The Obsidian Princess

Chapter 2

Finding her seat at the end of the aisle Eloa propped her backpack overhead and plopped down the seat as her best friend and her classmate sat down in the seat next to her yawning out loudly making a few passengers here and there look back at them with grimace and scowls. All the other members of the group were nearby as well.

“Really Nia, you should not do that in public!!” said Eloa as she made herself comfortable.

“Yeah!!! Said the girl who fell for the looniest chick on earth,” said Nia with a brazen wink at her friend.

They had been friends since they first went to the kindergarten and someone had poured water over Eloa’s head. Eloa had almost slammed the head of the kid with her book which had been kept on her desk but before she could do that Nia had pushed down that boy on the ground and then punched him in the nose hard making him bleed. That was the beginning of their friendship. Weird start for sure but the basis or the foundation had been strong.

“Come on Nia…it has been over a year!! Why are you still torturing me over that? I already told you that it was a mistake!!!” replied back Eloa in a hoarse whisper so that her co-passengers would not hear her.

“If that is the case, then tell me why have you not started going out on dates or hanging out with new people? The only person you hang out is with me and I am your comfort zone…Clearly Eloa your therapist had told you that you need to have more experiences and the varied kind so as you can get over that psycho b***h as soon as possible,” argued back Nia .

“You do understand that it is tough for me to come out of the fact that I was almost killed by someone whom I trusted implicitly. You know what they say about trust right? It is like a glass tumbler which once broken if reattached back once more, the cracks still remain intact.

“I just have one single question for your sake. She made you believe that you were never going to like men…she made you see things which you were never supposed to know otherwise but is that the truth Eloa? Do you truly not like boys? I am not going to say anything at all if you believe the fact. I am always going to be your friend and support what you want but is that what you really want? Why don’t you ask that to yourself?” asked Nia as she looked away from Eloa and popped the earphones in her ear with hard rock music blaring.

She did not need to be reminded on the fact that it had been not very long since she had been in an abusive relationship with a psychopath who was her roommate and helped her realize that she would never like men at all. She had not needed to answer to anyone at all since her parents who had separated when she was eleven years old were far too busy with their own lives. Her Grandma was the only one constant in her life who had taken care of her after her ex-girlfriend had stalked her and made an almost fatal attempt on her life. But she was not going to think about that anymore.

This trip is supposed to be a new start for Eloa and she had decided to take it up quite seriously.

But the fact that Nia said that was she truly a lesbian or was she a misguided teenager who had taken things seriously since she was brainwashed. After all it was her first relationship itself. She had never really given men or boys a chance but then again when someone looked like her no man wanted to even come remotely close to her.

The flight touched down Bratislava Airport almost in the afternoon. As Eloa descended on the grounds of Slovakia she felt deeply inside that this was going to be a life-changing experience for her. At that moment she did not know how true her instincts were!

Since they were a group of twelve with two supervisors, a small traveler bus had been arranged at the airport. The driver said that they would be going via E75 which would make them travel for about 95 kilometers and it would hardly take an hour.

A little later the vehicle took a fork in the roads which led them through the middle of the forest. Eloa looked outside her window and found the last nascent rays of the sun filtering in between the ancient branches. She felt a strange kinship with the flora, the dark looming figures which she breathed in deeply, in her lungs. The smell of wet mud, damp wood and the new leaves which were shy to come out yet, she took it in all. It was like she had this strange feeling of being at home in the forest or near the forest…it was just like she had known them all her life. But she knew very well that no one in her entire family had ever even come close to Slovakia before her.

“Hey girl!! You okay? You have been acting strange since you got on the flight!!” said Leila, an over-friendly Hispanic girl from the seat behind her.

“All’s fine, just having a good feeling about this,” replied back Eloa as she looked out of the window once more.

But Leila was not someone who let off that easily, unlike Nia and she continued,” Girl…you know, I gotta say…I have been feeling creepy ever since I stepped on this bus. Man!! Can you believe it? We are going to the house of the world’s most prolific serial killer, and that too, a lady!! Who knew that women in those times had this in them, right?”

Nia said,” Power and authority can do strange things with your brain…mess you up alright to the point of no-return…”

Eloa knew that Nia’s trailing off was a jibe at her but she could not tell her best friend to sod off. Her hands clenched into fists in her lap but Eloa’s Mama had taught her better. She said,” This woman about whom you are talking, was a Countess, a Hungarian Noblewoman in fact. She was the niece to the King of Poland..You know, her husband took up her name after their marriage since she refused to do the opposite due to her better social standing. I seriously doubt that she killed hundreds of women just for the sake of retaining her beauty and eternal youth, bathing in their blood!! Doesn’t it sound like a set-up to you guys?”

“Whoa!!! That was an honest mistake…you have to understand that when we were told that we would be coming to the castle of the Bloody countess we thought about the castle and the woman who killed scores of people inside it. Never felt necessary to read about the history,” said Leila as she scoffed. Then she added,” But you would be very understanding about that woman, won’t you now? After all you were sleeping with one like her!!”

Eloa felt that if she could have she would have pulled out the voice box of this girl in a snap but just like always Nia stood up from her seat and looked back at Leila with a glare.

“If you are not going to think before you speak then I am going to make sure that you are never able to speak again. Is that clear you f*****g piece of s**t?????” growled Nia at Leila. Eloa wanted to pull her back like she always did but today she did not.

Something inside her had snapped and it was badly broken. It had been quite long that she had been hearing things like this and she had been enduring all of this silently but not any longer. Everything had some limits and this time all the limits had been broken and badly crushed.

Now the bets and gloves were off.

Everyone in the bus were looking at her. They were all thinking the same thing. This was one weird chick who did not belong amongst us. Whatever she did and how much she tried to be at par with them, not react and be better than everyone else and not listen to the jibes nothing in the end finally mattered.

It always came down to the hunter and the hunted and now it was high time for her to change the roles.

After that whatever they muttered Eloa did not pay any more attention to. She of all people knew that stereotyping was the easiest and judging them was even easier. Knowing that she was different from others was a big blow but accepting it to be the truth was far more difficult. Having Chloe by her side had made it easier but the possessiveness, jealousy, controlling behavior and then the weird behavior when she started keeping her distance along with the stalking….Eloa doubted that if anything that she ever felt for the girl was actually real or not.

Finally the castle came in view. It was probably more ancient than any bones left in the soil from the looks of it. From distance it looked uniform grey but Eloa knew that from up close it would be a mosaic of different sizes. It was the crown of the landscape, whether the protector of all or not that remained obscure. They all reached the infamous Cachtice Castle and took refuge in the guesthouse in the castle compound but unlike them the caretakers probably had not been very keen to clean the place up or crank them up with some of the facilities. Eloa knew that it was not possible for any of them to stay in those living conditions for the night until next morning.