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Chapter Fifty
After the flying incident things at Cackles went more or less back to normal for most people, all expect for Esmerelda, things did go back to normal but the girl was also suffering with herself, now more than ever. The pressure that was put on her, the loneliness, it was taking over her life and making her sad and more quiet than normal, whereas her sister Ethel reacted in anger, Esmerelda reacted by becoming quiet and withdrawing herself from society.
She had heard about withdrawal before, but she never really understood why it was dangerous to be by yourself, but now she understood, you overthought everything and started to think badly of yourself, you forget about fun and start to just focus on your daily tasks, but the things people do without thinking start to become a chore, it is just an obstacle in your way and it is a never ending cycle. Esmerelda was angry at herself for allowing herself to think like this, but she wasn't stupid, she was in control of herself, she just didn't realise she wouldn't be for long.
Esmerelda had realised that she lately had being struggling to concentrate as easily on her schoolwork, there was so much going on in her head that she was finding it harder and harder to focus on the task she had at hand, that was why she was distracted in potions the next day.
The girl was meant to be making a sleeping potion, and she knew like the back of her hand how to make it, but she couldn't make it for long without daydreaming, she looked at the wall, staring into space, not staring at anything in particular, just entering a world of her own. She didn't know how long she stared for but when she came to her senses she shook her head and carried on making her potion, angry at herself for allowing herself to become some distracted.
Even though she was angry at herself, it did not mean that she did not end up doing it again, because in fact she did. Miss Hardbroom was sat at her desk marking work and the rest of the class was busy trying to remember how to make a potion so no-one noticed the girl was out of it. Esmerelda stood like that for a good few minutes, until a tingling sensation brought her back to reality.
"AHH" Esmerelda screamed as she realised she had just put her arm in the flames that were keeping her cauldron heated. Her screaming alerted Miss Hardbroom and the rest of the girls and the teacher appeared in front of her in seconds.
"What is wrong?" the woman asked, wondering what the girl was making so much noise about.
"I burned myself" Esmerelda told the woman as she showed her the burn which was starting to blister.
"How did you manage that?" Miss Hardbroom asked shaking her head
"I wasn't concentrating, I am sorry Miss" Esmerelda told her, thinking she was about to receive another detention.
"Go to the nurse and next time try not to daydream Miss Hallow!" the woman told her as Esmerelda stood up and rushed outside the room, her arm aching badly.
Esmerelda went to see the nurse and in the time it took her to walk there, her burn started to blister a lot and the pain was horrible. She saw that the nurse was the same one who had treated her after she had fallen ill at the flying competition and knew she was going to ask questions as to why she was there again.
"I...burned my arm in potions" Esmerelda told the woman, showing her her arm in question.
"How did that happen?" the woman asked knowing the flames were at the bottom of the cauldron so wondering how she managed to burn herself.
"I was daydreaming, it was all my fault" Esmerelda replied with a sigh. The nurse shook her head but told her to sit down.
"That is a nasty burn, but it is not to deep, so it should heal without much scarring" the nurse told her as she inspected her arm.
"That is a relief" Esmerelda told her, glad she was not going to end up with a scar on her arm as well as everything else she had going on.
"Next time just try be more careful" the nurse told her, not wanting the girl injured because she was not concentrating. Esmerelda nodded, knowing things could of being worse.
The nurse wrapped it in a bandage, so it had a chance to heal and was not going to be easy to get knocked, Esmie looked at her arm, this year she kept seeming to get injured.
She left the hospital bay with her arm in a bandage, it was still hurting a lot and she wondered how she could be so stupid. She had to work on concentrating more or she would end up very injured next time if she wasn't careful.
The rest of her lessons were not fun, her arm was aching and if she couldn't concentrate before she definitely couldn't now, she was therefore glad when there day was over so she walked to her bedroom, needing to have a break.
She lay on her bed, stroking Morgana who wanted attention after she had been gone at lessons all day, eventually the cat fell asleep and Esmerelda looked at her arm properly.
It already looked better, it was still red and sore but there blistering had gone down a lot. She made sure not to touch it knowing it would be extremely painful if she did that but it was itchy and she couldn't help but scratch the burn, hissing in pain as she did so. The skin where the burn was felt bumpy but it felt satisfying to touch.
Stop it. The girl told herself wondering why she had thought something like that, it was a burn, she was not suppose to be getting enjoyment out of it. She was ashamed of herself for thinking something like that and stood up, walking to her desk. Doing her schoolwork would distract her and stop her thinking about it.
But it was hard for her not to think about the burn, because it was becoming more and more itchy, she knew as the new skin healed it would be itchy but that did not mean it was any less frustrating, it hurt when she scratched it but she had no choice, it was to itchy not to do it.
"Stupid!" Esmerelda shouted as the burn irritated her again as she tried to write her essay for history of magic, she was wondering how she could ever concentrate.
Esmerelda had never had something that was so annoying like this before, she knew she was properly making it worse by scratching so much but she couldn't help it.
"Hopefully this heals quickly" Esmerelda said to herself as she didn't want to deal with this annoyance for to long. The pain was not as high as before but now the itching was more annoying and Esmie did not know which was better.
"Serves me right for daydreaming" Esmerelda said to Morgana, who opened one eye and looked at her, decided she wasn't interested, and then closed it again.
She turned back to her desk trying to clear her mind and think straight about what she had to write, if she didn't think about the itching then it wouldn't bother her, she told herself, only it didn't work she could still feel it and it was still bothering her. She scratched more, uncomfortable and when she lifted her hand she saw that her nails were red and when she looked she saw that she had scratched so much her arm was now bleeding. She stared at the blood hypnotised, once again going into a daydream. She saw the blood drip down her arm, as if it was taking away her worries with it.