Poison Orchid

Chapter 6

Isis’s heart started thudding in her chest the moment she took her eyes up from her geography notebook only to find typical bluish purple eye. It was the colour of an amethyst, and never before had she seen someone’s eyes of that colour. Apart from the colouring his face oozed an easy grace and charm and his voice, oh my goodness, his voice made butterflies flutter in her stomach. She tried really hard not to flutter her eyelashes and fawn all over him and tried to behave like how she did with everyone. He had asked for her name but she did not trust her voice herself. After the English class was over she retreated into the library and asked the librarian Mrs. Gomes about books on the world’s top female assassins and spies.

“What for do you need that odd book? What happened to the good old Civil War and World War topics? Not good enough?” asked Mrs. Gomes.

Isis thought of answering truthfully, ”Ma’am actually someone or the other everyone in my class are doing their history projects on the topics you mentioned. So I thought it would really worth studying the women perspective in saving and helping our great nation.”

“Interesting Isis, but I must say that there are not many books and all the characters will not be American for the record. If you want I can search for a few more books and articles online and share them to you tomorrow,” said the librarian with a smile.

“That would be a really big help Ma’am. I would be grateful.”

“Oh no need to be grateful. Just we also don’t get students who are interested in knowing their history and culture in depth. So it will be always my pleasure to help students like you,” answered Mrs. Gomes.

Isis went to the history section and started scanning the shelves for books, remembering what her aunt had told last night. She loved books, and everything about them, the way the pages fluttered, how they moved, how the books smelled. Her aunt had never encouraged her to go out and make friends and she had reveled in that feeling of shelter. She found the books she wanted and then as she was going to Mrs. Gomes for taking the slip, she saw the new boy named Gabriel sitting in one of the chairs and reading a book. How intently was he reading, and as if just on cue he looked up and their eyes met. Isis had a feeling that Gabriel was looking at her like a predator stalking his prey. The books dropped from her arms, before she could blink and pick up the books she found that Gabriel was standing in front of her, with her books in his hand, handing them over to her.

“Now may I know your name, my lady?” asked Gabriel.

“I don’t share my name with strangers. And what do you mean by calling me a lady?” she asked gawking at him.

“I don’t find any other phrase that would do justice to you. I am in your class and we share the same routine. How do you think me to be stranger?”

“If I tell you my name will you leave me alone?”

“I can’t guarantee that, but maybe I shall start asking the same question,” said Gabriel with a smirk.

“My name is Isis. Now please leave my way, I have prior commitments to fulfill,”said Isis diverting her eyes from his.

“Hmmm. Goddess of Rebirth and regeneration from the Greek myths. Have you hidden your wings somewhere?” asked Gabriel.

“I can’t say about wings, but I definitely have not hidden my talons. So if you don’t want to get slashed, get the hell out of my way,” saying this Isis pushed him aside with her shoulders and moved ahead towards the table of Mrs. Gomes.

“She is a feisty little thing, isn’t she?” asked Gabriel to Petrov who had come to stand behind him.

“She is a dangerous one. I can see why she has captured your attentions. But, my liege, don’t forget that fire like her has burned us for several centuries,”said Petrov in a cautious tone.

“She is special Pete. I can feel it in my bones.”

Taking the books from the library, Isis went out of the school and headed towards the coffee shop where mother of Naomi worked. She didn’t know if she would find Mrs. Redd but it was worth a try.

She went inside the quaint little coffee shop, the only café in the shop. A waitress with the name tag of Margaret came and greeted her.

“Hello dear, what would you like to have?” asked the cute waitress.

“I would like a lemonade with a sprig of mint and a Caesar salad please.”

“Coming right up, dear.”

Isis took out one of the books from her bag and opened the book but her eyes kept scanning for a middle aged waitress. Within two minutes she found a woman with splotchy face and red eyes coming to serve two tables away from her. As soon as the woman had finished serving, she called her right away, and her doubts were true since her name tag red Gerda Redd.

“What do you need?” asked the mother of deceased Naomi.

“Can I talk to you for a moment please?” asked Isis in a very polite tone

Gerda looked at her very carefully and said, ”Why? What do you want with me?”

“I just wanted to talk to you a bit. Actually, Naomi was almost like my little sister at school. I liked her a lot.”

Gerda’s eyes welled up again at her daughter’s name.” She was such a pure soul. I had never thought my baby would not be with me anymore.” She started sobbing saying this.

Isis got up and made Gerda sit down in the chair opposite to her and took out a few tissues from the stand on the table and offered it to her. Gerda sniffled and said, “My poor baby. Heaven knows what happened to her.”

Isis knew what had happened to her but she didn’t dare to speak up anything because she couldn’t risk the discovery of her massive secret. She asked,” How was she like? I want to mean that everyone have their own desires, and a few of her friends are heartbroken after she has gone missing. Did she have any wishes?”

“Why are you asking this? Is my Naomi no more? Tell me. Tell me the truth,” pleaded Gerda.

“No no, How can I say that? The police are doing their own investigation. They must have told you something.”

“I just want to know what happened to her. Each and every moment I feel that Naomi is standing beside my bed trying to console me but I find no one around. I know, I know that I won’t see my darling alive again but at the least I want to dress up my princess, bury her, write her favourite poem on the headstone, so that I can go and talk to her every day,” she broke into further more sobs.

