A/N: just for those wondering, I had Countess Elizabeth from Hotel on my mind when I wrote Ursula. Only the look, though. But you get the general idea :) thanks for reading, y'all
Day 3
Even with her eyes closed, Cordelia knew she'd woken up alone. She had predicted it. She had fallen asleep with the heartache, and woke up with the heartache. And with the heartache, she got up and dressed herself for another day. It was easy, if she told herself she was back to the grieving days, if she convinced herself that her beloved Cajun still suffered in hell. Then she had only herself to blame.
In the living room, Kyle brought the mail in for her. She sorted it out, as she took a sip of black coffee. Then, her drowsy eyes shifted to the boy, who still stood there, looking at her with bizarre bashfulness.
"Are you," he said, scratching his head, "going to the greenhouse after this to water your plants?"
"That's the plan."
"Maybe, you should wait a little, or I could water them later for you."
The reluctance in the boy's speech baffled Cordelia. But, it only took another moment for her to catch on.
"They're in there, aren't they?" the Supreme asked, but only received a timid silence. She sighed. The repulsion tasted bitterer with the coffee. "Well, that place is mine. I will not have them making me want to stay away from there."
So, when she finished her light breakfast and tossed the unnecessary flyers into the recycle bin, she went through the backdoor in the kitchen, to the greenhouse. The remnants of the last night's shower clung to the lawn. Small puddles twinkled in the little pathway. She jumped over some. There was no wind, but the cool temperature caressed her bare legs, making her shiver. The brick walls of the greenhouse came into view. She heard, in the chirping of early birds, some laughter of a human. She didn't stop. The familiar melodic chuckles grew closer, but no other voice came to her.
Maybe, she's by herself, dancing to Stevie, Cordelia thought.
And with that optimistic feeling, the Supreme opened the door just a crack, and peeped in. Only the rays of the purple lights lit the room. She heard no music. No one was dancing. She put her head a little deeper around the door, for a better view. Then, the moment her eyes at last caught the shadows at the table, one of them let out another sound. And another. Not chuckles, but moans.
Cordelia ran back to the academy building. Along the way, she stepped into a puddle, splashing the dirty water about. It got into her shoe, and produced uncomfortable quacking sounds as she walked. Kyle and Zoe saw her wretched appearance in the kitchen. Zoe gave a questioning look, while the boy looked at her with sympathy. But Cordelia said nothing, and ran straight to her office.
ooOooOoo
Of course, nothing got done in the office, as the Supreme sat in her chair, with her head buried in her hands. The sound kept ringing in her ears, like a broken record. And everytime a moan echoed in her ears, the purple lights grew brighter in her mind. The shadows grew more apparent, more recognizable. The moan echoed again, and the figure on the table turned her head around to the door, the lights showered on the wild curls. Misty moaned out the Woman's name. It nearly pushed the Supreme over the edge of sanity. Although she tried to drown it out with loud music, it didn't work. Sleep didn't save her, either. Nothing allowed her to actually run away from it.
About two hours she wasted making such fruitless attempts. Then, as she lay in the couch, and stared at the ceiling, Ursula walked in without a knock. Cordelia sat up.
"Oh, please, no need to get up," the Woman said. She strode to the couch, and sat beside her.
The Supreme stood up immediately, heading back for the desk. "How could I help you? I'm sort of occupied at the moment."
The Woman chuckled. She crossed her legs, as she lit a cigarette with a lighter.
"You can't smoke in here."
"I won't be long. I simply came to apologize, Miss Goode, for this morning. I would've come with my girl, for we are equally at fault, but she's sound asleep in my bed."
Cordelia's heart stopped for a moment, but she didn't dare show it. "What do you mean?"
"What you saw in the greenhouse this morning, of course. That darling puppy is truly fond of that place. I fail to see the appeal, but what could I have said? She begged me to go there with her." White cigarette smoke escape her red lips. "The plants are properly watered, not to worry."
The Supreme blushed at once. With the cursed image of the affair harassing her, it hadn't occur to her that they might have caught her. But once the Woman presented the idea, it occupied every single corner of her mind.
"Oh, how you blush!" Ursula laughed. "Why, I think you're very adorable. How old are you now, you said? Not so much older than everybody here, are you?" She stood up, and walked about with her long legs. "And yet, you are the head of the Coven, the one to give them guidance. I heard it was your mother until very recently."
