1
VISIONS OF OBLIVION
ELIZA
“Ican do this… I can do this,” I mumbled to myself as I walked the last few blocks toward my office building. I was glad I had decided to get up at the crack of dawn to get ready for this meeting and doing so early enough that I could get to the office with plenty of time to go over my presentation.
I had been working for months on this campaign, and it was finallymytime to show my boss that I had what it took to join the big leagues. But honestly, I loved my job, and I had always wanted to work in advertising. Especially as I always seemed to have a knack for selling things. I remembered even in the schoolyard, I would be able to get kids to swap my ‘healthy’ but gross (to a kid) pot of home-made hummus and carrot sticks for Twinkies. Selling the lie that they had a magic ingredient that made you grow.
Of course, it helped that everyone in the small town of Morro Bay knew my adoptive mother as the undeniably quirky and most definitely eccentric town witch. Seriously, by the end of first grade, I was selling that shit for more than just candy. I was trading it for as much junk food as I could stash in my locker. Itwas, no doubt, what the cosmos called karma, as the only reason I was currently five foot four inches was thanks to my sort-of comfortable, two-inch heels. The exchange of sugar for calcium hadn’t helped my height, but it had certainly kick-started my unhealthy addiction to candy.
Should have eaten your veggies, Eliza, I thought as I looked down at my beige heels and already wishing I had worn my sneakers. I could have changed back into heels at the office like I usually did on my daily forty-minute walk to work, so I didn’t know why I hadn’t planned for that today.
Shaking my head and looking toward the path ahead, I continued to think back to my childhood. I knew that growing up in what most described as being ‘the kid who lived in the creepy house at the end of the street’ didn’t always work for me. Especially not with the last name, Shadowmere. But then being adopted by a witch also didn’t go in my favor for gaining cool points, at least not when high school came around.
No, then I was just known as the weird kid.
That’s when the bullying really started, and it was the reason I loathed bullies now.
Eventually, I was no longer the only Shadowmere girl in town when my mom adopted my younger sister, so I no longer cared what they said about me. However, if they said anything about my sister, then I was like a bull ready to charge at the stupid guy waving a silky red curtain.
My sister, Sabrina (yes, named after the TV teenage witch) became my world. She had only been eight months old when my mom, Agnes, adopted her. I had been seven years old and practically treated her like my own.
People often asked me if I was sad that I didn’t know who my real family was or upset that I had been dumped as a baby on the steps of a church. But then I would always reply, why would I be sad when I was chosen to be cared for and loved by someone whoclearly did want to be a mom? Someone who wanted to give me that life, one filled with love and attention? So, of course, I would pick them over someone who clearly didn’t want me. I would pick them any day of the week.
Agnes had given me everything and had made my world fun and full of excitement. Of course, there were more unconventional parenting moments to contend with. Like dancing in a white dress on my sixteenth birthday around a campfire in the garden. Something that may have gotten slightly out of hand and ended up with the neighbors calling the fire brigade.
There was also the smelly bag of herbs I had to carry hanging under my dress at prom so as to ward off any grabby hands that might come my way. Of course, she had been convinced her spell worked, despite my trying to point out that the reason was most likely more down to the fact that smelling of wet grass and an Italian restaurant wasn’t ever going to make me popular with the boys.
There were so many times like that in my life and, to be honest, I wouldn’t have changed a single one. No matter how quirky or how ‘unconventional’ they were. The house was filled with love and laughter, and I wouldn’t have changed a single second of it for all the world.
Although, right now, I would have gone for any number of smelly spell bags if it would have helped me with my nerves. I had been working for Total Point Media for six years now, and this was the first time I had felt closer to that much-deserved step up the corporate ladder. I was an assistant art director and all-round dogs’ body for Debbie, my boss. But Debs was still recovering from a skiing accident where she had taken a nasty fall and one bad enough to break quite a few bones, including her pelvis.
So, with no one to take her place, I’d been given the chance to make my mark, and I was hoping it was now my time to shine.
And with that, it meant I was now wearing my new ‘I mean business but wanna look cute doing it’ cream wrap dress. One that I think complimented my curves and hid the slight over-hanging panty podge of belly that I would often poke at when standing in front of the mirror. Telling it off like a naughty child and threatening that I would be putting it on a diet soon. Then I would feel bad, eat a donut, and hence the evil cycle would ensue as I reminded myself that I was single and therefore, why should I care?
As for the rest of me, I had styled my honey-blonde, shoulder-length hair pin-straight, taming my natural waves that usually caused it to flick out all over the place. I was currently growing out the bob style I had foolishly let my hairdresser talk me into, and I was very much looking forward to the day I no longer had to straighten it just to tame the beast.
Now, as for my makeup, I had gone subtle, using my fall colors palette to match my light brown eyes that had flecks of green in them. Thankfully, I had been blessed with thick enough lashes that I didn’t have to use mascara, and the length was long enough that they tickled the bridge of my eyelid. Sabrina often tried to convince me I must have been a camel in my past life, but there was no way. For one, I loved my couch too much, so I was putting my bets on a cat any day.
But these long, doll-like lashes also meant that my one and only attempt at adding black liner and those super sassy-looking flicks at the ends had only ended in me looking like a Picasso painting. Hence why I didn’t try it again.
For my lips, I had chosen a nude lip gloss that had a sheen of gold flecks. This helped in making them look more even, as my top lip was thinner than my plumper bottom one. Now, my skin I would never complain about, as I had a natural tan. All I neededwas to highlight my cheeks with a little bronzer, so that it added some more dimension to my face.
Thus, this completed my morning ritual, doing all of this while talking to myself and convincing myself that I could nail my presentation. Something I felt ready for… well, that was until I turned a corner and walked straight into a teenager on a skateboard. One who thought drinking coffee on wheels was a good idea. Turned out it wasn’t…for me.
“AHH!” I screamed the second the coffee exploded all down the front of my dress, making it now look as if I had showered in cappuccino.
“Whoa, dude, watch it!” the punk on a skateboard said, as if I was the problem in this scenario, and him losing his coffee was the worst thing that could have happened to him today.
Well, he had no idea what his coffee had just cost me.
“Asshole!” I shouted back in return as he made off down the sidewalk. I couldn’t help but wish that I'd pushed him off the thing and used it as a weapon to knock some sense into his weed-smoking head!
“Fuck! Fuckkkkk!” I moaned, gaining some strange looks from bystanders and, in return, I pointed at my coffee-soaked tits like this was enough to explain my moment of fuckery.
I would have cursed for Jesus Christ’s sake if I had believed in him, but alas, no, not thanks to my pagan upbringing. Now, as for cursing the Horned God, yep, that was more my family’s style.
