“Annabelle. I love Annabelle. Sometimes I go there just for the baths. She gives these baths where she sings old weird Cajun songs and washes your back. It’s good. And I love Blake.”
Sam winced, “He’s done so many terrible things Aimes.”
She shook her head, “I know but in my heart I know it’s not him. He didn’t do it because he wanted to. They’ve done something to him.”
“You’re setting yourself up for some serious disappointment my friend. When we finally find our way into their lab and we see he is there for his own selfish reasons you’re going to be hurt. Prepare yourself for the worst.”
She shook her head, “I can’t. I just can’t. Not with him.”
Giselle poked her face in the room, “Guys Hanna won’t leave the castle. Sam you have to talk to her.”
Sam nodded and got up from the bed. He walked toward Giselle who was grinning at him, “You two got a thing going on?”
He frowned, “No.”
She shrugged, “She’ll tell me.” She walked into the room past him.
His feet padded along the cold floor.
He had hated the castle.
He had hated his memories.
He had hated Hanna.
Suddenly it was gone. The hate was deflated and pathetic.
He couldn’t bring himself to get past her betrayal. His emotions attached to it felt weak. Not poignant and deep as it should be. It was shallow and barely there. He felt hollow.
He walked to the room he knew she would sleep in. The room she had been held captive in. She would torture herself by sleeping there.
The candles had snuffed recently, leaving a smell of smoke in the air. She lay on the bed in her clothes. Her red hair was splayed out around her. His stomach didn’t ache and long the way it had before. Her ruddy skin didn’t move his fingers to touch her.
He barely registered her smell in the air.
“Hanna.” His voice was flat.
She turned over revealing her red and puffy face, “Sam.”
She reached for him but he stepped back and walked to the armchair beside the bed.
Tears started to flow from her eyes, “Sam I’m sorry. I need you to hear that. I love you. I love you so much.”
He nodded, “I know you are. Hanna I can’t forgive you.”
“I know that. I see the blank stare in your face. You don’t see me anymore. I don’t know how to fix it.”
He grinned wishing he could enjoy her pain, “You can’t. I’ve broken the match. You’re free to live in Greece and torture men to your heart’s content.”
She shook her head, “I don’t want that. I want you.”
His smile felt stuck on his face, “You had me Hanna.” He laughed bitterly, “Correction you never had me. You wanted space after Aleks and Marcus died. You wanted to figure things out. You wanted to catch up with your emotions.”
“I just wanted to start over.”
He shook his head, “There is no starting over. I’ve broken the match.”
“Sam why would you go to such extremes?”
“Hanna you told me that you wished you never loved me. What did you think I would do?”
Her eyes grew cold, “Understand that I was drunk and confused. I just said those things. I never meant them.”
He nodded, “Okay, well great you never meant them. That doesn’t change what is done. You have a lot of growing up to do Hanna. You will get past me just like I’ve gotten past you.”
He stood and walked from the room.
She called out to him, “Don’t do this Sam.”
He muttered, “It’s done.”
He flashed to Lydia’s house. He opened the fridge and pulled out the chocolate almond milk that he loved. He drank from the carton.
“Sam you knows I hates that.”
He glanced at Annabelle and pulled the carton from his lips, “Sorry Annabelle. I’ll finish it.”
She pointed to the table, “You wants some breakfast?”
He looked over and nodded at the plates of pancakes and bacon and eggs and sausage.
“No home fries?”
She pulled them from the oven, as he spoke, “Don’t be getting picky on me Sam. Yous lucky you getting breakfast after what you done to Miss Hanna. You conned that girl into doing that spell. You thinks I don’t know yous took my plate. Yous lucky she never died.”
He frowned, “From scrying?”
She put the plate down on the table and snapped at him, “Sam that be my plate. It be tied to me. My power be in there. You put her power in there. Now it be her plate. Her magic is stronger. You ruined my plate. And yes she coulda gone and died on all y’all. Witches scry after years of training.”
He blushed, “Sorry Annabelle.”
“What’s done is done is all. Eats the breakfast Sam before I gets mad. You shouldn’t have took my plate and you shouldn’t have took her to Giselle's.”
He noticed things on the back counter floating. Annabelle angry meant the house would get trashed, which made Annabelle angrier. It was a lose lose situation. Annabelle disappeared into the wall.
