by Celia Crown
“You look more scared than I am,” I grin toothily at Jesse who laughs while pinching my cheek.
“My baby sister is going under anesthesia. Of course, I’m scared.”
I want to roll my eyes at him. He’s worried about the sedative more than the surgery itself, but I can see the fear in his eyes. This is a change for me to see. I always see Jesse as this strong and dependable big brother. He never lets me see what had affected him when he fought in battles, and I understand that now because he doesn’t want me to worry.
“You can buy me another Finny for my get-well present,” I wince when he tweaks harder.
Jesse taps my nose, “We’ll go shopping together. You, Alex, and me.”
A big, calloused hand runs through my hair, tugging on the tangled pieces as I lay my head on the pillow. I turn my head to see Alex scanning my face for something, but I give him a smile. His affection seeps through his dark gaze, and Jesse knows what’s going on between Alex and I. We’re not really hiding it, and Jesse is smart, so he figured it out easily.
He doesn’t say anything, but the evil gleam in his eyes says it all.
“Gentlemen,” a voice calls their attention.
They look over to the door while I savor the sharp jawline of Alex. I want to trace the vein on his neck and hug his massive body. I don’t like this hospital bed. It has no warmth to it. It’s too plain with no taste in the interior design, and the beeping machine attached to my heart is still a mystery to me.
I’m not going under sedative just yet, and they already have me hooked on the machine. It’s as if the thought of surgery isn’t already freaking me out.
“Charlotte,” Alex smiles as he leans down to kiss my forehead, “Jesse and I will be here when you wake up.”
“Promise?” I whisper, puckering my lips for a kiss.
He chuckles; a shiver runs down to my toes at the velvety baritone, “Promise.”
Alex presses a soft yet deep kiss to my lips. I hum happily when he pulls away. Jesse’s hand pats my hand and trace a small stripe to my cheek where he had pinched.
“I’m not leaving, Letty.” Jesse’s determined eyes and strong hands pull my head to the side to kiss my cheek.
“I know,” I said.
One would think that it’s suffocating to see two heads above me, but I feel safe and loved in their shield of protectiveness. The corner of my eyes picks up movement from the nurse pushing something into the dripping IV. A feeling of heaviness rushes through me as I feel my body weighs about a ton.
A glossy mist blurs their face as I try to stay awake for a bit longer, but the sedative is stronger than my willpower.
“We’ll be waiting,” Alex’s voice is deep and floating around my ears as everything turns black.
I’m sinking into the abyss of the ocean, breathing the crisp waters and watching the lights above me get smaller and dimmer as times past. Cold forms around my skin, water brushing past my skin and embracing me with its delicate waves.
“Hello, did you miss me?”
Oh great, she’s back.
The evil me is sitting on a couch that looks too familiar. I look around me as I’m no longer in water, I’m in my own home with the same flower-printed table cloth and framed photographs. Every little detail is the same; even the smell of the distinctive mothball is the same.
I have this unreasonable belief that mothballs can ward off bugs and other nasty crawlers. I can’t remember where I got that belief from, but the scent of mothballs has been stable in the house, and it’s quite disgusting.
“Where am I?” I sigh, crossing my arms over my chest and something doesn’t feel right.
I glance down and shrieks in bewilderment. My eyes scurry from the evil me and my tiny toes. Shooting my hand out, I wiggle the small fingers, and I pat my boobs to see if they’re still there. They aren’t, and I want to cry because I like my boobs. They’re soft and squishy.
“What did you do?” I shout at her.
She rolls her eyes, “Calm down. I don’t know why you’re being a baby about it.”
I am a baby right now, and I’m utterly baffled. Where did this bizarre scenario come from in which I’m a child again. None of this should be happening because I should be deep into anesthesia for the surgery and well on my way to dreamland.
Yes, I nod to myself. This is a dream.
“It’s not a dream,” the girl with my face states simply.
