Sweet, Ophelia [T.I.D]

Chapter 4 - We are shadows

     ❝Chapter 4 - We are shadows ❞ 

The moment Tessa changed back into herself again, she had to suffer a barrage of questions. For the people who lived in a shadow world of magic, the assembled Nephilim seemed surprisingly awed by her ability, which only served to underline what Tessa had already begun to suspect- that her shape-changing talent was exceedingly unusual. Even Charlotte, who had known about it before Tessa's demonstration, seemed fascinated.

"So, you must be holding something that belongs to the person you're transforming into?" Charlotte asked for the second time, Sophie and Agatha the cook, had taken away the dinner plates and had served a fancy cake and tea, but none of the diners had touched it yet.

"Yes, I can't simply look at someone and- "

"I explained that already." Tessa's head was beginning to hurt. "I must be holding something that belongs to them, or a bit of hair or an eyelash. Something that's theirs. Otherwise, nothing happens."

"Do you think a vial of blood would do the trick?" Ophelia asked in a tone of interest.

"Probably- I don't know. I've never tried it." Tessa top a ship of her tea, which had grown cold.

"And you're saying that the Dark Sisters knew this was your talent? They knew you had this ability before you did?" Charlotte asked.

"Yes. It's why they wanted me in the first place." Tessa nodded.

Henry shook his head, "But how did they know? I don't quite understand that part."

"I don't know," Tessa said, not for the first time. "They never explained it to me. All I know is what I told you- that they seemed to know exactly what it was I could do, and how to train me to do it. They spent hours with me, every day..." Tessa swallowed against the bitterness in her mouth. "It hurts at first."

She continued slowly, and she stared down at her tea, "It felt like my bones were snapping, melting inside my body. They would force me to change until I would finally lose consciousness. The last day, they tested me and asked me to change into a girl who had died. She had memories of being attacked with a dagger, being stabbed. Of some thing chasing her into an alley-"

"Perhaps it was the girl we found," Will looked at Ophelia with wide eyes and sat up straight, so did Ophelia, both of their eyes shining. "We guessed that she must have escaped from an attack and run out into the night. I believe they sent the Shax demon after her and bring her back, but I killed it. Ophelia found her bleeding to death..."

"The girl I changed into was named Emma Bayliss." Tessa said in a half whisper, "She had very fair hair- tied in little pink bows and she was only a little thing."

Ophelia and Will nodded, the description familiar to them. "Then they did wonder what had happened to her. When I told them she was dead, they seemed relieved."

"The poor soul," Charlotte murmured. "So you can change into the dead? Not only the living?"

Tessa agreed. "The voices speak in my mind when I change too. The difference is that many of them can remember the moment they died."

Tessa looked over at Will and Ophelia, both were thinking silently, and they had the same expression on their beautiful face. They looked way too identical, like the Siamese twins. Tessa spoke and drew their attention to her again, "You found me because you were looking for the murderer of Emma Bayliss. But she was just one dead human girl. One dead- what do you call it? – mundane. Why so much time and effort to find out what happened to her?"