WHITE DARKNESS - BLACK MAGIC SAGA - BOOK 1

INSIDE THE MIRROR

You are afraid of dying, said the mini Leevanna.

I’m not, her own voice said.

You are, you are so afraid of dying that you cannot do anything but wish not to be so instead of truly doing something, and the mini her seemed to make fun of her as she raised an eyebrow, looking at her with superiority.

I am not afraid of dying, her own voice was between teeth.

You want to die, but you are afraid of it, you are a coward who doesn’t have the courage to kill herself, and the words made her clench her jaw internally.

I am not afraid of dying!

Silence. Just silence.

She feels attacked by her own conscience.

And then why haven’t you done it yet? the mini Leevanna was calm, contrary to the original her.

I don’t know…

“Leev,” called her Lhu in a low tone, the girl turned to see her. They were in Mathamancy with Professor Paris Finnerty, just accompanied by Vailant and Freya, the rest were more Vasilkas, some from House Faris and Stouvania students. “You sure you want to go to Ayrith?”

“You are going to take me anyways,” she smiled softly and weakly. Leevanna was tired.

She wondered if she could ask for those pills she used to take when she was a bit younger. She wanted the drugs. She needed them. But — But they had been taken away from her. Because she had become an addict, a dependant. A f*****g drug-addict no one wanted to be around or even be spoken to without that pitiful look. And she wishes more than anything else in this moment for someone who could give her the drugs she was dreaming about.

And she wants to be gone. She needs to be gone.

And suddenly her brain cannot decide.

It can’t decide if she needs the drugs or be gone.

Through her ears leaks the murmurs of Freya and Lhu. They are talking about tomorrow’s visit to the town of Altsuix just outside Gleaxsiara grounds to then go to Ayrith, which was next to it but outside the capital. They would have to be extremely careful.

Professor Finnerty was giving his usual speech about how important was for them to understand certain calculus and procedures so they could succeed in Alchemy as well in other various subjects. Usually Leevanna would be resolving all the exercises the professor would give to the class, but right now she had just answered one of the five, and to be honest, she wasn’t in much mood to hear the same speech for the hundredth time.

Do not get her wrong though, Professor Paris was one of her favourite ones since he always was eager to converse with her about the wonders of numbers and probabilities in our world, but she was just so tired.

Her gaze was quickly distracted from the problems in front of her to a piece of parchment folded in front of her.

She grabbed it between her hands and opened it, thinking perhaps that Esmeray needed something, and she couldn’t find her since she was in class.

But then she jumped and let out a little shriek that attracted everyone’s attention.

When she had unfolded the parchment, a Gryrku had jumped straight to her face, frightening the bloody f**k out of her instantly. She quickly hid the paper under her desk.

“Something wrong, Miss Vaughan?” frowned the professor.

“No, professor, I’m sorry, just got excited about the subject,” and that seemed to make him smile, so she smiled back before he continue explaining some equations she would read about later.

Her gaze quickly drifter to Vailant’s seat, who was trying not to explode in laughter. He raised both his eyebrows to her, defiantly.

She narrowed her eyes, and quickly scrutinized his mind, transforming him into a frog.

She smirked, knowing that, Freya, who was Vailant’s desk-partner today, was far too interested in what Lhu had to say to her rather than paying attention to what happened around her.

The rest twenty minutes of the class went by without any further commotion, until Professor Paris decided to take attendance and when he called Vailant’s name before Leevanna’s, he was answered with a ribbit-ribbit instead of a normal human voice. “Mr Vailant, please I know you want a princess, but that isn’t exactly the way,” and with a snap the frog was again a human.

All the students chuckled, making the boy grow red at the accusation before turning to Leevanna’s seat and narrowed his eyes with fury. She just grinned.

“Miss Vaughan?”

“Present, professor,” she smiled.

And a chuckle left her lips before concentrating back into solving the problems in her book. No she wasn’t tired anymore.

“Please for Monday morning, first hour, I expect you to hand me your books with the twenty problems we have done today and the ten more that are left for you to do.”

“But, sir… It’s Ayrith visit tomorrow,” Dexter Madden recalled, making many of the Faris ones nod at his words, agreeing with him. “Couldn’t it be for next class?”

