Lucille held the shaking Rebecca in her arms. She tried to make sense of what the girl had just told everyone but somehow her mind couldn't come up with a coherent conclusion. From their position on the floor, she looked up at Grandma Vai. The Gypsy matriarch wore the same confused look on her face. Lucille also saw the distraught look on the kids' faces, Jili's devastation especially.

Grandma Vai turned to Kaven, and when their eyes met, the elder woman came up with a possible next step. "Let's take her to the Viewing Room," she told Kaven.

The boy nodded and handed his sister over to his grandmother. Lucille didn't know where they were going, but she trusted the old woman and her ways. They helped Rebecca to her feet and slowly lead her downstairs. Her breathing was still erratic and her whole body still shivered from the intensity of her vision.

Lucille kept her arms around Rebecca as they walked inside what Grandma Vai called the Viewing Room. Much like Lucille's apartment, this space was protected by magic. The small sigil on the door glowed green instead and though very low and faint, Lucille sensed great magical energies running about the area.

The room was octagonal in shape, its eight equal sides represented the Eight Focal Points in Romani Magic. Four of those walls were connected to the house and are decorated with symbols and runes of past Gypsies that used this blessed space. The other four were equipped with large stained glass windows that, at the moment, were letting in warm rays of morning sunlight. The room was spacious and could comfortably fit about twenty people at once. In the center laid a round table with floor length mantel embroidered with the Sign of the Gypsies. On top of it was a Scrying Sphere about the size of a basketball and around it, equidistant to each other, were eight chunks of enchanted crystals. Its ragged points glinted as the witches and gypsies moved about around it.

"Seat her here," Grandma Vai instructed Lucille and pulled out two chairs from beneath the table. "Kaven, the drapes. Jili, the candles," she ordered and quickly, the kids followed their Grandma's words. Lucille and Rebecca just sat in a tight embrace as Kaven closed the door and pulled down the drapes, inducing darkness in the otherwise illuminated Viewing Room. Jili's candles on the other hand, prevented the room from being pitch black.

With all of the preparation over, Grandma and the kids sat on the opposite side of the table, their facial expressions flickered along the with the dancing flames of the candles before them. Lucille couldn't read Jili and Kaven very well. They looked angry, confused and afraid at the same time.

Grandma Vai took a huge breath and explained to Lucille. "This is the Viewing Room. Our ancestors, from the very first Padureani Gypsies, to my daughter, Masilda, used this room for divination. Kaven have been using this, too, scrying for their lost mother but he was yet to tap on his full potential. Only the room's Vision Mistress could activate it's magic well. And that was still Masilda.

"I don't know if this will work," she continued. "since we've never had to channel a witch's vision here before. But I will try my best as the former Mistress to try and re-view Rebecca's vision."

"Re-view? You mean you're gonna see what Rebecca saw just now?" Lucille asked. The concept of viewing a clairvoyant vision again was alien to Lucille. Clairvoyant witches only saw visions once. Apparently, Gypsies really did have more control over their talents.

"We all will," Kaven replied. "The Scrying Sphere in front of you will project her vision in this room. We will all see what she just saw."

Jili grabbed Kaven's hand without taking her eyes off of Rebecca. Lucille understood her apprehension. She turned to Grandma Vai and asked, "Should the kids be here to see it? I mean, if Rebecca's vision did show The Necromancer..." she couldn't continue with the words 'killing her'.

An awkward silence spread among them, until Jili broke it. "We need to see her, we need to see mother."

The Gypsy Matriarch bit her lip and though she was against it, she had to agree. She will need their collective powers to even hope to make the projection work. "We will only be able to project and re-view it once. If this vision does show The Necromancer inflicting harm on my daughter, we will need more eyes to observe and gather information. We will need it to find Masilda and to defeat him." She cast a looks at Rebecca, still visibly shaken from the vision.

Rebecca tightened her grip on Lucille. She didn't want to see the terrifying vision again.

"You need to be brave, Rebecca," Lucille consoled her. "We're only gonna see this once, and I will be here to go through it with you. We're all gonna be here with you."

Rebecca saw the worried look on Kaven, Jili and Grandma Vai's faces. She didn't want to go through it again, and she was unsure if they could handle seeing their loved one getting tortured as she did. Still, they were right. She had to be brave to find the answers all of them have been looking for. The vision was one way to get them.

