Witchcraft

Chapter Ten

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Chapter Ten

JUDAS

I feel sick. My chest aches in a way it hasn't since the day I found my father in his bed. I lay in my own bed, my hands shaking in a distraught fear that I haven't felt in almost two decades.

I can't not explain the pain I had felt when I watched that photo burn, but it took all strength within me not to dive into the flames to retrieve my mother.

My beautiful mother. My only solace. It is like I lost her a second time, but this time I'm able to feel the emotional toll of losing a loved one, unlike when I was an infant.

I don't know how long I have laid in bed, with my head heavy on my pillow. I've stared out the broken window for hours. I've watched the sun set and rise, and yet I can't bring myself to get up.

I didn't feed the girl, Emery, yesterday. I don't want to feed her today. I don't want to look at her. I don't want her to look at me.

I feel so heavy. It is a day like today, that death calls to me. It is a day like today, that I would heed its call.

But I can't, not today. I fear the girl would know, and she would try to escape. I can't leave the world for a moment, because she will know. 

She knows so much.

Emery. Emery. Emery. 

I enjoy learning new names. It is a incomprehensible idea to me that there are thousands of people, millions of people, all with different names, and I have only met a handful of them.

I pull myself up to sit, my head spinning from laying still for so long. A gust of cold air enters my bedroom through the window. I dig my hands into the pockets of my coat, a coat I haven't taken off in days. In the pocket, I feel the now familiar touch of the Emery's necklace. The tiny jewel embedded in the center of the heart digs into my skin as I clench my fist around the piece.

Pulling it out of my pocket, I admire it as I do every time I'm reminded of it. It is not the piece itself that brings me a strange sense of ease, but what the jewelry itself represents.

My end to loneliness. My key to a living, breathing human being, forever with me. It is what brought her.

If I give it back to her, will she leave? I can't bring myself to do it.

Pushing the necklace back into my pocket, I force myself to get up, and grab some food in my greenroom. I've gotten used to searching for the freshest vegetables, the freshest fruits. It had been foreign to me, picking them before they begin to rot. I never used to do that. I took pleasure in watching them live a complete life, before they inevitably gave up due to old age.

Filling a bowl of whatever looked the best, I return up the stairs, to my old bedroom, the nursery, my childhood bedroom, my mother's sanctuary.

I'm reminded of how horrified Emery looked, when I burned the photo. She has no idea just how horrified I had felt. I shouldn't have done it. I shouldn't have tempted her. I should have kept silent, and I will be sure to do that from now on.

I unlock the door, and open it. She's staring out between the cracks of the boards covering the window. When I walk in, her complete attention is on me.

I feel so uncomfortable when I'm stared at. I feel even more uncomfortable when she is the one staring at me.

I set the food on the fireplace mantel, and turn to leave. I have no desire to stay in this room any longer than necessary.

"You're already leaving?"

I say nothing, and continue to the door, but she's not finished. "Are you mad at me?"

It has been a long time since I have been mad at someone who is not myself. I am genuinely unsure of the answer to her question.

"Please don't leave, I can't stand to be kept up in this room in silence any longer." This stops me. The desperation in her tone is new. I don't remember her sounding like that even when she thought I'd kill her. I don't know why it stops me, but it does. I can not move my feet, as I look at her. She rushes over to the bowl I had set on the fireplace mantel, and reaches it out to me. "Eat with me. You're so thin anyway. Let's eat together, at least."

For the first time, I do not detect an act. Perhaps burning the photo has convinced her that I am not easily swayed.

Or maybe she simply can not tolerate the loneliness as well as I was forced to. 

I immediately break my newest rule by responding, "That is your food. I do not want to eat with you."

"I am desperate." She states shamelessly, "To speak to another human being. I'd rather die than sit alone in this room one more minute."

Her audacity to act as though staying alone for a few days is the worst thing one could endure, as if I hadn't just spend the last seventeen years speaking to the corpse of my father. Her nerve astounds me.

I initially want to scold her. I want to throw things at her. I want her to feel the mental anguish of what real loneliness and solitude is like.

Instead, I say, "At least, above all things, you could die if you wished it."

She understands I'm about to leave, and makes another desperate attempt to stop me. I have never had someone want my company before. Watching a girl who I hardly understand beg me to stay with her is a concept that has never occured in my mind.

To be wanted; that is never something that I thought I desired. 

I think I am growing shamelessly addicted to the feeling. "Why don't you let me roam the house? Tie a rope to your wrist and mine, and let me walk with you like a fucking dog on a leash, if that means I can leave this room."

This surprises me so much, my hand, which was resting on the doorknob, falls to my side. "You want to be bound to me?"

"I want to leave this room."

Her desperation was alluring. I was wholly invested, "That's a ridiculous idea." 

This did not deter her, "Won't you show me around? I'd like to see your indoor garden. Your vocabulary is very immense, you must have a library somewhere."

I blinked several times at her, the idea settling in my head. It wasn't a pleasant idea, but if it'd get her to calm down, I would consider it.

I am scared to pursue all my time around her. Just how long will it take before she grows bored of my existence? How long will her desperation last before it molds into a rooted disgust for me?

I don't tell her that I am considering it though, in fact I don't even hint at the possibility of my own contemplation. I ignore her pleas as I turn to leave, and as I close the door behind me. I hear her pounding frantically on the door. Begging me not to leave her alone in the dark room again.

I feel a slight pinch in my chest. I strange feeling I can only decipher as shame. At first it is easy for me to ignore it, but the longer I hear her cries, the harder it is for me to focus on anything else.