And the Woman talked more, as she filled the room with her haughty air and cigarette smoke. Both exacerbated Cordelia's headache. The Woman threw a question to her every now and then, but didn't seem interested in getting answers. She was like a straight man, with a pathological level of self-absorption. The Supreme knew two people in her life just like that.
"Who are you?" Cordelia said, at last.
Ursula stopped talking, and looked at her with a raised brow. "I thought I'd told you, Miss Goode. The first Supreme, your predecessor, the very origin of your kind."
"How are any of us supposed to believe that? We have a long history, and even the earliest record we have, the Salem witch trial, happened more than 300 years ago. That has to make you—"
"More than 300 years old," Ursula said, showing her white teeth. "More than 500 years old, in fact."
"That's impossible."
"Why? How come it is such an inconceivable idea for you?" The Woman came closer to her, until the Supreme could see the dark hues of her eyes. "You have met Marie Lavau, haven't you? I heard that the little voodoo girl is now stuck in hell with her slave from the French soil. It's a tragedy, but you do get my point. Eternal life isn't of fantasy."
Cordelia didn't dare move away. She felt that the moment she did, it would be her defeat. "What do you want from Misty? What did you do to her?" Her voice came out gut-deep.
"I simply pulled her out of her misery. You think I put her under some spell, but that's a false accusation. She has a free will. All I did was to do what you failed to do, saving her from hell."
Codelia bit the quivering of her lip away. "If what you say about yourself is true, then it should be a piece of cake for you to control her without taking away her sanity and will."
"I'm delighted you believe in my story."
"I never said that."
Ursula clicked her tongue several times in rapid succession. "A very funny girl you are, Miss Goode. Tell me, what would do you, if your assumptions were correct?" The sadistic mischief in the Woman's eyes gave a glint. "At the end of the day, it is her that decides what she wants. And last night, she chose you."
ooOooOoo
The conversation with the Woman only deepened Cordelia's mistrust and disgust. There was not a single fiber of her being willing to give Ursula a benefit of doubt. The Woman was a serpent, her fangs flashing at the neck of a rabbit. Yet, the Supreme didn't have an absolute conviction of her intention, aim, how perilous she actually could be, or how imminent the danger could be. The only thing clear in the eyes of the Supreme was that this repulsion was instinctual, rather than a conscious choice. Just like animals avoided bright-colored bugs by instinct.
But in spite of this apprehension, the duties as the Supreme and the headmistress of the Coven interfered. The amount of work was increasing by the minute, as she had essentially slacked off earlier. She had no time to run a background check on Ursula.
Her alarm went off a few hours later, letting her know it was lunch time. She closed her laptop, and walked out of the office with a headache. The air in the house felt repugnant for some reasons. The whole academy sounded loud. The reeling of her head spread to her neck now, and she contemplated going back to her office and eating later, while the girls were in class.
As she reached the staircase, Zoe came running into her at the corner. Her chest heaved, her cheeks flushing, as though she had just sprinted up the flight of stairs, forgetting about her power of Transmutation.
"Zoe, what happened?"
The brunette pulled her by the hand. "Misty and Queenie are fighting."
"Where?"
"In the kitchen. You gotta come."
As soon as the Supreme heard this, she transmuted both of them to the part of the house. Ugly yelling at once greeted her, and then, the sight of the two witches en garde.
"If I'd known how stupid you are, I would've left you in the goddamn coffin." Queenie, with her arms crossed in front of her chest, scowled at Misty.
The Cajun's face became redder. "Shut up! You only listened ta Miss Cordelia! You didn't do shit!"
Kyle held the girl back from behind. He winced everytime her swinging arms or kicking legs hit him. Some girls stood around them in fear, but also with morbid curiosity.
Cordelia stepped between the two. "Enough! What is wrong with you two, turning against each other like that in front of the girls?"
"She insulted Ursula," Misty said through her clenched teeth. "All Ursula did was ta ask for something other than seafood, and Queenie started calling her names."
Cordelia's eyes travelled to the dishes of seafood on the table, to the Woman—Cordelia hadn't noticed her presence until then—leaning against the kitchen counter, and to Queenie.
The Voodoo doll didn't seem remorseful even a bit. "Do you know what's not seafood? My shit. She can eat that. You're a stone fool if you think that Woman" —She jerked her chin at Ursula without looking— "is welcome here. Wake up. She's a parasite, and you're just her host."