She can also read my thoughts, how creepy.
“Stop reading my mind,” I hiss, digging my nails into my chubby arms to feel pain so I can get a sense of control over this place.
Maybe I’ll dig so hard into my arm that I’ll wake up in the middle of my surgery screaming in pain, but it’s better than being stuck here with this undefinable thing.
“You should stop insulting yourself. I am you.”
I bare my teeth at her, “I am not you.”
“Believe whatever you want,” she said and pinched her arm.
A sharp pain draws a hiss from my lips, and I rub the tender spot that’s throbbing. My eyes widen when I look at her and she grins.
What the hell is happening?
“Colette,” a woman’s voice bellows, “Stop bullying your sister!”
Colette? Sister? What the heck?
I cock my head, and my throat tightens, a tingling twitch on my nose burns with the red rims of my eyes.
Beautiful black hair, warm brown eyes, and a flowery apron around the waist of a woman that I never thought I’d see again. She scolds the girl, and my ears won’t pick up her words, but I know that voice from my heart. Tears drip down from my chin to my neck, rolling a trail of wetness down to my shirt as I cry for the woman’s attention.
“Mama!”
Mom turns and rushes over to me. She kneels, and her pumpkin pie aroma punches me in the guts. I sob her name and throw my arms around her. She coos my name, stroking my black hair, and picks me up. I sway and bounce in her arms while choking on my sobs in her chest; she soothes my coughing gently down my back.
“Hush, baby, big girls don’t cry,” she balances me with one arm and wipes my face with her other hand.
My tears won’t stop. They flow freely down my cheeks as my hiccups get caught in my throat when I see daddy holding a folded newspaper in his armpit.
The damn breaks even harder, and my tears are unstoppable.
“O-oh, okay, um, w-what happened?” Dad picks up the other girl and walks over to me.
Dad’s face comes to view, and he reaches for my cheek to wipe away the wetness.
“Colette, are you being mean to your sister again?” Dad turns his head down to frown at the girl.
I want to resort snippily that she isn’t my sister and she is nothing but an evil replica of me.
“Say sorry,” mom traps the girl’s nose between her fingers and the girl struggles free to wrinkle her nose.
“I’m sorry,” she said, the blues in her eyes are pale.
Mine is the darker shade like my dad, but her shade is not of anyone in the family. I push my face into mom’s chest and bite my lips, biting until I taste a faint metallic flavor on my tongue. I’m not waking up, and I’m trapped in this weird scenario.
A scenario where my parents are alive and—
“Jesse!” I yell loudly, “Where’s Jesse?”
I wiggle and try to wring myself from her grasp, but I’m not trying too hard because I want to stay in the arms of her motherly hug. It’s hard to pull away when this is the feeling that I have been missing all my life.
“Jesse’s in the basement getting candles. We need lights. We have a blackout, remember?” Dad puts a strand of hair behind my ear and smiles.
Wrinkles around his eyes and fine lines on his forehead, the level of compassion in his eyes is unmatchable.
My lips flatten again, and a whimper tumbles out of my tightly sealed lips.
“H-hey, hey, baby. What’s the matter?” He frantically pats the tears dry while balancing the girl in his other arm.<
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I shoot a glare to her; her nonchalant expression pisses me off.
“Oh, Colette, you devil child,” mom pinches the girl’s nose again, and she dodges by shoving her face into dad’s shirt.
“Alright, alright,” dad laughs, his belly rumbling with his laugh, “Let’s set up dinner. We’re all hungry.”
Mom sets me down, and dad does the same thing with the girl. We stare at each other, and I refuse to blink to lose this competition. She’s going to blink first, and I will win this childish staring contest with my evil self.
“You girls play nice,” mom says sternly before going back into the kitchen with dad following her.
“What is this?” I snarl at her when my parents are out of the hearing area.
