by Kali Emerson
I was in the meadow again, right before everything happened. I could feel it in the air. I was a third party, like a ghost watching everything that was happening. It was unlike my other visions, where I had been myself experiencing them.
I could see myself as well as everyone else ushering all of the villagers out. It was early in the morning so it was still dark outside. The moon light was a sliver, but it lit up the space just enough to see what we were doing. Gabriel was standing next to me, also just a spectator.
We were paired off into couples with assigned villagers to get out. We watched each group go by, mostly children and teenagers. A lot of the adults stayed behind so they could fight with us. We didn't know what to expect so we just expected the worst. All of the portals led to different safe houses that were established by the Coven in case of an emergency. Most of them were within the continental U.S, but there were a few set up in Alaska, Hawaii, and Canada.
It was silent chaos.
Time sped up around Gabriel and I, and the sun had come up over the horizon. I could hear seagulls and the ocean raging several hundred feet away. The sky was overcast, but just the right amount of sunlight peaked its way through, to reflect off the dew in the grass like diamonds scattered everywhere.
I walked forward, and grabbed Gabriels arm to follow me. I wanted to get closer to them so I could hear what they were saying.
There was no fighting yet, I saw myself talking to Fiona, she was yelling something at me that I couldn't quite figure out. The vision made the voices sound like static on an old radio. Alex was standing next to me, and the rest were gathered behind us. Fiona was with three other people, a boy, an older woman and her mom. We went forward again, seeing the bloodshed that was coming. It had come to a fight within minutes of them arriving. There were too many dead bodies, some of them were unrecognizable.
“Relax.” Gabriel said, soothing me. I hadn't thought about turning off the way I felt because I hadn't been around Fiona so I didn't think about it.
“Only I can feel what you feel here. Don't worry.” He patted my hand.
“We are sharing a consciousness now, it's how I can see.”
Fiona spoke, and still we weren't close enough to hear what was being said through the static.
“Why can't we hear them?” I turned to look at Gabriel.
“It's the static of the veil. You won’t be able to hear anything in your visions until you've become masterful at being present in the Astral Plane.”
“Then why can't you hear?”
“Because this is your vision, and I can only hear and see what you do.”
I watched Alex try to use his powers on her and it didn't work. His arm was held in the air but no magic happened. Fiona smiled and Alex tried again, but nothing happened. I saw the boy next to her move toward Alex, and they both disappeared. He was gone.
“What?” I was breathless. It was a new part, but that was the point. Olivia sent us here to get a better picture of what would happen. My own eyes started to water, watching in horror as Fiona took him away from me. I couldn't contain the pain and wanted to leave.
She would kill him if she took him. I had to stop her. She knew it was the only thing that would hurt me. I hurt her so she needed to hurt me back, and that was through Alex. We rushed forward again, but Gabriel and I were alone. The forest was alive and crackling behind us. The orange flames rose above the tree lines leaving a trail of smoke lingering in the sky.
I blinked a few times and was awake again, in Olivia and Gabriel's living room. I laid there for a moment with my eyes still staring up at the ceiling. My brain was still processing what I just saw. How was I going to tell them we wouldn't win? People were going to die. For what?
I looked around to see where Gabriel was, but he was nowhere to be found. I wondered if he felt the same way. He saw everything I saw, the bloodbath that was coming. We would have to come up with another plan. The future had to change. I looked around again, trying not to move because I wasn't ready to talk about what happened.
Alex noticed I was awake, and scooted next to me on the couch. He ran his hands through my hair and helped me sit up right on the couch.
“Where did Gabriel go?”
“His physical body goes to the Astral Plane when he travels, so he takes longer to come back through the veil.”
I nodded.
“What did you see?" Alex set his hand on my thigh.
“It's not good.” I could barely get the words out. I had hoped Gabriel would be there to help explain.
“A lot of people are going to die.”
“I was afraid of that.” Olivia stood up, walking toward a spot on the floor. Gabriel started to reappear. He was translucent at first, then became more opaque as the seconds passed. His eyes hung heavy, and sad. He knew, like me, what was about to come. How were we supposed to fill the prophecy if Alex was gone, and everyone died? There was nothing keeping us here, if he were to only be killed.
Then I remembered something that could help us change the vision.
“Your powers didn't work in the vision.”
“What?” Alex turned to me.
“When you tried to stop Fiona, you lifted your hand to use your magic and it didn't work.”
“Okay?”
“If we can figure out how they were able to turn your powers off, maybe we can prevent it from happening.” My eyes lit up and I felt hopeful. No one else matched my excitement. I was so angry that none of them were trying to fix the problem. They just wanted to sit there and look at each other. All they did was feel sorry for themselves. I stood up, and everyone looked at me with wide eyes.
“Count me out then. What I've seen isn't definite.”
Alex stood up next to me and held my hand.
“We are going to find out together.”