“I’m very sorry. But you should not break down like this. Naomi was a very strong girl. I don’t think she would have wanted you to grieve for her like this,”said Isis. In the meanwhile Margaret came with her salad and drink.

Seeing her Gerda said,”I must go back to work. Thanks a lot for speaking to me. It was a great help.” She went away to the kitchen.

“Poor woman. Losing a child like that. It must be unimaginable,” said Margaret placing the plate and glass in front of Isis.

“I know. I knew Naomi. She was a great kid,” said Isis slowly nodding her head.

Margaret left her to have her meal. Isis went back to her book but her thoughts strayed back to Naomi. She finally had understood what she was trying to say. She was trying to say that Isis should take back her body to her family so that they can bury her. Isis finished the meal in silence and read the book. It was a slack time for the café, there were very few customers inside.

Margaret once came and asked if she needed something more but Isis said that she was good to go and asked for the bill. She packed the book when she saw Gabriel and his brother coming inside the café. She did not even glance at them. She paid the bill, gave Margaret a tip and asked her to take care of Gerda. Then she got out of the cafe. Isis could not afford to waste more time because her aunt had already said that Brassia was a hard taskmistress, and she would drive her like a slave. So she needed to be ready for the worst.

Isis almost ran back home, quickly changed into a track pants and tank top, and opened the basement to find it changed into a French opera stage.

“LATE!!!!!!” boomed Brassia’s voice from no where, and suddenly Isis found herself sprawling on the floor.

“Why are you pushing me?” she asked angrily.

“You will not question me, witchling. You are to only follow commands. Obedience is an absolute necessity,” thundered Brassia materializing from thin air.

Isis stood there with there head straight looking at the ghost.

“Your first lesson will be how to raise the dead. We will practice with small animals. “

“Where from do we get animals?”

“Oh there are plenty in this room. On the second count I am wrong. You are to first know how to kill, then you can raise the dead. You have to understand girl, that you are the only person who has control over life and death in true sense in this world. That is big power and with big power comes great responsibility. Now draw a big pentagram on the floor with chalk.”

No sooner than Isis had finished doing it, she was asked to light five candles on the tips of the pentagram. On finishing that, Brassia said, ”Now sit inside the pentagram. And close your eyes.” Isis did so.

“Feel the energy of your life swirling inside you. There is immense darkness and your force of life is in that darkness. Separate both of them.”

Isis sucked in her breath and tried to differentiate between the darkness and her life force. After a long time she could feel the blue light pulsing inside her like embers. She exclaimed with a loud gasp.

“I can see it, I found that!!”

“No need to get too excited. Keep your calm. Now concentrate on the blue light and let out thin light tendrils from the ball.”

It was a really tough task and Isis started sweating after a few moments. But then she could snake out one wisp of energy from the centrifuge of power inside her after trying quite hard from some time. It was tough to keep the connection going. Gradually Isis could find a greyish source of energy and connected to it.

“Good going, girlie. But I am the non living matter here. You can’t absorb energy from me, neither I can be killed because I am already dead. Now you need to focus on the living things in this room.”

“How?” dropped a single word from Isis’s strained lips.

“Let the darkness existing in your mind engulf the whole room. Just as you focused the darkness inside yourself, think that you are the whole room, spread yourself….through your mind and find out the living creatures.”

Isis gradually started unlocking the container which her aunt had made her built last night. When finished she allowed the darkness to engulf everywhere, keeping her focus on the blue ball. Suddenly, in her mind’s eye she could see that there were sixteen different blue lights all over the room. Some were up, some were down, some were still, some were scurrying about.

“Now focus on the intensity of the lights,” ordered Brassia.

Isis found that there were two more lights pulsing but were a typical greenish yellow hue. She felt sick seeing them.

“Those creatures are dying. Now kill them. No..no….don’t even dare to open your eyes. Connect to their energies, the dying ones. And snap it out of them.”

Isis connected to their sickly energies and snapped it out of them. She felt a slight jolt in her body, and she felt like throwing up.

“There is lizard above your head. Kill it.”

Without thinking Isis connected to the light above her and snapped out it’s life force. The surge of power she got this time was considerably higher than the last and to her utter horror immediately something dropped in her lap. She opened her eyes and found the deadbody of the lizard lying on her left leg. She let out a squeak and stood up and kicked the deadbody out of the pentagram.

“Good thinking. The pentagram is blessed so nothing unholy should be inside it.”

“I just killed it,”said Isis.

“It was just a lizard, girlie. You have to kill bigger things than that. But it was a good start. And your skills are far more better than your mother.”

“How so?” asked Isis

“ She had to use charms and incantations and spells for each and everything. She was quite a weak witch but that is not the case with you. That was enough for today. You’ll find that a few books have dropped from the shelf, pick them up and read it by tomorrow.”

“Are you touched in the head?” asked Isis humourously.

“No one dared to ask that even after I died. But you my great grand-daughter have asked me this. No I’m not touched but you need to know what to do if you have help those ghost girls.”

Isis did not even bother asking where she got to know this. So she gave a curt nod, snuffed of the candles, collected the books and went upstairs to her room where she found the glass of milk waiting on her table.