Hallows: Merciful Death

La Bruja

In This Moment- Roots

B.B:

Carson drives us to a part of town no one really comes to. It's deep in the woods. Lots of scary critters all over the place. There are warning signs everywhere. He parks the car and steps out without glancing back at me. None of them do. We walk for a bit until we reach a clearing in complete silence. There's a perfect circle right smack in the middle of the most dangerous part of the forest. It's unreal. I'm not much of an outdoors kind of person but this is definitely worth the hike. It's beautiful.

There's a cute two-story cottage in the middle of the clearing. The grass here is perfect. There are flowers and different kinds of plants all over the place. Butterflies and bunnies. It's like walking into a fairytale story. You know, the kind where you find a beautiful cottage, and the witch inside traps you so she can later eat you. That kind of fairytale. I stop when Lucien walks ahead. A huge dark shadow in the shape of a crow appears where his regular shadow should be.

When Stacy steps up behind him a burst of butterflies danced in her shadow. The same for Dylan, his shadow breaks apart into bats. Marco has a cute little pouncing cat shadow and then there's Carson. I watch as his shadow waltzes around gracefully with a female devil. His shadow spins her around. Her little demon wings, her tail, the huge horns all of it. A perfect play of shadows dances along the grass. I can't bring myself to look away.

"Come on," Carson offers me his hand. His shadows stop and turn to me expectantly. It feels a lot like the shadows are all waiting on me to join them.

I step down onto the stone pavement. Immediately, the little snake slithers around me and then joins the shadows as if they're long-lost friends. Then they line up for me. The crow is the only one that moves closer. I look back and I see it. An ominous shadow standing behind me like a spectator rather than a shadow. The crow moves towards it, landing on its shoulder. The shadow moves its hand up to acknowledge it. To pet it as if it missed it.

"Holy s**t," I whisper taking Carson's hand. He pulls me to him with a smile.

"Unholy s**t," a voice interrupts our moment. I looked up to see a woman standing at the entrance of the cottage.

She's not at all what I expected and I blame my stupid overreacting brain and the movies I've watched over the course of two years. The woman doesn't look scary at all. In fact, she's really pretty. Her short curly hair reaches her shoulders. Her dark brown eyes are very mysterious. Her slender body is nice. She is, however, the oldest person here. Past her thirties maybe.

"Hello," I wave at her awkwardly.

"Hello, Lady Blackstone," she bows formally. There's a hint of an accent in her voice but I can't seem to place it. "I've been expecting you,"

"You have?"

"Yes," she motions for me to go inside. Carson pulls me with him. Lucien follows closely behind us and the others behind him.

The inside is just as pretty as the outside. There are potted plants all over. This lady takes her gardening very seriously. I wish I had a green thumb like this. I can't even keep goldfish alive. Let alone plants. That's Margarita's ordeal. She's the one that's planted things in our garden. I hate that garden. I'm not sure why but I do.

"Because you're a reaper," she says.

"I'm sorry?" I look up at her. There's something off about her. I feel it in my bones. It's beyond eerie and creepy. It's sinister maybe?

"You can't garden or keep your fish alive because you're a reaper. You take life not give it. You'd have better luck with cats,"

"That makes me sad," I look down at my hand in Carson's.

"That's why it's called a curse," she smiles. "Come take a seat with me, Belladonna. The rest of you make yourselves scarce,"

"We're right here," Carson reassures me.

He kisses my head and lets my hand go. I turned my attention to the woman who beckons me to follow with a jerk of her head. I stay with her as we go deeper into her cottage. It's very relaxing here. I realize that perhaps it's on purpose. The smells. The plants. It's pretty and welcoming.

"I'm glad you like it," she smiles. "You're a strange girl,"

"You can read my thoughts. I beg to differ," I scoff. She laughs.

"Touche," she nods. "My name is Nirvana,"

"You already know my name," I say. Nirvana. What a weird name.

"I'd like to hear you say it," she demands.

"Okay. My name is Belladonna," I comply because I really hate confrontations. Especially with women. Arguments with females always bring out a very violent reaction. It stems from my relationship with both my mother and my sister. We either get along or we don't. There is no in-between. No trust or mistrust. It is what it is.

