Chapter 14: Rowena and Helena.
My talk with Godric, at the lake, had changed my outlook on the whole endeavor. I returned to the village and sought out my dear friend Helga before anything else could happen, and we talked about our beautiful dreams for the school. She and I had placed the idea in each other minds, and now that it was opened to one whom we all admired, the difficulties of starting gave way to the excitement of finishing what had been our work so far. The teaching had not been something out of the question, I had been teaching since I had come into this small group of people, but now it would be a true institution and so many people would benefit from learning the magic that they would not have known before this point.
I felt like a child again, full of excitement and fear. Things could be talked of so easily and yet we had no idea how we would accomplish our goal. The fear that the idea would remain nothing more than an idea was crushing and yet the idea was out in the open for all to know. The lake had enchanted us. The forest protected us and the mountain looked over us. I saw the enchanted castle within all these natural wonders and I knew that someday I would see it become real.
Soon after that first evening Godric, Salazar, Helga and I began discussing the school at length and the idea became a plan, or rather, a course of action. We, the four of us, continued in our day to day routines, keeping many of the details of our meetings secret and working just as hard as ever for the good of our city, but it was difficult to keep the secret for long. Helena was always around. She had taken more of a role as a teacher and yet, as long as Godric was in the village, she became his shadow. It was beyond our powers to keep her from talking and soon all of the teachers in our two small schools knew of the developing plan.
Quickly the idea became the talk of the town and everyone from our tradesmen and seamstresses, to our children began to marvel at what other excitement was around the corner. We knew the establishment of our school would not happen over night, but there was enough interest at this point to push us all to believe that what we were proposing was possible.
The only person who was unhappy, it would seem, was Helena. She was quite vocal in her displeasure and objections toward the project, and ranted and raved about the failure that it would become. She angered many of the citizens of Simplicity with her angry words and pessimism, but we were all determined to over look her selfish and negative behaviour, and we went ahead with our plans to establish the school and begin drafting the plans for the construction of our castle.
Helena hated that her cries for attention went unheard, but she became blinded with jealousy when Levon began spending his time talking about the project with excitement and great anticipation. Levon had done everything in his power to be a role model and positive influence in the village. He was raising the orphaned children much as his own and he had dedicated his time and energy to teaching. Any interest that he might have had for Helena was waning; tainted by her behaviour and jealousy, and soon he began to see the Wizarding School as the calling of his life. He wanted to be a part of our prosperity and was sure that nothing could change Helena that would bring her around to the project. He at one time wanted to see her as an important part of the village, following in my footsteps and had at one point even loved her, I believe, but she was selfish and unchanging in the way she behaved and Levon moved on.
I am sad to say that I truly underestimated the darkness that had filled the head of the woman that was my daughter. She was a stranger to me and although I tried to reconcile all those years, she proved to me that her hated was formed and unchangeable. That I would never be forgiven for the thing that I had done, or the things that I might still do.
One evening as the winter began to set in, once again, Helena returned to my home for the last time. She had been out in the village at one of the pubs that had sprouted up and she returned to my house, anger and vengeance in her eyes. She entered, her wand drawn and a curse on her lips as she stared at me and my work that lay out on my table. I had been working as hard as ever in the schools and with those whom I was fashioning to become professors within the great wizarding school of my dreams, and if I was ignoring Helena it was not because I didn't love her, but because she was not interested in following me into a new time. She wanted to be her own person, she was a woman now, and she needed to find her own way, but she was always shadowed and selfish, wanting everything handed to her and unhappy to have to work for anything. She was the spoiled child still and I did not know what else to do to change her. And so it was that she found me, deep in through and busy with the work that I saw as the most important work I would ever do.
She came in and stared at me before I turned to see her and it was then that she started into her tirade.
"I hate you!" Helena spat as the wind howled behind her. "You have been the bane of my existence, the plaque in my happiness. You have stolen from me everything and you don't even know it."
I was shocked to hear my daughter speak to me in such a way, but her verbal assault wasn't over.
"You should have let me die!" Helena screamed as tears burst from her eyes.
Flama paced her perch in agitation not understand why such a commotion had disturbed her slumber and I could calm neither the bird nor the woman who screamed and sobbed and cursed the things that I had compiled around me. Feathers from pillows were set a flight, Flama screeched and screamed as Helena tried to attack her, but Helena was emotional, and though she did a lot of damage to my home, her aim was off and my poor Phoenix was shaken up, but not injured.
"You are so many things to so many people and they love you so much but they don't know what a terrible person you are. You abandoned us!" Helena screamed. "You let them kill my father. You let Godric come and go as he pleased and you've enchanted Levon with your stupid ideals. He's just as delusional as all of you! There is nothing left for me because I will always live in your shadow, never as good or as smart as you! The people here are all fools to believe so completely in your unobtainable dreams!" She carried on like a banshee and my heart shattered with her every word.
I had never meant for these things to happen to my daughter. I had wanted more then anything to be a mother to her, but she would never trust me and I understood why. She felt abandoned, and that was what I had done to her and nothing I ever did would make up for that. For my moment of weakness in the face of danger, I would forever be hated. I had abandoned my child.
Helena stormed out of my home and into the night never to return there again. She left the safety of the village, which I would later learn was against the better judgement and wishes of Godric and Levon. Salazar and his crystal ball could always locate her, which was a comfort to me, but she did not return to Simplicity until much later in her life. By that time the name of the city had changed and the first class had graduated from Hogwarts, but at least we knew she lived.