Shortly after, Marie-Rose walked alone along the empty streets of the big city. At noon in winter, the light shone at peak intensity, slightly diminishing the ghost town atmosphere brought on by the cold and scarcity of people. Most preferred staying indoors, warming themselves around a heat source, but Marie-Rose needed to reach the public library to meet with the institution's director. She warmed her hands in her coat pockets, wearing an extra layer of gloves.
This was a few days after she had quarreled with Daniel about the org's rules. It was astonishing to witness how he purposefully complicated life with overly intellectual interpretations, talking about corporate concepts when in truth the rules should have been reduced to the simple reality of common sense.
Not far from the town hall, as she had barely walked a hundred meters from the building, a group of teenage girls pointed at her and laughed raucously. Based on their appearance, it was unsurprising they lacked civil manners.
Marie-Rose suspected this was not a coincidence and that Daniel was involved. The authorities often ridiculed people's looks when they wanted to undermine their confidence. Despite anticipating this, she couldn't contain her astonishment. Did people have time for such pettiness? Shouldn't they be in school studying? Or perhaps they had assured bright futures working jobs that required no knowledge.
She had expected Daniel to retaliate - it was natural for him to react this way. After all, he was just one of the fence-sitters. His years of training in the coven were wasted in vain, as he hadn't mastered any abilities yet pretended others' to be fully developed.
"You're my life, you're my love..." a pair of friends exiting an IT shop mumbled as they passed. Marie-Rose's first thought was they were mocking the lycan love quotes she often shared from her favorite literature page on social media. Perhaps someone had noticed her frequent interactions with that page.
She had noticed odd occurrences on her social media for quite some time. For instance, she would visit the profiles of acquaintances multiple times, only to find strange pictures suddenly appearing on their pages or profile avatars.
AI was not very advanced at that time, so Marie-Rose's instinct told her someone was spying on her online activity. It could have been a deranged hacker, or Triodos, the org enforcing their absurd etiquette rules, but more likely it was Daniel. Whoever was behind it was likely a close-minded human imposing their own obtuse views.
Or it could have been another entity offended by the coven's principles and seeking retaliation. That was another distinct possibility.
Witches had been targeted lately by many obscure organizations hiding behind commercial entities or public institutions. The world still lived in a tribal environment where people feared their fellow humans as unknown others, regardless of the level of civilization attained.
A couple passed by. Marie-Rose admired the girl's curly hair, similar to her friend Jolene from the old coven but a different color. The girl seemed pretty, but when Marie-Rose overheard her say, "A stupid bxtch wrote on her wall that she was beautiful," she paused to reassess.
The girl who spoke was quite ordinary-looking and lacked grace, with the barrel-shaped body typical of the region. Her arrogant words enraged Marie-Rose, who didn't realize the girl was directly referencing a quote from her own novel posted online.
The girl considered herself entitled to belittle others based on their appearance, but she believed that others were not supposed to have any opinion about hers.
Once inside the library, she faced another odd encounter. The girl at the counter asked, "Do you have a husband?"
"No," Marie-Rose candidly admitted.
"Do you have a boyfriend then?" the clerk repeated, rephrasing the question.
It was an inappropriate, personal question that had no place being asked, here or anywhere. Not only was it potentially discriminatory, it was completely irrelevant.
Marie-Rose had always been openly candid, but it should have been time to start deflecting inappropriate questioning, even if it meant risking judgment.
Her intuition told her she would later regret being so openly candid. While she had nothing to hide, the intentions behind the invasive questions were clearly personal. Why would someone ask such an invasive question? It wasn't as though the person was about to marry her and deserved to know every detail of her past.
Anyway, the person on behalf of whom the clerk was asking stood no chance with her, no matter what he did - she only wanted to marry Jayden, not him or anyone else.
Maybe it related to her having a different last name than her remarried mother. There could have been a spy from her hometown wondering why she wasn't married yet, being considered an old spinster by traditional customs.
Daniel knew her name and background, so it likely wasn't his spies asking. No, it wasn't Daniel behind this.
But reflecting on the phrasing - "Do you have a husband?" rather than "Are you married?" - gave Marie-Rose pause.
The implication of having a husband, rather than being married, suggested she was already in a relationship she should have stayed faithful to. That sounded much more like Daniel's doing.
Considering the context, the question's phrasing may have hinted at her encounter with Jayden on the train – about whom she had a dream well in advance of their first encounter - something she had not shared with anyone yet. At the time, she did have her phone with her, though powered off.
So the question may have related to that experience in some way, even though there was no apparent way anyone else could know about it or her break-up with Alexandre.
She hadn't exchanged numbers with Jayden, but after explaining what happened, they shared an instant connection.
Before leaving when she declined sharing a cab, he had kissed her cheek, leaving what felt like an invisible mark. Later at home, she pressed her palm against where his lips had been, like a gentle fire still burning after he was gone.
That was their only tangible connection in this world for a while. So, how could they find out? They hadn't leaked anything about their relationship. Not even at work.
So the questioner was reminding Marie-Rose of her ended relationship with Alexandre, in the name of loyalty. For them it was just a rigid dictionary word they grasped at straws to define, confining it within the rigid walls of their dry logic.
