The Bewitching - Book 1

Chapter 15 - The Past Life Gift

When Elyssa finally awoke the sun had already taken it's resting place, and the moon was now the ruler of the night time skies. It shed it's light through the partially closed curtains in the bedroom, illuminating it just enough to allow her to see. She glanced down at her hand that was still wrapped in a now dry towel, slowly unwrapped it, and placed it neatly on the nightstand beside the bed. As her eyes adjusted a bit better to the lack of lighting she realized the Annette and her mom were no longer in the room.

Carefully she placed her feet on the floor and stood up, stretching her arms out over her head. Her body creaked from the stiffness of having been laying in bed for the past few days. She thought of how good it felt to actually be up and moving again and her body agreed with the sentiment.

The wooden floors creaked slightly beneath the soft rug as she walked across the room to the bedroom door as quietly as possible. The heavy oak door groaned quietly as she slowly pulled it open and peeked her head out of the room.

On the other side of the door was a large sunken family room with elegant wooden floors and soft, fine rugs strategically placed about. Against the far wall, surrounded by italian stone blazed a warm fire that was slowly burning its way down. Tobias slept soundly on the small rug just in front of it and angled towards the fire were two large, plush black leather couches.

As silently as possible Elyssa tiptoed over towards the couches where she found Annette on one and her mom on the other, both wrapped up in warm blankets and fast asleep. The floor creaked somewhat loudly under Elyssa's feet as she shifted her weight. She froze as it did, afraid of waking her two sleeping friends.

To her dismay, it did seem to stir Annette who rolled over and mumbled something under her breath. Elyssa struggled to stifle a laugh. It sounded as if Annette was once again back to her old child like self, or at least in her dreams, as it sounded as if she was talking about cherries again under her breath. It became even more of a struggle for her to not laugh when it appeared as if Annette was trying to eat them in her sleep.

Seeing that everything was peaceful and calm, Elyssa quietly made her way back to her room. She had hoped that maybe Dantes would have returned, and now found herself dismayed that her hopes had been dashed. She still wasn't sure if she was angry he had decided to disappear, or happy that he had sat in worry over her condition for three days before doing so. Either way, the thought of him still weighed heavily on her mind.

From the best she could tell it would still be several hours before the sun came up and she was now wide awake. Sitting around and waiting for Annette and her mom to awaken wasn't exactly her idea of fun at the moment. She made her way out to the patio and leaned upon the wooden railing, taking a short time to admire the waves with their rhythmic sounds as they washed up over the shore and then retreated back into the ocean.

As hard as she tried not to, her mind continuously wandered back to her accidental projection through time. Over and over she replayed the words she had heard Dantes and herself speak to one another back then. Even if all she had seen was the way they had looked at each other back then, she would have known how deeply in love they use to be. The Dantes from that time was almost exactly the way he had been in her dreams of him. What was it that had happened between them that had so completely changed all of that?

As she watched the tides roll in she pondered upon all of it, trying to piece together what she already knew with her own assumptions to fill in the gaps. She quickly realized the futility of doing it in such a way as her assumptions kept going to the worse things possible. It wasn't hard for her to see how easy it would be for her to beat herself up over the ideas and scenarios she was creating in her head that might not have even happened.