"I-I'm ready," she spoke with her trembling voice.

Grandma Vai nodded to Kaven and Jili, so they moved and sat around the round table at equal distances to one another. Kaven clasped his left hand on Jili's right, and the girl followed suit, holding on to Lucille with her left. Continuing the chain, the witches held their hands together and Rebecca held on to the Gypsy Matriarch. Finally, to close the circle, Kaven and Grandma Vai laid their open palms on the crystals in front of them. A faint glimmer of magic erupted from the Scrying Sphere.

Though the door and windows of the room were closed, Lucille felt a subtle draft of magic breeze through from behind them. It was the Scrying Sphere, gathering energies all around the Viewing Room. She watched as the gypsies, all three of them, shut their eyes tightly in concentration, and when they opened them, their pupils glowed flashes of different colors. She glanced at Rebecca and saw the girl flinch, fearing what she was about to experience a second time. She squeezed her hand gently, wordlessly telling her it was going to be alright.

Grandma Vai started with a low, guttural hum. It grew louder until the first words of the incantation came out of her mouth.

"Eyes that see what isn't seen
Now wish to invoke and recall a scene.
For eyes that need the truth be told
Allow us magic from Gypsies old,-"

From inside the sphere emanated a bright white glow. It showed them silhouettes of people, spirits of ancestral Padureani Gypsies lending their magic to the ones seeking their help. If Grandma Vai had been the Viewing Room's current Mistress, the English incantation would've been enough to channel and project Rebecca's clairvoyance, but she had long passed the title to her now lost daughter. She called on to her grandchildren's abilities to help her and repeated the same spell, this time in their original tongue.

"Dis'hma k'ruva ma-i Vos
Envido er alvi qosos
D'ieva crommo di-a vol'e
Gasmi zorae disalvore!"

The glow from the sphere exploded and Lucille almost screamed in surprise. For a moment, she was blinded by it, but the screams she was hearing, coming from someone else entirely, were loud and clear.

"Mother!" Kaven almost stood up, but Jili held him down.

"Do not break the circle!" Grandma Vai warned.

Like a three dimensional hologram, Rebecca's vision was projected in front of them. Lucille gasped at the clarity and closeness of the Necromancer looming over a woman strapped on a sacrificial tomb. It was like she was actually in it, living it as it happened

"You can scream all you want but no one will hear you!" the Necromancer bellowed.

"Stop this! Please don't do this to me!" the woman, Masilda, screamed. "Please! Please let me go!"

The Necromancer let out a disgusting cackle and proceeded to utter an incantation incomprehensible to everyone. He hovered both hands over the woman's torso and they began to glow a dark, ominous green.

"W-what are you doing to me!? Why are you doing this!? Stop!" Masilda cried.

Her voice and pleading broke Jili to tears. She lowered her eyes, unable to watch further. Grandma Vai also shed tears, but she held her eyes to the scene unfolding in front of them, searching for clues to her daughter's whereabouts.

The Necromancer's voice grew louder and with a final scream, another white bright light came, this time emanating from Masilda's anguished eyes, casting the vision viewers out of of the scene, ending it.

"No! Mother, no!" Kaven screamed. The air around them swooshed outward, blowing out the candles leaving them in darkness.

Jili quickly let go of Lucille's hand and felt her way to her grandma. She held her and wept loudly, calling on to her mother over and over. Lucille held tighter to Rebecca, and with pursed lips, blew small flames, setting the room aglow.

"Mother..." Kaven had his elbows on his knees and his hands on his face. "What was he doing to you?" he cried.

Rebecca hugged Lucille tighter. She wasn't crying now. It was as if all the fear she had been feeling had numbed her on the inside. She held Lucille as the mother witch trembled in shock. Lucille knew The Necromancer was a killer, but she had never seen him do it. She'd never seen the man she used to swear her life upon, mercilessly kill an innocent.

"She's not dead," Kaven exclaimed, abruptly standing up and slamming both palms on the table. The Scrying Sphere remained unmoved. "He was doing something to her, a ritual of some sort," he explained between sobs, "but she's not dead. Otherwise, her soul would've returned to us and passed the title to Jili. She can't be dead."

"What do you mean?" Lucille, despite shivering lips, asked.

"Grandma Vai told us that when a Vision Mistress dies before relinquishing the title to her successor, her soul would ultimately come back here and anoint the next Mistress. She hadn't come back. The Vision Room still recognizes her as its Mistress. She is still alive."