Suddenly there was a knock at the door. Olivia got up to get it, and when she opened the door the boy from the restaurant was standing there with a girl, who matched his black hair but had her long locks pulled back into a sleek ponytail.
“This is Hakeem and Lucia. They are only able to get away sometimes and they weren’t there the first day you visited us at the village.”
“Hello.” Lucia smiled and placed her hands in front of her.
“Our location is compromised.” Hakeem said, walking further into the entryway.
“Compromised?” Olivia was visibly upset by the comment.
“Yes. Someone told the council where we are located and how to get here. That is very dangerous for everyone involved, especially everyone who lives in the village, here.”
“My visions.” Olivia hung her head and exhaled sharply.
“Did you tell Gideon?”
“He’s the one who told us.”
“It looks like what you saw, may hold value in how we are going to change this.”
“What are we going to do?” I took Alex's hand for comfort.
“Is The Council planning on coming here?” I looked at Olivia.
“It looks that way.” Lucia clasped her hands together in front of her.
The ripped page I had in my pocket would have to wait. What it contained didn’t matter right then. I wanted to know more, but the situation went from slightly benign to critical in a matter of an hour.
We planned to meet again in the following days to come up with a way to save the village, and potentially outrun The Council. They weren’t ready for a fight, and I wasn’t either. Neither Alex or I knew how to use our magic in a way that would be beneficial for them yet.
When we transported back to my apartment, it felt different. I had always felt so at ease when I was there. But that time going home, I felt sick and uncomfortable. I knew that my witch senses were kicking into overdrive with all of the events from the last few days, and the lingering detonation of a war between two morally out of tune groups of witches. Neither of them had any intention of helping the masses, it was all selfish. Both of them were willing to risk their people in order to be right.
Since we had to keep gaining information from The Coven we had to follow along for a while longer, but the thought of losing Alex made me want to act selfishly and run away, never looking back. I had been holding in so much I couldn’t contain it and as Alex wrapped his arms around me I exploded.
“I don't think I can handle any more.” I covered my face with my hands.
“You can handle anything. You are the strongest person I know.”
I knew that, but it didn't make it any less painful. I sighed, out loud.
“Mara, listen.” He leaned over to touch my forehead with his finger tips.
“We are going to get through this, together.”
I sighed again, knowing the truth but not wanting to accept it. The energy swirled between us, tingling my neck and my arms. I felt my head start to get fuzzy again, but not from a vision. I was just completely worn.
“I need to go to bed.” I backed away from Alex’s grasp and shuffled over to my room, plopping onto my bed. He followed me, and helped me get under the covers. I quickly drifted into an unrestful slumber. The first few dreams I had were mild and uneventful. Nothing was important but just disturbing like that had been a lot of my life. Then, I had a strange dream.
I was sitting at a small cafe table, reading a newspaper alone. Even other people who would be walking around normally weren't there. The sun shone bright and reflected off the glass table in front of me, hitting my eyes blinding me for a second. When I regained my sight, Fiona was sitting at the table in front of me. She had just appeared, because she wasn't there at first.
“This is the only way I can contact you safely.”
I was confused, because I thought it had been a dream. But Fiona sat in front of me, clear as the daytime. She looked at me intensely and disheartened.
“What do you want?”
“I just wanted to tell you there was nothing you could do.” She grinned, sending me into a short panic but quickly regained my stature.
“So you came to torment me?”
“Yes.”
The thought of her becoming malicious in her intent was such a stark contrast to how she had been only months ago, making me question the foundation on which we had built our entire friendship. The Fiona that I knew was gone.
“You were my friend.”
All she did was laugh, and my vision faded out. I didn’t dream the rest of the night and spent it tossing and turning, eventually ending up on the couch alone because I couldn’t get comfortable in the sheets where she invaded my dreams.
How could she have developed such a power, if it even was that. It could have been the complete lack of rest I had, and my head was getting the best of me.
When I woke up, I was in my bed again. Alex must have woken up and moved me back. No sun light shone through the windows, and by the sounds coming from the bedroom window it must have been well into the night.
“Mara.” Alex whispered, he was sitting up next to me in bed, watching TV.
“I'm okay.”
“I know, baby. What did you see?" I thought about lying. She made it more personal. It was something between us, not him.
“How did you know?”
“It was how you were sleeping. You woke up, then I saw how your expression twisted. I waited until you relaxed again and fell asleep, that was when I realized what was happening. The vision.” He looked at me, worried for me so I decided to tell him the truth. There was no sense in lying when we shared everything. She made it personal, because she wanted to drive us apart. We would only be strongest together.
I knew then, why I would have to eliminate her from the situation. She knew me better than anyone, even Alex. He knew my soul, but he didn't know me fully in this life like Fiona had. She knew everything about me. She knew that I reacted emotionally to things that hurt me.
