Chapter. 36

Diana spat feathers the moment she sat upright and gasped air back into her lungs.

She swore so much that all the gathered circle looked horrified by her ire. The only person who thought she was funny was Elaina.

“Look, I’m sorry, alright? I admit I forgot to mention that you could come back whenever you wanted to as long as you thought about coming back. I admit that I should have led with that.”

“You’re damn right you should have! I was nearly eaten by a werewolf! A pack of them! Who’s bright idea was it to do this on the night of a full moon?!! How the hell did I even end up in Glen Valley?!?” Diana screeched and rather resembled an unhappy toddler. Fists by her sides, sat with her legs out on the mattress and her face flushed.

“Oooooh, Glen Valley.” Anna sheepishly hummed and nodded at her sister from her position stood beside Elaina. Diana got to her feet and was still red in the face from her ordeal. “Yes, they are an established werewolf settlement. A successful one at that. Normally our kind and theirs don’t mix. For good reason.”

“No shit?” Diana laughed and spoke in a quite hiss as she frantically made her displeasure known. “Just so I know? Are we living nearby an Orc sanctuary? A gargoyle aviary? A vampire leir or-”

“No we drove out the vampires hundreds of years ago.” Anna waved off that comment like she’d remarked on clearing out the riffraff. Diana paled and covered her mouth.

“…what else exists?” She asked seriously. “You know what? Sleep is already hard to come by. I don’t want to know.” She waved her hands in an x and stormed off the mattress to run her hands back over her head.

“Witches and demons and werewolves and vampires oh my!” Elaina cackled and Yani shook her head with shame at her keeper. Diana’s left eye twitched as she stared at the redhead.

“Oh you’re so funny.” She faked a laugh and then groaned into her hands. “Baby steps she says? Diana sighed and rubbed her face as she started to feel groggy now her adrenaline levels were lowering again. She yawned and Anna lowered her wrists from her face.

“Yes you’ll be pretty tired now. Let’s go home and get some sleep.”

“Easy for you to say.” She grumbled under her breath, but allowed her sister to lead her out of the covenstead, up the stairs and out of the gym’s building. Diana was getting very close to slipping off to sleep on the drive home, and had to be helped up the stairs to bed. “…I’m really beat. Man I wish I could have no dreams tonight.”

“I do too.” Anna sighed, helped Diana to change into a long white nightdress, and tucked her into bed. “I wish I could help you with this.”

“You are helping.” Diana mumbled with her eyes shut and her black braid slung over her right shoulder. “…next time…we’ll get answers…right?”

“When you’re rested, we’ll talk about planning your next astral walk, yes.”

“Silence…the door…”

“I will Diana.” Anna kissed her cheek and made herself back out of the bedroom. Slowly she shut the door and frowned as she cast the silencing spell on the door. Leaving her there to suffer alone felt wrong. There was nothing she could do, and she couldn’t help Diana if she were sleep deprived too.

Inside of the room a pair of red eyes with black wispy orbs shimmered in the darkness. It watched her for a while as if to ensure she was deeply asleep, before approaching. The shadow beast walked away from the corner by the window and slowly came over to stand beside the bed. It lowered to one knee and reached a mighty hand over to clear a strand of raven hair from her face.

Then it pressed two shadowy claw tipped fingers into her forehead.

Laughter cut through the air like the squawking of a thousand birds. Her heart hammered, tears fell down her face in rivers and she could barely think. Diana was sat on the bench outside her school and was no longer interested in her cheese sandwich. Hair was strewn around her face and she couldn’t…couldn’t process what had just happened to her.

What they had just done to her.

“Look at her face? It’s priceless!”

“It’s an improvement, really.”

The laugher just kept circulating around her. Diana slowly lifted her watery brown eyes to see her peers revelling in her humiliation. On another table Elaina, the frizzy redhead who kept trying to talk to her looked down with shame. She didn’t laugh…but she didn’t voice her opinion either. Olivia and Jessica were giggling and flailing the spoils of their victory around with glee. Throwing it back and forth as they circled Diana on the bench. “Oh crap.”

Jessica’s aim had been off and it landed on Diana’s pink lunchbox. Her hands leapt forward to wrap around it and clutched it tightly to her chest. Jessica stormed over and tried to take it back off her, but Diana held on with both hands. “Give it back dirt blood. It’s not like you can put it back! You’d need to be a witch to fix that mess!”

“Jess Mrs Kelly’s coming!” Her sister warned her, and the two blondes fled to join the quickly quieting crowd. Diana closed her eyes and bowed her head over to hide her shame. She trembled with grief as her loss truly started to sink in.

“If you tell on us dirt blood, we’ll burn the rest off.” Jessica sneered. “So do what you do best and do nothing.”

“No one would believe you anyway. She can’t do anything Jess.” Olivia nodded with a grin to her sister.

