Chapter 193
CAMILLA’S P.O.V
I let my hands drop slowly and so did the water. I turned to Marie who had her hands crossed over her chest and a frown on her face. She still looked upset with me but at least she didn’t look like she hated me. I opened my mouth to speak but she held up a hand to stop me from speaking.
“I didn’t trust you when you first came and goddess knows that I still don’t trust you but I was starting to and you come out of nowhere able to bend water and you say you didn’t know but for someone who claimed not to know, you sure are damn good at it.”
I sighed deeply. “It just comes out of me. I don’t know how else to explain it, Marie. It feels like muscle memory. My hands just know what to do even when
my mind doesn’t. The water- it’s a part of me.”
“That part of you almost killed my mother. She could have drowned and you just- we just stood there staring. I couldn’t jump in because I couldn’t swim and you- you froze.”
“I was just as scared as you were, Marie. I didn’t know what to do.”
“Would you have jumped?” she asked and I stilled. “If for some reason, you couldn’t control the water, would you have jumped in to save her or would you have stayed there while she died?”
“I-” I wanted to say I would have. I wanted to tell her that I would have done everything possible to make sure that I got Peggy out but the truth was that I didn’t know. “I can’t answer that question, Marie and you know it. I froze and I panicked and I shouldn’t have but you cannot control how the body responds to stress and you cannot blame me for doing the exact same thing that you did. We both froze and that doesn’t make either of us bad people.”
She laughed humorlessly. “That’s the problem, don’t you get it?” she asked. “I am not mad at you. I am mad at me. it was my mother and I, that was how it had always been but then you had to come in and you had to make her believe that we could be a family. You had to make me believe that maybe you could fit in.”
“I’m not quite following- what does this have to do with anything?”
“I was looking to you!” she exclaimed. “If you were not here, if it was just both of us, I would have figured something out. I would have found something to do but because you were standing next to me, I figured that you would have helped and that was my mistake. It is my mother and I, that is how it has been and that is how it
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will continue to be. I forgot that and I won’t forget it again.”
Before I could say anything, she walked away leaving me in the darkness. I stared out at the calm waves and I couldn’t help but wonder if things would have been different had I been unable to control the waves and she was unable to get out. The longer I thought about it, the more I felt like I was going mad.
With one last longing stare at the waves, I stood to my feet and walked away. I couldn’t push away the feeling that there was something I was missing.
I couldn’t sleep properly. I woke up by three and was unable to lay in bed anymore. Instead of just sitting in bed doing nothing, I decided to go down into the kitchen and find something to do. I ended up cleaning the entire house twice and starting with breakfast. I moved around the kitchen with no thought in mind, my head was completely empty and that was the problem. I needed something to fill it with.
“Camilla!” I had to shove my hand into my mouth to smother a scream. Peggy stood behind me with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She cocked her head to the side in confusion and I gave her a small smile. “Why are you awake so early?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” I shrugged. “Why are you awake? You had a near death experience.”
“I find that those make it hard for you shad a near death experience.”
joked as she made her way over to me.
As she got closer, I smelled something almost metallic and slightly pungent, like dried blood. I didn’t want to ask out rightly so I just ran my eyes down her body subtly. She wasn’t making it easy for me because she kept moving around the kitchen trying to figure out what I was making.
“Do you want to take the blanket off?” I asked and she turned to me with unfocused eyes then shook her head. “It’s a little hot in here. You might want to put it down.”
There was something in her eyes as she shook her head. She turned away before I could get a good look and I realized that I needed to pull it off her and figure it out as soon as possible because the smell of blood was getting worse. She busied herself around the kitchen and when I got closer, she would move in the other direction. I let it slide for the first few minutes thinking I was overreacting until I heard footsteps coming down the steps.
Marie walked into the room rubbing sleep from her eyes. There was a small smile on her face but when she saw me, it quickly faded away. “You don’t have to do anything around here anymore, Camilla. I can take care of myself and my mother.”
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“Marie,” I began but she turned away from me. “I’m here right now, just let me help, please. If you want, I can be out of your hair within a month. Just give me some time, Marie. Don’t do this.”
“Marie,” Peggy scolded but Marie had already turned away from both of us. Despite the frown on her face, she still walked into the kitchen and took a bite from the sandwiches I had made.
“What’s that smell?” Marie asked and we both turned to her. “I don’t think it is from the food, it smells like blood or something. Is someone hurt?”
When Peggy turned away and tried to sneak away, I knew immediately what I had to do. I wrapped my hand around the blanket and tugged. She tried her best to keep it on but it tumbled to the floor and in the process, exposed her red and bleeding arm. It was healing by the second and she was making it worse at the same time. She was scratching it and by the looks of things, she had been doing it for a long time.
“Mum?” Marie’s voice was soft and almost broken but Peggy wouldn’t look in her eyes. “Why would you do that?”
“I keep seeing the water,” her voice was almost broken. “I keep seeing my life flash before my eyes. This is the only way I can remind myself that I am alive- that I didn’t die there.”
“Why would you-” Marie began but I cut her off.
“I understand,” I whispered.
Both eyes turned to me and I linked my hand with Peggy’s. She was still picking at her skin, I held onto her hand tightly and gestured for her to come with me. She was fidgeting in my hold and I could tell that she wanted out of my grasp but I wasn’t going to let that happen.
I walked with her to the chair and let her sit beside me. Marie was watching me with narrowed eyes but I ignored her. I didn’t care about her approval for this, I didn’t need it and neither did I want it. This was about Peggy and I. She could be pissed all she wants but that didn’t mean I was going to leave the woman who had taken me in to suffer when I could help.
“Sometimes, it feels like I am in a tunnel with no way forward,” I began slowly. “I have nightmares that I can barely remember. All I know is the water that I was found. These powers are meant to give me some form of reprieve but they only remind me of the fact that I was found half dead in a lake and I don’t know my past.”
“Camilla,” Peggy began but I cut her off.
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“They say water holds memories and some days, I hope that is true. Some days, I want to go in there, go under and not come back up until I remember but it doesn’t work like that, does it?” she gave me a small smile. “I know how you feel. I know how hard it is to come back but this,” I gestured at her bruised hands. “This isn’t going to fix anything. You are going to hurt yourself and you will still remember.”
She shook her head but the tears were already falling down her cheeks. “I am an old woman. I should be the one giving you advice and not the other way around.”
I couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of my lips. I clasped both of her hands in mine and locked eyes with her. “It gets better, I promise.”
With one last smile, I stood to my feet and made my way out to give the mother and daughter some space. I was almost at the door when Marie rushed up to me and she grabbed my shoulder.
“Does it?” she asked and my brows furrowed, “get better, I mean, does it get better? You told her that it does and I–I’ve been through some things.”
I knew she was talking about her experience with her best friend and the young man. I hesitated, thinking about my next words. “I hope it does because if not, then I just lied to a sad old woman.”