“No, Mr Madden.” Professor Finnerty wasn’t someone who liked to be persuaded or even manipulated into something, he didn’t like being told what to do either. “And it goes specially for you, who haven’t done more than three exercises in the whole two hours. I suggest for you to start those exercises today.”

Leevanna continued solving the next three exercises that were left for her to finish the thirty ones. She had learned through the years that it was better solve at least half of them before class so when the teacher left homework, she would have less to do and could go for further information for the next class. She smiled to herself, thinking that she had made herself a control-freak and was about to crazy — more than she was already.

Later that day, she was sure her brain had decided to torture her.

And she was there.

With her gaze fixed on the water.

The cold water filling the bathtub and growing warmer.

“STOP! PLEASE!”

Her eyes close down shut slowly.

“Please...”

The sensations still feel like it had happened only yesterday. Maybe that day. Maybe that hour. That minute. That second. Everything is fresh. She cannot forget. No matter how bad she tries every day. She isn’t allowed to forget.

She doesn’t deserve it.

“S-Stop... Ple-Please...”

Her body hurts. She can feel it. Again. Still as fresh. Like mist, one full of screams and supplications, full of memories. In her skin it was still the ghost of the white liquid sliding down her limbs, the burning in her lungs when she screamed. It hurt so goddamn bad. She remembers.

Every part of it. She had even started praying over and over again, hoping someone would hear her screams. Nobody did. Nobody cared. And she had thought why would they care? She was nothing. Absolutely nothing.

She had felt pain and then she didn’t feel anything. She had felt numbness, like if she wasn’t a person anymore, a human, a fragile one. Her body had felt empty. She had felt like she was drifting into space. She had counted 1862 seconds before she could even move.

She hadn’t been able to mentally process what had happened in the moment, so she had pretended it didn’t happen for two weeks. When it came back, like a cold shower, it came into her mind that feeling of nausea, the numbness, the ache, the emptiness. She had stopped it by shoving it back in its box and slamming the lid. But she wasn’t able to forget anymore, no matter how many times she closes the lid, no matter how many strengths she uses, she isn’t able to forget.

Her eyes open again when the water stops making so much noise. The bathtub was almost full. She looked at the water and then looked at the mirror, waiting for something to appear. Maybe a miracle. Perhaps the monster that stalked her at night and ran her sharp, rotten nails over her skin, caressing her while she slept. Her hands untied the front tie of her silk robe, and she pulled her shoulders back, letting the fabric fall over her skin until it made contact with the cold floor.

And she thought. And thought.

Her huge mirror made her see two different Leevannas.

Or so she believed.

One Leevanna was examining her body, there was not a single scratch, not a mark, not a memory, everything was soft and she, happy and satisfied with it, hastened to put on a nice dress with a smile. She looked happy about being in summer. The other Leevanna was her, examining the small scars that painted her skin like strokes of a fine brush. She doesn’t bother examining her body, she’s just looking at her face and certainly not happy about not being in winter. Contemplating how the little salty diamonds decorate her eyelashes when she blinks.

“What does it feel like?” Asks the Leevanna in the mirror. Her elbows supported on the ceramic and her the palms of her hands being a nice seat to her chin. She wrinkled her nose a little, leaving a smile on the pink doors of her breath and jail of her teeth.

“What are you talking about?” Leevanna asks neutrally.

“Wanting to be me,” chuckles her cruel reflection. “Wanting to be the one who’s in the mirror... The one who doesn’t have any memories.” And she doesn’t know what to respond.

On the side of the mirror everything seemed brighter and more colourful. She could even see the rays of the sun creating pale but bright yellow rivers that reveal the tiny particles that are dancing in the air. Her reflection keeps smiling. Teasing her with her happy face that is not just a cruel ghost of what her life could have been in another life. One that was perfect for her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she finally responds making her reflection laugh.

And Leevanna thought her laugh was the most annoying sound in the world.

“I think you do,” the other says taking sit on the ceramic and placing her tangled hands over her lap as she looks at her. “I think you know it was your fault.”

“Nothing—”

“But… You also thought she deserved it,” this time Leevanna keeps quiet, and a shadow of pain ghosts her face like breeze.

