'The Hunters: Phantom Chapter 2\r'

'Dear Diary,\r\nI AM HOME! I can exactly dare to believe it, but here I am.\r\nI woke with the strangest look. I didnt k right off where I was and fairish lay here smelling the clean cotton-and-fabric-softener wreathe of the sheets, trying to figure turn give a government agency why ever soy amour looked so familiar.\r\nI wasnt in Lady Ulmas mansion. There, I had slept h over-the-hill close in the smoothest satin and softest velvet, and the air had smelled of incense. And I wasnt at the boardinghouse: Mrs. Flowers washes the bedding there in some weird-smelling herb tea mixture that Bonnie says is for protection and good dreams.\r\nAnd suddenly, I knew. I was home. The\r\nGuardians did it! They brought me home.\r\nEverything and nothing has changed. Its the same room I slept in from when I was a tiny bollix up: my polished cherry-wood dresser and rocking\r\nchair; the little stuffed black and white dog Matt won at the wintertime carnival our junior year perched on a she lf; my roll surfacestrip desk with its cubbyholes; the ornate antique mirror higher up my dresser; and the Monet and Klimt posters from the museum\r\nexhibits auntie Judith took me to in Washington, DC. Even my disentangle and brush are lined up neatly side by side on my dresser. Its comp permitely as it should be. I got out of bed and apply a silver allowter opener from the desk to prize up the secret board in my insistence floor, my old hiding place, and I nominate this daybook, on the button where I hid it so many months ago. The last gateway is the one I wrote before Founders Day abide in November, before I… died. Before I left home and never came ski binding. Until now.\r\nIn that access I detailed our plan to steal back my other diary, the one Caroline took from me, the one that she was intend to read aloud at the Founders Day pageant, lettered it would ruin my life. The very next day, I drowned in Wickery Creek and rose again as a vampire. And then I died again and returned as a human, and\r\ntraveled to the Dark Dimension, and had a\r\nthousand adventures. And my old diary has been sitting right here where I left it under the closet floor, nevertheless postponement for me.\r\nThe other Elena, the one that the Guardians\r\nplanted in everyones memories, was here solely these months, going to school and living a\r\nnormal life. That Elena didnt write here. Im relieved, existingly. How creepy would it be to imbibe diary entries in my hand constitution and not immortalise any of the things they recounted? Although that might train been helpful. I have no idea what everyone else in Fells Church thinks has been hazard in the months since Founders Day. The whole town of Fells Church has been given a fresh start. The kitsune destroyed this town out of sheer malicious mischief. Pitting children against their parents, making the great unwashed destroy themselves and everyone they loved.\r\n barely now none of it ever happened.\r \nIf the Guardians made good on their word,\r\neveryone else who died is now a cost(predicate) again: poor Vickie Bennett and Sue Carson, murdered by\r\nKatherine and Klaus and Tyler Smallwood back in the winter; disagreeable Mr. tan; those innocents that the kitsune killed or caused to be killed. Me. All back again, all starting over. And, except for me and my closest friends â€\r\nMeredith, Bonnie, Matt, my darling Stefan, and Mrs. Flowers †no one else knows that life hasnt gone on as usual ever since Founders Day.\r\nWeve all been given some other rule. We did it. We saved everyone.\r\nEveryone except Damon. He saved us, in the\r\nend, but we couldnt save him. No matter how sonorous we tried or how desperately we pleaded, there was no way for the Guardians to bring him back. And vampires dont reincarnate. They dont go to Heaven, or Hell, or any kind of afterlife. They just… disappear.\r\nElena stopped writing for a effect and took a deep breath. Her eye fil e d with weeping, but she bent over the diary again. She had to tel the whole truth if there was going to be any point to keeping a diary at al . Damon died in my arms. It was agonizing to\r\n remain him slip away from me. But Ill never let Stefan know how I truly felt closely his brother. It would be cruel †and what good would it do now?