Jennifer Griffin

The show on the Tv was pretty boring, but I didn't care. All I needed was a distraction.

A week had passed in this new house, and all I had been engaged with was finding clues and answers to that mysterious vision. I tried to sit and be still, to converge with the dead, so they could tell me exactly what the images of a lady and a wolf represented. But I didn't get any good answers. It was as if someone showed me the images to torment me. As if I had been given a taste of something powerful, and it was my turn to guess the recipe.

I crossed my legs in front of me on the couch and held the TV remote in my hand. On the right, three books were sitting there. I'd collected them from the library. The first one had a hundred pages, like a short read of some kind. It was written by a Japanese witch to her daughter and was hidden from the public for years. The book title was "Zin: Life of the Uncommons." The other two were written by Greeks and Scottish authors, explaining what they believed about magic, witchcraft, and all.

They’d been my companion for the past seven days, but none of them had given me the answers I wanted.

I tried to figure it out every day for the past week. Finally, after that night with Darius, I went into the secret room and performed the usual routine of seeing powerful visions — lavender oil, flame, and incantations like my mother had taught me. But I didn't see any vision, not even when I sat there for hours and screamed because of my failure to really see things when I needed it badly. I tried the next day again, ignoring that it was Christmas and I should be outside having fun. But, no, I wanted to know what a girl and a wolf had to do with me.

A week had passed pretty fast, and yet. In that one week, I celebrated Christmas and New Year by myself. It felt strange. I had never celebrated Christmas alone, same with the New Year. In the past seven days, I just bought and drank alcohol, ate food, and watched television. And I read.

On TV, the man was saying something about being the only person alive with his kind of powers. He was a magician. He could turn things around, rabbits to a handkerchief, pen to scissors.

I shook my head. My mother said when my grandmother was alive, she could turn a man into a deer, camel, or anything she wanted. I wished I was half as powerful as her. But here I was, unable to unravel a simple vision or what it meant. Of course, it was a movie, but this man was foolish to make such a comment. Why would he say such a thing when he should have known as a witch that there were too many mysteries in this world to be uncovered?

I put the remote control down and set my foot on the floor. I would try the magic again to see if something happened. So I walked to the secret room. I turned on the light by clapping my hands. The room was a bit darker, and I changed the appearance by making one side of the room look like a giant piece of art. It was as perfect as I had conceived it in my imagination — a wall with the painting of a dragon. I smiled and sat down on the floor. A small metal bowl was on the table, where I'd been burning incense for the past two weeks.

I was confused. If this vision was important, my grandmother would have shown me the details of the images. I would have seen their faces and understood what to do. But, if they were not important either, why did I see it, to begin with?

I should have enjoyed the sex with Darius in peace, but no, the thought of what the images meant had distorted the whole experience a little.

I folded my legs like a yoga pose. I reached for the blue incense in a small bowl and dashed some into the brazier in front of me. Then I closed my eyes and began to cast spells.

My voice gradually faded into a long distance pretty fast, and I felt a warm brightness on my face. The fire had started in the brazier, responding to the words that came out of my mouth. I tried to concentrate on my mind instead and tried to direct where it was leading me. I was like a camera moving in a strong wind. I was jumping, running, and speeding through dark clouds, thick smoke, and loud cries of voices that sounded like ancient gods and witches. Their pains and joys were a mix of echoes. Some of them laughed while being burned on the stake, and some cursed the humans who did it. There was nothing to see, just gloom, mists, and blurs, but the noises could be made out loud enough to make me put both hands on my ears, but I didn't. Instead, I closed my eyes tighter and tried to keep my palms together in front of me.

My mind slowed down. I was in a city, and I could see familiar houses and buildings. My heart rate, which had been jumping for a few seconds, had dropped so bad that it felt like I would go numb. My body was physically colder. In the vision, I walked around and tried to make sense of my surroundings. There was a church. It was a big old Catholic church with several stairs, and you had to raise your head to see the door. I couldn't see any soul, but if this was what my grandmother wanted to show me, why did she show that of a lady and a werewolf? I tried to push forward, to make sense of my purpose around here. So I tried to move into the building, but I was stopped in my tracks like an invincible wall had appeared before me. I gasped for breath and opened my eyes. I sighed and coughed and coughed. The fire in front of me was still burning. Slowly, it went down and down.

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“Kápse, to fos tis psychís mou, kápse,” I intonated.

