Nearly Witches

Chapter Eighteen

Alysanne didn’t know how long she had been in the jar for, Hecate had told her that time was different if you could live hundreds or even thousands of years. Sleep was her only solace and she was sleeping more and more as time passed, Psyche, Hecate and Hypnos would spend time with her when they were free.

“Alysanne,” Hecate greeted.

“How long?” Alysanne asked her.

Hecate looked at her before sitting down next to her, Alysanne was glad that she no longer looked like a nightlight. Her skin was still pale to the point that Sakura would force her to go to a hospital and sit on her if she tried to make a run for it.

“Three years,” Hecate told her.

“Rosalie and Dominic would be twenty, wouldn’t they?”

Alysanne blinked and she was sitting in a studio apartment. Looking around she spotted Rosalie and Dominic as they stared at each other, a textbook on her lap. She stood up, before sitting on the bed, away from their feet and she wondered why Hecate had sent her there.

More so, since it had been three years since she had ‘dead’ or had been ‘murdered’ in the school shooting.

“Three years,” Dominic said. “It’s been three years and I still try to track down the phone I gave her, in some vein hope that they made a mistake.”

“I miss her,” Rosalie told him. “When she smiled it would light up the room, she was nutty enough to allow Prim around her with pins or around Lily on her dancing kick.”

“Mum liked her,” Dominic informed her before taking out a phone, staring at the screen before looking back at Rosalie. “Eliza liked her as well.”

“She still doesn’t think I’m good enough for you.”

“Mum and Dad will never think anyone’s good enough for me, but they still want me to continue the family line.”

“Keep the business in the family.”

“Rosy, Dominic,” Lily said as she walked into the living room, staring at them with keys hanging off her fingertips.

“Why did I give you a key?” Rosalie asked her.

“Because your horrid at keeping appointments.”

“I wasn’t even shot.”

“And I wasn’t even there,” Dominic told her.

“You spend nearly an hour thinking you were going to die baby sister,” Lily informed her putting her hands on her hips. “And you learnt that someone you loved went missing in said event and was most likely killed.”

“We’ll go,” Dominic said before taking Rosalie’s hand into his own. “She wouldn’t be happy if we don’t look after ourselves.”

“No, she wouldn’t.”

“She cared more than she let others know,” Rosalie said. “We don’t even know if she’d dead, they never found her body.”

Alysanne just looked at them, keeping her hands in her lap before she did something stupid and touched her shoulder. She didn’t know what would happen if she touched her shoulder, but she knew she could make herself visible.

But she knew it might be the thing that broke them.

“Come on, they’ll find her. Dead or alive,” Lily told her.

“I’m keeping an eye out for her, keeping an eye out for her phone going off,” Dominic told her, Alysanne blinked as she patted her skirt and felt the phone hitting her skin. “Until we see her body, we don’t know she’s dead. She might be alive, there’s hope. We have to have hope.”

“But if she’s dead, then it’ll hurt all that more,” Rosalie told them, Alysanne could tell her that she was still alive, but how could she tell them that a Titan kidnapped her and got someone to shoot up the school to get to her.

It was better if they thought she was dead, then knowing she was being tortured.

“You’ll be a wonderful detective,” Lily told her.

Alysanne just looked at them before she turned around spotting Hecate and Hypnos, she blinked away tears and pulled Hecate into a hug. She knew that Hecate told her that she was reported as missing with police thinking that she was dead.

It was like with Orion all over again, but worse, since she had to watch her love ones suffer instead of looking up at the sky and seeing them. And unlike with Orion, Gaia didn’t have anything with do with this and it was her fault for being tricked.  

“It might be better if they think your dead,” Hypnos told her.

“It’ll be better if they know that for a fact,” Alysanne told them. “I know they won’t understand.”

“We might not find in you in their lifetime,” Hecate told her. “It took a hundred years to find Ares and you’ve only been there for three years.”

“How? How will make them think I’m dead for sure, without a body.”

“Don’t worry, we have our ways.”

“At least they won’t hope for something that might not happen.”

Hecate just patted the top of her head, before Alysanne pulled out of her hug and wrapped her arms around herself. Alysanne didn’t know what had changed about her appearance, she didn’t know if her eyes were the same mismatched shades as they were.

She would be found, but until then, all she could was dream about the past. Her life as Alysanne Byrnes or as Artemis.

--

Alysanne was up to her neck in liquid and no one had looked in on her jar for a bit. She didn’t know how grateful she was not to be a nightlight, until she stopped being one and sometimes she missed it a bit. Since it was her only source of light in her prison of a jar.

It didn’t stop her from being bored and that boredom had been solvable when it was easier to move her arms. If she could move them, she would have cut up her arms with her nails to the high heavens, she made one cut and amber came from the wound.

That had almost made her black out from the panic.

