Chapter 78 Here to stay

Joana searched and searched but couldn’t find the river anywhere, she tried to remember where she saw her the last time she and Derick came here, but in that same place where she met the river, there was nothing there but empty land. She then realized that she probably couldn’t see the river because the river hadn’t called her, but that would mean she would have to pray. Her heart sank, she remembered how long it took for the river to respond the last time she prayed, and she wasn’t sure she had that much time now that her spirit was here. She then got on her knees and began to pray, hoping that the river would hear her and respond quickly, now that she was closer.

She hadn’t even begun praying when the river called.

“Hello Joana, welcome back. I see you brought your spirit body here this time around.”

“Hello river, please I need your help. I am sorry for how I acted the last time; I need to find the one I love, I know that he is still alive but I don’t know where he is, I was hoping you could give me the answers that my heart seeks.”

“I know all that has happened with you Joana, but you did not have to come here.”

“I don’t understand, why didn’t I have to?”

“Because you already have the answer in your hand Joana, now let your heart be at rest,” the river’s voice began to fade, and Joana knew that she was going away.

“No please come back, I need to find him,” she said with tears welling up her eyes.

The river’s voice had disappeared. She then heard Edmund’s voice calling out to her in the distance.

“Joana!!! You have to get out of there now, I can’t hold on for much longer!”

“But she hasn’t told me where Derick is!!!”

“We’ll find some other way to look for him, I promise, just please come outside now!!!”

With a defeated heart, Joana ran towards the entrance and the gates of the spirit world closed behind her immediately. She opened her eyes and was now back to reality.

“I… couldn’t find him, the river says that I already have the answers in my hand, but somehow that made no sense to me,” Joana said in tears.

“I’m sorry Joana,” Edmund said, and as he tried to comfort her, they both heard Dana’s voice calling them outside.

“He’s back!! Derick is back!!!!”

***

As fast as the speed of lightning, they both ran downstairs to confirm if what Dana said was true, and it was. Derick’s clothes were dirty, torn and raggedy but there he stood in the halls, alive and well.

Joana ran towards him as fast as she could, she jumped and wrapped her arms around him before giving him a long kiss, much to the surprise of the coven who watched them.

“Where were you? I thought you were gone!!!” She asked him, not minding the awful stench that came from his body.

“I wanted to be, but when I went to the heart of mother nature, I couldn’t figure out a way to summon the presence of the council, so I gave up and went to look for a way that I could forget about you, I even tried burying myself alive, but it didn’t work, so I waited till when I was sure you would be gone from the castle, at least not seeing you would make things easier for me to move on I thought, but no you’re still here.”

“I’m never leaving you Derick, never again!” And Joana kissed him again. She couldn’t contain her excitement, she thought he had been gone, she thought she had lost him forever, and those five days she stayed without him were like hell for her. She was so thankful to Marylin’s diary for keeping her heart at bay while he was away.

“Am I missing something here?” Dana asked them as they ended the kiss, looking back and forth between Joana and Derick.

“Yes, you are,” Joana told them. “Derick and I have been having a secret affair.”

“Wow, Is this true Derick?” Dana asked, turning to him.

“Yes,” Derick said undeniably. “Although I am glad and surprised to see her here, I thought that she would have been human by now.”

“It’s a long story,” Joana said to him. “We can talk about it while I give you a bath.”

“Yes please, you’re free to wash my sins away ma’am,” Derick then hoisted her up as she giggled and took her inside, leaving a surprised Dana, Edmund and Hillary staring behind them.

***

The next evening, the whole coven gathered in one of the big living rooms, and Joana, who was seated beside Derick, told them all that had happened when she went back to her neighborhood, and what led to her decision to remain a vampire.

“Wait, so you mean that bastard married someone else while you were away?”

“Language, Derick,” Joana cautioned him, placing her fingers on his mouth. “But yes, he is a bastard.”

The whole coven laughed at her but she wasn’t done entertaining them, she still had a story to tell.

“Wait here,” she said. “There’s something else I wanted to show you guys.”

She quickly flew upstairs to her room to get the second diary and brought it back down to show them. Dana was the first one to ask her.

“How were you able to find it?”

It turned out that she left it here, I don’t know how she did, but I found it in her room with the indicator that Mariana gave me, and she wrote about her whole story here starting from when she became a vampire.

Joana began to narrate all she had read to them, from the beginning of the book, up to the point where she stopped.

“She really wrote about her whole story there,” Derick said after Joana finished narrating. “But you’re not done reading it, how did things end up between her and John? Aren’t you curious to find out?”

“I am, it was when I found the gem piece in my bag that I paused my reading to go and ask the evergreen river in the spirit world to find you because I knew you were still alive.”

“So now that you’ve found me, don’t you want to continue the story? Or at least know how things were between your ancestor and John, I’m sure she must have written about it there.”

She sensed a hint of fear in Derick’s voice, and she didn’t need to read his mind to know what he was afraid of.

“Yes, I do want to continue reading the story and find out what happened between Marylin and John, and I know you do too. But I also know that you’re scared that Andrew might still be the man of my destiny even though he messed up, but let me just let you know now Derick so that your heart will be at rest; whatever I read in here will never change the way I feel about you. I was wrong to have wanted to write my own story based on how my ancestor lived her life. The fact that Marylin and John ended up together doesn’t mean me and Andrew should too, I don’t know why she wanted to give up the life she had in the castle here so badly, but I knew she made a mistake by doing so; that was what the supreme council was talking about, and I would have made the same mistake too.”

Derick bent his head and smiled underneath, she knew he was happy to hear those words from her mouth; and she meant everything she said. Derick was the one she had loved since, and nothing would ever change that. Joana then continued speaking.

“I would like to continue reading the rest of the story with you all, if you don’t mind. I found it very interesting, and I know you will too, I even felt bad that I had to read it all alone.”

“We’re listening, it’s been long since we all sat down for a good old story time,” Edmund said.

“Ok then,” Joana said, opening the diary while she laid back in Derick’s arms. “So, let’s return to Marylin’s story.”

She opened the page where she stopped, and then began to read it to them.