Seventeenth.

I woke up a short time later in darkness. My neck was sore but the rest of my body was numb, like it wasn't even there. I remembered what had happened in the boarding house and knew that I was no longer in the confines of its walls. I concentrated and soon felt the bones in the back of my neck migrating back to their rightful positions. My body started to tingle as the feeling crept back slowly starting in my shoulders and moving down my body until I could feel my toes. I moved my head cautiously from side to side wondering how it was that I was not dead. Of course! It wasn't Katherine who snapped my neck, it must have been her witch and I couldn't die at her hand. Brilliant! I had to give Katherine credit for her attention to detail.

Once I was assured that I could move around again I flipped over onto my back. I could tell that I was in a car and that we were moving at a good clip. I heard other cars racing past so I assumed that we were on a highway of some kind, I put my hands up and felt the metal of the trunk above me. At the rate we were traveling there was no safe way to escape. I punched at the trunk leaving a rather sizable dent in the metal. I would just have to wait until we arrived at our destination.

It was nightfall before the car slowed to a stop. I heard two people get out of the car and footsteps as they came around to the rear. I heard a key get inserted into the lock, but before it was turned to release the hood Katherine's voice cut through the darkness. "Blind her," I heard her say to the woman she was with. What? Blind me. What was she talking about? I heard the woman 's voice uttering unrecognizable words and suddenly I became aware of the change in my vision. I was in the dark already, but this was different. It wasn't like being in a dark room or closing your eyes, this was a complete loss of any visual and spacial awareness; my eyes were open, moving around frantically but there was no light breaking through, no shadows, no visual cues to alert me to my whereabouts, just a dull gray void.

I heard the key turn and the trunk pop open and my eyes instinctively turned towards the women but with nothing to focus on they kept drifting back to a central point. "Get out," I heard Katherine say to me as she grabbed my arms and pulled. I landed on the ground on my butt stunned and disoriented. Both women helped to pull me up to my feet and then one held a cloth up to my mouth and nose. I tried to swat it away but was quickly thwarted and warned that perhaps in my current state I should just accept what was going on without interfering, unless, of course, I wished to be in excruciating pain.

They led me up a set of wooden stairs and into a house. As soon as the door closed the cloth was removed from my face and I could breathe freely. I was led into a room and seated on a couch before I heard the witch mumble incoherently again and my sight was restored. I found myself in a simply decorated parlor, the sweet smell of apple blossoms floating in the air around me. There was a moderately sized fireplace against a wall with a beautifully carved mantle that mirrored the crown molding at the ceiling and the chair rail that encircled the room. The furniture practically dripped with antiquity.

Katherine sat in a large red velvet wing back chair across the room. "So what are you planning to do this time?" I asked her pointedly, "are you going to seal me in another house and leave me to desiccate? Why don't you make it more painful this time, douse me in gasoline and light a match, or better yet have your witch do it for you, that way I won't die, I'll merely writhe around in pain while you go back to Mystic Falls and destroy the lives of everyone I've met there. Hell, while you're at it you can use your wicked witch to help you channel Judy Garland and drop a house on me too." My voice rising with each word, I was shouting at her by the time I spat out the last few words, yet she remained in the chair smiling back at me as if she was enjoying this.

A moment of silence passed between us before she reached into the pocket of her jeans pulling out the chain that held my ring. "There's no seal on the house, you are free to leave whenever you like, but first I want you to tell me about this ring." It was all I could do not to lunge at her and snatch the ring back but I knew that the witch stood just outside the room to ensure that I didn't harm Katherine. I could hear her breathing.

"What about it?" I asked her just wanting this inquisition to run its course so that I could have my ring back and leave.

"It was my mother's so I was wondering how it is that you came to own it. My family never knew what became of you after you were taken from me so I'd like to know how it made its way into your hands."

"My mother gave it to me," I told her. "She said that it had been folded into the sheet with me before I was taken away. She found it that same night and assumed it had been from you. When I turned nine she gave it to me and I've had it ever since."

"Your mother? You mean that silly English woman who gave her life just to tell you that your father was a liar, who I really was and that I might just still be alive?" she asked me as if she didn't know. "Such a pity that she died so young. Waste of a life if you ask me."

Katherine was walking on very shaky ground talking about my parents that way. I could sense the witch tense up in the anticipation of a fight. I knew that was the reaction Katherine was hoping to elicit from me, but I refused to comply, biting back the rage that burned inside me. "You're one to talk you know," I shot back at her, "getting knocked-up at fifteen and giving birth to an illegitimate child in your family home." She reacted to that, very slightly, but a reaction nonetheless, though she remained seated holding my necklace I her hand.