She wished she could stay asleep; she had hoped to be forgotten and now she knew that only Mnemosyne could do that for her. But that would be selfish thing to ask her to do and it would be Dominic and Rosalie’s choice in the end.

Alysanne didn’t want to be the person who took that away from them for her own selfish desires, her desire not to see them in pain because of her.

Putting her head back, she couldn’t hear anyone in the room. There hadn’t been anyone in that room for years, it wasn’t like she could run, and it might take awhile for her to be found by anyone.

“Eres mi sol, mi único sol,” Alysanne sang to herself, it was a sang that her Mum would sing to her when she couldn’t sleep. In Gaelic, but she didn’t think it would be a good idea to sing anything in English or Gaelic. “Me haces feliz, cuando el cielo es gris. Eres mi sol, mi único sol y me haces feliz cuando el cielo es gris, así que por favor no me lleves el sol.”

Opening her eyes, she leaned her head to the side as she thought about the kids she had brought to the police. She hoped that they were okay, was the war over in the Middle East? Did the UN finally step in on the civil war in Sudan?

Did they think leaving her alone would break her spirit? Make her bend to their will easier? Make her mentally stronger.

“No digo una palabra, pero aún así tomas mi aliento y robas las cosas que sé. Ahí tienes, salvándome de la multitud,” Alysanne sang recalling lyrics from a song that she heard on the radio, she had a feeling that she got some of them wrong and she could barely recall the artist or the song title itself as she wondered when the rest of the jar would be filled. “Fuego en llamas normalmente nos mataría, pero este gran deseo, juntos, somos ganadores. Dicen que estamos fuera de control y algunos dicen que somos pecadores. Pero no dejes que arruinen nuestros hermosos ritmos.”

Did she see the movie that the song came from? She had a feeling that it had something to do with rabbits. It was a pretty song, Spanish or English and she doubted it would make a difference in the end.

She was still stuck, and she still wanted to turn them into fish.

“Trying to take your brother’s title,” a voice told her, when she looked up she could see Iapetus leaning over her prison. “Artemis, the Goddess of Music and Song. Doesn’t fit what mortals think of you.”

And what she did care about that? Alysanne thought to herself. She wouldn’t answer him, and she knew that would piss him off, they were like toddler trying to get their mother’s attention by screaming Mum.

Or little boys pulling on a girl’s pigtails, or better yet, they were bullies and hated being ignored by their targets.

--

Alysanne looked around the backyard, chairs stood in front of a flower arch. People were sitting in said chairs, wearing nice clothing and Dominic was in front of a priest in a black suit and a blue tie, a small girl walking down the aisle with a basket of flowers and a small boy followed a pillow with two rings on it.

A wedding, it looked like a wedding, she looked around and quickly took an empty seat in the back and watched as Kellen walked Rosalie down the aisle. Her white wedding dress was beautiful in a way that Alysanne couldn’t describe.

Putting her hands on her lap, she watched as Rosalie and Dominic said their vows. Nearly crying as he hugged her before kissing her forehead. Sakura, Lily, Primrose and Rosemarie stood behind her with small smiles on their faces.

“I do,” Rosalie told Dominic, smiling as she turned around and throw the flower behind her and Alysanne watched as a woman caught them. Laughing as she laughed and showed the woman next to her, before kissing her on the lips. She was happy for them and she hoped she found every bit of happiness in each other.

“They’re happy,” Alysanne whispered as she watched them walk back down the aisle with their bridesmaids and groomsman following behind them. Violet and Kellen hugging their daughter before they started taking pictures.

Dominic whispering something in Rosalie’s ear.

“We’re keeping an eye on them,” Hecate told her as she appeared next to her, neither of them moving as the wedding moved to another area. Waving her hand before the scene changed and she spotted Rosalie and Dominic’s first dance.

This was something that wouldn’t interest Hypnos, she didn’t think it would interest Hecate all that much either.

“And we’re still looking for you,” she told her.

“But they could be long dead by the time you find me,” Alysanne said as she crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. “Or they could be old enough before you do so, I hope I can get to say goodbye.”

“We’ll find you and I’ll show you how you can be seen,” Hecate promised. “Seen enough that you can say goodbye.”

“Or become a Ghost story,” Alysanne chuckled.

“You’ve been around Hermes too long.”

“You know you shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“Then it’s a good thing, that I plan to keep this one.”

--

Alysanne didn’t know how long she had been asleep for; didn’t know how long she had been in the jar watching Rosalie and Dominic like some kind of stalker. Not all the time, she’d wonder wherever they were living at the time, nor than once appearing slightly to lead Rosalie towards one clue or another.

She felt nothing as she came back to her body, a loud noise and she could hear screaming. Turning her head, she could see the bronze being cut through and the liquid was drained out and air went into her lungs before she cleared her lungs from the liquid.