The flame grew higher again in the burning brazier, and I watched it glowing and brightening the walls of the room and the magical artworks on it. I knew it wasn't real, but I marveled at it anyway, the perfect distraction from my mind today.

I would go back to the books later and try to learn more magic. Maybe I would find something helpful in the books. Maybe not.

But I needed a break. I needed something different than books and the sound of my movement around the house.

I walked out of the room, picked up my jacket from the bedroom, car keys, and phone from the living room, and headed out of the house.

I didn't think too much about where I was going. I wanted to be outside, grab some drinks and come back home. It was as if I had been locked into some mysterious mission for one week. Each massive effort always put me in a dark, luckless spot where I fought to understand what I was doing wrong.

I drove to the same bar again and walked inside. I wasn't interested in going home with a man. I was only here to have a drink and experience something different than what my silent house had to offer — noise, booze, the smell of hemp, sweating men pressing their bodies against women, and the funny expression of women who wanted the most attention and then pretended to be surprised when they got it. So I sat in a corner and asked for a glass of drink. The waiter prepared my request, and I slid some banknotes to him.

A wolf and a girl. I kept thinking about them. I didn't have a full picture in the vision, but I could still remember what it looked like; blurry, but I could tell what it was. A wolf and girl. Not a man and dog. It was a wolf.

I sat on a couch and in a corner. There was no need to use magic here. I only wanted to drink and watch. If I had other plans, the boy on the other side of the couch would have been a good fit. He was wearing a sleeveless vest and holding a bottle of beer. Yeah, I could drink that on his body if he wanted me.

But no, I just want to drink and watch.

Someone sat in front of me, and looking up at him, I almost choked on my drink.

Darius.

I coughed and used my hand to shield my face.

“Hi, did I scare you. I am so sorry,” he said.

“Hi, it's okay. It's okay. I wasn't. I was shocked, just that.”

“Yeah.. uhm… When I see you, I think you look familiar. I couldn't say where exactly, but I’m confused. I don't know if we had met before.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “We have not met before.”

Yes, we did meet, and he was good in bed. But that was all I wanted. No attachment. No relationship. If I needed him again, I would hold his hands and stare into his eyes, and that would be it. But not today. Not ever again, maybe. I ensured I made him forget everything after the sex that night. I looked down at his arms and shook my head slowly as I repeated myself, "no, we have never met before," I said, grinning.

"Okay," he said. Then he looked back at the other hall area as if he was being cautious of someone. "I am Darius, by the way," as he turned to me and extended his hand for a handshake.

“Jenniffer,” I said, extending my hand to take his hand.

Something tinged inside of me when I touched him. The flash of the night we had together, the screams of orgasm, and the thought of his strong hands holding me down as he slammed against my buttocks and thrust inside me.

“Are you sure we haven't met…. Sorry. Sorry, I am sorry for pestering. I’m just crazy. Just maybe I had too much,” he said, pointing at the bartender.

I smiled. No, he wasn't going crazy, but he wouldn't remember even if I told him what happened.

“It's nice meeting you, Darius,” I said.

Someone slapped my hand off his. It was my girlfriend, the same girl from the other night. I wanted to get up and do something crazy to her, like cast some spell and make her strip naked or, even worse, pour drinks on herself, but I stared at her. She was a lot taller than me, and I had learned to always avoid attention to myself. I had seen and read many horror stories of how people like me died at the hands of humans — because we were more gifted because we had these powers. How dare us!

"I think I have to go," I said, looking at Darius again.

Then I got up and walked out of the hall again. What was I thinking to have come to this hall again? I should have. I was so confident in the potency of my powers that I thought he wouldn't remember me ever again.

When I got into the car, I exhaled and started driving in the direction that suited me. I just wanted to keep the car moving and moving. I just want to say I wasn't eager to figure things out anymore. I wanted things to be normal again, no bizarre visions or things that would take this hard to figure out. But that was the point of moving here — to become more powerful and have my grandmother's abilities.

I must have driven the car for an hour or more. I eventually parked because I was tired and wanted to get out and get some snacks in the restaurant.

So I found a nice restaurant by the road and stepped out of the car to get out of the car.

I went in to get some chicken and chips and came out of the building carrying the items I had bought in one hand.

Something caught my attention on the other side of the road. A church. A catholic church. The same one I saw in my visions some hours ago. I opened the front door of my car doors, dropped the items on the seat, and closed it.

I began to walk to the other side of the road.

Driving here wasn't a coincidence, and I was ready to find out what was inside the church.