By Friday I was both physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted - which was saying a lot because usually with my excessive amount of coffee drinking I was never tired. But I guess 3 hour magic training two days in a row with the addition of Cedric quizzing me about stupid witch history on our rides to and from school really did take it's toll on me.
Plus the massive amount of exhaustion also seemed to come from having the absolute crap scared out of me from Marcus.
The guy was like the terminator, emotionless and terrifying. In the past two days that I had known him he managed to make me genuinely petrified in his presence. And what's worse was that I was not learning one damn thing that was actually worth learning that is.
It's like when your watching the last Harry Potter movie and Ron and Hermione are trying to kill Nagini . They have their wands with them in their back pocket that they can wipe our anything they want and yet in a defence mechanism they throw a freaking rock at it instead. Well, Marcus was teaching me self defense as if I couldn't use magic to defend myself instead.
Ridiculous right?
Anyways, that stupid dinner party was tomorrow night and it seemed to be the only thing Rowena could talk about. Remember how I said she was like a glass half full type of person? Yeah well I soon discovered that was both a blessing and a curse.
"I mean, at least the food is usually really good at the parties." She was telling us Friday at lunch, "I mean - it's about a million times better then cafeteria food at least."
Cedric was doing his math homework as she spoke; not even bothering to hide the fact that he wasn't listening, Emmett was reading his book but he looked up every few minutes bobbing his head along to what she was saying to show he was semi-listening. As for Lena she was busy filing her nails, blinking every so often to not-so-subtly change the colour of the polish with magic. In the last half hour I had watched the colour go from pink, to blue, to purple, to green, to black and yet it seemed I was only one who noticed.
Why couldn't I do that? Why was I not allowed to learn something as simple as changing my own freaking nail polish?
"So Bella," Rowena chirped again, ripping through my envious thoughts to pull me back to this dreadful reality. "Lena and I are going to go shopping tonight - just for our outfits tomorrow night - did you wanna come?"
"Oh great," Lena mumbled, finally tuning into the conversation and trading her nail file for a compact and lipstick tube to reapply. "Won't that be a hoot."
"Ignore her sarcasm," Rowena said rolling her emerald green eyes at her friend. "It'll be fun! Come on shopping with a fairy and fellow witch? What could be more fun?"
"I could think of several things..." Cedric said with a smirk.
In return Rowena grabbed a cucumber slice off her plate and threw it at his head in an attempt to hit him which ultimately failed when Cedric used his vampire speed and swooped down catching the cucumber in his mouth.
"Nice try," He smirked.
"Alright that's two people I'm now ignoring," Rowena sighed turning back to me. "But c'mon, please come!"
"Alright fine," I laughed, caving in. "I'll come but I have a condition - do not trick me into wearing Lena-ified heels. I'll trip and fall on my face for sure,"
"Sounds tempting," Lena sneered. "But you wouldn't even be able to pull off my 'Lena-ified' heels anyways and as I'd just love to see you trip and fall - that's two seconds of my life I'd never get back."
"Okay paws down," Cedric sighed putting aside his math homework. "Lena come on, why can't we get through one day without you snapping on her?"
"Oh so you're on her side then?" Lena snapped with a shrill laugh. "Wow - she's here five days and already she's got you wrapped around her little finger." She stood up, slamming her chair in to the table. "Well unlike them miss sunshine, you don't have me fooled." And with one last scowl at the group she stormed away her heels clicking furiously along the tiled flooring of the cafeteria before she was out of the room completely but her essence of anger still lingering on our table.
"Well..." Rowena said slowly a few minutes later. "I think it's safe to say we lost a shopping buddy for tonight..."
I let out a small laugh as the tension broke away slowly but surely. I was beginning to get used to Lena's clear hatred of me and her little outbursts that followed which felt strange... but I was growing strangely comfortable by it. It was beginning to make me feel like part of their group.
I reached out my hand so I could drink from my water bottle, but as I reached for it - the minute my hand reached an inch from the cool, steal bottle it jerked away from my hand.
The whole table stopped what they were doing, their eyes glued to me.
"Bella..." Cedric said slowly. "What was that?"
"I - I don't know," I stammered staring at my hand in confusion. "I didn't do anything..." I reached forward again to try and grab the water bottle but once again it scooted away.
I wasn't touching it, I wasn't doing anything!
It was then that the lights began to flicker in the cafeteria, my amber eyes looked around in confusion to see the rest of the student body doing the same.
"Bella..." Rowena hissed under her breath. "Whatever your doing stop it."
