Book 3. Chapter 29.
“Touching the bottom of the abyss.” Part 2
Again, Kalysto was inside her childhood home, but unlike how she remembered it this time there were two beds instead of only one. And in each was a little girl, in one sat Persephone with her black hair and eyes, playing with a small black crystal. And in the other, a girl with green eyes, the same shade as Kalysto's, but with white hair, so light that with the sunlight filtering through the window it gave golden highlights.
“You should stop calling her mother too! That woman is not our mother!”
“You're just mad because she didn't want to help you save Mr. Rabbit,” Persephone reproached calmly. “I told you not to worry, as your big sister, I already solved that problem. Now you just have to become a great veterinarian. And Mr. Rabbit will be cured, good as new.”
The other girl pouted, hugging a rabbit-shaped stuffed animal, which Kalysto recognized immediately, as it had been the one the social worker brought to her at the orphanage, after her mother was killed along with her stepfather.
Her heart squeezed as she recognized the one who had been her only friend when the children at the orphanage avoided her, and despite the differences between the girl sitting on the bed and her, she couldn't deny the resemblance.
“You still shouldn't call her mother! Our mother died giving birth to me!” she murmured with infinite sadness, guilt vibrating in her voice as she squeezed the cuddly stuffed bunny tightly.
“Stop saying that! It's not true!” She got upset and got up from the bed, leaving the black crystal on it, completely forgotten. And devoting all her attention to running to hug her younger sister to comfort her. “Whoever told you that lied to you. Mom was sick long before she had us. It's dad's fault for not taking good care of her, for always being traveling instead of staying to take care of her while we were born... if he had done his job well, our mother wouldn't have died a couple of hours after our birth!” she said as she tried to hide the tears in her eyes at the loss of something she never knew, along with anger at her absent father. “It's not like things have changed much over time, now most of the time he's always traveling... I think that's why he got together with our new mother.”
“She's just the nanny,” Kalysto insisted. “She has always been our nanny and will always remain just a nanny.”
“...”Persephone smiled, but made sure to hide her smile in her sister's hair. “Whatever you say, my Kalysto.”
“...And you're only my big sister for five minutes,” she pleaded.
“...” Persephone broke the embrace and looked at her little sister's forest green eyes, with little emerald flecks glittering here and there inside them. “You like to argue with me, don't you…” she accused her with her eyes. “And it's precisely because you don't accept her as daddy's new wife that she doesn't treat you as well as she treats me,” she assured her with some pride, while she pulled back a lock of her long black hair in a gesture full of vanity.
Before little Kalysto could respond, the whole memory changed again.
It was night time.
A torrential downpour was pounding violently on the bedroom window. And inside, the two beds that were once separate now lay side by side, with no space between them. On the warm sheets, two little girls were lying. One with her face pale, almost green, bathed in sweat as her teeth chattered from the cold.
Next to her, little Kalysto removed the damp cloth from her older sister's forehead and put it into a basin of water and then squeezed it out and put it back on Persephone's forehead.
“Your fever still hasn't gone down,” she murmured with concern. “That woman took advantage of Dad's trip to go out with her friends again,” she growled angrily.
“It's not her fault that I Cough! Cough! I have the flu” she tried to defend her.
“This is her fault! It's supposed to be her job to take care of us, not to party! And I doubt you have a simple cold! I've already given you all the medicine we had and your fever won't come down!” she was worried. “I think I'd better go to one of the neighbors and ask for help. One of them may be able to take us to the hospital, Pers.” However the noisy sound of the rain hitting hard against the window never diminished, on the contrary, it only seemed to get louder as Kalysto seemed more determined to go out and get help.
“Don't go!” Persephone begged, completely terrified at the thought of being abandoned and dying, just like her mother. “Don't leave me alone!”
“...But Pers, I'd better go find someone who can help us. I don't want anything bad to happen to you,” she tried to explain.
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“It's just a cold, it will pass,” she assured her, but several hours later, the situation only got worse. And Persephone looked worse and worse, as did the inclement weather outside the house. “...Just do what you know how to do,” she whispered, her voice sounding hoarse and somewhat broken, yet she refused to let go of Kalysto and let her leave the room to ask for help.
“But Pers, I'm not as good as you at magic tricks. Besides, Dad forbade you to do it, so he surely won't like to find me doing it either.”
“Dad didn't forbid me, Dad took away my system! As well as my magic!” she growled angrily before another coughing fit prevented her from continuing to speak.
“That's because he's mad at you, for what you did last time. But I'm sure he'll get over it eventually and take away your punishment,” she tried to console her, as she stroked her hair and wiped away the sweat with a towel. “Pers, what do you mean by a system? what's that? Do you mean that black thing that only you could see?”
