by R.J. Adams
Nine
We arrive at the orphanage and our surroundings are once again chilling and eerie. The building still looks the same as it was when we left it and Toby’s car is parked up, seemingly untouched as if no-one has been near it.
Toby walks over and inspects his car, doing the man thing he kicks the tyres and run’s his hands across the body, “Well at least my car seems fine,” Toby smiles.
I roll my eyes, it’s a car! “Yeah I guess so, we’ll come back for it later though, we can’t drive that thing through the woods,” I turn to walk away but Toby stops me.
He is still, his eyes nervously scan the surroundings, “Why is it always so dark here, even if the sun is shining, it never seems to shine here,” Toby mumbles under the light whistles of the wind.
“I don’t know,” I shrug, “it’s always been like this, like an eternal winter ever since I was about six. Maybe because that’s exactly what it is, it’s something dark and unnatural therefore the sun will never shine here,” I take his hand, “come on, and stop delaying we have things to do.”
I lead him down deep into the woods as my mind tries to replay the steps I once took to see my mother. We walk slowly through the woods as the cold air brushes over our skin.
“Never imagined I’d be here doing this,” Toby mumbles shivering slightly in the cold night air.
I laugh, “no me neither, this is not how I imagined my life would turn out, even though I grew up with practically nothing.” As a result of my own imagination I suppose.
He looks at me, the tip of his nose bright red from the cold, “how did you imagine your life?”
I smile as I imagine what I have always imagined since I was a child, “well, when I knew I wasn’t going to be adopted because I was much older than all the other children, obviously not realising that all of it was just me and my magical mind, I planned to leave the orphanage at eighteen, track down my parents and become a social worker, you know, helping those children who needed it, just like me when I needed help I know there are others just like me.”
“Sounds like a lovely vision to have,” he smiles at me.
I nod, “yeah, I always imagined my mother and father to be two love struck teenagers who gave me up as to not disappoint their families and because they couldn’t afford me, you know because I imagined them to be so young when they had me, but would always be waiting for me to come home one day. I imagined going home to them and growing into a woman and I would meet a nice guy who wouldn’t hurt me, become a social worker and help out all those needy children, help find them homes they deserved or whatever, have my own children and watch them grow”
“Well,” he looks forward squinting through the forest mist, “you can still do all those things you know, once this is over, who is to say you cannot have a normal life?”
“After this I doubt anything can be normal, I mean, I have far too many....”
“Be quiet,” he cuts me off placing his hand over my mouth, “listen.”
I listen but all I hear the whistling sounds of the winds the rustling leaves and owls, “what? I don’t hear anything,” I whisper.
“You can’t hear that?”
“Hear what?” I look around.
“It’s like chimes, or bells, or Santa.”
Santa, is he serious? He takes my hand and leads me in a different direction. To be honest I’m glad he has taken some of the lead as I had no idea where I was going.
I tried to remember the path where my mother led me but when she did, I was too fixated on her light to pay attention to my surroundings and where I was going at the time. Toby holds on tightly to my hand as he leads me through the woods, following something it appears only he can hear.
We enter a clearing which looks familiar. I look up and I can see the dark skies and the stars twinkle above us, this is it, this is where I saw my mother.
Toby walks around pulling my hand, investigating the area around us, trying to find the sounds that strangely only he can hear. I follow him, I have no choice but to, he has hold of my hand, dragging me with him I still cannot hear anything. Is he going mad?
Suddenly he stops and looks to the trees, “it’s stopped,” he whispers. A white ball of light appears before us, “you see that right, I’m not going crazy am I? You see that yes?” he points, his eyes wide with astonishment.
“I do,” it’s her, it’s my mother. I can never forget that bright white light.
“There you are my children,” there she appears floating before us, my mother, “only a true Voluric would have heard the Sound of Mantaris.”
“Please tell me that you can see the floating woman,” he grips me hand, “otherwise there’s something seriously wrong with me and I will definitely need to see a shrink”
I almost laugh, “no don’t worry I see it, this is what we came here to find.”
He looks at me then looks back at her, “the sound of what now?”
My floating mother laughs, “Mantaris, it is music designed to reach out to Voluric when they have their fellow witch with them, that would be you my dear,” she looks at me smiling.
“Mom,” that sounds weird coming from my mouth, not a word I have used much in my life, “I came here because I don’t know what to do, I did as you said, I went to that Alfie guy and he told me lots of things about me and you and dad and now he’s dead.”
