This chapter is a bit short but I think it's needed and substantial enough to be alone.
Chapter Six: The Quiet Religion of Clara Deschamp
Long ago, when Clara Deschamp was but a child her mother had brought her into her garden and set her on her lap. This wasn't the first time she had been allowed into her mother's garden nor would it be the last but each time was something that Clara would always remember to be magical. Although she would never openly say it, her mother had always held a sort of enchanting beauty, something that transcended the physical and went into something utterly bewitching. Magic, Clara small mind would supply.
Mysterious and somehow dangerous, Mrs. Deschamp's garden held all the best herbs and remedies that a witch would ever need. Cauldrons bubbled and brewed quietly in hearths set throughout the cobblestone greenhouse, situated beneath vines and brush so thick that only spells could keep them from catching fire. It was a place that Clara was sure the fairies kept home.
And her mother… Clara turned her young eyes to her mother - her mother who moved with such elegance that it made her feel clumsy and foolish - Her mother was the queen of them all, Fae and witch alike.
"I have something to tell you, mon canard." Clara shifted on the long bench that looped the tea tables in the garden, staring, open mouthed up at her mother as she moved from making tea to sit beside her daughter. For a moment, Clara was distracted. She almost seemed to float as she came toward her and for a moment Clara was struck dumb with longing. She wanted to be like her mother. More than anything, she wanted to throw away her tan skin and paint herself the same glowing ivory as her mother. She would give anything - anything to be as her mother was.
"Clara dear." A light tap on her chin brought her back to herself and she abruptly sat up straighter, reminded of the etiquette classes that her Papa had insisted that she go to. Softly, her mother smiled before setting a plate of warm cookies in front of her. "You're father and I have something rather exciting that we've wanted to tell you."
"Papa?" Clara questioned, her amber eyes widening as they swept around the garden, expecting her bulky, hulk of a father to jump from one of the flower bushes.
"Well, I guess just me," her mother laughed, her eyes crinkling. "I have wanted to tell you, mon canard."
"You can tell me anything," Clara whispered solemnly causing her mother to laugh again and run a hand over her curls.
"Yes, I suppose I can." Her mother hesitated for a moment before drawing her closer. "Have you ever thought about - Well, have you ever been lonely?"
"No," Clara said bluntly, staring up at her mother who winced.
"Well, I'm sure that you've wanted someone to play with…"
"No."
"I…" Her word wonder off as she searches in vain. Eventually, her fingers grasp out, catching hold of Clara's to draw it nearer, press it to her stomach and smile. "Soon you will have a companion, mon canard. Someone to share your thoughts and feelings with. Someone for you to take care of."
Slowly, Clara drew her hand away, staring unseeingly at the flowing chiffon of her mother's dress, situated to delicately around her stomach.
"A...baby…" Clara whispered, her mouth working around the words.
"You will be so happy, mon canard," her mother promised, drawing her into a strong hug.
But Clara wasn't. She wasn't happy at all. She didn't know what she was but she knew for certain that the emotions swirling, so ugly and vile in her stomach, were not the swells of happiness.
At the age of six, Clara felt the hideous tangle of hatred and fear. Fear that someone would take her place, steal the love of her parents. And hatred that such a thing could ever exist.
Annabelle Deschamp, born second daughter to Willa and Alicio Deschamp was… perfect.
She did not scream nor fuss and her gaze was straightforward and honest. And Willa and Alicio loved her with a fierceness that burned Clara to her very core. Every moment that they held her and whispered her virtues into the top of her head as she slumbered quietly, ate away at Clara with a vengeance that scared the little witch to her very core.
She despised her sister for everything that she could never possess - all the things that made Annabelle her mother's daughter and shoved Clara farther and farther away.
"You were always so loud, mon canard," her mother gushed to her, cradling Annabelle with a tenderness that made Clara's heart squeeze. "It was always such a struggle to soothe you…"
Clara winced, drawing back into the door of the nursery as her mother cooed down at the little baby in her arm.
As the years furthered and her sister grew, her likeness to their mother only sharpening, and with it a deeper darkness began to form inside Clara. Hideous and wretched, she could feel it beating inside her like a living organ as she watched her sister play and laugh. Everything she did, every movement that she made was graced with a elegance that Clara could never hope to possess. As much as a flower is the result of a seed, Annabelle was their mother's daughter.
And it hurt Clara more deeply than she could ever express.
When Clara was small, there was but one religion that must be followed and that was the religion of Willa Deschamp. She was everything - everything that Clara ever wanted to be and thought that she could be. To Clara, whose small life had been held around this one holy thing, the sight of something that could touch it and speak to it was the most painful thing that she had ever endured.
It was at the age of ten that Clara began to wish.
Snuggled beneath her covers, she would squeeze her eyes shut and childishly call out into the world. There were no words to her wish - none that could grasp what she wanted - only the rhythm of her own selfish wants, drowning out everything but that one singular beat. And that was how she would fall into her restless sleeps. Calling out - not for her sister to disappear, never for that - for her sister to just be a little bit...less.
The visions started when Annabelle was six, coming in the forms of lucid dreams or hallucinations brought on by fever. At first, they were small. Little things like backing away before a cup went clattering to the ground or running to the door before anyone else had heard it ring. Both Willa and Alicio thought it was a blessing.
But eventually all blessing give way to curses.
In the night, Clara would wake suddenly to the screams of her sister shaken from another dream. Then the dreams moved to the daylight. Fever followed the youngest Deschamp like a shadow, close behind and barely touching. The young witch who had wished so hard watched as her sister crumbled, reduced to hacking sickness and thin periods where she couldn't keep down food for the visions.
Desperate, her parents searched for a way - some cure. They brought magicians from all of France - even reaching to the United States where stricter minds were at work. But there was no cure for talent and that was how they viewed it. Annabelle Deschamp had the sight and even though she would never be able to speak on her visions, no magical minded creature would ever be able to rip it from her.
An agony grew inside Clara. Every day was put to the task of trying to undo the curse that she had set upon her family. Her hands blistered and burned from the cauldrons that she set to burn. Her eyes swelled from the hours that she spent tearing through books. Nothing worked. I wish it all away, she would cry at night, grasping out at the universe.
But what is done can never be undone.
Eventually, Clara's cries subsided, her heart filling over with a dull ache that drove her to softness. She stopped wishing. She stopped doing many things, choosing instead to live in the pursuit of her sister alone. Whatever she would become, whatever darkness that had already corrupted her heart, Clara promised that her sister would never feel it again.
That was the last time that Clara ever wished.
Last chapter I was a bit disappointed by the lack of reviews and follows/favorites so please so me a little bit of love? I get emotional like that.