3.2. Once Upon a Time in Moonlight Falls(Donte)
These days, I was hardly staying at the old house. Compared to the Ithaca house, it was small and cold and felt less like home. Could be because Kleio wasn’t there, could be because Pasiphaë had stopped snarling at me. Maybe a combo.
I had to go there now, though. I just needed a change of clothes and nothing more. I hadn’t expected anyone to be there, but the lights were on, and I was met by an unpleasant, blue gaze when I entered the living room.
“Grandmother?” I got chills. I knew this wasn’t good. “What are you doing here?”
“I might ask you the same,” she said, but she didn’t sound at all surprised. “But then again, I don’t think I have to ask you. Is the girl well?”
“Kleio is great, thank you.”
She let out a deep sigh. “So the two of you are right back where you left off, I take it?”
I nodded. She shook her head and said: “It’s stupid and selfish of you. I hope you know that.”
It felt like I had been slapped for a moment. She had a way of saying things – never did like going easy on me when she felt I’d made a mistake, and the worst part was that a voice in my own head was saying basically the same thing. Stupid. Selfish.
“It’s not just because it’s dangerous. I’m thinking of the girl, too.”
“I’d believe that if you stopped calling her ‘girl’. She’s a grown woman.”
“You know perfectly well that I have nothing against her. Stop acting like a love-sick teen and think. It’s risky. Everybody has warned you, over and over again. Imagine what could happen – the two of you could be on your way to making a disaster.”
“I… I know that. But it doesn’t have to happen. Kleio and I…”
“Hush. Boy. I’ve already contacted your uncle. He’s on his way here, and he’s going to put a stop to this madness once and for all. Understood?”
A chill went down my spine. “Understood.”
I was backing out of the door now, trying not to shake. My uncle. She was mad. He was a good man, all in all, but he was crazy. There was no saying how he would solve the problem – would he magically teleport me to Egypt? Turn Kleio into a toad?
“I have to go… say goodbye,” I told my grandmother. “I’ll be back.”
I didn’t stay long enough to hear her reply, but I’m pretty sure I heard her sigh deeply. She knew I wasn’t coming back.
I hurried home. Home. If I hadn’t been so worried, I think I might have smiled at the thought that I felt that way about the Ithaca house. I felt it even stronger as I went into Kleio’s room and found her sitting on the bed. She looked up with a smile but it faded as she saw what I assumed must be a less cheerful expression on my face.
“What’s going on?” she said.
“Something kind of bad.” I knelt down in front of her, trying my best to smile. “I have to leave again.”
I could see that she knew what I meant. I didn’t mean the house up the hill where I’d lived with grandma. I meant away.
“Remember how I said I’d explain everything? About why I moved back then?” She nodded. “Well, I think I owe it to you. Do you have time?”
“Yeah. I’ve been waiting for this,” she said. I sat down next to her and thought for a second. Where to start?
“I guess, it’s about both our families. You have an affinity for magic, I already mentioned that. And well, so does everyone in my family.”
“Both the Ithacas…”
“… And the Vicentias once lived in Moonlight Falls.”
“Wait… Vicentias? Your name is Gentry.”
“Well, I’ll get to that. Grandma and I changed names many years ago. I wasn’t born a Gentry, and neither was she. We were name Vicentia.”
“And both families were magic. They didn’t just have an affinity for it – they were all full-blown magicians.”
“But it all went wrong when the families mixed.”
“Wait, we’re related?!”
“What? No, no, we’re from different branches. Don’t worry. They were both big families. Big families with very strong magic powers – and when they mixed, it had disastrous results.”
“Medea. From the time she was a teen until she grew up, she caused havoc all over Moonlight Falls. Where the families had previous openly practised magic and given a helping hand to the community when needed, they now had to go into hiding.
“Not that it worked. Medea was out of control – every time they thought they’d contained her or talked some sense into her, she went off again.”
“It ended in tragedy. Her own father’s death at her hand turned out to be the last straw for the other members of the family.”
“They made a final, drastic decision and locked her deep in a basement under her family’s house. Her mother joined her in captivity because she – despite everything – wouldn’t give up on her daughter.”
“After that, the Ithacas left Moonlight Falls and swore off magic for good. From what I’ve heard, they went to Sunset Valley.”
“The Vicentias stayed and they kept practising magic, but in secret. My family has stayed there for generations. It was where I was born and where I lived when my parents were still alive.
“However, there are some people in my family who look back on the time of Medea and admire her grandness, her power, her ruthlessness – they curse the fact that we have to live in secret and to never show our magic to outsiders.”
“My parents were among them, and after they got themselves killed trying to bring back Medea’s power, my grandmother took me away from Moonlight Falls and fled, changed our names. We fled for years, from town to town, and eventually ended up in Monte Vista.”
“Where you met me.”
“Much to my grandmother’s despair, yeah. Our family is still looking for us, and, even worse, they’re still looking for you.”
“For me?”
“Well, not you specifically. Your family. Any Ithaca will do. They hope that by merging the families again, they can make another Medea. And that’s why my grandmother immediately moved away again when she found out who you were. She didn’t have anything against you at all; in all honesty, I think she likes you. But there’s always a risk, so she’s contacted my uncle. He’s not one of the bad members of my family but he is… ruthless. He’ll do anything to keep us away from each other – he won’t settle for moving to another town, and that’s why I have to leave.”
“And that’s why I have to go with you.”
I started and looked up at her. “You didn’t hear me? We could create a monster if we ever have children together – and if not, we’ll probably be hunted by my insane relatives who want to turn our children into monsters.”
“We just won’t have any children, then. Simple. I never said I wanted children, did I?”
She didn’t, and I looked away, blushing. I’d always wanted children myself, but I didn’t say that. If I had Kleio, surely it didn’t matter. And she looked resolved.
“In that case…” I said. “Kleio, please, will you marry me?”
[Author’s note: Yes, this crazy lady just made her heir promise not to have children. What could possibly go wrong?
And yeah - they're moving from Monte Vista. It was starting to lag, I was getting bored and because I didn't think to change some settings in the StoryProgression mod, everybody had hyphenated names. It would have become completely ridiculous in time.]
