by Tenaya Jayne
Perhaps there are others. How do you know you are the last?
“Mum told me right before she died. There is no question, Owl. I am the last witch. I feel it…deep down inside my heart. Just as I feel the wizards, wherever they are. It’s the truth. I am the last.”
Before he opened his eyes, Alex knew he was sick. More ill than he had ever been before. Cold rushed into his eyes as he opened them. Through the grubby window, the sun washed the space in whiskey-colored light. Gasping, he sat up quickly, unsure where he was. His head hammered.
He scanned the unknown room. He sat on a lumpy, quilt-covered bed. A wooden chair occupied the corner. Dried herbs hung in bundles from the ceiling, glass bottles and a few well-worn books were crammed on a shelf. Moss and roots grew through the joints of the log walls.
Shivers and sorrow pricked under his skin as he remembered the night and the witch. His hands shook as he stood. The hair on his head touched the low ceiling. Light outlined the door. He pushed it open and stepped out into the morning.
Smoke wafted into his face. He blinked it from his eyes as he approached her. Maggie was her name, he remembered. She had her back to him, roasting something over the flames. His stomach rolled at the smell. He was starving and nauseated at the same time.
“Good morning, Alex,” she said brightly, not turning to look at him. “Did you sleep well?”
“I…uh…”
He’d tried, so desperately, to convince himself that last night was nothing more than a dream, but he wasn’t able to continue anymore. Maggie turned. The open smile on her face vanished. Her cheeks flushed, and her eyes filled with tears.
“This is real.” His voice shook. “All of it was real…”
She came to him and grasped him in a tight hug. “I’m so sorry.”
She was the cause of all this. But at that moment, his heart tore so viciously he hugged her back, accepting the comfort she offered. Slight as it was. He was reduced to the lowest possible level. The pain swallowed him whole, and all there was that let him know he was still alive were the arms of a stranger around him. The pain and his pulse were his only possessions.
“I want to go home. I can’t. Can I?”
“Not unless you want to die.”
He pulled away from her and dashed the tears off his cheeks. He tried to steady his breath but was only able to for a second. More tears came, burning his cold eyes. He turned away from her. “I want to say goodbye to my family…my friends…Isolde. She loves me. She will still love me, even like this.”
“You think so? You don’t sound so sure.”
He spun on her. “What do you know?” he shouted. “You’re a witch. No one has ever loved you!”
The slap she cracked on his face was surprisingly fierce. Her eyes flashed fiery autumn colors. “Damn you! How dare you say that to me? I went out of my way to save your life last night, and this is how you repay me?” She trembled in rage.
“What are you talking about? You saved my life? You destroyed my life!”
All the color drained from her flushed cheeks and she turned and walked a few paces away from him. “I’m sorry…I understand you’re suffering. I won’t hold your words against you…not today.”
Alex exhaled and touched his stinging cheek, unsure what to do or say next.
“I did destroy your life…” Her voice was dejected. “It was an accident. I’m sorry. I’ve said it a few times now. I’m sorry. I would take it back if I could, but I cannot. You have to choose a new path for yourself, either that or go home and die, only to be remembered as a monster by your loved ones.”
Her words rang true and poured more pain through the cracks of his broken heart. “How…what did you mean when you said you saved my life?”
“I thought perhaps they would come looking for you. I staged your death next to the stag you killed. My friend Bear helped. If anyone tracks you, they will find the gruesome scene and go home with the knowledge you were attacked and killed by a bear while hunting.”
Alex envisioned it: his parents and brother looking on what she described. His stomach pitched. There would be a funeral. Isolde would be in mourning for six months, forced to wear black. Someone else would claim the house he built and make it theirs. All of his blacksmith tools would be sold or stolen. His life truly was over, but he was still alive. The ground that had always been solid under his feet fell away. He floated, adrift in a colorless, directionless, nameless reality. Was there a point in living? In finding a new path? Creating one? This wound was too new. The pain too fresh for him to answer.
He touched the burn mark on his chest with one fingertip and contemplated his morals. He’d been a good and honorable person. He did no harm. He cared. Maybe not enough to speak out when he should, but still he was a good person…or had been. Necromancer. That’s what the witch called him. She’d made him into something evil. Given him an unnatural, immoral power that should never be used. Could he even control it?
“Alex! Alexander!” Shouts echoed through the forest. “Where are you, Alex?”
Maggie’s eyes widened as she faced him again. His breath caught in his throat. He almost called out. Half a word came out of his mouth before he clamped his lips shut. His heart raced, and he began to shake. What should he do? He looked at her desperately. She came to him and held out her hand. He grasped it as though it was a lifeline.