“...Yes,” she answered between whispers and another coughing fit. “But daddy took it away from me,” she added sadly but quickly her whole expression changed and was filled with pure anxiety and fear, ”I've already lost so much, I can't lose you too! I couldn't bear to lose you too, Kalysto!” Then Persephone took her wrist and squeezed it tightly, yet little Kalysto didn't complain even though it was obvious it must hurt. “Don't leave me! Never leave me! Never ever leave me! Never abandon me!” A new attack of coughing, one so strong that it seemed not to let her breathe, seized her, and then her fever grew stronger. Scarcely fifteen minutes did pass while they waited for their father who should not be long in returning, but to the pair of girls it felt like an eternity, during which little Kalysto watched in despair as life began to pay out in her sister's dark eyes.
“...” Tears flooded little Kalysto's eyes and cheeks. “I don't want to lose you either, Pers! We have always been together!” she added as she sobbed and hugged her tightly as Persephone's embrace grew weaker and weaker. “You promised me that we would always be together and that you would never leave me! You have to resist, you can't die now!...” she sobbed as a soft white glow burst from her body.
Persephone's hand fell without any strength at the same time that Kalysto's loud cry drowned Persephone's soft breathing, so much so that the little girl did not notice the moment when the other girl stopped breathing.
“I would do anything to save you, I would even sacrifice Mr. Rabbit,” she murmured in tears at the same moment when Persephone's heart stopped beating and the white glow around Kalysto's body intensified.
That was also the moment when Kalysto lost her magic.
And in return her white hair with golden highlights turned brown.
“What the hell is going on here?” her father growled, his clothes completely wet due to the heavy rain, and in his hand a bag with medicine for his sick daughter along with food.
Little Kalysto lost consciousness at that instant, and her memory dimmed.
The last thing the adult version of Kalysto saw was her father screaming at the same time his voice began to fade while darkness and weakness devoured her.
“My little ones! What happened?”
And once again the memory changed.
Now they were in her father's study, and once again Persephone's hair had gone back to brown, instead of black. Though this time it was a bit darker than her current color.
Still, she appeared to be at least a year older, and a tiny bit taller.
Her dark black eyes were red from crying and her body looked thinner, as did her father's, whose black bags under his eyes stood out from his gaunt face.
Several times the same scene was repeated, but each time Persephone was wearing different clothes. But whenever she tried to enter her father's study and get his attention he continued to ignore her, too deep in his books, searching desperately for something in them, but couldn't seem to find it.
But this time, Persephone had had enough.
“Where is my Kalysto?” she demanded, slamming the study door and entering without asking permission, throwing a tantrum. “What did you do to her? Did you take her away from me too, just like you did with my mother?” That seemed to do the trick, and for the first time in what seemed like months, her father turned around, anger flashing in his eyes.
“No, that was you!” He snarled angrily, “Because of you I lost Kalysto! What did you do to her this time, Persephone?” he accused her.
“I... I didn't do anything…” she got scared, it was the first time she saw him so angry with her, she unintentionally took a step back. “... I swear!... I would never hurt Kalysto!”
“I'm sorry, but I can't trust you anymore, not after I found you chatting with a specter of Seth-Mainyu after you destroyed an entire village and took over his system! You killed all those people and you didn't even care!”
“But I would never do something like that to Kalysto! Besides I was just testing my new power and things got out of control!” she tried to excuse herself.
“The only reason you didn't kill your sister that day was because she had been traveling with me to get medicine, if I had left her at home you would have killed her along with the rest!”
Although Persephone's face lost all the color it had When she heard that, she couldn't help but get angry.
“It was an accident!” she shouted, needing to defend herself against the accusation that she might have hurt her little sister by accident.
“And I'm tired of cleaning up your accidents!” he shouted back, tired of having to move again and again every time Persephone disobeyed him and went back to playing with her magic only to lose control and cause damage again. “But this will be the last time I clean up your mess Persephone, and I'll take care of bringing Kalysto back,” he added, this time more calmly. As if it had taken him a long time to come to that conclusion, and in the end he had to resign himself to it as the only way out.
Then her father turned around and picked up a book he had been reading and approached Persephone again, placing a hand over her heart.
And as a soft glow burst from her father's body, he muttered a spell that neither of them managed to understand.
As thick tears ran freely from her father's cheeks.
And when it was all over, Persephone's dark hair lightened a little, though not completely, and the little girl fainted, falling into the arms of her father who was quick to whisper lovingly as he clung to her in desperation.
“Come on Kalysto, wake up! Come back to daddy!” his father says to her.
At that moment the memory ended completely and Kalysto was back in front of the huge seal.
Her face covered with tears as she remembered that for her, those were the first words she heard from her father and where the memories of her childhood began.