“My daughter,” she lowers down to me, Toby however is slightly fearful and steps back gripping my hand tighter, “Alfie’s death is not your fault, that’s what they want you to believe, that the darkness is you so you go to them, after-all, if they destroy your will to be good what else is there left for you but to go to them.” Her words are exactly what Toby said when I blamed myself for all the death around me.
“Mom, I’m tempted by the darkness, so tempted that I gave myself to that Chanile guy,” I shiver at the thought, “now I don’t know what to do, who I am, what powers I have, I need your help, can you not come back here and help me and you didn’t even tell me that night about the orphanage, about what it really was, why?”
“Where I am I cannot return, not yet, not whilst your father is the ruler, it’s too risky. There are some things you needed to discover on your own, you needed to see yourself not have me tell you. Opening your eyes to the reality was the only way to get you to believe in what was happening. You have great power my daughter and you will discover all of this as you are pushed further into a world I tried so hard to keep you away from.”
Well she didn’t try very hard did she by up and disappearing leaving me on my own, “Oh yeah my magic, this powerful magic everyone keeps telling me that I have, if that’s so then how come I do not know what it is, I cannot control it, things are flying out of my hands whenever it chooses and in different colours, what the hell means what?”
“My daughter, you have the power to bring down humanity or save it, the power within you can cause destruction or peace. The darkness that springs does so when you want to destroy something, when you first used it, did you want to stop something?”
Toby huffs, “no, she did put some very big holes in my bloody kitchen wall though.”
My mother laughs, “that’s only a small amount of power, what were you thinking about,” she looks back at me.
Do I tell her that I was fucked by an evil warlock and I saw death and destruction? She’s looking at me like she already knows the answer anyway, “death, I saw death, I didn’t want it.”
“That’s the evil within you wanting to be set free and destroy something, it will destroy anything you want it to, but you need to use the light within you to stop it, you said different colours, I assume you mean that a white light has projected itself from you.”
She definitely knows more than she is letting on, why doesn’t she just say? Or is she doing the ‘I want you to find out for yourself,’ thing. I nod and agree with her.
“Yeah that came when I was about to be used as a blood pool for her and her....”
I slap my hands over hi
s mouth, “just something I was doing but yes.”
“It’s because you wanted to save a man you knew was pure and light flows within him. Harness that energy and use it to defeat what you need, try not to use the dark magic, the less you use the less seductive it will be and the more the goodness will flourish within you. You are better than they are, I kept you away from them so their dark influences could not be bestowed upon you, you have the power to stop this, focus and you will succeed.”
“But what if I don’t want this, I don’t want this dark gift and the death that comes with it, I just want to be me, you know I want to live a normal life.”
“The Voluric will help you; his blood is precious to them, they crave it for their spell casting, white magic is the most powerful magic of all. A Voluric has no real magic like you, it has it in their blood, if they get hold of it, they gain access to many of the good witches in the world, they can use it against us, by letting it drip over you it takes away the good magic but allows you to keep track of every good witch in the world, but with you, as you are the one, the daughter of the lord warlock, your blood is sacred and the Voluric and you together, you will conquer.”
“Oh great,” Toby gasps, “So they want my blood to cast spells and shit? Great, just great, what am I to them, some sort of seductive milkshake.”
He does have a way with words, both my mother and I give him that, ‘you’re an idiot look.’
I feel a cold chill sending shivers down my spine all of a sudden and that’s when I know, the darkness is near, “mother, I can feel them coming, the temptation is too much, how can I do this?”
“Look inside yourself, use your mind, remember your past and you will know.” She floats away into the distance and before I can ask another question, she is gone.
Look to my past? I don’t remember much before my sixth birthday. Pacing backwards and forwards as Toby get’s increasingly nervous; my mind races back over the conversation with Alfie. He told me I had been using magic all my life, but I didn’t remember doing it, then he told me about how the magic in me and my imagination created everyone at the orphanage after Doreen had died, the state of the orphanage was due to my sadness at being alone.
He said my mother used to cast spells and show me but she is in that Oreneeras place, did she show me how to do them and I simply don’t remember?
“Willow,” Toby whispers, but I ignore him, still pacing backwards and forward trying to piece everything together. Spells? Me? Can I honestly cast spells? If I can how would I do them? “Willow,” he whisper’s again sounding a little more worried but again I ignore him, “Willow!” he screams.