The shouting of the search party moved closer.
“They’re almost there,” she whispered. “They’ll see the blood in a second. You should go back to the house, close the door, and stop up your ears.”
He nodded, but then it was too late. A woman’s scream rose up through the trees. He was unmade by the sound. It was his mother. He covered his mouth with his hand. Her grief echoed through the forest, bouncing in his ears. The sound tunneled deep into him. He would never forget the sound of his mother crying as she realized he was dead. How could he not go to her? I’m alive, Mom. I’m here. He couldn’t move at all. He just stood there, holding Maggie’s hand and dying inside. Because if he did go to his mother, it wouldn’t stop her pain. Just the look of him would mutate her pain into something worse. So for the love of her, he held still and let her believe he was dead.
An hour passed, and he still didn’t move an inch. He listened to it all. His father and brother. His friends all came and looked on the place where they believed he died. Among the voices he knew so well, Isolde was not there. He was thankful. She didn’t need to see that. She would suffer enough as it was. And yet underneath that relief was a twinge of pain. Why was she not among those searching for him?
Maggie didn’t try to move him. She stood next to him the whole time and held his hand. He couldn’t account for the way he felt about the witch, but all through that time… The worst of his whole life…the firm grip of her hand grounded him, and he was thankful for it.
Through pain, he was born the first time. And through pain he was reborn, as someone new. Someone with no history and no name.
Chapter Three
Two days passed. Maggie took care of Alex, allowing him to occupy her one-room house. She brewed him a strong drink that kept him sleepy and numb. When he woke, she’d give him more to drink, and in a matter of minutes, he’d be out cold again. She felt sorry for him, and so guilty that she had accidently been the cause of his pain, that she was more than likely to encourage and enable him in self-destructive behaviors.
He surfaced in the late morning on the third day, looking hungover. His hair hung in his icy blue eyes that were horribly bloodshot with dark circles under them. He looked around as though he were lost and confused.
“Hey!” she called to him. “You need to eat, Alex.”
“Don’t call me that,” he snapped. “That’s not my name anymore.”
“Okay,” she said slowly, handing him a hunk of the bread she’d made earlier that morning. “What do you want me to call you?”
He scowled and answered her with a shrug as he tucked into the bread. “I do
n’t give a damn what you call me.”
She smiled broadly. “This will be fun. I’ll call you whatever I want to in the moment. And you’ll answer to it, won’t you, Blondie?”
Her attempt to get a response from him felt flat. He was too dejected to care. He just shrugged again, looking at the ground. She handed him more bread. He took it, his eyes suddenly bright.
“How long was I out? How many days has it been since I died?”
“This is the third day. Why?”
He closed his eyes and exhaled raggedly. “My funeral…it will be today.”
“Are you going?”
His eyes snapped open and onto hers. “I…are you going to try and stop me?”
“No. I thought you might try to go to it. I could help you go undetected. I can’t make you invisible, but I can make you unrecognizable. Not that you aren’t already, but just in case someone looked too closely at you and did realize it was you. This would be safer.”
“A spell?”
“Yes.”
“No, thank you.” His words were polite, but his tone was anything but.
She pursed her lips and looked down, determined to hold her temper. “Fine. You’re a total mess, though. If you don’t want to draw attention to yourself I suggest you bathe, because I could smell you the second you stepped outside.”
He looked down at his clothes and grimaced. “What good will that do? I could wash up, but my clothes will still reek and I’ve nothing else to wear.”
Maggie smiled and flexed her fingers. She closed her eyes. He took a step back from her as she began whispering words. Light swirled in the air in front of her. She lifted her arms and caught the folded clothes that materialized out of thin air.
“Here. Your size, I think.”
When he stepped back again she thrust them into his chest. “They’re just clothes, for goodness sake! Nothing dangerous. If anything’s dangerous here, it’s the funk you’re emitting right now.”
“All right,” he snapped. “You’re really scary, you know that?”
“The stream is that way.” She pointed over his shoulder.
He stalked toward the stream. She waited till he was out of earshot before chuckling to herself. She heard him splash into the water and then howl and curse because of how cold it was. Her smile faded as she thought about what he was about to do. He might not survive his funeral…if he was discovered. Or even if he wasn’t, being there, hearing it, seeing it, might destroy him again. He’d already been destroyed; this might be too much for him to come back from.
Maggie wrung her hands together as she pondered. She would go with him. He wouldn’t know she was there. She would stay in the shadows unless he needed her.
Before he came back, she decided to make him something else. A gift.
Naked, dripping wet, and frozen, Alex dressed quickly in the clothes Maggie had given him. His eyebrows shot up as his arms slid through the sleeves. The shirt was soft, warm, and the perfect size. The socks and pants, too. He put his boots back on, grateful he didn’t have to put his old socks back on. Gross.