"Not so hard was it?"

"I don't care," I shrug.

"You remind me of your father. He was a bit careless himself. It's the black mamba in you. You're the second one I've ever met,"

"Is that bad?" I ask looking her over. A weird sensation comes over me. I'm officially creeped out by her and I have no idea why.

"Your worry, that's also a black mamba trait. It's that protective instinct that drives a black mamba to strike at the sight of movement. It can also be the reaper itself,"

"I don't want to talk about traits and instincts. I want to know what's happening to me," I dismiss her. She's looking at me like I'm something to study. I don't like that. I like doing it but when it's done to me it pushes a very unfamiliar rage forward. Guilty conscience I guess. A defensive mechanism of my own making. A nightmare I created in my head long ago without ever even knowing it.

"Very well," we stop in what looks like a living room. Everything is covered in vines. This is uncomfortable. "Have a seat,"

"Okay," I whisper out loud and take a seat on the vines. Yes, very uncomfortable. She sits down across from me. Her eyes are darker now. Almost beady. The longer I'm around her the more my instincts urge me to protect myself. Why? She doesn't seem dangerous.

"You have questions?"

"A lot, yes," I nod.

"Run them through your mind so that I hear them all. So I won't miss anything," she smiles.

Creepy and wrong on so many levels. I feel bad for her. I shut my eyes and began to think about everything that's happened so far. How I feel. How strange everything is to me but most importantly. I want to know why I'm not more alarmed by all of this stuff. It's borderline satanic and I should probably be scared right? Scared of what it meant and how I might have unknowingly damned myself to hell.

"That's all I can think of right now,"

"You have a lot on your mind. Let's start at the beginning. Yes?" she suggests.

"Please," I encourage her. She shuts her eyes and relaxes back into the vines behind her.

"Fourteen hundred years ago, a boy and his eight friends stumbled upon an ancient stone. So they wouldn't fight over their little trinket, they agreed to share it. Every day they would meet in the same spot and hand it off to the next person," what in the actual f**k?

"The boy's name was Tobias Blackstone. They were twelve at the time and for three years, they were able to share this mysterious stone they found. Neither of them knew why it was so important or why they needed the stone. One day, Tobias suggests a crazy wonderful idea. He concludes that the stone is big enough to be broken into equal parts. That way they all get a piece. Nine pieces in total. The others thought about it and they all came to an agreement. Everyone gets an equal piece of this precious stone.

"So, Tobias creates a device to put the rock in. Inside a metal that was sharp enough to cut through the stone. He puts it in there and finds that it fits perfectly. He puts the top on it and takes a hammer and breaks it. Eight pieces around the center one. All the same size.

"Neither of them knew what it was or what they would be unleashing. As planned the stone was divided. Each took a piece and went home. These were the first cursed children of Hellbourne. The reaper, the black mamba, the crow, the panther, the bat, the butterfly, the toad, and the hellhound,"

"What was the curse?" I ask.

"No one knows," she shrugs without opening her eyes. It makes it impossible to tell if she's lying or telling the truth.

"What? Did they get powers from the stone or what was it?"

"No one knows," she insists. "The stone doesn't even work anymore. Whatever was in this stone tainted those children forever. Passed it on from generation to generation. You are the sixth generation,"

"I don't understand. It doesn't make sense," I shake my head. There is no way in hell that there's no real explanation for this. It's a stupid story.

"It doesn't have to. What is done, is done," she scoffs.

"Okay," I fall back against the roots disappointedly. "So, there's no way to break the curse?"

"No, not that we know of,"

"We? You're like us?"

"You catch on rather quickly," she smiles and finally opens her eyes. I looked around finally realizing what this place is. A swamp. The plants, the water, the moisture in the air.

"You're the toad,"

"I am," she nods. "A very old one. I can't have children of my own. I was in an accident as a girl and had to have my uterus removed and since I will never be able to provide a proper heir, I can't die,"

"f**k," I sit up feeling sick. "What about me? Why am I two?"

