Hecate's steely, grey eyes observed me in a calculative sort of manner and I shivered under her gaze. That, and the fact that since stepping foot into Purgatory it felt like my body heat had been sucked out of me. But no matter how hard I tried to shut my eyes, pinch myself and convince my mind that it was all a dream, I knew it wasn't. Instead, I mentally thanked myself for wearing a coat.
"You'll be twenty soon, yes child?" She had ceased her staring and floated over to where I stood rigidly. The dangling keys under her glowing lamp tinkled and clanked against each other at her sudden movement. I nodded dumbly in response.
I repeated my last question of "What are you doing here?" to which she only smiled sadly and floated back, further into the midnight-all-night forest.
I had to run to keep up with her accelerating pace and when I realised we were slowing down I asked where she was taking us and, in the typical, Greek goddess way, she didn't answer. Naturally.
The air was noticeably thicker here as we deepened our journey into the forests of Purgatory. The purple fog had dwindled down to a thin mist that coiled itself around my sock-clad ankles. The trees seemed to shrink too. They shrunk down so much they resembled twigs, pushed down into the dust-like soil and twisted into rather awkward, severe spine-injuring positions that even the most flexible couldn't achieve. The blue moon's glare cancelled out the lamps light as it followed us to our destination, eerily casting disfigured blue shadows onto the sooty ground, creeping and mimicking our every move but hunched-backed and taking thieving little tip-toed walks instead of our regal-ish, nimble strides.
Finally we came to a stop at a ramshackle, desolate cabin. Each of the four windows were shattered into broken glass pieces that scattered across the floor. The roof could hardly be called a roof as it was covering barely half of the structure. Peeling paint gave way to the cracking brickwork, and, on the far end of north wall, the remains of both front and back doors lay in a mass of brown and, what suspiciously looked like blood-red, splinters.
Somehow, I could imagine Uncle Hade's allocating comforting cabins/houses (like this one once was, I suspected) in Tartarus to entice the defeated with comfort and life, but enchanting them to explode and turn into ruins at the slightest touch. He'd probably laugh while he looked on from a mist-like screen in his dark palace, with his Queen Persephone grudgingly sitting by his side and fantasizing of her valiant escape (which would most likely never take place).
"It's err… original?" I offered, wanting to sound at least a bit pleasant. In reality, I couldn't care less. I just wanted out— cowardly, I know.
Hecate floated over to the ruins and with a few incoherent (I couldn't tell if she was speaking really fast English or really slow Greek) and it burst into flames and, as the flames diminished, a new cabin stood in its place.
Each of its once fractured beyond repair windows gleamed as the weak light of the blue moon reflected off its pains. The doors had been fixed and slid into their rightful places at the front and back entrance. The brickwork had been refurbished and the grey paint no longer peeled, but was replaced by a warm cream tint and the roof now covered the whole building. Looking at it now, it wasn't half bad.
"Quickly now, the spell will not last for longer than an hour." Hecate gestured towards the entrance with a nod of her head and in quick succession it swung with a low creek.
I followed her orders and walked through the door. The whole cabin was completely empty; lacking in furniture, pictures, inhabitants and walls to divide the rooms. A musty smell filled the low-roofed cabin, making it a struggle to breathe freely through my nose.
My ears pricked up as Hecate's light footsteps sounded from behind me and I turned around to see her frowning. "My magic wasn't the same as it used to be, child," she commented, looking distastefully around the vacant cabin.
"Why? What happened? If you've been here for nineteen years then why haven't your powers fully… you know… left you? Don't take this to any offence, but how are you even wielding magic? And why did you take us here?" My questions flew out of my mouth before I had a chance to stop them. I could feel the blush creeping up my neck and was thankful for the lack of light. I sheepishly murmured an apology.
Hecate gave me what I assumed was an amused smirk. Well at least she wasn't mad at me. "The time in Purgatory is slower than that on Earth but it varies from time to time. A month here could mean a year there, or a day spent here—in my case by the looks of it—could be the equivalent to a year there."