He sat at the table as Sarah materialized. He smirked at her, “Hiding?”
She nodded, “They have all been feisty since yesterday. You guys did a bad thing Sam. They said it’s a bad spell to do. You could die from it.”
He frowned, “What?”
She nodded, “Lydia said she did it once before. The woman hung herself. The sadness of not feeling anything, it gets to you.”
He ruffled her hair, “Don’t worry about it Sarah.” He didn’t feel anything. Even the sentence she spoke didn’t worry him.
“It’s not possible to feel sadness if you can’t feel anything.”
Sarah’s little face didn’t look convinced. She ate a piece of bacon and shook her head, “It was a bad thing Sam.”
He pointed, "You shouldn’t be eating that bacon. Your mom would be very angry."
She smiled, "I'm not a vegan here. I'm a flexitarian. I eat what I'm served."
He piled food on his plate and shook his head.
The other kids started to pile into the kitchen where the table expanded as always. The small kitchen always accommodated everyone.
Danny raised an eyebrow, “No more you and Hanna?”
"Not so much."
Danny shrugged, "I like Hanna. She makes me feel happy when I look at her."
Sam coughed and changed the subject, "You guys all been in contact with your families lately?”
They nodded. Sarah smiled a toothy smile at him. Her teeth had grown in too big for her small face, “Aunty Beth said to tell you she expects a visit sooner than later. She said she wants to talk to you about something.”
He shrugged, “Okay. Maybe I’ll see if we can both go.”
Sarah shook her head, “I don’t wanna go. I started a fire yesterday when I was mad at Danny.”
Danny’s chubby face turned red, “She burned my World of Warcraft poster for the Mists of Pandaria.”
Sarah looked down at her plate, “It was an accident. I said sorry Danny.”
Danny glared at her, “And yet your apology didn’t bring it back.”
Sam frowned, “Be nice both of you. It was an accident. Sometimes we can’t help what our powers make us do.”
“Is that what you told Hanna when you apologized?”
He turned to see Lydia standing in the kitchen with her arms folded across her chest and a truly pissy expression plastered across her face.
“No. I never apologized. I’m not sorry.”
Lydia shook her head, “You will be Sam. Even I can’t save you from what you’ve done. There was a reason I told you no witch would ever do that spell for you.” Her eyes burned, “We all know the cost of it.”
She turned and walked away.
He looked at the frightened looks of the kids at the table. Even Dawn looked upset. He picked up his fork and started to eat.
After breakfast he walked into the sitting room where Lorri and Lydia had their heads pressed together.
“Can I help?”
Lorri glared at him, “You’ve done enough kid.”
He sat beside Lydia, “Look I don’t regret it. It was the right choice. I’ve freed her.”
Lydia sputtered something in hysteria and left the room.
He looked at Lorri who cracked her bitter grin, “You fucking idiot.”
“What? It was my choice.”
She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, “Sam you have no choices. None. You are a slave to this fate just as we all are. When I fell I was terrified. I am not exactly a people person.”
Sam snickered, “No kidding.”
She glared, “No. None. Anyway, when God asked me to fall I had to trust he was making the right choice. I had to assume he knew best. If I had defied him where would humanity be right now?”
Sam went to speak but she slapped him, “It was rhetorical dipshit. Humanity would be fucked. They would be up hellfire shit creek with no paddle and a vampire dry humping them in the boat. The point I’m making is Lydia told you ‘no’ because she knew what was best. You should have trusted her. Instead you defied her and have left us a giant goddamned pile of bullshit to clean up.”
He shook his head, “How? I don’t want to love a girl. Big deal. It’s my business. It’s my choice. I still have freewill.”
Lorri growled, “You don’t deserve freewill. You destroyed Hanna’s. You took away her choice to love you. You moron. Her mother matched once a long time ago. She hated her match. She made a mistake and asked Lydia to do the spell. Lydia did it not knowing what would come of it. Hanna’s mom committed suicide. She was tired of feeling nothing. It was a dark magic spell. Darkness is what killed Lydia's baby. You brought dark magic into Ophelia. Our fucking savior.”
Sam shook his head as Lorri slapped his cheek again. The sting of his cheek was the only warmth he felt.
