes his eyes, and repeats, inside his mind, again and again and again, Helena Helena Helena Helena.

He isn't sure if he is dreaming, but soon, he hears a voice echo through the forest, causing the leaves to ripple as it brushes by them. A smile forms on his lips as his name is whispered, and it reverberates across the dense forest, bouncing off the trees and reaching his ears again and again. The air, the trees, the leaves, the smoke, everything joins in, and soon the atmosphere is heavy with loss and mourning and despair, but amidst all of that, he feels certain that he can hear Helena's voice, as wild and as carefree as the ocean, curling his name in the way he loves so much.

Arven Arven Arven. . .