Wicked

Chapter Thirty-Six

"Why?" I despised how whining I sounded. The air smelled baleful and foreboding. It was emphasizing what was about to happen. If I was seething, my mom was unyieldingly violent. I had never seen the firey rage closing in behind her eyes.

Despite my best efforts, I gravitated a step towards Levi. Erik took a side step six inches to his left, blocking most of me. Levi didn't miss anything and he was definitely not going to miss that. He pretended to look hurt.

"Oh, come on, Erik you know I won't hurt her." When Erik didn't move Levi pretended to be injured, dramatically placing a hand on his chest. "I can't hurt her, I need her in order to do what I came here for." I scoffed at this.

"I know you're not a ghost, you don't need my help to "move on." I used air quotations around his lie. It was clear I was upset, unfortunately, I don't think Levi cared.

"It's about time, it was really getting sad." He relaxed his shoulders, leaning against the wall to our right. "I mean, come on you made it too easy!" He exclaimed as his voice boomed in the small room. "Although, it was more your mother's fault than yours." Levi looked at my mom. "Maybe we should start at the beginning, Evanora, do you want to tell the story or shall I?" My Gran just glared at him, then stepped in front of all of us, her arms pushing us back. She was taken a protective stance.

"Okay, I guess I'll tell it." Levi kicked off the wall, grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl. "It was the summer of 1994, and I paid a certain Witch a visit. I had been in town for a couple weeks and everyone was talking about Evanora Solart. It was said she would help you commune with your dead relatives, so you could get closure. Of course, for a fee." He smirked at Gran as he told the story. The whole time I had shivers up and down my arms.

"Anyways, I came here knocked on the door and asked to speak with my dead fiance." Levi had a fiance? Or was that another lie. It was hard to tell everything sounded the same. "She agreed to help me, so we sat down at this very table and you tried to communicate with my fiance." He traced the edge of the table, admiring it fondly.

"But it wasn't your fiance, it was Sarah Good. I realized you were up to no good, but by that time it was too late." My Gran continued the story. Levi kept smirking.

"The second I walked in that door, it was too late. But yes, you figured it out fairly quickly, I guess you ate up all the brains for your family." I grit my teeth as he winked at me.

"I told you to get out, but she did something: I couldn't move. Then, you--

"Offered you a deal of a lifetime. I would give you endless power and money, anything you could ever want, extended out to every relative of yours that bore Sarah Good's magical blood. All I wanted was a tiny, itsy, bitsy favor." He gestured how small it was by showing us with his index and thumb. I knew he was lying about the size of the favor.

"You wanted my blood, so you could bring back Sarah Good, but I said no." Uh oh, blood? My body froze as I remembered Levi taking my blood. He said it was for the spell to help him move on, but that had been a lie. Yet, he had still taken my blood.

"Yes, you said no, but your granddaughter didn't." Everyone's eyes fell on me. Most of them gave me a sympathetic expression. I felt unbearably stupid. I couldn't believe I let him take my blood. "So regardless, Sarah Good is coming back. When she does, believe me, you will all bear her wrath." The last part didn't even sound human. "Well, everyone but Cornelia, we can't kill her." I wanted to die: at that moment.

"Little Bird, tell me he's lying. You didn't give him your blood, right? You didn't. No, you wouldn't do that." Gran's eyes filled with clear tears as she slightly shook me. I wanted nothing more than to tell her I didn't, that I was smarter than that. I couldn't. Levi had my blood and as he said: Sarah Good was going to come back.