I registered her information, storing it in my head for future use. "So you've been here—not actually in my head—for nearly three weeks," I stated, "and you have no idea how to get out? Haven't you tried using magic, you did it on the door?"
She heaved a deep sigh, simultaneously rubbing her hands over her face. And for the first time since coming here, I could see how tired she actually was. Dark circles surrounded her eyes stormy, grey eyes and her skin held an ashen tint to it, whilst ragged scars and angry, red scratches trailed down her once milky-white skin. Her dark hair was tangled and stray curls were loosely finding their way out of her feebly tied hair elastic. "It's draining," she finally said. "And trust me—I've tried. What I did to this house doesn't take as much effort as finding an exit… or tapping into someone's head."
"So why do you bother?"
Her eyes hardened, taking my comment the wrong way. "Excuse me?"
"What I mean is, you waste your energy on me and this house, when you can use it to find an exit— or create one," I rephrased.
"It's not as simple as a few incantations and a flick of my wrist, Isabella." She exhaled noisily, flicking her wrist in any general direction as if to prove her words. The door began to rattle and tore off its hinges.
Well if you put it that way…
A question had nagged at the back of my head nagged at me to be asked. "How did you transport me here then?"
A blast of cold air blew into the room and licked at my bare face and hands. Hecate looked undisturbed (despite the fact she was only wearing a sleeveless dress) and with a flick, the door had returned and the temperature in the room rose to its normal state. Focusing on heat like I did just a few hours ago, I tried to restore the temperature in my body. It didn't work. Shocked, I rubbed my hands together in vain as silence swamped over us. This definitely wasn't good.
"I don't know, Isabella." She held a hand up to silence my unasked questions. "I didn't summon you. I don't know how you got here in the first place."
My gaze fixed onto an invisible dot on the ground as I tried to process the information.
I was stranded in Purgatory for gods know how long… my powers were starting to fade already… and my body was currently lying limp on Billy's couch in La Push, or on a hospital bed... Perfect, I'm in such a perfect predicament right now…
"How did you get here?"
The room was steadily being swarmed by purple mist that had come through the small crack under the door. Neither of us cared to dismiss it nor did we try. I watched as one curled itself up my ankle like a snake. Only when it reached the level of my knee did she answer.
"I was… cursed, you could say, by a minor God. Your sister, Apollo and I, we were brewing a potion t—"she stopped mid-sentence and glanced over at me with pained eyes. "The potion was for you, Isabella. You were sick and your disease was put under an incubate spell to stop it from momentarily spreading." She sighed heavily before continuing, mistaking my confused silence as a heads up to keep on going. "Officially, it was only a task assigned by your father and given to Apollo and me, but your sister was so determined to help that your father just had to agree."
"So what happened?" I urged when she stopped talking.
"We were adding the last of the ingredients when your sister came in screaming frantically and clutching a purple knife." She laughed wholeheartedly at my look of disbelief and amusement. "Apollo had managed to subdue her, but the deed had already been done… she had thrown the knife. It hit me in the chest, but I don't know what happened after that because I was here." Hecate nodded at the floor near the door. "I've been here ever since. With only this lantern and these stupid pair of keys that don't even work!"
I was already too into my thoughts that I didn't hear her brief key and lantern outburst. "Why did Aphrodite do it? I thought you were close—she told me you were close." I just couldn't believe my sister would lie to me after all these years. I trusted her!
"Don't do that—blame her. Don't give me that look, I know you were thinking it, Isabella. It wasn't her fault."
"But she—"
"—had red eyes," Hecate finished for me.
I gaped at her. "Are you saying...?"
She nodded gravely at me, answering my unasked question. "Yes."
In a rush, I didn't have time to go over and edit this, so please tell me if I've made any mistakes. Also I'm hoping to post a new chapter soon now I've gotten rid of this writers block.
Oh and I'm trying to edit previous chapter to replace the old ones with improved ones so that they fit in with the story line a bit more (and, being honest, Bella's attitude, something about it, really annoyed me. I don't know how or why, it just did).
And I've changed my Pen name too, to match my Wattpad account (Ebony_Wingz). I've also made a cover for this story so go check that out too! :D
-Ebony'Wingz
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