Kind Of Woman That'll Hunt You
1.
Cordelia is sitting on a stool in what she believes is the science lab of a high school (not that she would know how a public school might look like, since Fiona Goode had always preferred homeschooling for her darling daughter). The room is of an hideous pale green, rows of onyx desks with shiny faucets fill the entire space. The walls are hung with black boards scribbled with scientific Latin names and every other surface is covered in jars (why are there so many jars?) encasing dead frogs suspended in formaldehyde solution.
The smell of chemical disinfectant is strong and it almost gets her lightheaded, the bright neon lights hanging from the ceiling making her newly acquired eyes prickle uncomfortably. The other tables in the room are occupied by teenagers clad in casual clothes and green rimmed lab goggles, all of them staring at her with condemnation and an hint of disappointment in their eyes. She looks down at her hands trying to understand the reason of their fixation and she realizes that she isn't in her body anymore.
Her usually empty fingers (she used to wear Hank's ring, but that has gone straight down the toilet as soon as she saw him screwing a redheaded woman that definitely wasn't her) are now adorned with several rings, some are simple silver bands others are bigger and beautifully crafted with leafy designs or heavy stones. She turns them over, staring at the calloused skin on her palms; these are the hands of someone who's not afraid of manual work, someone who doesn't care about getting dirt under her nails, someone who truly uses those hands as tools.
Cordelia's breath gets caught in her throat. She knows those hands, she's touched them, hold them in her own, seen them bring back to life creatures of all kinds, from plants to human beings. She has felt them pressed up against her chest, unmoving, as she clutched to Misty Day's soulless body a moment before it turned to ashes in her arms.
"Freak" she hears the harsh whisper of the boy sitting opposite her. She turns to him questioningly, but before she has the time to reply he looks away and yells for the teacher.
"Mr. Kringley! She did it again!" his voice is full of contempt and a little malice, so typical of the bullies of every age. Cordelia can feel anger burn at the pit of her stomach, how many times have her sister witches had to deal with this kind of treatment? How many of them had succumbed to the weight of social seclusion? How could she have been so blind? All these years, spent cowering in the high halls of her white walled Academy when she could have saved so many young lives from the claws of undeserving bigots.
"If you won't dissect a dead frog, then you will dissect a live one!"
The commanding voice is so near her ear that she jumps on her stool. A bearded man with a grey sleeveless sweater that would probably hurt auntie Myrtle sensibility, forces a scalpel in her hand and grips her wrist so tight that she can feel the tiny seashells on Misty's leather bracelet leaving marks on the skin under it. She tries to resist but he's so much stronger than her and when she finally gives in she realizes where she really is. Because on the desk before her, laying on a steel platter, there is a frog, his white belly up, twitching with life and she can only stare as her hand is forced down, the scalpel unsteady in her trembling fingers, until it stabs the creature and blood starts seeping out from the open wound on his stomach.
This is Misty Day's personal Hell. Trapped in a memory from which she cannot escape, because if there's a thing Cordelia knows about the swamp witch is that she cherished life above anything else, and Misty could never tear herself away from resurrecting an innocent creature, even if it might cost her an eternity of suffering.
Cordelia feels a wave of nausea hitting her, and the next moment she stops feeling altogether. She's no more trapped in Misty's body but she can see her, her pale face is wet with tears, her hands now bloodied as she hurriedly covers the poor animal's body and does the thing she does best: give life. The annoying kid doesn't waste a moment and repeat the insult to Misty before calling for the teacher again. Cordelia watches as the scene repeats but this time Misty screams and cries agonized as she stabs the frog. And it is then that Cordelia realizes that Misty is aware of the passing of time, she's aware of the repeating act, she could stop it if she wanted it enough, just like the other witches of their Coven did before her, but she cannot help herself.
The need to repair the damage she's done to that innocuous creature is instinctual, far stronger than any conscious decision.
Cordelia wakes with Misty's name on her lips and tears streaming down her cheeks. She presses her hands on her face and let the sobs quake her body, because it's her fault if that beautiful soul is trapped there. She has wanted so strongly for Misty to be the new Supreme that she has overlooked her obvious limits. She has immolated her for her own capricious need to see her cruel mother replaced by someone pure and untainted at the head of their Coven.
"I'm so sorry, Misty."
As her broken voice fills the darkened room Cordelia swears to herself that she's going to research every book in the history of witchcraft till she finds a way to release Misty's soul from that horrendous timeless place. She carved her own eyes out to find her one time already, and she's not afraid to do it again if it will be necessary.
Queenie is preparing the materials for the telekinesis lesson she's about to teach in an hour when Cordelia barges in her room, her chocolate eyes full of intent and her hands packed with ancient books.