"She ain't a parasite! Take it back! Apologize!" The Cajun escaped Kyle's restraint, and charged at Queenie.
It didn't give Cordelia enough time, or the luxury of choice, to think with her heart. She bound Misty with invisible shackles, before her ringed fingers could touch the dark skin of Queenie's neck. Her ankles together, and her wrists behind her. A heavy thud echoed, as the Cajun fell on the floor, face down. The girl whined and writhed.
For a moment, Cordelia felt extreme resentment towards herself, her decision. But the rational part of her pushed her sentimentality aside, and she regained her composure. "Girls, go back to your room," she said to the spectators. "If you haven't eaten yet, you have my permission to take the food to your room today." Then, she knelt down by the still struggling Cajun, resting a hand on her shoulder. "Misty, if you want to be let go, you have to promise not to hurt Queenie."
Misty groaned, and continued to thrash about. Her eyes shimmered with tears, as she glared up at the Supreme out of the corner of her eye.
It was when the Woman came closer to them. "You have to listen to your headmistress, puppy."
And with the simple command, Misty calmed down at once. She gave Cordelia a nod, though not without a sob. The shackles vanished at a wave of the Supreme's hand, then. The Cajun stood up in a blazing silence. A trail of tears trickled down her cheek, as she glared at Queenie with vindictive hatred. She took slow steps backwards, like a wounded animal. Then, all of a sudden, she turned around, and ran back into the arms of Ursula. Her shoulders trembled, in the rhythm of her unhindered sobs.
Ursula gave her light pats on the back. "I owe you an apology, Miss Goode," she said. "I should've informed the cook that I don't eat seafood. It makes me rather sick."
And Cordelia felt sick, too, of the haughty smirk that never left her lips even in such a situation. "You just watched them fight? Why didn't you stop them?"
"I was too frightened to even move a finger. I know, very embarrassing. But she's got a hot temper in this little body." The Woman kissed Misty in the forehead. "I didn't want to get hurt, you see?"
"It looked more like she was enjoying the dogfight," Zoe said quietly.
The hushed accusation didn't reach the Woman's ears. "Come on, puppy, let us go get something in downtown." She led Misty, and they walked out of the room.
Cordelia heard the grand door open and shut. Her feet carried her body to the window, and there she and the two council members watched the women leave the property. Despite the distance, the arrogant air around the Woman still remained distinct, her musky perfume lingering in Cordelia's nostrils.
"But Misty loves seafood . . ." Queenie said by her side.
"What the hell is going on with her?" Zoe looked at the Supreme, with a tone of mingled disappointment and bafflement.
One thing was crystal clear— That Woman had brought about nothing but calamities. The last two days had worn Cordelia down as hard as Fiona did in her lifetime. But dear God— If her mother had been still around, she would've driven Ursula out without effort for certain. The conviction left more sense of guilt on Cordelia's skin.
The Supreme skipped lunch. She and the council moved to Queenie's room, in order to figure out a way to save their sister witch and the Coven from the Woman. Here, for the first time, Cordelia showed the pictures of the mark on Misty's neck.
"It completely slipped out of my mind," she said, as she sent those images to their phones. "There's been a lot to deal with."
Zoe tilted her head, as she looked at her own phone. "It looks like a rune symbol."
"Yes. Have you seen anything like this before, Queenie?"
The Voodoo doll shook her head. "It may or may not be a rune. Can't tell." She walked to her bookshelf, and grabbed one of the thick black books, flipping through it. "Even if it actually is a rune symbol, there are tons of different kinds of them, from different cultures and times."
At that, Cordelia's shoulders dropped. "I wish we had at least some sort of clue."
"Hold on—" Queenie closed the book with a thud. She replaced it with her smartphone. "There's an app where you can take a picture and search for similar images online."
The Supreme and Zoe locked eyes, looks of wonderment on their faces.
To everyone's disappointment, though, the mighty internet only gave them related images. Not a single search result matched, or even remotely resembled the one in question.
"Maybe," Zoe said, "we can find a clue if we learn something about Ursula." With her laptop in her lap, she began to type. "What's her full name?"
"Ursula Knares," Cordelia said.
However, this attempt also ended up being fruitless. No social media accounts, no graduation pictures, nothing whatsoever. The Woman didn't have any traces of her on the digital web.
"She's like a ghost," the brunette said.
