Her husband frowned hearing this, running his hand over his daughter’s forehead and then leaning down to kiss her head. He didn’t say anything and sighed.
“You look tired,” Laure commented, her eyes staring at her so-called husband that she had built a family with. He did look exhausted, bags that had started to form under his eyes like he was stressed about something.
“Work has been tiresome. Let me see if I can ask the owner to raise my pay,” hearing this Laure only smiled, internally thinking how one could think of raising a librarian’s pay. Nonetheless, she placed a smile on her face to encourage her husband.
When the little girl woke up, the black witch had been put under stress not knowing how effective the spell she had cast on the girl would hold.
“How are you doing now, Penny?” Laure asked, coming to her side and running her hand over the girl. Seeing her daughter flinch when she touched the side of her head, she said, “Looks like you hurt your head pretty bad. Let me get something for that,” she kept a keen eye while her husband went to pamper their daughter.
“You shouldn’t be scared of spiders, Penny. When you find them, you have the ability to squash them with your feet. They are so tiny, they cannot do anything to you,” her father said, taking the wet cloth from his wife, he placed it on his daughter’s head.
Laure continued to watch her daughter, waiting for her to say something of what she found in the parchments but she had left a spell on the girl, a spell that erased part of her memory on what happened and what she read.
One of those days, Gabriel looked at his daughter as she tried to recollect the lines she read, unable to remember what he had taught her.
“I told you,” said Laure, looking at him, “She’s too young to remember if you teach her at this pace. I don’t think an a.d.u.l.t would also be able to pick up with the amount you teach her.”
Gabriel knew his daughter’s potential and all these days it had been fine which made him question what was causing the sudden hitch in her mind, “It is alright,” said the man, “We’ll take it slow and go over it again, okay?” he spoke patiently to his daughter who gave him a nod.
Suddenly they heard someone scream not too far away from where they lived. All of them looked out to see what happened. The clouds had started to gather around in the sky, turning dark and heavy as they clashed against each other.
The sound woke Penny up with a small gasp, her head still resting on the pillow. Her eyes adjusted to the dim-lit room, finding herself in one of the rooms in Delcorv’s mansion. She then caught Damien who was seated in front of the fireplace, writing down the report on what they encountered today in the town as well as in the forest.
Getting up from the bed, Penny made her way to where he was, “You woke up,” Damien said, pulling out the glasses that he wore from his face and placing it on top of the parchments he had been working on. Bringing his hand, he brought her to him, “Sit,” he said, making space in the big chair he sat in so that she could sit between his legs.
“You didn’t finish your report?” Penny asked, walking around and sitting in front of him.
“Finishing the last few bits and going through it. Aren’t you tired? Was it a bad dream?” he asked her, his eyes watching her from the side to see her staring at the fireplace unblinkingly.
“I don’t remember,” she said, she tried recollecting it but her head hurt with the little amount of sleep and lack of food in her body right now, “It must have been something about the past.”
“Is it,” he murmured, putting his hand around her waist and letting himself place his chin on her shoulder.
She didn’t remember what she had dreamt but she could feel that it was something about her past. Because when she tried to think of her parents, she could feel the parental love her father had showered over her. As if he had taken very good care of her when she was young. It was a bittersweet feeling which she couldn’t explain right now. She wished she could remember.
“Relax your mind,” she heard Damien say to her, “The more you think with the pressure the memories of the dreams will shatter and leave nothing for you to grasp. Let it come to you, calm your mind, mouse,” Damien said, holding her hands on his on her lap.
He was right, thought Penny to herself. Dreams were difficult to come in sleep and it was even harder to grasp when a person came back to reality. The more a person chased it, the farther it went, making it difficult to ever remember it and causing it to be lost.
Taking a deep breath where her mind was still fuzzy and was in a half-sleep state, she closed her eyes. Letting them come to her. She remembered bits and pieces but not everything.
“Everything okay?” Damien asked her after ten minutes had passed, letting her sink in the memories she had found.
“Yes,” Penny answered him, “I saw my father.”
“How was he?” he asked her casually with a hint of curiosity in his voice. It wasn’t the first but the second time to see him but this felt much closer. The fatherly love which she believed she had not received was right here in her mind all this while. She had envied other children, children who had fathers while she was left with nothing but a mother but the truth was her father had been there with her.
“He was a good man. A loving father,” Penny replied clutching on to Damien’s hands as she stared at the fire.