"You were meant to be a reaper. You sister the viper. However, she died before you came of age and she passed the second piece to you since she never had children of her own. It's complicated to be of your bloodline. Blackstones after all are the ones who cursed us. The link is with you,"

"I think Delilah was a viper for a long time. I was only a year younger than her,"

"Yes, reapers take longer to develop. They're the most powerful. Yours is still very dormant. It's in an awakening stage. There but not ready to take the stage if you will,"

"Okay," I find myself saying again. I'm very disappointed with all of this. I expected something grand. Something I could bullshit myself out of. That's what I'm really good at but it doesn't seem like this is ever going to let go of me.

"Should you have children of your own? It will be likely that you have two and each of them will inherit each trait. Unless you have a child with another cursed bloodline. Say you have a child with Carson, three children. Three pieces of the stone,"

"Why are the spirits attached to one another like this?" I ask. "A need,"

"The stone was one. But I believe your hunger stems from the reaper itself. Reapers are selfish and dangerous beings. Dominant even,"

"What if we were to put the stone back together?" No, I'm not ready to accept this fate. There has to be something I can do. My children cursed? f**k that.

"It's been done and it didn't matter. We're all still here," she gets up and moves around.

I don't pay much mind as I try to find a way out of this. Dozens of thoughts flit through my mind as I try to puzzle out what I know but that's just it, isn't it? I don't know s**t. I don't know a single thing. Every answer I get only leads to more questions. Am I really just expected to roll over and allow this to happen to me without putting up a fight? Nirvana returns with an amber stone in her hand. She offers it to me. I take it feeling its smoothness. I can see the cracks where it was broken into nine pieces. It almost looks like a star or a sun. I look it over, memorizing every little aspect of it as I turn it over my hand.

"That sucks," I sigh.

"Yes, believe me. No one hates this more than me," she agrees. Fourteen hundred years ago.

A buzzing sound echoed near my ear. Before I could swat it away she opens her mouth and a huge tongue flies out from inside of her like a whip. It almost touches my ear. She pulls it back into her mouth and begins to chew whatever it is she just caught. I stare at her eyes wide, sitting here absolutely still unsure of what to do. Holy s**t!

"I don't want to be here anymore," I blurt out. Even if I had just screamed it in my head she would have known just how disturbed I am by her now. Completely and utterly disturbed by her very presence and now physical form.

"I haven't answered a lot of your questions," she smiles, knowing exactly what she's doing. She's doing this on purpose.

"And you can't. You don't have the information I need. The information I really wanted. Do you have journals like my dad's?"I demand.

"I do," she nods.

"Can I please borrow them? I need a whole lot less of you," I groan, placing the stone on the vines next to me. She laughs.

"Sure, I'll give them to Lucien," she agrees.

"Great. It was f*****g weird meeting you, La Bruja. I hope that when it happens again, one of us has better social skills," I stand up hoping that she catches that I mean her.

"Your father and your sister couldn't stand me either," she states. Gee, I wonder why?

"That's because snakes eat what you are. That and your tongue is f*****g disgusting," I bite out.

"Have a good day, Belladonna Blackstone," she dismisses me. For an instant, it feels familiar. How many times have I treated Rose like this? Dismissed her like she meant nothing to me. Like she means nothing to me. I understand now.

"Call me, B.B," I roll my eyes. The others are outside waiting for me when I walk out. Luc is holding a box up with a little smile on his plumpy pink lips.

"Research?" he asks.

"Yeah, you guys set me up with a f*****g toad. She ate a f*****g fly by my ear. Her long ass to-" I stop myself feeling the sudden urge to gag. "You know what? I just want to go home and read these things. I'll make tea,"

"Sweet," Stacy beams. "Let's go. She gives me the creeps. She tried to eat me once,"

"Really?" I ask pulling her to me because I need to get the sickening feeling that thing instilled in me.

"Mhm, my entire arm was in her mouth while I screamed bloody murder. Luc got me out of there,"

"I feel like she just likes-" I stop looking back at the cottage. There is no way this place is normal. "This is where the stone was cut,"

"Yeah," Carson confirms. "She built the cottage around it,"

"Let's go. I don't want to be in this creepy ass place anymore," I turn away not wanting to look at it again. "I never want to come here again,"