The noice grows louder and louder by the minute. Hilda and Sabrina have curled up on the opposite wall, starting at the small crack. „They should be back by now." Hilda whispers, obviously scared.
...
They run and run and run. Euphoria starts to. Flow trough Zeldas veins, as she sees the first houses appear on the horizon. „We fucking made it." she breathes heavily, smiling still. Mary laughs out loud. „We made it on the damn time."
...
A hand bursts into the room. „Oh god." Sabrina shivers. With all their force they try to uphold the wall, eventually failing.
„I've got you." The demon takes form in an old man. Huge, black, his long deformed fingers scratching Hilda's cheak. „Finally."
Hilda screams as the demon slices open the wound he inflicted on forearm. Zelda and Mary can here it from outside, their laughter stops, as they run into the room.
„Zelda!", Sabrina runs to her, burring herself in the strong arms. „It's going to be okay . It's going to be okay!" she wipers again and again . Meanwhile Mary has stuffed the ingredients in her mouth chewing it, then swallowing hard. The demon turns around, letting go of Hilda, who sinks down to the floor.
"So we meet again, mother." He growls. Grabbing her and holding her mouth shut. She tries to speak the words, but can't. "Hmmmmhmhmh" the spell won't work if She's not able to speak and the sun goes down faster and faster. "Run around him.
Distract him somehow ", Zelda wispers in panic, running behind the demon.
"Hey Zozo." Sabrina shouts in fake glee. I have the ingredients too!" She holds up a blue shirt. "Huh?" The demon turns around and looks at her, confused. Just then, Zelda runs up to him, stabbing him in the side with her knife. She hauls, letting go of Mary. "BE GONE DEMON." She shouts fast, with force. And then just as the sun vanishes he's gone. No trace left of him.
"Hilda!" Zelda runs to her sister lying on the floor. Her face is scratched, blood running down her arm. "Oh no Nono." Tears well up, as she turns her around. Her chest is moving slowly. "She's breathing. Thank Satan she's breathing." So they carry her up to their house, lying her down in their bedroom, meanwhile Sabrina creates a healing ointment. Rubbing it on her sisters wounds she whispers meaningless words, tears running down her cheeks. "I'm so sorry, so so sorry." The younger witch smiles in pain. "You've made it. These wounds will heal. You've made it Zelda!"
Miss Wardwell enters, leaning against the door. "Is everything okay?" Her eyes directly dart to Hilda, not even grazing Zelda. "Yes I'm fine, thank you.", She smiles, the mild pain reflecting in her eyes. Good, then I'll go home now." She turns to leave. "Won't you stay for dinner?" Zelda asks hopeful. "No, I think it's best if I leave now." Even now she's not looking up, staring at a painting across the room. "Well I think so too." Zeldas voice suddenly dries out, her words cutting the air, like a knife.
The house quiets down, after Mary leaves. All of them lying in bed, trying to sleep, the exhaustion coming down on all of them. Even Zelda slips into a slumber, a rare thing for her, usually she lies awake until very late, sleeping little to nothing. She makes up for it in coffee in the mornings, so she's not affected of the slight insomnia.
Her dream starts of easy, morphing more and more into a nightmare. Mary falling down that bridge again and again, she screaming again and again. Waking up she's sitting in her bed, tears on her face. Quietly she rushes out of her bed, into the kitchen. Sipping her tea she shivers in her night gown. The blue silk feels ft against her skin, not hurting her back, praise Satan. It looks much better than before, but it'll most likely still scar. Why did she dream of that damn cave. It must have affected her much worse that she thought initially, so she takes a sleeping draught, lying on the sofa in the living room. Her thoughts wander off to Mary. she smiles bitterly. Of course, she had left. But she does not care about her at all. It's just the trip. Nothing more. Surely she's just exhausted. With that in mind she's sleeping.
Sabrina comes down first in the morning, finding Zelda sleeping on the couch. Her hair spilling over the pillow glowing softly in the morning sunlight. "She's truly the most beautiful woman I know." Sabrina thinks to herself. Then to wake her softly she's turning up the record player, Chopin playing the delicate sounds of a nocturnal idea.
Zelda mumbles a few words before opening her eyes, blinking slowly. "Is it morning already, satan." She gets up, her nightgown falling down. She's gathering her black kimono around her, freezing. Making tea, Sabrina looks at her with interest. "Are you okay auntie Z?" She jawns. "I slept like shit." Rubbing her eyes she takes a sip of her coffee. "Oh I'm sorry Sabrina, she strokes her hand shortly. "I'll have to go run a few errands, I'll be back after a few hours. Also I'll have to pay your school a visit,explaining, why you've missed the last days. Do you think you can go to school tomorrow." "Sure, auntie Z, but are you okay too? You look exhausted." "I'm fine." With that she leaves, "can you please look after Hilda for me, while I'm away?" She throws over her shoulder.
Getting dressed she takes a mental note what she'll have to do.
First groceries. That's the easy task. Then explaining to director Hawthorne why Sabrina has been absent. That would be also easy. She'd just say, Sabrina had come up with the flue or something. Then she had to tell father blackwood about it. That would be difficult. Her heart still ached if she thought about him, and even though it was slightly less, it still hurt.
Opening the school door, she walks down the hall, as fast as it it possible with heels. Her legs bare, a black dress clinging to her legs. She seems as put together als always, her hair in beautiful curls, only her eyes, slightly red and puffy tell the story of her adventure.
She hears a raspy laugh coming from one of the classrooms. A laugh she has learned to appreciate over the last few days. Walking by slowly she spots Miss Wardwell, obviously talking to someone, laughing, throwing her head back, her long dark hair waving. Just as she wants to say hi she hears her say: " and she looked like hell, it was so funny to me." They were obviously talking about her. Hurt she turns away, the last thing she sees is Mary kissing the young man, hard. After talking to the headmaster she leaves as fast as possible, but the lords luck is not in her name today. Miss Wardwell spots her, her eyes linger on her, but Zelda turns away, tears in her eyes, basically running outside. "Yeah, thats what you deserve." The little voice in her says, she can feel this part of her smiling smugly. "Shut up." She heads up to the witches academy, storming into the office she falls down to her feet. "Please forgive my weakness."
She sobbs. Faustus looks down at her. "Sister Zelda. I've missed you." His hands lifting her up, pulling at her red hair. "You know how you can show me how sorry you are, right?"
As she puts her dress back on she feels better, the shame only starts to kick in after she's returned back home but he just pushes the feeling away. She needs to be strong now, and it's where she belongs. Kneeling before her lord.