"I want you to tell me how it works and what it is capable of," She said to me.

"I don't know what you are talking about, how what works?" I asked her keeping my eyes on the ring.

"Don't play dumb with me," she told me, "I know that you know how powerful this ring is. It's what got you out of that cabin, isn't it?"

I ignored her question and countered with one of my own. "Where did you get it? I never take that chain off."

"I found it in the woods," she replied, "out by Seven Hills. It was just sitting there on the ground. You know you really should be careful with your possessions, you wouldn't want them falling into the wrong hands." She smiled back at me lifting her eyebrows. I took it as a challenge and rose to my feet. She held up a finger towards me. "Think before you act Ella-Norrah, we don't need a repeat of our last encounter," she warned me as the witch took a few steps into the room. I looked over at her and backed down.

"Now, tell us how it works," she demanded again. "We've tried almost everything we can think of but so far we've had no luck, so tell us what you did to awaken the magic it holds."

"I don't know," I told her stubbornly. "It started to glow and suddenly I could walk out through the seal." She stared back at me hard.

"You're lying," she accused me. Magic doesn't just work on its own, something needs to trigger it."

"Well, maybe it just doesn't like you," I retorted smugly, "I'm sure that's a reaction that you are used to." She narrowed her eyes and then stood, crossing the room to where I sat on the couch. She held the chain out to me and dropped it into my open palm. I closed my fingers over it possessively.

"You don't want to tell me, fine, we'll just wait it out," she said to me. "If it's really as powerful as the legend says that it is it won't be long before it reveals itself to you again," and with that she crossed parlor and exited the room, the witch following close behind her.

I ran for the door but as I grasped the handle a light outside of the house suddenly flickered on. I stared out of the window in the door in disbelief, she had tricked me. As I gazed out at the yard surrounding the house I found myself looking at thousands of purple flowering plants, vervain. The plants stretched out for a mile or more in each direction, the wind picking up and ensuring the air would be full of pollen. If I tried to leave the house I would be overwhelmed and probably wouldn't get more than a few feet past the porch. I raced through the house to the door at the back of the kitchen but found the same scene, vervain as far as the eye could see.

I looked out into the hallway where the women stood at the foot of the stairs. "Go ahead," Katherine challenged me, "I'm curious to see how far you would get before it took you down." I looked back out the door trying to figure out how I was going to get out of here. The cloth only worked because it was a quick walk up and into the house, it wouldn't help me for any real distance. I wouldn't be able to hold my breath while I ran, and even if I could there was no telling how deep into the field I would be before I needed some air. "Oh," she called from the stairway, "and this time it's not an illusion. The only reason you are breathing freely in here is the air filtration system that I had installed. It would only take one flip of a switch to shut it down so I suggest you don't try anything foolish. The only one that you will be hurting is yourself." She ascended the staircase, walked into a room and closed the door behind her, the witch did the same.

I sat down at the kitchen table and put my head down on my arms. I knew that I was defeated this time. There was no way to get out of this house without causing myself great bodily harm. I sat there thinking for the better part of an hour, but there was no good answer to this quandary. I stood up in the dark kitchen and realized that my hand was still tightly clenched over my ring. It shone in the light of the full moon as I rolled it between my thumb and forefinger, the familiar feeling comforting. I looked out at the stars, we must not have been close to any major cities, I thought, the sky was bursting with glitter. I thought about those nights in the field with my father gazing up at these same stars, never even considering that I would still be here more than five hundred years later still looking to them for comfort.

I sighed and walked back to the parlor. My body felt tired but my brain was too unsettled to sleep. I wouldn't take the chance with Katherine right upstairs. I pulled the pocket doors to the parlor closed and sat back down on the couch. I looked down at my chain realizing that it wasn't the one that I'd had before, this one was shiny and the clasp looked new. Katherine had replaced my old one. I couldn't help but think that it had been more for her than for me. It's a shame she wasted her money before she knew that the ring didn't even work anymore.

I reached my hands behind my head and clasped the two ends together, looking down at the ring. I rubbed it between my fingers and then kissed it before tucking it under my shirt. I looked up and across the room and there sitting in the wingback chair was Lexi. I jumped to my feet and stared at her. "So is it safe to assume that you can see me again?" She asked.