"I need your help." The supreme says curtly overlooking any greetings in her haste.
"Couldn't you knock? I get that you're the Supreme now but I could've been naked in here." The younger witch is aware of how her brusque tone can be taken as disrespect, but she does it for Cordelia's own good. The range of powers that comes with the supremacy can sway even the more humble women, make them feel omnipotent, but Queenie has made it her job to keep Cordelia's feet on the ground. Hell knows she already has Fiona's genes in her body, she doesn't need to inherit her attitude too.
"You are right. I'm sorry, Queenie, but I haven't been sleeping well lately and-"
"Is this about Misty Day?" the voodoo witch interrupts because she knows that look on Cordelia's face. She's seen it once before when she was woken in the middle of the night by a crazed, freshly mutilated, headmistress ordering her to be escorted to a cemetery to save the blonde lady-Jesus.
"You've been dreaming of her, too?" the older woman asks, hope coloring her words.
"Well, I admit the whole tree hugger from the 70s thing she had going on was kinda cute, but I'm not really into that."
"Queenie" the face Cordelia makes, eyes wide and reddened cheeks, is worth the reprimand she gets. The blonde looks more like the easily flustered headmistress and less like the poker-faced Supreme of late.
"The books kinda gave it away, Cordelia." Queenie sighs and sits down on her bed as the Supreme makes herself at home and takes a seat by the desk.
"I believe I found a way to the place she's stuck at."
"Are you sure it's not that damn song you keep playing over and over when you're in the greenhouse that's getting to your head?"
Seriously, it's starting to get kind of creepy. One of the students has even offered to buy her other music, but Cordelia gracefully declined saying that the song relaxed her.
"No, Queenie, I'm sure it's not some fantasy conjured up by my subconscious. I know what Hell feels like, I've been there during the Descensum and somehow I managed to break into Misty's own version of it during my sleep. Maybe it's due to the fact that I tried to reach her before she disappeared, maybe the incantation I recited to her connected us in some way. All I know is that I need to get her out of there and you're going to help".
"Since you asked so nicely…" the voodoo witch replies sarcastically, her bitterness melting at the shy smile curving on the headmistress lips.
"Thank you, Queenie."
"Yeah, sure. Just chuck the books, we're going to do it my way. We meet in the greenhouse this evening. Bring some of Misty's fancy scarves"
Queenie is sure Cordelia has at least a dozen of Misty crocheted shawls sitting in her drawer. In the evenings after dinner sometimes she wears one as she sits on the stairs outside and watches her black cat chase after the grasshoppers in the garden.
"They're shawls." Queenie hears the headmistress correct her quietly but decides to ignore her with a roll of her eyes. Really, tough, Cordelia has had a humongous girl crush on Misty Day since she's laid eyes(or hands - whatever) on the swamp witch. Everyone and their mothers could see it.
"Oh and get us some cocaine from Fiona's nightstand."
The supreme opens her mouth in protest, arms already in front of her ready to make any kind of dismissing gestures. Queenie grins at her anxiousness.
"It's for Papa Legba," the younger witch explains quickly "Last time he and I bonded over hot chocolate and marshmallows, but I know he prefers stronger stuff."
"I hoped we could avoid his involvement. He's known to be attached to the innocent souls under his spell"
"That's why we need him distracted while you try and talk to Misty. Snap her out of the loop, get her soul away from Papa Legba's little playroom. Let her spirit free to roam back to her swamp or wherever." She says moving her hand in the air.
Cordelia nods to herself and smiles, it's the first real smile Queenie sees on her face since the day she ascended to the throne. The vodoo girl knows what it means to lose someone without having any sense of closure. She experienced it when Marie went missing without leaving any clues as to her whereabouts; and she still tries to get in contact with Nan once in a while, she knows that Papa Legba wanted her by his side, but she still wishes that she could say goodbye to her, roll their eyes together at Madison's snotty attitude one last time.
So she steels herself for a date with the devil in order to grant her Supreme the chance to have her own closure.
Misty can feel her voice give out after the last string of no she has chanted out loud trying to stop herself from piercing the frog once again. She finally remembers where this memory comes from, she even remembers the frog's name. She called him Mac after her favorite band. And that idiot Bobby Peterson had to go and tell the teacher. He died in a car accident right after graduation, the car exploded and they couldn't even find enough pieces of him to fill the coffin; right now she regrets not having anything to do with it.
Misty closes her eyes and lets her life force flow into her hands and forward into the little creature's body. His legs reacting almost immediately turning himself on all fours ready to jump out of the way. She prays that this time it will escape, that it'll take the leap and disappear under the table, away from her sharp knife and traitor hand. She needs someone, something to break this vicious circle for her, because she simply can't find the strength in herself to do it.