“For god sake Toby what?” I yell back, but he doesn’t say anything, he just points. I turn and look behind me and there surrounding us is the darkness.
I stare into it and don’t move, I feel Toby tugging on my arm but I stare darkness in the face, “Umm, Willow, I don’t fancy being someone’s lunch right now.”
I move away from him and walk up to the darkness, “you can float there all you want but I’ve had enough,” I scream confidentially, “I don’t want this, I don’t want you, do what you will but you will never have what you want from me.”
“Okay Mike Tyson,” Toby pulls me away, “enough with the fists of fury, fucking run.”
I do as he says sensing his fear and we both run as fast as we can out of the woods. Toby is a faster runner than me so I feel him pull on me trying to get back to the main road.
“Wait,” I pull on him catching my breath, “why are we running, shouldn’t we be fighting back?”
“Are you nuts,” he replies breathless, “you need to figure out what you’re doing first, not running in there guns blazing without a plan, that’s how bad things happen, now come on,” he grabs me and pulls me.
Running as fast as we can I try and take a glimpse back to see if the darkness is still behind us, it could have been anyone. One of the warriors, Chanile or my father, Toby is right though, I need to keep running, now is not the time to fight them even though I had every intention of coming here to do just that if it was needed.
I feel a tug on my hair which pulls me backwards. I scream as I feel like my hair is being torn from my skull. I can’t think or stop it, I hold on trying to release whatever it is that has me gripped so tightly. It fucking hurts!
I see Toby running after me as I get dragged through the woods, sticks and debris scratch underneath me, everything hurts, I need to stop, I want it to stop. I scream at the top of my lungs as Toby runs faster in-front of me to try and catch me.
“Let her go,” he screams, he reaches out for me and a burst of white light shoots from his arms, through his hands and straight at the darkness causing it to let go. I fall back as I come to a halt and my head smacks down the ground.
Toby stands in shock, how the hell did he do that? I thought he had no real magic? He grabs me, pulls me up. I look at him in disbelief, what the hell just happened?
We stare at each-other as we both wonder the same thing, he knows what I am thinking and I know what he is thinking, but we do not have time to stop.
Gripping hold of each-other he and I run as fast as we can until we are out of the woods and back on the main road. We never run back to the orphanage, always to open road, seems safer to do that than run back to somewhere where it seems they have full control.
We keep running to get as far away from the woods as possible. I look back and see nothing, as I look above, the sun is out, we are out of the darkness.
“Are you okay?” I ask him as we walk slowly down the road and I catch my breath.
“I don’t know to be honest,” he stares at his hands which are now shaking, “I just wanted you to be okay, I wanted them to stop, I felt an urge and when I screamed it just came out. I thought I didn’t have any magic, this has never happened to me before no matter how badly I have wanted them to stop. How can this happen to me? I don’t have magic I don’t, the light just came out.”
“I know I saw,” I look at his face, he is clearly uncomfortable with the situation, “I guess it could be your connection with me that brings it out of you, maybe that is why you have never been able to do that until now because before now you never needed to use something like that. Look, I’m just as shocked as you. Maybe there is a way we can figure this all out, surely we can get some answers from a psychic or something?”
“A psychic?” he laughs, “oh yeah that will go down well telling other people, like ‘oh by the way white light shoots from my body and she’s a witch and warlocks and demons are chasing us’” he says dramatically, “I’m sure the men in white coats will come along and take us away, crazy Susie and her sidekick locked in a padded room for life....”
“Will you stop?” I stop walking and look at him, “I don’t know all the fucking answers or who is going to be able to help us n this bloody mess but I’m trying okay, there isn’t going to be a book like ‘how to defeat the evil warlock,’ or ‘what is that bright white light I see,’ for god’s sake I’m trying okay, will you just stop being an ass please?”
He sighs, “You’re right I’m sorry, I guess I’m just freaking out a little over here, I mean, this is a lot to take in. A few days ago I was a guy you know, hanging with my friends, sipping some beers and now I’m here with you, chasing ghosts, warlocks and trying not to have the life drained out of me.”
We smile at each-other and continue walking up the road. We’re not chasing ghosts but I get where he is coming from. I don’t know how I am going to do this or what it is that is going to help me, thoughts of Alfie and my mother flash in my mind as I try to figure out what type of magic I have within me.
There is so much to figure out and I’m afraid I will not have the time to, it will just be a case of ‘when I need it, it will come.’
Winging it I suppose!