"Kaven," Grandma Vai stood up and hugged her grandson. Jili followed. She didn't want them to cling on to false hopes but she couldn't say what she had in mind and confirm their fears. She glanced at Lucille, her Gypsy intuition told her she had something to say.

"I-I recognise the ritual he was doing," Lucille spoke. "He was extracting your mother's spirit."

With that, the old woman silently wept and whispered to her grandchildren. "Your mother...is dead."

"But why?" Kaven broke down. "What does he need from mother?"

The old woman shook her head and again, looked at Lucille. This time, Lucille's eyes told her that they need to talk again later.

****

The rest of the day, everyone avoided each other. Rebecca retreated to the guestroom and hid beneath the sheets.

Jili mostly slept, and even when she couldn't she forced herself to dream instead of live the reality that their mother was now gone, too. She wasn't even able to say goodbye to her. Grandma Vai laid beside her, singing gypsy songs to lull her youngest grandchild to sleep. She needed to breakdown, too, but her grandchildren needed strength right now, so she kept herself strong.

Kaven stayed in the vision room. He told his grandma he needed to be alone and process things. He was actually scrying all over different maps to distract himself from what they have just seen, from what they had been told. He couldn't just accept that they were now orphans. He just couldn't stop looking for her like that. But just as his hope dwindled, the scrying crystal seemed to have lost its power, as well. It was just hovering above the maps in circles, never dropping anywhere on it.

Only Lucille was out and about in the house. She knew grief and she acknowledged that this family needed to have time and space. She offered to cook and clean for them for the meantime and Grandma Vai was most grateful. It wasn't a difficult job, since the house was immaculate and they have already cooked meals before everything happened. With the time she's got, she sat in the middle of their living room studied the Grimoire, looking for things that might shed more light to the situation. She also borrowed some of Grandma Vai's family records, aiming to learn more about the Padureani Gypsies and what the Necromancer might want with them.

She couldn't find anything, though, and in her frustration, she slammed the Grimoire shut and buried her fingers on her scalp. The book didn't like being treated like this so it slammed itself open, startling Lucille when its hard leather cover hit the table top.

"I'm sorry," Lucille now allowed tears to run down her cheeks. "This is just too much for me, now. I don't know what to do."

She ran her fingers on it's pages, not really reading what page the book had opened on. She continued to speak to it. "I knew he was evil. I knew he did horrible things but to see it, to actually see him do that to an innocent woman? It's just too much! No one deserved to go through that. No one." She bowed her head and cried.

"Lucille?" A voice came from the doorway. It was Kaven.

"Huh?" Lucille straightened up and wiped her cheeks. "What is it, Kaven?"

"When you lost Lilian, did it hurt like this?" A tear trickled from one eye and rolled down his cheek. "I feel helpless. I don't want to believe she's gone, but I couldn't find anything to prove she's still alive. Except that she's still the Mistress. But what good is that?"

He sat on the sofa opposite Lucille and sobbed. " I feel so powerless."

Lucille empathized and spoke to the boy, "I don't know what you're going through right now. Lilian died of sickness and we were together when it happened. But I can tell you that you need to let this out. You need to grieve, otherwise it will consume you. It consumed me, and it felt worse than losing her."

The boy slumped lower and cried. He let out all his anger and frustration through loud sobbing and muffled screaming. Lucille sat closer to him and caressed his back, consoling him and helping him to breathe. Not one more word was spoken.

Thoughtlessly, Lucille's eyes caught the Grimoire opened at a certain page. It didn't open randomly to scold Lucille earlier, it was telling her something.

"Transference," Lucille read aloud.

"What?" Kaven raised his face and asked.

"No, I was just reading from the book." She pointed. "It opened to the page on Transference, a magical ritual that transfers some attributes of one witch to another. It's temporary, but can be made permanent with a little more power."

"Wait, I remembered Jili saying I found her, back in the cottage. Before we were attacked by the ghouls."

"Yes," Lucille recalled. "I remember her saying that, too. But what does that mean?"

An idea popped into Kaven's mind and he hastily scrambled upstairs to Jili's room.

"Kaven!" Lucille called back. She took the book and ran up to follow him, "Kaven, wait!"

She ran down the halls to Jili's room's doorway. There, she found Kaven kneeling beside the bed and rousing Jili awake.