What she didn't know was that all the years I had been her friend, I had to keep her from being able to read what I felt. It was practice for that very moment. I hadn't let her feel what I felt, but she didn't know that. She didn't know that I was able to shut off my emotions like that. She thought she had gotten to me, when she hadn't. I wouldn't hesitate anymore to defend Alex from her.
He was the only thing that was keeping me afloat during all of it. I had so much back and forth going on in my head. Two months ago I didn’t even know I shouldn’t have been trusting Fiona, or her mom. I even started to believe that they were my family because she fed me some times. It was a false sense of security that she built around me and Fiona, so that when I grew up and started to make decisions on my own I would trust her.
She had been planning it all this time. She knew that I wouldn’t be hidden from the truth forever. She knew that I would come across someone who would tell me who I was, and what Alex and I were meant to become. She accepted that and instead of hurting me before I even knew what was happening, she waited until I was older and then tried to manipulate me into staying with her.
It made me sick to think about all of the times that I spent at her house, it broke me down so terribly to know that I could be betrayed by two people that had been there my whole life but ended up false idols. I had gone to say goodbye, but I hadn’t gotten what I was looking for. I just got more slaps in the face.
So Alex and I decided to come up with our own plan. We agreed to help them if they needed it, if The Council attacks their village. But, we wanted to be prepared in case they had heard us and knew that we were planning on defending ourselves there. We would wait it out for as long as we could while trying to figure out more about our powers on our own.
We knew that Alex had the ability to control the elements, and I was able to control energy but we didn’t know to what degree. He had been able to create fire and ice with no issue, which meant he could control water and air to some degree. Those might have been the two easier to control so we tested out the other two.
At first we tried to use my house plants as targets, to see if he could control the dirt but it was too small of a target and he broke a few of my favorite pots. So, we moved on to going to Boston Commons. We would wait until it was late at night and sneak after they closed so no one would see us and used the same cloaking spell from the beach. But we wanted to be extra careful because we knew that Fiona and Maria had been watching us. We didn’t want to draw any extra magical eyes on us.
While he started to master the art of being able to move small rocks across the park, I concentrated on moving things like leaves, and small objects that I found while making laps around the pond. Eventually I was able to move bigger things like trash cans and larger sticks, while Alex was able to move the earth enough to cause a small earthquake. He only tried that once because we were sure someone else could have felt it. It caught us off guard causing us to double check that it was actually him that did it.
We spent longer nights together in my condo, which he had fully moved into since his lease ended at the end of March. The weather was starting to get nice again, and as our powers grew our fears lessened with less anticipation of an attack. We had spent so much time back out of the chaotic magical world we got sucked into so quickly, that we started to forget that a war was about to break out between two sides of the magical world, and we were in the middle of it.
We laid in bed together for hours, exchanging energies. If the thought of losing him was anything like I'd imagined, I didn't think I could take it. If our plan fell through, I would have to watch him get taken away against all motions already set in the universe for us to be together. He would get ripped out of my life as fast as he was put there. My arms that had once been full, would be empty, searching for the one thing that belonged there. I ached already, knowing what could be and I was devastated.
If I'd known it could be that way, I wouldn't have signed up for it. I would have run away into the forest and used my trust fund to start my own village, but it would just be him and I. My life without him would be the void I'd created inside my own body when I didn't want to feel a
nything.
I tried to remain positive but the negative thoughts kept flowing. It was like a nagging bug bite that was starting to fester. I wanted to ignore it, but I couldn't and itching it only made it worse.
Still it was hard to shake.
Alex gently touched my cheek with the back of his hand. My skin tingled under his touch and I closed my eyes slightly, savoring the feeling of his skin against my skin.
I would be lying if I said I wasn't scared. It was a terrifying feeling.
His breath was on my neck, and it felt calming to be so close to him. The intimacy we shared wasn't just raging hormones. We connected in every way.
The way I had been with others, was nothing like what I had with him. The connection we shared in our current physical bodies went back lifetimes, and existed even before that. We were born into bodies that could harness the energy that we were gifted and create something extraordinary. He lifted my soul up, and out of my body like a hot air balloon soaring into the atmosphere.
He was everything that I had ever imagined love to be like, and I wouldn't let it end. I couldn't let him leave me. I kept trying to distract myself from the issue at hand, ignoring my problems and allowing myself to spend all the time we had left together.
It came so quickly, I felt like we hadn’t prepared enough for it but regardless it was here. I wondered how much preparation could we really do. It was something neither of us had done before and we would have to learn as we went. Although we didn’t fully take the side of The Coven, we had promised them we would help them defend their village.
They were the only ones that had been honest with us, and over the course of a few months we were able to get to know them, and possibly even consider them our friends. Friends was such a hard word for me to grasp, because that had once been Fiona’s title and she’s since lost it and threw it away burning and lighting the entire trash can on fire. I didn’t know how much I could trust a friend again after her. She’d been my friend our whole life, and she could just walk away without a concern.
