LAMIAE

CHAPTER FIFTY TWO: WITCH

The first day of allowed magic. Yesterday I was looking forward to it, today I feel anxious.

I didn't even know where to start, it seems like everything I touch burns in my hands. However, the heat inhibits reason, I want so much that my power belongs only to me, so that it does not overwhelm me as it did with many.

A friend helps as best he can. Today he sat down next to me with a white sheet of paper and drew a code E. A code, because it was actually a line, but I told him that it reminded me of a code I learned a long time ago. He told me to move the line on the paper, and when I moved away, tired of looking at it fruitlessly, he kindly showed me how to do it correctly.

"Ah," thought Dagmara. The code must have been the Morse Code that Alan used once when writing a message to Nikolai to get Arleta out of his building when the Council members were there. Now she understood everything clearly. Alan was interested in Arleta, he cared about her because he didn't want the Council members to do anything to her. This was natural, but was he really honest? Dagmara returned to reading.

It's not simple. Everything I've done so far was done unconsciously, it's much harder to control myself and my actions.

A friend took me to the park where we found an injured pigeon. Not only did the animal suffer from a broken wing, but it was also unable to walk, wobbling on one leg from its weight. I felt inexpressible sadness at the sight of this poor little one. I wanted to help him, but my friend said that we shouldn't modify the damage on his body. We must avoid it. How much sadder I became when he held my hand, showing me the things I could do.

Yesterday, however, I regained my faith in him, climbing into the attic to get some old pot for Genevieve. I saw it, the same limping and injured bird, looking at me with a slightly frightened look, as if surprised that I was replacing my friend.

According to what he said, as soon as I got home that day, he went back for the bird himself. He took care of him, but not in a way that was easy. He did it the way he was supposed to. He himself bandaged the injured wing and the leg, and carried the bird to the attic of the aunt's house. It's been less than a day since I discovered this, but he's already let me to feed the bird with him.

In a few weeks I will release a healthy pigeon from its cage. It's really strange that the pigeon completely trusts us today, eats from our hand and does its needs in a designated place. I asked Casper if he had contributed to the "raising of the bird", but he replied with a mystical smile that the animal liked him, so he listened to him.

To object on this point would be absurd. All the animals like him, even Genevieve's cat, Tie, who looks at me sideways.

Dagmara looked higher. I asked Casper - Victoria wrote the boy's name for the first time in the diary. The reason was simple, she must have assumed that the person reading the fourth entry already knew the "recipe" for her diary. Calling Casper "my friend" was strategically deliberate; at the very beginning she avoided any names so that if the diary ever ended up in the hands of someone inappropriate, that person would not know who the text described.

I'm not afraid of possible death, I'm afraid of what will happen afterwards.

I talked to Genevieve. According to her, Casper has a better chance of surviving. Because of the way he left them, they won't want to kill him. At least, not right away. Living in guilt, if he can't stop them from killing me, will be the worst they can plan for him.

They can kidnap me and torture me, they can mutilate me and then murder me. So many options... Sometimes I find myself putting in order what I would choose if I could.

It's terrible to rank your deaths from best to worst.

Dagmara sighed bitterly. There was something she envied about Victoria. It was not death, no one wants to die at a young age, because it is not the natural order of things. We are born, we live, we die. But there is a sense of existence somewhere in all this. The love we are looking for. Victoria wasn't very lucky, but it wasn't Casper who killed her. Her intended boyfriend got to know her well enough to decide he wouldn't do it.

Will her destined one also belong to the Assembly? He must be her age, so he will be a year younger than Arleta, Nikolai and Alan. Two years younger than Sandra, three than Casper. Nikolai, did he know his destined one? What was happening to her? She promised herself to ask him about it at the next opportunity, because she wouldn't pretend that she still didn't know anything about it. Casper, Arleta and Sandra will first find out about her escapade, grandma will already take care of it, if she hadn't already.

Dagmara took her personal belongings to the bathroom. A warm shower did her good, but the mirror didn't. Seeing her scarred face, she wondered what she would say at school tomorrow. It didn't even look like playing with a wild cat.

When she came out of the bathroom, she came across her grandmother. Tie was not with her, she suspected that he had slipped into Casper's room at the earliest opportunity, because today, like every day, the boy left the door ajar.

"I actually have one more question," said Dagmara, remembering the last thing she heard in the story. "Supposedly, the young man died with his beloved's name on his lips."

Genevieve agreed, nodding her head affirmatively.

"What was that name?" she expected some old Polish name, such as Anna, Catherine, Elizabeth or Maria. She certainly couldn't have come up with the name her grandmother gave her.

"Lamiae."

"Doesn't this name mean..."

"Yes. Sorceress, vampire, witch."