The Necromancer's Daughter

|| four ||

It was four am, three more hours before light breaks the dark. In the quiet of the morning, Rebecca woke up from a restless, dreamless sleep. She found it funny to wake with no recollection of anything; no memories to anchor her first few thoughts as she opened her eyes and glared at the ceiling.

For a long while, she laid still; listening to her own breathing, feeling her steady heart beat as she tried to figure out what was going on. She started remembering things that happened last night; waking up in a swamp, the agony of her body coming back to life, the scary man behind the weird bonfire, the lady with superpowers, and passing out. That was all of it.

Except another thing crawled up from the back of her mind. She somehow knew she was Rebecca, and not Lilian, like what the strange people called her. Who is Lilian? She wondered. More importantly, who am I, really?

She moved her body in gentle motions, afraid it might hurt so powerfully like it did before. While her back was still lying flat on the mattress, she raised her hands in front of her face and observed them. They were small and smooth and fair, and they were shaking a little. They looked alright, but something was amiss. Convinced she wouldn't hurt anymore, she gently pushed her elbows against the bed and lifted her torso to better see the rest of her body. The thick robes covered her completely, though, and only her toes peeked from beyond the hem. Mud and dirt stuck to them, soiling the white linen bed sheet as she wriggled her feet.

In the dim of the wee hours, the apartment seemed more spacious to her than it really is. Its simple, humble furniture layout, bearing only the essentials, made her feel calm and welcomed. She cant quite put a finger as to why this place gave her feelings of comfort and safety; two things she seemed to have not felt in a long time. She wondered how that could be.

"Hmm..." a gentle sigh came from beside the bed. Curious, Rebecca quietly rolled to one side and peeked over the edge. She saw the lady from last night, lying on her side, in deep slumber. Sometime through the night, Lucille decided her bed was too small to fit both of them, so she just took a pillow and made herself comfortable on the floor. As Rebecca stared at her, she thought about how beautiful this lady was. With her long, flowing locks spread on the pillow and her hands tucked close to her chest, she looked quite serene. Rebecca almost reached out to see if her skin was as soft as it seemed.

Who exactly was this woman was and why did she rescue her? Rebecca recalled the man calling her Lucille and that she referred to herself as her mother. Or was it that she was Lilian's mother? It hurt Rebecca's head to think.

Slowly, she rose to her feet, careful not to wake Lucille up with her movements. She wasn't afraid of disturbing her sleep. She found herself more frightened that Lucille would talk to her and she would not know what, or how to answer. From across the room, she saw a door that looked like it lead to a bathroom. With the gaping blanks in her mind, it made absolutely no sense how she knew what a bathroom door looked like or what bathrooms are used for, but her gut told her she could clean herself up in there.

She let her legs take her to it, small pieces of caked earth drizzled to the floor and trailed behind her every step. Inside the bathroom, she reluctantly dropped the robes to the cold, tiled floor and felt the necklace looped around her neck with her fingers. She didn't want to take it off so she kept it strapped as she stepped inside the shower. She wondered if she ever saw a shower before and surprised herself when her hands knew exactly how to turn the water on.

The first splash of water hit her senses with the intensity of an ocean's wave. She closed her eyes and let the cool flow of water run all over her. I am Rebecca, her inner voice told her. I am sixteen and I can do this, the voice continued.

She stepped back a little so she could breathe. The cool water gradually warmed up until it became uncomfortably hot, Rebecca had to adjust it to the cold side a bit. Beneath her, the muddy brown water circled the drain and for a moment, Rebecca got fixated on its steady spiral. When the waste water cleared, she took the soap from the dish and went on to scrub herself clean.