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Everyone was dead.
Grandmother. Mother. And the man she saw in her pain induced delirium? That was her father, and yeah, he was dead too.
She doesn't wrench at the knowledge of being an orphan, it wasn't like she remembered them, but she imagined the old her might have wailed, and because she doesn't behave like she assumes she should, she frowns.
And she closes her eyes searching for a memory, hoping for a recollection of her deceased family while Klaus starts the suburban and proceeds to speed down I-10.
Driving over the Lake Pontchartrain causeway, the stretch of miles and miles of murky water, Bonnie begins to mindlessly pick at the dried blood on her dress with the realization that she cannot not remember the dead, not even their names.
But was there really no soul in Mystic Falls who cares to know she is alive?
She stares at the water and asks him after she wins the throne of New Orleans for him, was there anyone in Mystic Falls for her to go home to, anyone at all.
And Klaus doesn't even glance her way when he states, "Lonely is the queen who wears the crown."
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The middle of nowhere was twenty miles from Baton Rouge. Just outside the border of Marcel's magical reach.
They pass a crumbling convenient store, Fontenot's, with blacked-out store front windows and a row of three payphones lining the entrance by the outside freezers and Bonnie asks if they can stop.
"Why?"
She catches the last of the store in the side-view mirror, "Won't we need food?"
Klaus tells her that he will run to the nearest Walmart and get provisions for their stay as he veers the SUV onto a dirt road and then quickly driving off-road, maneuvering between trees and dips in the terrain.
They both jostle on leather seats as Bonnie counts the minutes traveled from the main road.
Klaus finally parks the suburban inconspicuously behind a throng of dead brush, in between mossy trees, six minutes from the clay paved road.
He unlocks the glove department and twirls a semi-automatic gun in his hand. "This belongs to my driver. It's equipped with a round of wooden bullets. Until we get you fully trained, you will do as the locals do. Shoot first and ask questions later. I believe that's the colloquialism of these parts," He says, placing the heavy weapon in her lap.
Grabbing the grimoire from the back- seat, he yells out to her as she lingers with the weapon at her side by the vehicle, "Come on, we will have to walk the rest of the way."
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The once vibrant pink and beautiful Creole farmhouse was now a pale blush from the years of wear and completely charred on the left side of the home. The roof had collapsed on that side and demolished the quartered rooms. The jagged blackened beams, remnants of the former structure were like exposed skeletal ribs that extended into the right side of the house which was still breathing.
It reminded Klaus of how he had discovered Bonnie.
The porch sagged in the middle, where the house was caving in on itself, the once white-washed porch was now dull from deterioration.
"We will make this place safe for you."
She trailed behind him through the unlocked front door.
There had been a fire, obviously, around the turn of the century, and the flames had destroyed half of the home and half of the antiques that were ancient before the owner had ever set foot in the Americas. But the rest of the home was still immaculate, beautiful in its decay.
"Weird. I can't believe this furniture is still here. It's like whoever lived here just got up one day and never came back." Bonnie wonders aloud, setting the gun down to run her hand along the foyer table, collecting decades of dust on her palm, scrutinizing how long the dead stems in the flower vase had been there.
She is still barefoot and Klaus advises her to be careful. He would hate for her to snag her skin on a rusty nail.
She follows his voice into the kitchen as he opens cupboard after cupboard, rummaging through dusty tin cans and dinnerware, awakening rodents and roaches that scurry from the light.
"Today is our lucky day." He smiles at her.
He had found what he had been looking for.
Salt.
The Morton package had turned brown over the years but the contents still flow freely from the spout, the tiny white grains collecting into a small pile on the counter.
He motions two fingers for her, leading her, and she's right behind him, step after step, right onto the front lawn of the home.
"Turn to page 97 and read exactly what you see on that page. I want you to hold my hand while we do this. We are going to do it together, love," He instructs, intertwining his fingers with hers as he slowly guides her around the grounds of the home, pouring out the salt.
And she hesitates over the foreign script on the yellowed page.
"Why am I not hearing you?" He halts, and she bumps into his back.
"I don't know these words."
"You do not know them at this moment, but you knew them before and I am positive with practice you will know them again," He states, resuming the hand-holding and the salt pouring.
"Hanc oblationem in domum meam, ut protegere salis"
After they encircle the entire home in a circle of salt and she has read the last word, they arrive back at the rotted porch steps and she asks him what spell was performed.
He flings the door open for her to enter first and bows with a smirk, "Now the only two people in the world who can enter without invitation is myself," He says pointing to his chest and smiling at Bonnie, "And you, Ms. Bennett."
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He had hoped to have at least two weeks to train Bonnie because although she is brimming with raw magic, she is incapable of a full-on war with Marcel and his witches.
Mama T's death had thrown a wrench into his plans.
After the novena will be Mama T's funeral which gives Klaus exactly nine days to prepare Bonnie for a grand unveiling.
He blows out air he doesn't breathe, exasperated by the weight of what he needs to accomplish in Bonnie in such a short amount of time.
The back seat is overloaded with Walmart shopping bags, full of camping gear sans the camping tent. There are two rolled up sleeping bags, kerosene lamps and stovetop, cotton dresses, under things and a pair of camel coloured hiking boots for Bonnie. There is also a Styrofoam cooler of ice with bottled water, a loaf of bread, sharp cheddar, assorted meats and two bottles of whiskey, everything they needed to survive.
He decides to take the cooler first and come back for the rest.
Carrying half of his haul through the thick of dead undergrowth, he does not hear Bonnie's heartbeat.
And he reminds himself that he was very clear when he stressed to the witch that the protection spell could not protect her if she did not stay put and it was imperative for her to stay put now that Marcel would be inclined to kill her, since he had murdered two of his henchmen and one of his witches.
Dropping the cooler where he stands, he enters into the farmhouse.
Maybe she wanted to walk down to the bayou, she is a witch, it is vital for her to bond with nature and maybe she is missing this connection.
He calms himself down with this idea, but then he utters a fuck under his breath when he sees that the shiny silver pistol he had given her that was on the foyer table when he left has gone and with it has gone Bonnie.
He slowly struts out on to the porch, the creamsicle sky melting into a sea of indigo.
Shrugging out of his shirt, he sniffs the air, kicking off his boots and jeans, and he stands stark naked in the last of the sun.
There is a crunch of bone and a gnashing of teeth as his muscular human form shifts into a white wolf.
And he leaps off the porch into the woods to find Bonnie.
Author's Note
Thank you for reading.