Rejection

The raging storm bellowed outside, its wrath bending trees and pushing dead leaves on the ground into submissive grass. Most of the normal animals that would be about at night had long gone and run for cover, hiding from the incoming rain. You could hear the stomping footsteps of the rain coming, like soldiers marching down the street or civilians rioting.

His fist clutched his book as he stared out the window, “Jack, will you sit down…please. Dad said he would be back before dawn.” he moved but only slightly, looking to his sister sitting in their father’s chair. His attention is grabbed by the tree limb scraping against the house’s old wooden frame. He does not say anything, he goes over to the fireplace. Each step caused the floor to whine at him, “How many of her books are you going to read,Connie?” tossing a log into the mouth of the fireplace, chanting, causing his hand to glow before a weak fire starts on the log. “I’m curious,” she replies while still reading, “is that a question out of jealousy or are you just curious?”, “Neither, we threw those books in the basement for a reason. She is never coming back you know” his voice becomes intense, Connie rolls her eyes “ You know your magic would be stronger if you just studied mom and dad’s grimoires”, “Dad’s yes, I’ll never read hers and one that note, I don’t know why you bother reading her garbage grimoire either.” He grunts and murmurs under his breath before he finally decides to stand back up and lie on the sofa in front of Connie.

She sighs, ”I get it your pissed but don’t take it out on me”, “I’m not” he says the aggravated in his voice becoming more noticeable “But you are, she left us. So, what, not like she was ever here much in the first place” finally closing the book for a moment, giving her brother her full attention “You act like I know her, honestly, you nor father never talk about her in anyway with me around. So, I find something of hers, something personal that is buried away and now you are mad at me for practicing her magic.” He smirks at her statement, “practicing? You can’t even read that, you cannot just up and read someone else’s grimoire that’s not at all now that works”, “But I can.” He leans up a little in a whirlpool of confusion. “What does she mean she can?” he thought, “That is impossible, right? Even in school, nobody ever heard of someone being able to read another person’s grimoire.” He continued, “Hello!” she says, followed by a light smile. “Jack! You never finished your thought” he shakes his head “huh?”, “you never finished your thought, you just started talking about” she clears he throat “Nobody can read from another persons grimoire” she says in a deep voice mocking him in a playful gest causing them both the burst out laughing.

He lies back down, looking at the ceiling, before laughing under his breath, “reading Mom’s grimoire, I wish. You know how powerful she was? You know what we don’t talk about her cause she….” The banging of a tree limb crashing onto the roof causes him to stop. Mid-sentence, followed by the scraping of the tree branches lightly touching the houses, and the wind continued to howl. Jack gave it a moment as it was here, moving at a rapid pace, the splash of the watcher as it hit the ground, and more so their dirt-covered driveway deep in the woods. The heavy rain slamming over the house, Jack gets up to throw more logs on the fire, “So you gonna vent to me about her or just keep it bottle up? Why do you hate her so much?” she asks the roaring of the flames growing flash against her thick wool afro and her western coneflower and sand brown skin, he signs in disbelief “Find I cave. He says” sitting back down his back down against the arm of the sofa “Hate is the wrong word, I am extremely…I don’t know what you call it but I just know I feel an emptiness. Like did I do something?” he stopped for a moment, he had said these words in his head a million times but this is the first time he had been open about it.

His eyes get watery and heavy, he rubs them quickly to make it look like he is getting tired, the rough sleeve of his shirt brushing across his eyes smearing his tears. “I’d rather just forget, you know, than to remember her, cause I want my mom, but she doesn’t want me.” he curls into a ball, sitting there just staring at the fire. She looked at him for a while, not sure what to say. She was just a baby at the time of their mother’s leaving. “Did you ever find out why she left?” she asked him with a taste of nervousness, her fingers gripping the book tightly. “I overheard them, you know, that night. She said I was nothing and Dad was nothing, no royal blood outside of hers, no wealth, just an idiot farmer and a bastard jackal of a son and a future troglodyte of a daughter. No amount of love can save this shit relationship and failed bastards.”

The silence in the room was only filled by the crackling of the logs from the flame bursting through the oxygen pockets and the heavy rain beating over the roof. The heat from the fireplace brings a cocoon of warmth within the log cabin house, causing Jack to get up and open one of the windows to let some of the heat out. Connie was still sitting there thinking about the words that Jack had just told her, her eyes began to water as well, she looked down at the book she was holding as her tears flowed over bronze cheeks, down her chin, and onto the cover of her mother’s grimoire. She hears an echo, which makes her stop crying momentarily.

She looks up to see that she isn’t at home anymore; everything around her is shrouded in darkness. But she could see that a seemingly distant light was shining down upon her. She wiped the tears from her cheek, her mother’s grimoire still in her hands as she opened it, the pages were blank, it burst into a dark navy-blue flame engulfing not only the book but her whole hand too. The instant burst of fire causes her to jump back, the lovely dove white cover of the book turned into a deep royal blackish-purple as the flames disappear. She blinks and is back in her living room. she looks around and sees Jack now lying on the sofa.

He appears he had not moved; at least at time recently she thought, she felt different but could not put her finger on it she got up and went into the bathroom, cutting on the light to look in the mirror she sits the book down; look at it out of habit and had to do a double take. Whatever it was, she had just experienced was as real as her mother’s grimoire was no longer a pure snow white but rather a dark, almost void less royal purple color. She takes a second to look in the mirror and notices her hair is longer, slightly, probably about three-four inches in length, and her eyes now have a gleam to them, not like an I’m in love sparkle, but a universal cosmic shine to them. What was that? She asked out loud, staring over at the book.

…..To be continued.