Daughter of Wine

Callida

The sun begins to set. The sky turns a bizzare mix of purple and yellow. I'm still reeling from earlier. Leo and I had been joking around, like we usually do, but there had been a moment there where my feelings had become so overwhelming, so intense, that I'd almost done something stupid. I mentally kick myself. Okay, so maybe I have some feelings for Leo. But is it in my best interest to act on them? Could I handle a relationship? I know Leo likes me. But now, Hazel has been being so strange, and I've seen Leo looking at her too. I know it's ridiculous, but this weird jealously I have is making me want to act on my feelings more. I don't know if it's childish or immature, but the thought of seeing him with her shook my perspective into place. I have feelings for Leo. I almost kissed him on the beach. It would have been stupid and impulsive, but I'm the queen of stupid and impulsive. Gods, I don't know what to do. 

Finally, Hazel turns inland. 

"You sure this is a good idea?" Leo asks her. 

"We're close." She promises. "Come on." 

Just over the dunes, we see the woman. She sits on a boulder in the middle of a grassy field. A black and chrome motorcycle is parked nearby, but each of the wheels has a big pie slice removed from the spokes and the rim, so that they resemble Pac-Men. No way is the bike driveable in that condition. 

The woman has long, wavy brown hair and a small, petite yet muscular frame. She wears black leather biker pants, tall leather boots, and a blood-red leather jacket, sort of a Michael Jackson joins the Hell's Angels look. Around her feet, the ground is littered with what looks like broken shells. She's hunched over, pulling new ones out of a sack and cracking them open. Shucking oysters? I'm not sure if there's oysters in the Great Salt Lake. I don't think so. 

I'm not anxious to approach. I doubt a normal mortal would be here on an island with a broken motorcycle, shucking oysters so ominously. And something about this girl seems so familiar. Leo seems hesitant too.

But Hazel forges ahead, so we don't have much choice except to follow. 

As we get closer, I notice disturbing details. Attached to the woman's belt is a curled whip. Her red leather jacket has a subtle design to it. Twisted branches of an apple tree populated with skeletal birds. The oysters she's shucking are actually fortune cookies. 

A pile of broken cookies lays ankle-deep all around her. She keeps pulling new ones from the sack, cracking them open, and reading the fortunes. Most she tosses aside. A few make her mutter unhappily. She swipes her finger over the slip of paper as if she's smudging it, then magically reseals the cookie and tosses it into a nearby basket. 

"What are you doing?" Leo asks impulsively. 

The woman looks up, and I find myself stumbling backwards. 

"Aunt Rosa?" Leo asks. 

What? I know that face all too well. It's not Aunt Rosa. The pale green eyes, the embarrassing permanent blush that makes it look like I've been drinking way too much. The splash of freckles. The barely-manageable chocolate-colored waves. The full lips, the tiny nose, everything. It's me. 

"That is not your Aunt Rosa." I scoff, my hands shaking. 

"What are you talking about? You never met her." Leo frowns. 

"Is that what you see, dear?" My clone asks him."Interesting. And you, Hazel, dear?"

"How did you-" Hazel steps back in alarm. "You- you look like Mrs. Leer. My third grade teacher. I hated you."

The woman cackles. Gods, I look weird when I laugh. "Excellent. You resented her, eh? She judged you unfairly?"

"You- she taped my hands to the desk for misbehaving." Hazel says. "She called my mother a witch. She blamed me for everything I didn't do and, no. She has to be dead. Who are you?"