"I'm not doing anything!" I whispered back. "Honestly I'm not - "
But that's when I noticed the lights weren't the only thing dimming, my gold eyes widened as they caught sight of the large, floor to ceiling windows that took up the whole space of the far wall of the cafeteria.
The sun... the very sun that had just a few minutes ago been shining brightly and beautifully had disappeared behind nearly black clouds. There wasn't any sight of it.
"Bella - " Emmett tried to say but I let out a shriek at what I saw next.
Standing outside, in the pitch black was a man. A man so tall it couldn't be possible, he was dressed in a dark trench coat, his face invisible behind some kind of headwear he was wearing. But I could see his eyes... his cold, snake-like red eyes that stared back at me.
"Bella!" Rowena said grabbing my arm forcefully. "What's going on?"
"Don't you see him?" I demanded pointing out the window to where the man stood. "How can you not see him?"
The lights were flickering rapidly and dangerously in the cafeteria, so much so I was scared someone would get a seizure. They seemed to be turning on and off the same pace as my rapid breathing.
"Shit," I heard Cedric mumble under his breath before he jumped up from the table. "We need to get her out of here - Guys she's having The Fever."
"Oh crap," Emmett said with wide eyes.
"Oh no, not here, not now." Rowena whispered.
I didn't know what they were talking about nor did I care - my eyes were glued to the man as he stared back at me. I couldn't see his face, I didn't know what was happening.
The three of them stood up and I didn't even realize before they were steering me out of the cafeteria that they had even grabbed me.
My head was throbbing and I could feel beads of sweat begin to drip down my face, my hands were shaking too - shaking like a cold Chihuahua.
"What's... what's happening to me?" I slurred my eyes getting droopy.
"God, Cedric she can't walk." I heard Rowena say worriedly.
I felt myself being scooped up and carried bridal style through the halls. I was shivering - feeling like I was in a meat locker.
But I felt my eyes open again to see us rushing out of the hallways of the school and out to the darkness that now consumed the entire outside of Luna Falls- only to let out a shreik when my eyes landed on the same man, now duplicated three times.
"Make him go away!" I screamed, burying my face into Cedric's chest so I wasn't looking at him. "Please, please make him go away!" I began to sob, harder and harder before my cries turned into screams...
And that's when the blackness consumes me.
☸
"Lena she's going through the exact same thing you went through - can't you have a little bit of sympathy? You had The Fever too!"
"Yeah I did - so I know that there's nothing I can do! She's not going to freaking die okay? This is what happens when your a Hesper - there's no way around it."
I could hear voices, but I couldn't see anything which meant that I was probably in that annoying stage of being awake and being asleep. There was Cedric's voice and Lena's, talking as if I wasn't in the room.
"Yeah well we need to do something, just look at her. She saw that man again, who is he?" That was Emmett's voice.
"How the hell do I know?" Lena's voice sighed. "Someone needs to find Rowena with that stupid amulet and get Marcus to hurry the hell up, that's all we can do right now okay? She's adjusting into her powers just like I did - the reason she's hallucinating is because Cressida has claimed her, she's confirming that we found the right person. We can't do anything right now, all we had to do was wipe the students who saw her flip out's memories which we did - there's nothing else we can do."
"Well when is she going to wake up?"
"Soon," Lena's voice echoed. "Look we don't need to stand around here waiting for her to wake up - come on, lets go see where Rowena is with that amulet."
I could hear their footsteps move further and further away until the sound of the door closing echoed throughout my mind and ears. After they had seemed to leave my eyes finally fluttered open to find myself in my own - now empty - bedroom. The way Lena was speaking... it was as if she knew what I was going through, which of course made some sense considering she was a witch but she called me a Hesper, which I knew was the term for me and this mystery moon person and -
All at once my thoughts left my mind as a realization suddenly hit me. Of course, why didn't I guess this before?
Cedric had told me he knew who the Moon Hesper was, which meant it had to be someone close to him. Not only was Lena one of his close friends, but she was also the only other witch that I knew. She seemed to hate me, probably because my coming to terms with magic meant that Cressida's prophecy was beginning to come into play. Not to mention her wardrobe choices that I now began to realize seemed to always incorporate a white gem that must be a moon stone...
I couldn't believe I was so stupid that I didn't realize this before but now... it was so clear.
Lena... she was the Moon Hesper.
A/N
Alright so this chapter was kind of ick but it obviously had to be written because of the big reveal at the end which was that Lena is the Moon Hesper - for those of you who don't know what Hesper means it's latin for evening which is obviously the in between for night (moon) and day (sun) - so yeah that's that lol.
Next chapter should be WAY more exciting I promise and you'll also see some romantic sparks flying between two of the characters! Any guesses?
xoxo