"Kaven, child, what are you doing?" their grandma asked.

"I need to ask Jili something Grandma, I need to ask how she followed me into the cottage."

Jili stirred awake and rubbed her eyes. "What's going on?"

"Jili," Kaven spoke slowly. "Remember when you found us in the cottage yesterday? Right before the ghouls attacked us?"

"Yeah," the girl replied, her sleepiness leaving her.

"Do you remember telling me I found her? What did you mean by that? What did you mean when I found Rebecca?"

Lucille held on to the book and waited for Jili to answer. She had another gut feeling about what was happening, but it didn't make sense. At least not yet.

"I scryed for mother just after you left. It pointed to the cottage so I followed you," the girl explained. "I was able to follow you closely but I thought you were going to be angry I went out without permission so I shadowed you and let you go inside the cottage by yourself. You've been looking for mother for a long time, I thought you should be the one to find her inside."

Kaven's lips forced a small smile at the thoughtfulness of his sister, but he needed something else from this. "When you followed in to warn me about the swarming ghouls, you saw Rebecca and told me I found her."

"I saw..." Jili's voice hesitated, as if digging up the memory from beneath the creases of her mind. "I saw a halo around Rebecca. I don't remember what made me say you found her, specifially, but at the moment, it was what my instincts told me to say." Her brows furrowed. "I don't know what it means, Kaven, I'm sorry."

Lucille shared a look with Grandma Vai and when the old woman nodded, she turned on her heel and ran towards the guestroom to fetch Rebecca.

She had a difficult task, since Rebecca refused to get out of bed and fought with her but it was imperative that they find out the truth. "Please, Rebecca. We need to go back to the Viewing Room."

***

After a while Grandma Vai and Lucille made the kids sit back at the Viewing Room in the same arrangement they had in the  morning. Heavy silence hung among them until Lucille spoke, "As per my understanding, this Viewing Room was made for gypsies, and only gypsies would be able to make the magic of the Scrying Sphere work," she started.

Instinctively, Grandma Vai continued, "And witches, no matter how powerful, would never be able to tap onto something that wasn't meant for them." She paused to breathe. "However, if Lucille and I have the same hunch, you, Rebecca, might be able to."

"What?" Rebecca said, her head turning back and forth from the two women beside her.

"We were thinking," Lucille explained, "that maybe the ritual that we saw he was doing to Masilda might be connected to your resurrection. I don't know how or why gypsy magic would be needed for it, but Masilda's scrying crystal led to you. It must mean there was gypsy magic at work in your coming back. He might have done something similar to Transference."

"So you're thinking I have Masilda's powers? That these powers, by association, would be recognized by the Viewing Room as its Mistress?" Rebecca tried to clarify what she could understand by far.

Lucille nodded, but Grandma Vai believed in more. "Actually, my theory goes even further. I had been analyzing all day about a scenario where the Necromancer extracted Masilda's soul and used her body to regenerate Lilian's."

"But why her? Why Masilda?"asked Lucille.

"Because mother had regenerative abilities, as well." Kaven lifted a hand to his temples, trying to make sense of their theories. "Aside from our baseline Gypsy abilities of third sight, she also had abilities of physical regeneration. Her wounds healed thrice as fast and she was never sick. Very few of us had that ability."

"He must've made sure Lilian wouldn't get sick like last time..."Lucille deduced.

"But they're just theories, we don't know for sure. Right, Lucille?" All these ideas scared Rebecca. She didn't know what to make of all of this information.

"We don't know for sure." Lucille confirmed.

"Unless the Viewing Room responds to you," Grandma Vai gestured for her to try and put a hand on the crystal in the table. "It's up to you to give it a shot."

Rebecca turned to Lucille and watched the mother witch nod. Lucille held Rebecca's hand and the gypsies started to link their hands together.

They haven't even said the incantation yet, but the moment Rebecca's palm touched the crystal, the Scrying Sphere burst white light and they were taken aback by the vision, now being projected again in the center of the room.

"Rebecca," Grandma Vai gasped. "This has never happened before!"

All eyes were wide and focused on Rebecca, whose own eyes now glowed a magical light. Her breathing was quick and her body temperature was rising rapidly. She could not explain how odd she felt, but she was seeing something she have not seen in her vision that morning. What she was projecting in the Room were the events immediately following it.