"Try searching for 'the first Supreme of the Coven,'" Queenie said.
The suggestion made the current Supreme draw her eyebrows together. "You're going to search for our history on the internet?"
The Voodoo doll shrugged. "You teach the History of Witchcraft, and even you don't know anything about the things before the Salem witch trial."
"That doesn't mean you can rely on the sea of uncensored information with no academic ground."
"Still better than none, though."
In spite of her reluctance, however, Zoe finished her search during their little disagreement. "Nothing about Ursula Knares," she said. "Most of the sites just mention the first Supreme after the trial."
The three of them heaved a collective sigh of frustration.
"Is that name even real, though?" The Voodoo doll made a grimace. "It's almost impossible to live nowadays in this society, without leaving a trace of you on the internet. It's obviously an alias." Then, all of a sudden, she slapped her knee. "It could be an anagram!"
The idea had never occurred to Cordelia. It sounded like something from a mystery movie. But at this point, she felt eager to give every possibility a thought.
"There must be a website to solve anagrams." Queenie again began doing something on her phone.
Cordelia waited with a thumping heart, staring down at the pictures of the symbol. The hateful eyes of Misty flickered before her eyes. They brimmed with tears, and Cordelia went through her decisions back in the kitchen, over and over again. She had never, or even considered to treat any of her girls in such a barbaric way. And the worst of it all, the thing that tormented her conscience the most, was that the decision came to her mind spontaneously. It meant she had that naturally brutal part of her somewhere deep in her. It meant she might act the same way again under extreme circumstances in the future. It meant there were Fiona's genes in her. That horrified her.
Queenie groaned, as she threw her phone on the mattress. "There's no anagram that uses all of the letters of her name."
They found themselves at a dead-end.
ooOooOoo
Both of the council members had to leave for their classes. With no lead on the case, Cordelia decided to go work in the greenhouse. She had skipped the morning routines, thanks to Ursula, and therefore had much more than usual to take care of. Many thoughts swarmed her mind, still.
As she stepped into the herbal kingdom, the noises inside her head became even more annoying. The purple lights gave the surface of the wooden table luscious gleams. She turned the lights off, and worked on the desk against the wall instead. Even then, the mere presence of the table bugged her, set her nerves on edge. She might have to burn that table down, or better yet, burn the whole greenhouse down.
Then, shortly after, the door opened behind her. The very culprit of her heartache walked in, followed by the Woman. The eyes of Cordelia refused to meet the Cajun's, as she continued working on her potions. Not due to her bitterness, but due to her guilt and shame. She felt the desperation radiating off Misty's skin.
"Can I talk to you, Miss Cordelia?" Misty said at last. The timidity in her voice made her sound like a little child.
The Supreme took a deep breath, and turned to her. Still, her eyes avoided the girl's.
Misty shifted her weight from one foot to the other, with her hands behind her back. Something gave a rustling sound at the slightest movement of her body. Ursula put her hand on the girl's back, and brought her lips close to her ear.
"Now, remember what I told you," the Woman said. Her black eyes met with Cordelia's for a moment.
The Cajun nodded her head. They shared a quick peck on the lips, and without any further emotional torture on Cordelia's part, the Woman left the greenhouse. Now, the two witches stood in silence. This silence, the air around them, had no resemblance to the one they used to share in this very place. It used to heal her heart, collecting the shredded pieces of it and bringing her back to life. Now, it destroyed the same heart from the inside, as if to say healing you was a mistake.
It was Misty who broke the silence. With a stiff smile, she brought her hands in front of her. A plastic bag rustled. "We went ta your favorite burger place," she said, closing the gap between them slowly. "Remember? You took me there once. And, I got you their wings." Out of the plastic bag, she took a to-go box.
The smell of the special hot sauce leaked from the crack. It reminded her of her empty stomach.
The Cajun looked into her face. "You said you liked 'em before. Do you still like 'em?"
Their shoulders almost touched. And the Supreme finally allowed herself to look into the blue eyes of the Cajun. The violent tears had smeared her makeup, and redness remained in the white of her eyes. But Cordelia found no ghost of the resentment she so feared to see. There was only a crease between her brows. Cordelia supposed she looked exactly the same herself.
So, she gave Misty a nod. "Still my favorite."
The girl's whole face lit up. "Do you want to eat now, while they're still warm?" She hastened to open the box, presenting Cordelia the magnificent view of buffalo wings. "If you do, could I have one? They smell real nice, and I kinda got hungry on my way back." She bit her lip, guilty but also expectant.
