Witch’s Lesson: Purple Oasis #3 by Laura Greenwood & Arizona Tape

Author:Laura Greenwood & Arizona Tape [Greenwood, Laura]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Nine

Annabelle

* * *

I opened my eyes and tried not to panic when I realised I was in the medical bay for the second time in as many weeks. I stared up at the grey ceiling for a moment and tried to put the pieces of what happened together but came up blank.

"Oh good, you're awake," Hayley said, calling my attention to her. She offered me a reassuring smile and I felt almost instantly comforted.

Was that because of her as a person, or her magic as an empathy witch? I suspected it was a mix of both.

"How are you feeling?"

I groaned as I sat up, letting the storm in my chest subside. "I'm okay, I think. My eyes hurt, probably from the crying."

"Mmmm. That's likely," she agreed.

"I'm not clear on how I got here though." I looked at her expectantly, hoping she could fill in the blanks on that front.

"Camilla and Reese brought you in. You were a little hysterical, so they wanted my help to calm you down," she explained. "I'm not surprised you don't remember much of it, I haven't felt emotions that out of control in a long time."

"Is that a bad thing?"

She smiled sadly. "No. Sometimes it's good to feel."

"Thank you for helping." I scanned the room. "Is Reese here?" I was already reasonably sure of the answer, but I wanted to hear it anyway.

"No, but she asked me to tell her when you woke up. She was worried about you."

A warm feeling spread through my chest at the thought of her fussing and worrying over me. It was clear I'd quickly become attached to the tea witch, and a big part of me did want to explore that with her.

"I'm just going to check your pulse, okay?" Hayley asked.

"Sure. But I thought you just dealt with the mental health stuff?" I gestured to my forehead unnecessarily.

"I mostly do. That's what I was training to do before the apocalypse," she said as she pressed two fingers on my wrist, holding them steady. "But I do have other training too."

"Oh."

"Would you like to tell me about last night?"

I rubbed my eyes with my free hand, trying to lessen the sting. "I don't know what happened, honestly. The cleansing was making me feel really good, really relaxed. But then there was this hard ball of despair in my gut and it just spread through me with all these dark emotions and memories."

"Memories?" Hayley prompted gently. I could tell what she was doing, but instead of shrinking away from it, I felt myself opening up. I didn't know whether it was the after-effects of the ceremony last night, or the empathy magic Hayley was using, but whichever it was, it made me certain that this was a safe place to talk about things.

"Yeah, of my family. Of the people I've lost. It was just too painful and I shut down. I couldn't handle it. I still don't think I can."

"Yes, you can. Grief is one of the hardest things we have to process but it's possible.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.