“Ally Cat,” Persephone said as Alysanne pushed herself onto her feet, she was covered in liquid and she didn’t know if the phone that Dominic had given her was still working. If he was still alive, she wondered if he would be able to track her down.

“Sephie,” Alysanne said.

“We found you,” she told her, catching her as she almost fall over.

“I can see that,” she told her as arm went around Persephone’s neck, the fighting was in the distance as Persephone took her away from the battle scene. “How long have I been in there? What’s going on?”

“More than seventy years,” Hecate told her as she looked at her, Persephone nodded her head before handing her a golden liquid before drinking it. “We found you in time for you to say goodbye.”

“Rosalie,” Alysanne said as Persephone walked through the shadow. She was in a hospital room, it looked like a private room and she looked at Rosalie with white hair and dulling blue eyes. “It’s been awhile.”

“Talk to her,” Persephone told her as she sat down.

“Hello, Rosalie,” Alysanne said as she took her hand into her own. She made sure that Rosalie could see her, but the cameras wouldn’t catch her, and no one would see her. “It’s been years, has it not?”

“Alysanne?” Rosalie asked as she opened her eyes and tightened her grip. “I missed you so much, it took them three years to find your body and then they couldn’t find the phone Dominic gave you or the bracelet you wore all the time.”

“I got it back.”

“I’m glad, I wish I could have kept it, to remember you.”

“Do you want to me what happened?”

Rosalie smiled at her, before telling her major events that happened since she went missing. Along with the process of her and Dominic’s fake relationship, along with her children’s and grandchildren’s births.

Along with her children and grandchildren’s successes, she cried as she maintain Dominic’s deaths and Alysanne put her hand on her shoulder. Dominic had died in a car crash, along with one of their sons as a drunk ploughed into their car.

“We named a daughter after you,” Rosalie told her.

“That poor girl,” Alysanne remarked.

“She could be named after someone worse,” Persephone told her.

“We called her Ally for short,” Rosalie told her as she looked at her hand. “It took years before we could say your name without breaking into tears. I loved you, loved you so much and it broke my heart when I learnt that you had been killed in such a manner.”

“I’m so sorry, Rosy, I loved you to,” Alysanne told her tears going down her face as Rosalie’s hand went to her cheek. “We were such blind idiots, weren’t we?”

“We were, so blind and I wish I could back and tell you sooner.”

“Ally Cat.”

“Your Mama call you that?”

“No, my aunt did.”

“Smart woman, you are quite cat like.”

“You know she is,” Persephone told them.

“She is,” Alysanne told her.

Rosalie kept talking to her, Persephone reading in the corner as Alysanne listened to Rosalie talk to her about anything that came to her mind. A male in his thirties walked into the room with a small girl walking in behind him.

Alysanne knew that adult couldn’t see her, but she wasn’t so sure about the child.

“Zack, Mary,” Rosalie greeted as she took Alysanne’s hand back into her own, Mary looking at her and Persephone with wide eyes. “How are you two?”

“Works going well, and Susan’s is just a bit tired,” Zack told her.

“Grandma, who’s that woman?” Mary asked her; looking at Alysanne as she smiled at her and then looked at Persephone. “And who is she?”

“Alysanne Byrnes and I don’t know dear,” Rosalie told her.

“Didn’t she go missing when you were seventeen?” Zack asked her.

“She did, we found she went to the other side three years after that.”

Alysanne sighed, before looking at Persephone who nodded her head. They would make them visible to Zack, she smiled at him before looking at Rosalie as she put her hand on hers as she squeezed the hand.

“Oh, now I can see why you said she was pretty,” Zack told her as Mary sat down next to her leg and took out her iPad. “And why Aunt Prim wanted to work with her, along with Aunt Lily.”

“I didn’t realise,” Rosalie told him.

“They were more comfortable talking about her.”

“It’s nice to meet you two,” Alysanne told them, Mary smiling at her before showing her what was on her screen, before telling her what she had learnt that day in school and how she had skipped a few grades.

How people in her school didn’t like her because of it. How some people would pick on her because she was so young.

“I’m Persephone,” Persephone told them. “I’m Alysanne’s aunt.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Rosalie told her.

Zack took a spare chair, before all of them listened as Rosalie spoke to them. Mary falling asleep after getting her father to pick her up, letting her sleep on his lap and Alysanne could only hope that she stayed asleep.

She was too young too watch a family member due in front of her eyes, when she was her age, Alysanne didn’t think she could handle watching her grandmother die.  

“Don’t leave me, Ally,” Rosalie pleaded with her, tightening her grip as her heart monitor showed that her heartbeat was slowing down. “Don’t leave me again, stay, please. And I’ll follow you to the afterlife, wherever that might be.”

“I’ll stay till the end of the line,” Alysanne told her, smoothing her hair as Zack looked at her with tears in his eyes. “I promise, I’m not going anywhere.”