| |
Spencer and I gave Tempest a few hours to cool off before we went to check on him. He’d gone up to the attic to practice his witchcraft and we could all hear him working tirelessly the entire time. Apparently, Tempest liked to work on his spells and potions when he was upset. Maybe he was even more like Priamos than I originally thought.
Spencer and I stood at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the attic as we looked up at where Tempest was working.
“Tempest, will you please come down? We want to talk,” I asked him.
I knew that was probably a lost cause, but I didn’t particularly care for the idea of going up to the attic. Miss B said that she thought there were mice up there and I hated mice.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Tempest mumbled as he moved out of our view.
I heard him let out a shaky breath and I glanced over at Spencer as he quickly made his way up into the attic. I sighed and followed him, though I definitely didn’t want to. Tempest had better have been grateful for us going to go check on him. I don’t think I would’ve done it if it was anyone else.
Spencer and I climbed into the attic to see Tempest sitting in the corner with his head buried in his knees. We sat down beside him and stayed quiet for a few seconds. I was trying to wait for him to notice us, but Spencer clearly had other ideas. What else was new, though? As of late, it seemed that Spencer and I were rarely on the same page.
“Tempest, I’m sorry,” Spencer began, “I didn’t mean to upset you. I was just trying to help.”
“No, I’m sorry. I overreacted,” Tempest responded, though he didn’t look up at us.
I could hear that his voice was a little nasally as though he had just gotten done crying.
“Are you better now?” Spencer asked.
Tempest sighed as he leaned back against the wall, looking over at us other of the corner of his eye. His eyes were swollen and red and I could see tearstains on his cheeks.
“Not really.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked finally.
“You know we’re always here to listen if you need it, Little Dude,” Spencer added, then paused for a moment before continuing, “Well, not here, but you know what I mean.”
Tempest managed a smile, “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“So, do you wanna talk about it or not?” I asked.
Tempest shook his head, “I said before that I don’t think there’s anything to talk about. Just me trying to figure out how I’m supposed to feel about all of this again. And the fact that the two women that raised me pretty much don’t want anything to do with me anymore - and potentially would’ve killed me if Priamos wasn’t there to rescue me.”
“Well, I can’t help you with Serena and Maya because I don’t really know what there is to do about them, but I can help with the Struzapan thing,” I replied, “You know that Spence and I know how you feel, right? We’ve all gone through this, too - though maybe not with all of this other junk.”
I meant it, too. Sure, all of the other stuff was new to us, but the feelings of uncertainty when it came to being a Struzapan were feelings that not a single one of us were strangers to - even Priamos knew how it felt.
“I know, you’ve all told me that a million times,” Tempest replied, “But you’ve never told me how - how you felt and how you got over it. The getting over it part is what I’m still trying to figure out...”
I sighed softly. I wanted to tell him about my story, but I figured he would probably expect Spencer to do the same... oh well, Spencer could get over it.
“Well, it goes something like this...”
☆☆☆
I found out that I was a Struzapan when I was sixteen. I had been having my visions for several months prior, but I kept pushing them out of my mind as I tried to convince myself that they weren’t real. I didn’t believe in the Struzapan witches at the time, but the other potential reasons for my visions (or hallucinations as I referred to them at the time) weren’t exactly comforting either.
Before I found out that I was a Struzapan, I had an almost perfect life. My parents were wealthy and in good standing within the town. They spoiled me with everything that I could possibly want - I was their only child, so I was very close to them. They loved me and I adored them.
When I started having my visions, I kept it a secret from them - from everyone. I couldn’t sacrifice the normalcy I had to tell them the truth because - whatever the reason was - all of the reasons behind it truly terrified me.
It was when I was running errands one day that I met the others. I ran into Priamos (literally) first on my way to Miss B’s general store. I had seen Priamos around town previously and I was always curious about him, but I was too scared to try to talk to him. I knew that he was the High Priestess’ son, so I was worried about how it would look for him to talk to someone like me.
I laughed at that now because I realized that he wouldn’t have cared, but I didn’t realize that back then.
Much to my surprise, Priamos and I connected quickly and it wasn’t long before I finally opened up to him about my visions. They were becoming more and more frequent and I was becoming less and less capable of ignoring them.
So, after having a vision in front of him, I finally told him what was going on.
It was after that incident that Priamos introduced me to Jade and Spencer for the first time and I found out that I was a Struzapan. They also told me, though, that I would have to keep it a secret from everyone, including my parents, and I knew that, in order to do that, I would have had to stop seeing them.
I was furious at the idea and I flat out refused to do it. I cut off contact with the others for months. I just couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing my parents again and having to lie to them if I did see them. I just couldn’t do it.
In the following months, I did everything I could to ignore the fact that I was a Struzapan, but I soon learned that there was no escaping who you really were. I tried spell after spell, potion after potion to keep my visions at bay, but nothing worked. That didn’t stop me, though, and I kept it up until I moved out of my parents’ home when I was eighteen and ran into the trio again.
I still didn’t want anything to do with them, but the visions were driving me insane and they were the only ones that could even give me an idea of what was happening.
I let my guard down and let go of my pride.
It didn’t take me very long to start to understand who I was and that the family standing right in front of me was just as important to me as the family that I hadn’t seen in years at that point.
After that, Jade and I had a conversation. We agreed that I could still go to the coven meetings to see my parents, but I couldn’t go to a private place with them or put myself in a situation where I could potentially let the existence of Struzapan witches slip.
No matter what, I couldn’t tell them that I was a Struzapan. I accepted the deal, though only because I didn’t want to separate myself from the family I had managed to find again. And I was making myself physically ill from all of the ways that I was trying to stop my visions from coming forward. I moved in with the others at Struzapan Manor and I (almost) never looked back.
It still felt awful having to lie to my parents and essentially hide a major part of my life from them, but I hoped that, by lying to them then, I could eventually tell them the truth.
And if I never could, or I did and they didn’t accept me, I knew that I didn’t have to worry as much about not having a family anymore. We lost a lot of our numbers thanks to Serena, but we were still five strong.
And five was all I needed - five was all we needed.