She raises an eyebrow and skips towards the couch that faces the television. She climbs on top, and I stalk over to climb on top since this girl is taking forever to answer my question. I can’t feel an ounce of magic coming from me, and she doesn’t have any either, so it can’t be her doing any trickery on my mind.
“This, my dear naïve self, is your wish.” She keeps her eyes on me.
“No, it’s not,” I got a little defensive.
She rolls her eyes. I don’t like how she resembles me. Everything but the eyes, they make me uncomfortable because we’re mirror images of each other.
She snorts, “Tell me, what made you touch black magic in the first place?”.
The only reason I touched black magic was to bring my parents back. I was lonely and afraid that I would lose Jesse too. I didn’t know that the time Jesse got drafted into the military was also the time I truly lost him.
Thinking back, I can understand why he had left, and blaming him for my loneliness was something I wish I can take back. He had every right to leave. Looking at me would remind him that I was the reason they aren’t with us anymore.
I have my dad’s eyes and mom’s hair. I’m bound to trigger happy memories in him that will ultimately render him spiraling in the grief over the loss of them.
They left this world fighting for the rights of their unfortunate child and the rights for me to live as freely as anyone else. I was an unfortunate child. If I was born as a boy or even those lucky girls who didn’t have their magic genes, I would be living a happy life.
Life would be easier.
If a time machine is sitting right in front of me and it gives me two choices, I wouldn’t know what to do.
I would screw it up on either choice.
Go back in time to make my parents stay in the house the day of their death and Jesse wouldn’t leave for the military to get away from me, and we would be a big, happy family.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t have Alex. He’s the man that reached out to help me when I have hurt him. He stayed when he found out what I was, and he loves me for being Charlotte. I’m just a simple girl in love with him. I’m not a witch or a threat to him, and he can look past the stigma of me being an undesirable race.
He loves me, and Jesse loves me. The decision shouldn’t be hard to make, but it is.
This is my wish. I was willing to dabble in black magic to get my family back. It’s the sole reason why this voice and this replica of me exists. It’s all from the repercussions of the black magic. It’s a price I’m still paying because this world that I’m witnessing isn’t real.
My parents are gone.
“They don’t have to be,” she said.
Sadness and hope whirl in her eyes, “We could be a family.”
“You’re not my family,” I remind her.
“I am you,” she counters back, “I am the foolish Charlotte from ten years ago. I am the aftermath that’s searching for a happing ending.”
“I don’t care what you are,” I snap, anxiety rising well above the normal level. “I want to go back to Jesse and Alex!”
“You can’t,” she says, her tone is calm and relaxed.
“And why not,” I sniff, rubbing my nose.
Being away from Alex and Jesse brings this defensive side out of me. It’s my body’s natural reaction to wanting to protect myself. I have to survive whatever this is and find a way safely home into the arms of Alex and the warm laughter of Jesse.
She sighs, laying back into the couch cushion, “Because you don’t want to.”
I don’t know what she’s talking about because the only thing I want is to wake up from the anesthesia-induced dream. When I wake up, I would see them, and we would go get another Finny. This time, I’m going to take really good care of the cactus. It’s not going to get overly dehydrated or enthusiastically flooded.
“Of course, I do,” my face twists at her words. This girl is way off with her statement.
An indignant tone comes out, “Why wouldn’t I want to go back to Jesse and Alex. They’re my everything.”
“You have war in your heart,” she said, tilting her head towards me with her light blue eyes curving humorlessly.
It’s the same phrase the lady doctor had said to me at the weird medical facility.
The girl shifts, facing me with her hand combing through her black hair. “You are greedy; you want the best of both worlds. What you wish for and what you already have can’t ever exist in the same universe. No amount of magic can make it happen.”
“Then, why do you keep telling me to hurt Jesse and Alex? Aren’t you greedy too for trying to influence me to further your agenda?” I glare furiously at her, anger etching on my voice.