The subject in question had changed drastically and she hadn’t even realised it.

“Ow, did I touch a nerve?” Her reflection made a fake grimace of pity before laughing again. “You know you thought about it… You cannot f*****g hide anything from me.”

“Shut up.”

“Let’s see…” and she did a thinker pose ignoring her warning. “What was the thing you said? Umm… Ah! Got it,” she chuckled. “‘She was a filthy Unpure… My father is right.’”

Leevanna closed her eyes again before looking at her with a tense jaw. “He wasn’t right.”

“You know you think like him,” the reflection added. “You know in your brilliant mind exists the carved chip he has been feeding every day, that thought that is tearing your brain apart with its tentacles… You know he’s right… You know you are superior… That the Umpures deserve punishments… That they are nothing…”

“Stop.”

“Maybe we should move to the memory that has been in your head for a while now,” the evil monster her reflection was sighed. “You know… The one whose anniversary is close,” she looked at her again and smiled softly, innocently. “When he—”

“Shut up!” the Leevanna in the mirror kept smiling before she stood up and placed herself in front of her, as if she was only her true reflection. With the smug smile painting her face, her arm extended, and her hand pointed the bathtub. The water was still warm. “If I, do it… You’re going to finally leave me alone?” Leevanna asked turning her gaze to look at the bathtub.

The reflection shrugged. “Let’s discover it for ourselves, shall we?” and she also turned her gaze to the water.

Leevanna glanced her one second before walking towards the bathtub and climb the few stone stairs to be able to enter one foot in the water. Her knees glued to her chest, and she embraced them with her arms before supporting her cheek on them and close her eyes. When she was finally able to remember everything, she scrubbed every inch of herself with a thin towel in an attempt to excise any trace of the memory that had been in her mind for a while, as her reflection had said.

In the process, she examined one of the thin and large scars on her rib cage for a several seconds. As well she did it with the three on her inner thigh. She inspected them all carefully.

The water grew cold around her, but she didn’t want to leave and enjoyed the sharp, icy pain that sank into her skin after half-hour of being there. She wished it would sink in far enough to numb her mentally and physically. She rested her head on the edge of the tub and closed her eyes before slowly sliding herself deeper into the cold water that surrounded her.

The stinging frozen particles from it made her feel inside her skin like ants running everywhere in every direction possible.

When her head was about to submerge completely, she made sure not to take a breath before being pushed away by the force of her memories.

She wasn’t scared when the water began to enter her nose and made her internal conducts ache. Nor when her lungs began to beg for air and her chest began to compress, raising that pain to her throat. Inside her head was her heartbeat like an echo muffled by her plugged ears.

She opened the doors of her breath and let quantities of water enter her insides.

She did not open her eyes at any moment and closed her lips in an involuntary movement as her command centre began to flood in the same way.

The grip of her hands on the edges of the tub loosened and they slid into the water slowly. Floating between the bubbles that her fading breath made. Her body slowly sinking into that black sheet that made her weaker and weaker and she felt the caress of death brushing her cheek and beginning to sing a song that she was ready to sing.

Its soft veil enveloped her and her being gradually detached from her soul, which was delicately charged by the arms of the death ready to leave her in the place of the eternal dreams, in where she wouldn’t have nightmares and the monster would finally leave her. And death turned its head, unwilling to leave its new follower when the sound of knocking at the door disturbed Leevanna’s sleep.

Death, careless and scared of being discovered, dropped the soul of what would be its new companion when the door opened. Leevanna’s hands tightened again and gripped the edges of the bathtub to give her body strength to push herself out of the water.

Leevanna, panting and with an insane headache echoing through her entire body, noticed the figure of Lhu entering the bathroom.

“Finally, here you are,” said Lhu grabbing her hairbrush making her bracelets collide with one another, tinkling. “You okay?” She asked frowning softly as she brushed her hair and looked at her through the mirror.

“Yeah, yeah,” Leevanna responded quickly and closing her eyes. “Wait — Wait for me five minutes, I’m not going to delay.”

“Okay,” Lhu sighed. “The girls and I would be waiting in the common room, see you there,” the jade-eyed nodded and Lhu left the bathroom not without closing the door first.

