Dulce Lacrimae

Aniela felt a sense of doom, sitting on her usual bench outside hercardboard box of a school. She spent her days depressed on the ugly soaked wood. First year seems to be flying by her, but it feels as if nothing even happened. After this year, just five years left. Four if she skipped TY, and honestly it's better if she did.Because what's the point? It's not like anyone will stop her. She stared down at her black shoes. They were caked in mud and smelt like slurry after walking through fields. What possibly could she do to not waste four years of her life? Does she really want to look back at these years regretting not doing anything? Her mother wouldn't want that. She would want her to make the time worth while. But how? She heard the metro like bell of her school, and got up, to make her time worth while.

As much as Aniela loathed school, she loved her art classes. They were her last class. And she could just rewind for an hour. Her teacher loved her work, she told her she's very good at drawing things like animals and people."You have very detailed drawings, once you pick up a pencil, I can't tell if it's a drawing or a photograph" her art teacher once told her. Aniela usually sat on her own, beside the colourful drawings of students from other years and she had the perfect perspective of the whole classroom. Stained glass windows, Lino prints and pastel drawings stuck on the walls along side each other. The room was like a kaleidoscope. Her teacher finally walked in, with a smile on her face and went to the front of the class."Welcome back! I hope you all enjoyed your Christmas break!" The teacher chuckles. "I'm sure you are all delighted to be back." Aniela noticed a girl standing awkwardly beside the teacher, with her bag still on, staring around the class. "This is Nadia, as you know she's your new classmate. Treat her well, you were all nervous on your first day as well." A new student? Aniela couldn't help you feel hope, but she quickly distinguished it. Just a new person to ignore."Nadia, pet." Her teacher continued “Go sit beside Aniela." Silence, then the teacher realised a vital piece of information "the girl in the back to the left." The black haired girl stalked her way to sit beside Aniela. She immediately turned to Aniela and suddenly smiled. "I'm Nadia, it's nice to meet you. I love your earrings." Aniela was momentarily shocked. She thought the girl was going to ignore her. But she complimented her? How strange."Thank you. I like your hair, especially the your fringe, you look like a vampire... in a good way! Of course." "Thank you. I cut it myself. I'm thinking about dying the sides red, do you think it would look good?""Yes. It would look great!"That night, Aniela went home being the happiest then the past three years.

For the next weeks, the two girls became friends. Aniela liked Nadia's chattiness, because she just filled out her own silence. The two girls sat at Aniela's bench during breaks."-so I hexed her, didn't think something would happen but then I learned her fish died. I didn't mean the fish to catch the strays but at least she got some pain out of it." Nadia concluded."Wow, how do you hex someone?"Aniela asked intently."Oh my God, you don't know?."Aniela shook her head."Basically, you need paper, and a jar. Any jar will do. You write their name on the paper, and while you do it, you imagine all the bad things you want to happen to them, ok? Put the paper in the jar. Then put salt or spices in the jar. My friend said to put black pepper in with it, it's very effective. Then you pour water in. You put it in the freezer. And while it freezes, the pressure of the water freezing, is like the pressure that's put on them. Don't do it for stupid reasons though, cause then it'll back fire."Aniela took in all of the new found information. She realised she's been learning all about how to revive people, that she fully ignored witchcraft and all of those things.“Is there someone you would hex?” Nadia inquired.Aniela shook her head. “I don’t really talk to people so there’s no way of getting angry at someone.”“Oh. Why not?”“I don’t know, just never did.”But she had a question of her own."What makes it work? The hex?” “Don't know, but it works.”

Aniela laid in her overgrown nest of papers, admiring the piece of paper with ten digits in line staring down at her. Nadia's phone number. Aniela excitedly stuck the piece of paper on the wall with blue tak. Right beside the photo of her mother. Now she just has to get a phone. She lied that she is getting a new phone to Nadia, and it is true in a way. But she'll have to get it herself. She could work at the petrol station. Or she could exchange money for cutting people's yards. Aniela smiled and imagined the many people she could take money out off. She knew they had an old lawn mower in their shack. She's should try it in her yard. And she could just walk around the estate and other houses and ask if she could do it for them! And it's not like she has anything better to do. The next library is in the town ten kilometres away, and she had no friends other than now Nadia. But she still needs to get a phone to contact her. She took out her spell notebook, a green covered one with drown on roses. There she wrote the spells her book had been giving her. She didn't seem to question the fact that the book slowly showed pages that were blank before. By contrary, she was proud that her book thought she was worthy of such knowledge. She learned simple things like slightly moving objects and taking flowers out of the ground without pulling them.Aniela could now learn witch stuff from Nadia. She wrote in as much as she remembered from the hex thing the black haired girl told her about. Then she moved back to old pages and cut them out. Then she would stick them on the wall where her bed was at. The wall had a just a few pages neatly gathered together. Unlike the nest on the ground.

The next couple days, Aniela strengthened her friendship with Nadia, but also gathered money for her new phone. Mowing lawns wasn't her favourite thing ever, but she strategically went to different sections of the town and rural areas so every week she had someone's lawn to mow.Aniela sat in the park at one in the morning, waiting for the man himself.She tried to catch him coming, yet he seemed to always have a trick up his sleeve."Hello Aniela."Aniela jumped and turned to see Federov behind her."How do you do that?""That my dear, I'll keep to myself." Smiled Federov. "Why, I say you are a lot more happier.""Indeed I am! I found a friend at school!""Really? That's fantastic to hear! Tell me everything."So Aniela did. Eagerly she told him everything, from how Nadia looked, spoke, behaved. How they got along so well."I'm saving up money to get a phone so I could contact her.""Where does she live?""I didn't ask, that's a strange question to ask.""Is it? I thought it was quite normal." Federov mused. "Tell me about this hex thing, what is it?""It's like a curse. You but paper in a jar, and cover it in spices and water then freezes so the victim would suffer as you wanted. Isn't that brilliant?""Why, i think that's very strange. And vengeful. And vengeance is not a pretty thing."Aniela was ashamed of herself. "Yeah, you're right. I just got excited to think that such manifestation works." Federov raised his brow but didn't continue. "How's your father?""What about him?" Aniela rubbed her arms."Well, I'm just asking overall. Are you doing okay?""We don't talk much. And that's fine by me." She looked out at the flooding river. It sparkled right at her in the moonlight."Oh? When's the last time you talked?""It doesn't matter." Aniela said quickly and looked at the ground.Federov had his usual vague face expression. "How about you go home, it's late, isn't it? I hope you get the phone you are working for."Aniela nodded and got up to go on a trek home.