Cordelia couldn't resist the temptation to chuckle. "You can have more than one, Misty. You bought them. Come on, let's eat."
The next five minutes felt the most peaceful they had been in a while. They sat together, side by side. The silence grew pleasant again, and they even exchanged a cheerful glance. And like this, everything felt normal again.
The special hot sauce boosted her appetite. Cordelia savored the wing, and finished it without so much regard to her manners. As she reached for the second wing, however, she noticed Misty still nibbling on her first one. The majority of the meat was still stuck to the bones. Her bites were small.
"You know," Cordelia said, with a widening smile. "You don't have to eat so slowly. You can have more than one."
"But, I feel bad."
"I won't be able to eat them all. Help me, or they'll go to the fridge and the meat will stiffen."
The girl's mouth still moved at the same reluctant speed. But, as their eyes met, Cordelia gave a smile of encouragement, and it gave her the reassurance she needed. She devoured the remaining wing in seconds. It made Cordelia smile. It reminded her how much she loved watching the girl eat, with such passion, appreciation for life. And on the darkest days, the mere sight of it used to bring light into her life.
"Miss Cordelia?"
The Supreme turned to her. She found Misty looking down, with her whole wing intact. "Yes, Misty?"
The girl took one deep breath. "I'm sorry for what happened at lunch," she said. "I lost myself, and took my anger out on you, even though you were just trying to protect everybody else." She drew her brows together. Her lip had a beginning of a quiver. "I just— I can't believe Queenie even said those nasty things ta Ursula."
"Forgive her," Cordelia said. "Try to, at least. She's just worried about you. We are all worried about you."
"I'm fine. I mean, I'm fresh out o' hell and stuff, but I got Ursula now, and you. What's she gotta do with it anyway?"
"Well—"
"Do you agree with Queenie?" Misty looked up. The blue eyes shone in hostility all of a sudden. "Do you think she's a parasite?"
Cordelia swallowed. "No, I don't think she's a parasite." She felt like she couldn't breathe. "But I do think she could've stopped you, instead of watching."
"She apologized for that."
"I know she did. I know," the Supreme said, and put her wing back in the box. Her stomach felt full, with something that wasn't the wings. "Why don't you tell me about her? She's important to you, and I don't know anything about her." Her own words cut her heart like a knife. And it bled more, when the Cajun smiled, with her glossy cheeks.
"Well, it's kinda hard. I'm never good with words, and she's just beyond all that. But, she makes me happy, extremely happy." She looked somewhere distant, as though the Woman stood right in front of her. "When I'm with her, or even just think about her, nothing else matters. Like, I see her face, and Rhiannon starts to play inside my head . . . Yeah, she's my Rhiannon." There was a kind of lusciousness in her voice, a tone reserved for the Woman.
But Cordelia turned a deaf ear to that. "Has she told you anything about when or where she was born?"
"England. Don't know when, though," Misty said. Her eyes crinkled up. "I asked her yesterday why she doesn't have British accent. She told me she moved to this country in the 16th century and has lived here since. That's more than enough time to master another accent, right?" Showing her white teeth, she let out giggles.
"Where in England?"
"Not a clue." The Cajun shrugged, resuming her onslaught on the wing in her hands. "But she said her first home was somewhere around North Carolina. In the woods. She strengthened her powers there."
"Did she tell you about the mark, too? It's her that gave it to you, isn't she?"
Misty raised her hand to her neck, her fingers caressing the mark. "Yeah. She has the same mark on her heart, too. Isn't that cool? But she doesn't wanna tell me what it means. Says it's a secret. But you know, when I'm with her, it gets real hot here." She tapped her index finger on the bruise.
But it was not the only bruise on the girl's neck. Near the mark, numerous little bruises made a cruel contrast with the whiteness of her skin. Cordelia could not look away, even though her heart screamed and begged her to. She kept looking. And when Misty tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, her eyes caught a glimpse of another bruise on the back of her neck. It had a different shape than the other ones. Not round or oval, as hickies are. Instead, it was a thin, short lines of equal length, making a loose, horizontal shape of U. A bite mark.
Misty said something, but the Supreme didn't hear those words. She just saw, out of the corner of her eye, the brightest smile on the Cajun's face.
That night, Cordelia did not have a visit from the girl.