History

“What about your granddaughter?” Lucie challenged.

Adelina’s face grew dark, “You leave your mother out of this,” she warned, menace in her tone as she turned away.

“No, you are the one treading in dangerous waters with this curse,” Lucie cautioned.

“What do you know of such things, you were but a girl when she was lost, you’re still a child now,” she rebuked, shaking her head.

“I know she was seduced by the power, losing herself to it. I know she used this exact curse for her own pleasure. I know she consumed people, the ones she shrunk, devoured them. How many suffered because of it?” Lucie countered, stepping back in front of the other woman, her body language animated.

“Your mother’s action were regrettable. She abandoned the training,” Adelina said wistfully.

“And the power consumed her!” Lucie argued.

“Exactly!” Adelina barked, “And now this Mirielle, this arrogant little girl wants that exact same power,” she added. “So she must be taught what it means to meddle in things she cannot understand!”

“If you’ve no intent to teach her how to manifest a curse like this, what then is the point of your lesson? What is she to glean from your wisdom here? And by doing this, what other lessons are you also teaching Madison? How to be vindictive and petty, exacting justice the old way?”

“There is only the old way!” Adelina said vehemently, face reflecting her ire.

“No, you yourself broke from tradition when you decided to begin teaching Madison in our ways, there is still room for compromise in you,” Lucie offered. “Remove the curse,” she petitioned, voice turning soft, imploring.

“No,” she declared, shaking her head.

“What’s going up there is wrong, unnatural,” Lucie stated. “A brother and a sister.”

Adelina laughed, “The brother’s experience is the retribution Madison deserves for his arrogance, Mirielle is the gratification Madison needs to temper her turbulent emotions.”

Shaking her head, long hair swaying, “What possible gratification could be achieved?” she scoffed.

Grinning, Adelina’s eyes narrowed, “And what would you know of such things?” she challenged. “You have never experienced a little one before, experienced the rush of delight such a union brings,” she stated, chuckling softly.

“That’s true, I haven’t taken a little one,” she conceded, “because of what it did to my mother.”

“You are so naïve, allowing your passion for what you perceive to be right to cloud your judgement,” she accused.

“I know the price you are exacting is too steep for the transgression,” Lucie declared, pointing a finger up the stairs.

“Then you know nothing,” Adelina asserted back, lips pulled back.

“Then what am I missing?” challenged Lucie, crossing her arms. “Tell what it is I am failing to see in your grand scheme here? You had me drive you all this way out here for what?” she demanded. “So you could watch this thing unfold?”

“No, I have for Madison’s sake. She now is the key and I will leave it for her to decide,” she said. “This is for her, she has the ability to unravel this curse as she chooses and it is her discretion the direction this curse takes,” she clarified.

Madison? Christ. In that case, I might just be fucked, Michael thought, shaking his head slowly. He hadn’t realized the depth of the wounding he had done to her.

“So you did this on purpose, shrunk Michael and let him return here knowing Madison was here?” Lucie asked. “With her friends?”

Adelina grinned wickedly. “Of course, but even now, the memories fade from those little girls,” she answered, chuckling.

“Wait. Your catching him stealing from you on Friday wasn’t just a coincidence? You knew what he was up to the whole time?” she inquired, eyebrows raised.

“Please,” she scoffed, “I knew the boy has been pilfering flowers for a while, at best his efforts were clumsy,” she scoffed. “He was afforded the opportunity to avoid all of this and he chose not to,” she added.

“He didn’t know you were going to shrink him,” she countered.

“But you knew and you counseled him and still he could not see,” she reminded.

Frowning, Lucie eyed Adelina, “This woman from the Hearst office, Mirielle, was she somehow part of this grand design of yours?”

“Ah, she is the one variable that I had not accounted for, though it all seems to be flowing rather nicely,” she admitted, eyes looking up the stairs in the direction of the hall leading to the girl’s room.

“Nicely? You are aware Madison could kill them,” Lucie stated bluntly.

Adelina nodded, “She might, but so too through this challenge she may also find her inner self, the woman she was destined to become, it is out of my hands now,” she declared, waving a dismissive hand in the air.

Lucie shook her head. “So Michael was simply a means to an end?”

“No, should he discover what he needs to about himself, he stands to gain as much as Madison,” she explained, eyes sparkling. Lucie got the distinct impression there was still some more nefarious or broader subterfuge in her dedanya’s scheme, something else, maybe something for Lucie herself, another test. There were layers upon layer of complexity woven into everything her dedanya did and like Adelina’s present appearance, nothing was ever quite what it appeared to be. Lucie frowned

Adelina suddenly turned in Michael’s direction and for a second he thought maybe she had detected him peeking out from between the spindles at the base of the bannister five steps above the main floor of the house.

From above his location on the stairs, Michael heard the thunderous sound of massive feet coming quickly down the stairs, stopping on the stair practically right beside him. It was Madison. He glanced over at the large bare foot, almost close enough for him to touch.

“Michael is gone,” Madison announced.

Craning his neck, he looked up at his sister. She was wearing a pair of light colored short and a halter top, but he was too close to see over her body and chest to note the look on her face.

Must be finished with Mirielle. Swallowing hard, he held his breath, praying not to be noticed.