Sacrilege |H. S.|

1. what I am

The sun hadn't begun it's trail up into the sky when I was already awake. The clock on the bedside table indicating it wasn't even five in the morning. I couldn't help it, the inner war between trying to get some sleep and wanting to never close my eyes again.

I turn on my side once more, hugging the duvet closer to me, soaring a glance to the other bed a couple metres away from me, hoping the person who occupied it only weeks ago would magically reappear.

But life wasn't nearly as gracious in that way. Not to me.

Grecia went missing and has been missing since July twenty sixth, two days after her twenty third birthday. She was last seen placing flowers on her mother's grave in the Martha Corey Cemetery. Whatever happened to her, it didn't happen in the cemetery, the consecrated soil would've given the coven leaders the answer.

Her case remains open with the police, no clear suspects, no leads. Just a desperate coven and a friend who wishes she would've been the one fate decided to betray.

Her bed remained the same, the lilac covers smoothed over and fresh flowers placed on her bedside table every morning, though they didn't go longer than an hour before dying. It was thoughtful though, Penelope, the leader of this coven and head of this house, didn't let her hopes falter for a well return. Meanwhile, she would continue to attend to every other witch too lost in the world to be on their own.

That's how the Silver Reserve worked. It housed witches exiled by their families, with no family at all, those who didn't feel any purpose in living among humans.

And they housed me. The somewhat witch not allowed in any coven but still kept close just in case I lose it one day and nee to be sealed away. Again.

There was no kicking you out once you turned eighteen, the reserve was simply here until one stopped needing it. And it has been for centuries, since Penelope's ancestors provided the Victorian manor to anyone who required it.

It's well past six when I decide to get up, sighing as Kayla's feet storm up and down the hallway, the nine year old getting ready for school. She was the youngest of the whole house, brought here at age two when her mother found her healing the flowers of a dead garden. Today was her first day of the new school year, and it was my first day at my new job, in one of the many bookstores around the witch's quarter. The plaza hidden in plain sight in central London, invisible to the eye of a non-supernatural being.

The floor is cold under my bare feet, causing a grimace that I'm quick to shake off, treading slowly to the mirror in the bathroom, eyes boring into my skin, daring the bags under them to disappear. It wasn't a pretty sight, my skin was pale as it was, and the dark colouring hauling attention to my face wasn't flattering.

After brushing at my teeth for maybe a little too long and too distracted, I turn the showerhead on, the water cold and I welcome it, used to the icy greetings of my every morning. I can faintly hear someone else's movements in the room, and I stand still at the thought of Penelope and her broken heart replacing the wilted flowers.

Grecia's disappearance is something that pained me when it happened, and that hurt hasn't left, it's been latent, living under my skin and gnawing on my ribs, making it hard to breathe.

The rest of the time I spend getting ready I also spend willing myself not to cry.

I look at the coat hanging behind the bedroom door, deciding to leave it behind since I'm already what I'd consider warm enough, recent Septembers haven't been as cold.

It was relatively quiet for the reserve, only Penelope could be heard in the kitchen, soothing Kayla's nerves while making breakfast.

"I'm leaving." My statement causes a frown from the lady of the manor, and an eyeroll from the nine year old.