By the laws of witchcraft, no woman could be forced to remain loyal to a toxic man or relationship.
In the eyes of the divine, one's duty was to fight to be with their true complement. So if that person was found while stuck in an unhappy relationship, the obligation was to leave that relationship behind.
A human who impeded a divinely crafted connection would suffer consequences, paying dearly with what they held most dear.
Throughout history, humans had destroyed divine plans, as could be expected from those who knew nothing of true love and only mated due to primal urges. Pretending to be happy in public while miserable inside.
A true witch would never stay in a relationship just to secure her daily orgasms. Lycan mating may seem fictional, but for a witch it was a true reality.
That's why she loved that literature page - famous quotes were a balm for her delicate heart. She was passionate for literature and poetry, which allowed her imagination run free, unlike her uncreative job that exposed her to the most horrible human cruelties. While a grown-up had no excuse for being weak, as they could defend themselves, a child could never fend for themselves.
Such quotes mainly worked as motivation. Since every story must have roots in daily life, it was impossible not to learn something useful.
Waiting to meet with the director about the literature club hosted by the library, Marie-Rose found herself growing bored. Opening her phone to check for new memes on her favorite literature page, the waiting dragged on slightly.
When a vending machine entered her field of vision, she felt instantly drawn to it as if under a spell.
Her quick perusal of the vending options was interrupted by a new clerk, who impatiently pressured Marie-Rose to decide quickly since the machine was malfunctioning and swallowing money. Flustered by the man's anger, Marie-Rose hastily purchased a pack of biscuits but couldn't decide on a drink - all options were sugar-filled. In the end she lost her change and was left without money and without the beverage.
After concluding her conversation with the director and participating in her psycho-pedagogy class, she finally exhaled in relief and took a seat in the cafe. Matthieu was already waiting for her at the table. They had a scheduled meeting with the other writers from the literature club, but the remaining members were still absent, as there was a quarter of an hour left until the designated time for the writers' meeting.
Matthieu had already ordered coffee, prompting Marie-Rose to head straight to the counter to modify her order to tea. It seemed a more suitable choice for the time of day, as she wanted to avoid the risk of losing sleep later that night.
"Hello, I'd like to change my drink and order tea instead, please," she said to the cashier with her usual amiability. To her surprise, it was the same irritable man who had served her at the vending machine.
"Sure. What flavor would you like?" the man played the gentleman, seemingly genuinely interested in his customer. "We have 'hard-on herb' or 'erection herb,'" he suggested, leaning towards her condescendingly.
Marie-Rose was truly speechless. This man seemed nothing short of an agent among Daniel's associates. The veiled allusion echoed the same disorder Mimosa and Emilian continued to insinuate that Alexandre suffered from.
This was yet another misunderstanding about her novels. She had this damn idea where a girl fell for a guy suffering from the disorder, yet she chose to stay with him. But, of course, as is always the case with novels, in the end, he turns out to be perfectly healthy instead.
On a different level, she pondered how it was possible for someone to have heard what she had discussed privately on her phone, unless the conversation had been tapped into.
In fact, the eavesdropper seemed determined to use Marie-Rose's own statements against her. It appeared he had witnessed a conversation she once had with Cathy. Marie-Rose had expressed that she found it perfectly acceptable for a woman to leave her impotent husband for another man, yet she wanted to explore the opposite scenario in her novel.
So what was the fuss with these retarded minds that seemed oblivious to how literature worked, having never read anything in their lives so far, not even the mandatory curriculum at school?
Marie-Rose and Matthieu were reviewing their notes while waiting for the others to arrive at the cafe. The interior design of this compact space in the city center retained the original architectural style from the 19th century. The furniture, with rounded joints, was adorned in blue fabric. The same Cellal prints that decorated the fabric adorned the wallpaper and every little article that completed the whole space, including the lamps, floor, ceiling, and other furnishings.
Marie-Rose had been scrolling through numerous news articles since her psycho-pedagogy classes ended, until she became overwhelmed by the volume of information she had sifted through. Mark, the veteran of the group, and she were on the hunt for materials for a new novel. Consequently, on this particular day, she assumed the role of his market researcher. To grasp the pulse of what was happening in the country and the world, she meticulously examined the latest developments, hoping to uncover something out of the ordinary that could serve as the foundation for their novel.
The subjects she targeted aligned with many of her interests, not only with those of Mark or his audience. They encompassed the major she pursued in college, her hobbies, and her passion for music and the arts, all coinciding in totality.
Caught in the web of useless information, they didn't notice the waiter who brought the steaming drinks to the table, making an out-of-place remark addressed to Matthieu: "I've seen you here before," he said to him.
Indeed, he had brought his girlfriend from another city department to this place, and he sensed that the waiter was implying this with his remark. "Yes, I visited with my girlfriend," he admitted.
Both Marie-Rose and Matthieu remained pensive, pulled away from their previous reflections by the waiter's observation.
Matthieu was the first to break the silence. "Did you prepare the plan, Marie? Henry and Mark are already here," he inquired, referring to her plan with the writers. Henry Willowy was just an anglicised pen name of his Spanish real name, yet they all used it to address him.
Mark addressed Marie-Rose before even taking a seat: "I've gone through the text, Marie. I think you have a lot of room for improvement."