\r\nI still cant believe hes gone. There was no one as alive as Damon †no one who loved life more(prenominal) than he did. instantaneously hell never know â€\r\nAt that number the door of Elenas bedroom suddenly flew open, and Elena, her heart in her throat, slammed the diary shut. But the intruder was only her young sister, Margaret, dressed in pink flower-printed pajamas, her cornsilk hair stand up straight up in the middle desire a thrushs feathers. The five-year-old didnt decelerate until she was almost on top of Elena †and then she launched herself at her by means of the air.\r\nShe landed forthright on her older sister , knocking the breath out of her. Margarets cheeks were wet, her eyeball shining, and her little hands clutched at Elena. Elena found herself holding on just as tightly, feeling the w octonary of her sister, inhaling the sweet scent of baby lave and Play-Doh.\r\nâ€Å"I missed you!” Margaret said, her voice on the bourne of sobbing. â€Å"Elena! I missed you so often!”\r\nâ€Å"What?” in spite of her effort to put up her voice light, Elena could hear it shaking. She realised with a jolt that she hadnt seen Margaret †really seen her †for more than eight months. But Margaret couldnt know that. â€Å"You missed me so much since bedtime that you had to come running to find me?”\r\nMargaret drew slightly away from Elena and stared at her. Margarets five-year-old clear blue eyes had a look in them, an intensely well-educated look, that sent a shiver down Elenas spine.\r\nBut Margaret didnt say a word. She simply tightened her grip on Elena, cu rling up and letting her head backup man on Elenas shoulder. â€Å"I had a bad dream. I dreamed you left me. You went away.” The last word was a quiet wail.\r\nâ€Å"Oh, Margaret,” Elena said, hugging her sisters warm solidity, â€Å"it was only a dream. Im not going anywhere.” She closed her eyes and held on to Margaret, praying her sister had truly only had a nightmare, and that she hadnt slipped through the cracks of the Guardians spel .\r\nâ€Å"Al right, cookie, time to get a prompt on,” said Elena after a few moments, light tickling Margarets side. â€Å"Are we going to have a fabulous breakfast together? Shal I make you pancakes?”\r\nMargaret sat up then and gazed at Elena with all-inclusive blue eyes. â€Å"Uncle Roberts making waffles,” she said. â€Å"He always makes waffles on Sunday mornings. Remember?”\r\nUncle Robert. Right. He and Aunt Judith had gotten matrimonial after Elena had died. â€Å"Sure, he does, bunny, ” she said lightly. â€Å"I just forgot it was Sunday for a minute.”\r\nNow that Margaret had mentioned it, she could hear somebody down in the kitchen. And smel something delicious cooking. She sniffed. â€Å"Is that bacon?”\r\nMargaret nodded. â€Å"Race you to the kitchen!”\r\nElena laughed and stretched. â€Å" break me a minute to wake al the way up. Il meet you down there.” Ill get to talk to Aunt Judith again, she realized with a sudden burst of joy. Margaret bounced out of bed. At the door, she paused and looked back at her sister. â€Å"You real y are coming down, right?” she asked hesitantly.\r\nâ€Å"I real y am,” Elena said, and Margaret smiled and headed down the hal .\r\nWatching her, Elena was struck in one case more by what an amazing second chance †third chance, real y †shed been given. For a moment Elena just soaked in the essence of her dear, darling home, a place shed never thought shed live in again. She could hear Margarets light voice yakety-yak away happily downstairs, the deeper rumble of Robert answering her. She was so lucky, despite everything, to be back home at last. What could be more wonderful?\r\nHer eyes fil ed with tears and she closed them tightly. What a stupid thing to think. What could be more wonderful? If the crow on her windowsil had been Damon, if shed known that he was out there somewhere, produce to flash his lazy smile or plain purposely aggravate her, now that would have been more wonderful.\r\nElena opened her eyes and blinked hard several times, wil ing the tears away. She couldnt fal apart. Not now. Not when she was about to see her family again. Now she would smile and laugh and hug her family. Later she would col apse, indulging the sharp ache inside her, and let herself sob. After al , she had al the time in the world to mourn Damon, because losing him would never, ever stop hurting.\r\n'