"Aaahh!" They all watched as Masilda screamed in fear and pain. The Necromancer continued muttering his evil transference. When he raised his right hand, Masilda's soul separated from her body without killing her.

"No, please! Don't do this to me! Please put me back to my body!" Masilda begged, but The Necromancer wasn't interested in her pleas. He quickly performed several hand signs and her soul was sucked into a huge crystal.

"Mother!" Kaven and Jili shouted. Grandma Vai held her grandchildren and continued to watched in despair.

From the ground beside the sacrificial tomb rose a skeleton clad in a funeral dress and whose hair was still tied in a long braid.

"Lilian!" It was Lucille who gasped this time, recognizing her daughter's dress. Tears threatened to fall at the emotional gash this image was inducing.

The Necromancer's voice grew louder, he shut his eyes as if heavily focusing his powers, and thick, ugly veins appeared on his neck, on his forehead. With one hand hovering over Masilda's body and another levitating Lilian's bones, he suddenly clapped his hand together.

An explosion of magic happened. It was so powerful, even the Gypsies and the witches watching it in the Viewing Room felt the atmosphere vibrate. They could no longer see anything, only peculiar smoke was there, blurred the projected images.

When the dust settled, The Necromancer could be seen smiling over his wicked creation - Masilda's body was no more hers. He fused it perfectly into Lilian, now lying naked on top of the tomb.

Rebecca couldn't stand the energies flowing into her body but she held on a little bit longer. She wanted to see more. She wanted to see what The Necromancer would do next.

Grandma Vai kept her eyes and ears peeled on the images while it's still being projected.

The Necromancer seemed out of breath, but a sinister smile crept on his face as he spoke, "Now to pluck my daughter's soul out of heaven." He held out a hand and an athame materialized in it. "See you soon, Lilian. See you soon my sweet child." It was the last image before it all turned to a blinding light.

"Aaaah!" Rebecca screamed as the energies of both The Craft and Gypsy Magic battled inside of her. Lucille tried to pull her, but her skin was scorching to Lucille's touch.

"Let go, Rebecca!" she urged, afraid she might overload. "Let it go!"

Rebecca shut her eyes tight and willed to flush out all the magical forces running in her body. She clenched her teeth and with a huge breath she shouted, "NO MORE!" 

Everything went dark.

"Rebecca! Rebecca!" Lucille called out. She blew her lips and again, the candles flicked into life, revealing Rebecca slumped on the floor, panting.

"Rebecca, are you alright?" Lucille quickly dropped to her knees and hugged the girl.

"Lucille-" Rebecca spoke, still catching her breath. "What - just - h-happened?"

"My dear child," Grandma Vai walked closer to her, Kaven and Jili followed behind. "You are not just Lilian."

With trembling hands, she swept a hand over Rebecca's cheek. "You are Masilda," she whispered, and then hugged the girl. "You are...my daughter!"

A/N: Yass for an update, amirite!? LOL. Too many tears were shed in this chapter and maybe I will edit that out later bec drama isn't my best suit. horhor. But right now, this is how the story goes.

Umm, here's a secret: The Romani names I've presented so far are actual gypsy names (according to my google research, at least):

Kaven - courageous/strong/brave/kind

Jili - Caló name derived from the vocabulary word jilí "innocent; unblamable; without agenda (malicious or otherwise)"

Vai - Caló form of  Eve. (as in the first woman in Genesis, so I chose it for the Padureani Matriarch)

Masilda - Romani name of uncertain origin. It might be a corruption of  Mathilda.

Padureani - forester

But the Gypsy spell here is utter gibberish. ehe. I just mumbled vowels and consonants together and when they sounded magical, voila! Instant Gypsy Magic spell! You are free to try it and see if you can turn your room into an instant IMAX Dream Theater, but that's ridiculous, okay? Don't do it.

So it turns out Rebecca isn't just Lucille and The Necromancer's daughter (technically); she is (also technically) a gypsy's daughter! But what about the actual Rebecca? Will we ever find out about her? Will she be able to live a life of her own? Or would I suddenly turn batshit crazy and not update this work ever again? (BWAHAHAHAHAHA!) We'll find out when we find out. LOL.

Thanks for reading this up to this part! And please don't forget to Vote if you like it, Comment if you like it, Add to your library if you like it and finally, Recommend this story your friends if you (what else?) like it! Have a wonderful week ahead!

Xoxo

-bentham