"Freak!" a sob escapes her charred lips. (When will this torture be over? Why can't they leave her alone? Don't they have a personal hell they belong to?)
Misty can hear the stomping footsteps of the teacher reach her table, she's prepared to hear his threatening voice, to feel the cold steel of the scalpel as it's forced in her hand one more time, but as he starts speaking his voice sounds muffled, distant. Something is interfering with their little school play.
"Stronger intent!" it is a female voice, the tone stern but laced with an encouraging note. Misty knows that voice, she's heard it while laying in that coffin when she thought everything was lost. The voice that had promised her protection, a home. It was the voice of her tribe.
"Miss Cordelia?" she whispers looking across her stool, the rough voice of the teacher growing angrier by her side, but she ignores it, her eyes darting around the classroom trying to identify the direction of Cordelia's voice.
"Intention!" the voice repeats but she has to strain to hear her above all the noise Mr. Kringley is doing. He has his clammy hand wrapped around her wrist, forcing a scalpel in her grasp. 'Intention' she mutters to herself remembering how Cordelia has taught her that a little more willpower is all she needs to surpass any obstacle. So she looks at the rapid breathing frog on the table, then at her hand and lets the scalpel clatter on the steel plate before turning around and punching Mr. Kringley square in the nose.
"Shut the fuck up!" she yells at the kneeling teacher before everything goes white and she cannot hear anything but the peaceful croaking of the frogs.
When she comes back Queenie is sitting at the table flipping through the pages of an old book, the pouch with Fiona's drugs is gone and Cordelia finds herself sighing in relief. At least she won't have to worry to get rid of that piece of her mother's inheritance anymore.
"So how did it go? Seeing how upset Papa Legba seemed when he left, I'd say it's gone great." The voodoo witch looks far too much comfortable for someone who just sat down with an evil spirit, yet Cordelia somehow admires her for her nonchalance.
"I've been able to break into her reality only for a few moments but she's definitely felt my presence." The Supreme then remembers the last moments of her vision and can hardly contain a giggle. "She socked the teacher square in the nose." She says almost proud of Misty proclivity for punching people in the face. She really whishes she could have seen the fist fight between Madison and Misty with her own eyes, it would have been glorious, one of her fondest memories.
"That girl can throw some serious punches when she's mad" Queenie comments sharing the blonde's amusement.
"I think she's finally free, Queenie." Cordelia is finally getting up from the floor, her hands smoothing out the creases on her white shirt. "I hope she's happy wherever she is now."
'Even if I wish she could be here with us.' The Supreme confesses to herself, her hands tightening on a flowery pale pink shawl Misty has left behind. She wishes she could have spoken to Misty, apologized for having failed her. She wishes she could have told her how much she meant to her, how much she has inspired her, even if they've known each other for such a short time.
"If there is someone who deserves heaven it's Misty Day." Queenie states "She's probably discussing resurrection techniques with Jesus Christ right now, or teaching him how to twirl in his robes."
Misty wakes up with a gasp, her grey eyes immediately focused on the crystal chandelier hanging from the living room ceiling. She's back at the Academy, back in the mortal world, back with Zoe and Kyle and that bitch Madison, back at Cordelia's side.
She cannot wait to see the older woman, she's already decided that she's gonna hug her so tight she'll be left breathless. She's still regretting not having crushed her in her arms that first time when she rescued her from being trapped in a coffin; she was too angry at Madison to even feel grateful towards Cordelia, but this time she'll do things the right way.
Misty lets a big smile spread on her lips as she thinks of her garden in the swamp. She's gonna take Cordelia to see it as soon as the sun's up in the morning (if there is anyone who can appreciate her messy little piece of Eden, that's Miss Cordelia). She hasn't been back in a few days and the tomatoes are for sure in need of a good watering, the sunflowers' seeds are probably ready for harvesting, too. And if any other plant is not doing well, there's always the special mud-balm she and Cordelia have concocted in their last session together in the greenhouse.
Her planning gets suddenly interrupted by a shadow obscuring vision. She's taken aback when she recognizes Madison's pale face above her own, a mischievous smirk plastered on her red lips and her dark eyes alight with a malicious glint.
"What are you smiling at, swamp rat?"
A/N: I hope you enjoyed the first installment of this story. I apologize for any mistakes you've encountered (apart from the ones in Misty's lines- those are her own doing), it's been a while since I wrote anything worth posting and I'm still a bit rusty. Also I don't have a beta right now, but I'd be grateful to any charitable soul out there who could help. If you have any suggestion on how to improve this fic be my guest in the review section, all feedback is greatly appreciated and repaid with a virtual box full of kittens.