She snorts, “Agenda? I told you before, I am you, and you are me. Same body and same soul; what you want is what I want. A part of you—me—wants to stay here, and this part of you will do everything to get the desire to come true.”
I gulp loudly, “Even hurting them?”
She nods, “Even hurting your precious men.”
It’s hard to believe that a vicious part of me is willing to do anything to have a family again despite having Jesse back and the love of my life waiting for me to wake up.
I’m not trying hard enough to get away from this place. I’m not trying hard enough to put this side of me to rest. I’m old enough to recognize that the dead can’t come back. It’s a universal fact, and black magic can’t resurrect them.
“How do I leave here?” I ask the girl.
She repeats, “You have war in your heart. Until you can fully give up this wish, you’ll always have me.”
I close my eyes. Maybe I still have some magic in me to search for the closest source of realism. This hallucination, illusion— a dream is not going to stop me from fulfilling on that promise to wake up and go shop for a plant.
It sounds like a trivial Sunday trip, but it’s only to be the first trip that we would take together as a family, just the three of us against the world and searching for the best cactus to be named Finny.
It’s my type of Sunday.
A big hand lays on top of my head. I glance up to see dad ruffling my hair. The tranquility is back. My will to wake up is slowly fading away from me and I’m helpless to stop it.
“Daddy,” I murmur, and he plucks me off the couch and onto his chest.
Colette is the manifestation of the old me that dreamed of this happy family. She is me, and I am her. This fantasy is also mine because it’s everything I have ever wanted.
Mama, daddy, and Jesse, and me in one cozy house eating dinner.
I can’t.
I shake my head. Colette may be me, but this is her world. I don’t need to be here. I don’t want to be here. I want to be with Jesse and Alexander; they’re waiting for me to go back home.
Yes, home.
I have to go back to them.
“You don’t want to stay, Charlotte?”
I want to stay. I really do. I have always visualized being in this perfect picture. That’s why I tried forbidden magic in the first place. It was so Jesse would come home to a family reunion, and then he wouldn’t leave again. There wouldn’t be a reason for him to leave.
Dad rocks me to a slow l
ullaby while he pats my back. The gesture is warm heartening.
“Stay, Letty. Stay with us.”
Yeah, just for a bit.
Chapter Ten
Alexander
I brush the smooth, black strands away from Charlotte’s face. The shade of blue that I love remains closed while she sleeps on the bed. My suit clings to my body tightly as I lean down and press a chaste kiss on her forehead. Her breathing is slow and unchanging.
“I’m off to work, Charlotte,” I murmur and kiss her plump lips.
She does stir, but she doesn’t wake up, and she doesn’t whisper back a good morning.
Five years of silence.
After the surgery, the doctor said to give her time to wake up naturally. The anesthesia is strong so her body would still be under the influence, but Jesse and I were too happy that her heart was still beating when they wheeled her back into a recovery room.
Three days later and she hasn’t woken up, Jesse and I were impatient. We were frightened and unsure as to what to expect because this is the first time that someone survived with Black Dalilah. The doctors had Charlotte under strict supervision, monitoring her vitals and to see if there are any changes in her body relayed to post-surgery complications.
Everything went well. Her body showed healthy vitals, and the witch doctor had regularly scanned her body for any possible chances of having the black flowers coming back.
When I requested the surgery process, the doctor had no qualm about the details she threw at me. It was a particularly difficult thing to do because Charlotte had to be stabilized at a constant heartbeat. Other witches had to put up a barrier around them for any unforeseeable factors, and when the surgery had begun, the soul and body had to be separated.
The doctor said it was the worst thing she had seen. Charlotte’s body had been deteriorating with black magic curling inside her bones, breaking down the genes in her system and changing the blood that protects her heart.
Her heart, on the other hand, was a problem on its own. The veins that Jesse had seen were not mere tattoos or inscriptions from her magic. It was far worse. The veins were as real as they can get, coiling around the frail heart and tightening painfully when the doctor tried to probe at it.