Leevanna ran a hand through her wet hair before focusing her gaze on the mirror, where the laugh from her reflection teased her. Like it always did when she was in one of these moments, her failed attempts to kill the last of her painful breathes.

Like always she wished to demonstrate to the monster that she was not a little girl anymore who was afraid of the destiny — of dying in the cruellest way possible so she could pay for her sins.

“Don’t bully him,” chuckled Leevanna.

She, Rhazel, Freya, Jia Xieren, Lhu, Isobel and Esmeray were sitting on the grass of the Practice Pitch while the boys and girls from the Vasilka Aircross Team kept up with their training for the match that would be next Saturday at 11 AM after breakfast.

Aircross was simple, a race against time. The two main characters were the ones who fled on brooms, going through hoops and different obstacles while the Beaters threw various enchanted balls at them. The purpose was to catch first the Light Orb, a sphere that served as an amplifier of magic for a couple of days, a reward for the fastest flyer.

It was almost 6:30 PM, and after classes there had been a just relaxed aura between everyone, so they had decided to see the practice that had been booked just today after classes. Of course House Faris had protested, but there was nothing any professor could do, the Practice Pitch was free that day, and certainly Vasilkas were the only ones who asked for permission.

“See?! She is nice,” said Rhaz with a pouty mouth.

They were talking about some memories they had from previous years, like that time when Leevanna fell from Rhazel’s broom.

“She literally fell off your broomstick!” laughed Jia while making braids on Freya’s hair, who was doing braids on Isobel, who was also doing the same but with Esmeray.

“I didn’t know that she was, and still is, afraid of heights!” Rhaz defended himself with a sharp voice. “And Lhu gave me the idea. And I don’t fancy Leev anymore!”

“Well… I’m not Professor Starling, how I was supposed to know that she would fall?” laughed Lhu before drinking her pumpkin juice.

“Who saved you by the way?” asked Isobel. “I can’t remember anything about that day but Rhazel apologising every two bloody seconds and buying you all the sweets in the world.”

“Vailant,” muttered Leevanna opening a chocolate angelwing that Freya had given her. “He saved me.”

“Yeah, now I remember,” said Jia Xieren unwrapping her lollipop. “He literally saw you and summoned his broom to immediately catch you.”

“It was not a big deal.”

“Not big deal?” chuckled Isobel. “He literally was praised and congratulated and even received points for saving you!” she continued. “Every boy was so jealous of him, I swear.”

Leevanna frowned, “Jealous? Why?”

“Um, hello?” said Isobel chuckling. “Literally nobody apart from Lhu or Esme has touched you that way,” she explained. “They were jealous because of that. Nobody has done it, and Eisdrache, being your academic rival, has.”

“He had many Monkuvines that day in his head when he saw you falling,” shrugged Esmeray. “Izzie is right.”

“Explain to me what were Monkuvines again?” frowned Freya confused, who was now sitting behind the blonde to braid her hair. Freya was like Esmeray’s big sister, and when Leevanna couldn’t be there for her, Freya was.

Esme smiled sweetly, “They are invisible creatures that float through your ears when you are experiencing a kid of anxiety, fear or negative feeling or you are in pain,” Freya nodded as a way to say thank you. Freya wasn’t good with remembering magical creatures.

It was at that moment that Mason, Eisdrache and Aidan appeared laughing while holding their brooms. Rhazel hadn’t felt like playing that day, so he had stayed to gossip with the girls.

“Having a girls talk, Rhaz?” mocked Aidan.

“At least they do not reject me, Aidan,” he counterattacked with a smirk on his face. All the girls laughed, and Aidan narrowed his eyes at his friend.

“What were you talking about?” asked Eisdrache sitting next to Freya and grabbing one of her chocolate angelwings.

“When you saved Leevanna from dying,” answered Freya. “And do not touch me! You are all sweaty, ew!” Eisdrache laughed before trying to touch her again.

“We were saying that what you did was very heroic,” said Jia with a chuckle.

Eisdrache stopped bothering Freya and swallowed, catching Vaughan’s eyes for a split of a second before turning his eyes to Jia “It was not big deal.”