Luna’s Recrimination

Chapter nine

Elena’s POV

I was yet to get a good night rest nearly every night as I always ended up back at the sea. I managed to sleep in the wee hours of the money. Maybe I needed to see a doctor or something.

“Wakey wakey!”

I felt a hand tap me by the side and I gradually opened my eyes.

“Uhhh!” I stretched.

“Morning Stella.” But she had a very annoyed frown on her face that did not match up with the way she had woken me up.

She then laughed.

I sighed eelieved.

“Don’t do that! No one expects to be welcomed with a frown face after a long night’s rest. It means bad omen where I come from.``

“I didn’t mean to offend,” she apologised. “It was just a joke.”

“It’s fine, ma’am. I’m happy to hear that there’s no problem.”

“Dre!” She called out, as she sat on the bed, beside me, pulling back her hair in a bun. “This is always so stressful,” she said.

Dre came in quickly. He had a black sac with him and I wondered what was inside it. He dropped it at his mother’s feet and stood aside.

“Elena, you asked about our next plan, right?”

I nodded.

“This is our next plan. We’ll be moulding you into someone else.”

“Wait what? What do you mean?”

“Calm down, Lisa,” said Dre. “Hear her out first.”

I looked at him and I must have looked concerned because he smiled gently at me.

“The next plan entails taking you back to your home. That’s where we’ll commence our next line of action. Surely, you wouldn’t want to go back there with the same identity, would you?” Stella asked.

“I… Well, that wouldn’t be great,” I stuttered. “But, what do I have to do exactly?”

“So that you can plot your revenge from within,” she answered. “You’d agree with me that it’s easier to get things done when you have more information, right?”

“With more information comes greater precision. The closer you get, the more you know the depth of what you’re doing.” I replied.

Dre clapped his hands and laughed rather loudly. He must have heard the saying too. My mother always told me that, although she said it brought no good.

“I’m glad you get the point, Elena. Without this, our next step will be useless. We can’t get through to them without having someone on the inside. We need someone that’ll make them remember you, even though they’d think it’s not you. Who better to do the job but you?”.

“Who would you be turning me into?” I asked.

“Why don’t you take a wild guess?” Asked Dre, rubbing his palms together.

I immediately got the point. I was going to be turned into Ella; his late sister.

“Ella?” I asked, continuing before they could even confirm what I already knew to be the truth. “Surely, they’d still know it’s me somehow. I can’t behave like anyone else but me.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Stella cut in. “That’s where I come in, Elena. I’m going to turn you into Ella. I just need you to trust me. Can you do that for me?”

“Well… Yeah. I have no reason to not trust you. You’ve been so kind.”

Stella bent down and took out a little bottle from the sac and smiled. She shook it vigorously and then turned to me. “With this portion, I’m going to remove the mark that was given to you by Leo. It’s a tribal witch portion which has the potential to break the strongest of bonds so that he won’t feel that connection when you’re close to him.”

She opened the bottle and handed it over to me. “Drink up,” she said as I poured the content of the bottle into my mouth. It tasted so bad maybe it was the bitter taste that drove bonds away. It was just so bad.

“Think about Leo,” she said, after five minutes. “What do you feel?”

“Anger, resentment, disappointment… Can I go on?”

“That’s not what I’m asking, Elena. Do you feel any connection?”

“No… No, I don’t. I feel… Nothing.”

It dawned on me that our bond had been broken. I was free from that monster. I never thought it was possible. I had doubted if I could get myself to kill him because as much as I hated him so much, I still did love him somehow. Not anymore. He was going to get exactly what he deserved and it was going to be in my hands.

For a few days, Stella kept training me. She made me practise how to speak like Ella. Their clan had a specific accent and I had to learn it. “Go on, girl, you can do this!” She kept saying whenever I didn’t get it right. It was a whole new experience.

It was more like a crash course too. We had very little time to perfect all we wanted to. She bought me the type of clothes that Ella loved; short, skimpy stuff. I didn’t like those. They seemed to show too much to people. Yet, I didn’t mind at that point. All I wanted was to deal with that man.

“Walk toward me, Ella, I wanna see you move.”

Instead of moving toward her, I just stood. I didn’t realise that she was referring to me. I forgot that I was supposed to be Ella.

“You can’t make this mistake, Elena. You should start getting used to that name. Over there, Elena is dead and you’re Ella. That’s your name, got it?”

“Got it, ma’am.”

“Good!”

We kept on practising until she felt I was good enough. “What do you think, Dre? Is she good to go?” She asked her son.

“Yes, she is, but there’s one more thing she needs to do,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“You’ll need to cut your hair a little bit, Ella. Your hair has never been this long. That way, they’ll be less suspicious about you. You’ll fix some lashes too.”

“Okay. Cool.”

When we were done, I went to the mirror and while I knew it was me because I knew myself, I looked so different. The portion may have also had something to do with that and I was grateful for that. I also wondered why we had witch portions but I’d never seen a witch in my life. Were they even real or just a fragment of the thoughts of wolves?

“Are you all dressed up, already?”

Stella walked right into my room, all dressed up and happy to see that I was, too. She came to me and pecked me on the cheek and I felt good. She looked so gorgeous. Her red gown was magnificent and her black shoe? It was a beauty to behold. I did think we were just going somewhere close so I didn’t understand why she had to dress that way.

“We’re going over to your house,” she said, much to my surprise. “I think you’re ready for this, Ella. It’s time to show them what you’ve got. I’m sure Andre thinks the same thing.”

“Yes, I do, mother. It’s time they got what they deserve!”

There he stood, by the entrance of my room, dressed in a chic black suit and looking so hot I couldn’t take my eyes off him. If he were to be food, I’d have eaten him right away. He was so handsome. He smiled and began to walk toward me. Maybe he had noticed that I was staring at him. Maybe he loved the fact that I also appeared in a suit; a blue suit though. My hands shook a bit as he approached me. He never took his eyes off me either, maintaining eye contact all the way. On getting to me, he held my hand, still looking into my eyes and then he asked a question.

“I know you are not my sister, but please be my sister, will you?”