“What’s going on here?” Diana heard Mrs Kelly fast approaching and shoved the contents of her hands, and the lunch box, into her overly packed pink backpack. “Diana…what the…what happened to you?!”

“Nothing.” Diana forced out with and felt like she was swallowing bile. She was disgusted with herself, but her fear for the Robinson twins was greater than her pride.

“Young lady you will tell me right this instant what happened! Who saw what happened to Miss Couper?” Mrs Kelly tried to drum up witnesses, but everyone averted their eyes or shook their heads. The same people she had known nearly all her life and laughed at her misery pretended to be innocent. “Elaina?” The redhead gasped and snapped her head up from her own lunch. “Elaina, did you see what happened to Diana?”

Diana stared across from her bench to Elaina and waited. If she spoke up, she’d be proving she really did want to be her friend even at the risk of gaining the unwanted attention of Olivia and Jessica. At the same time, the twins could punish Diana for being ratted out. If Elaina said nothing then she wouldn’t make things worse for her, but she’d also show that when it came down to it, she wasn’t Diana’s friend.

Elaina frowned and swept her greened eyes down to her lap.

“…no Mrs Kelly…I…I didn’t…see anything.”

“We did Miss!” Jessica put her hand up like the helpful little girl she was… “Diana started screaming that she thought she was ugly and then she did that to herself. We tried to stop her Miss, but we didn’t want to get hurt. She was crazy!”

“Is…is that true? Did you do this to yourself Diana?” Mrs Kelly lowered to one knee and tried to get Diana’s eyeline. She couldn’t, as the girl screwed her eyes shut and turned her face away from her.

“Yes. I…did this to myself…”

“I see…are you sure that’s what-”

“Yes! That’s what I just said, isn’t it!?!” Diana shouted and banged her fists on the table. “I did it. Now please just leave me alone.” She hung her head over and Mrs Kelly frowned angrily.

“I think you need to watch your attitude young lady. Recess is over. Everyone inside. You can wait out here Miss Couper where you can cool off.” She ushered the rest of the class to return to the school building. Olivia and Jessica lingered to get one last jab in before they too followed suit.

“Yeah Diana. No need to lose your hair over it.”

Diana raised her head and glared at Jessica and her sister with dark brown eyes and tear stained cheeks. Her raven hair was choppy and unkempt around her nape and hung around her cheeks. Jessica slipped her hand into her skirt pocket to flash the offensive scissors at her as she walked on. “Chop chop Diana. Don’t keep Mrs Kelly waiting.”

Once she was alone Diana continued to glare holes into the school building door. She was torn. On the one hand, Diana wanted to go in there and scream blue murder for what the twins had done to her. On the other hand, she wanted a hole top open up and swallow her whole.

No I couldn’t possibly… She swung her head slowly to the left and towards the forest. Diana shook her head and picked up her back pack. No I couldn’t. She put it on and held the straps with her hands. The same hands lifted up to try and shove her short hair behind her ears, only for the sides to be so short they fell free again. A fresh wave of gut wrenching grief made her whimper, and her blood boil. She stared at the forest and before she knew it she was storming away from school. Her mind was a white wash of rage and pain as she double timed it to the ritual area. She took out some of her anger on the spike she kicked down into the ground and the firm knot she tied with the rope around the loop. Diana didn’t announce herself. She was too mad to speak. She backed up with the rope and climbed down through the glamour and into the hidden pit. She landed with a thud, throwing her backpack to the ground and attacking it to retrieve the long braid of raven hair those horrible girls had cut from her head. Diana turned and thrusted it towards the inner pit, crying and bleeding pain from every pore.

Red eyes with black smokey pupils were already looking at her, and darted to show they were looking at her raised fist.

“This…was the one thing I liked about myself.” Diana fell to her knees and held it to her chest, crying hard enough to make her chest ache. Her left hand gripped at the soil and dirt got down her nails. “My mother brushes my hair every morning and every night. My mother has long hair. Nothing else about me is like her. But my hair is thick and soft like hers. My hair made me feel pretty, and now they’ve taken it. They took it and it hurt because they did it really quick and…and…now they’re right.” She wailed and banged her left fist into the dirt. “I’m just an ugly dirt blood. Powerless to do anything to stop them. I-I even had to say I did this to myself just so they wouldn’t hurt me any more…I hate them so much…”

Diana sobbed and wretched on her own hitched breathing. She trembled with pain as her heart cleaved in on itself. “I I I can’t tell anyone. They would never believe me over them. And then Jessica and Olivia would make my life even worse. J-Jessica said she’d b-b-burn the r-rest of my h h hair off if I did…” She bit her lips and cried. The pit echoed her misery around her and focused her on her suffering. “…you…are the only one I could tell…and you’re stuck in a hole.”

“I don’t have to be.”