Fully dressed, he stood straight, looking at the water, his eyes sliding out of focus. What was he thinking? How could he go to his own funeral? What the hell for? Why did he want to? Morbid curiosity? Yes, that was there, he acknowledged. More than anything he wanted to say goodbye, even if it was a silent goodbye. But did he really have the strength to go and not speak to his family? To hide and not touch Isolde one last time.
He closed his eyes and looked at her beautiful face in his mind. His stomach dropped. He’d lost her. She wasn’t his anymore. She would marry someone else. The pain of this loss was so strong it resonated all the way up his spine to his neck and stabbed him through the head. His whole life, she had been his. He’d protected her, cherished her, loved her, and desired her. Trying to let go was like cutting out his own heart with a small, dull blade.
Alex forced himself to exhale. Let go. Let go.
He wanted to cry but refused the urge. Instead, he marched back to where Maggie waited. She glanced at him as he approached and smiled. She had something leather rolled and tucked under her arm.
“Looks like everything fit just fine.”
“Yeah…Thanks,” he said grudgingly.
“Here.” She held the leather up. “A guilt offering. I thought you might like it.”
He took the black hooded riding jacket from her hands, momentarily distracted from his grief. “Damn.” He slipped his arms through the sleeves. The jacket fit perfectly. The hem fell six inches below his knee. He pulled the hood up, shrouding his face in shadow.
“Like it?”
He snorted. “Yeah. I like it…Thank you.”
“Here, you might want these, too.” She handed him a pair of black, fingerless, leather gloves. “Your palms could be a danger to others right now. Be careful what you touch.”
He slipped the soft leather over his hungry hands.
“Ready to go?”
He sighed. “As ready as I’ll ever be, I guess…If I don’t come back…”
“I’ll assume you’re dead or you’ve moved on.”
“Yeah. Okay,” he said awkwardly.
“I know we don’t know each other. We’ve hardly spoken since you came here…and I know you hate me, but…you’re welcome to come back here and stay with me…we could look out for each other.”
He frowned at her for a moment, a number of rude retorts going through his mind, but he held them inside as he thought about the fact she didn’t have to say that. She didn’t have to offer it.
“Thanks…um…bye.” He walked away from her.
Alex traveled toward the village, his mind blank except for the question, What are you doing? repeating over and over in his head. Maybe I’m committing suicide.
He walked at a steady pace until he reached the halfway point. Stopping short, he couldn’t move. The sunlight felt stingingly uncomfortable. He closed his eyes, feeling the coldness inside them. He should go back. This was the worst idea. He shook himself, moved ahead, and stopped questioning. This was happening, no matter the danger or the outcome.
Everything around him was familiar. The woods, so close to the village, were his second home as a child. A pang vibrated through his heart as he realized he was saying goodbye to the woods as well. The outskirts of the village were silent. He couldn’t see or hear anyone. He moved toward the square, where he knew his funeral was probably already happening.
The crowd was quiet, heads bowed. He kept to the back of the people, pulling his hood further down, shadowing his face. The only noise was the snapping of the bonfire in the center of the square. He looked around for Isolde. She was in the front, next to his parents. Her head was covered in a black veil. He couldn’t see her face, and she didn’t move at all, as if she’d been carved of stone.
Brenden clung to Mother, supporting her as she sobbed quietly. His little brother looked older to him in that moment. The circumstance was forcing him to grow up prematurely. Brenden’s eyes were bloodshot, and his cheeks were flushed, but he held his tears inside and acted the man. Alex was proud of him. He wasn’t the only one to look older, he noticed as his father stepped forward to the fire, his face drawn.
The hatchet Alex had used to kill the buck was clasped in his father’s hands. He held it up for everyone to see.
“Alexander was so many good things. Honest, loyal, and strong. He was a fine blacksmith, as most of you know, from needing his services over the last few years. This hatchet was the last thing he forged.” His father swallowed, and then dropped the hatchet into the flames of the bonfire.
Still holding tightly to Brenden’s hand, his mother stepped forward. Alex closed his eyes when he saw what she held up. Her voice shook so hard it was almost impossible to understand her words.
“I made this when I first knew I was pregnant with Alex…my…my first born…my sweet son.”
Her whole body shook as she threw his baby blanket into the flames. Alex lean
ed against the nearest tree as his heart shattered. Why had he come to see this? Why? He turned and walked away. He wouldn’t watch his brother or Isolde burn something that was tied to their memories of him. He’d seen all he could stand. But he didn’t get too far away before all the people at his funeral cried out his name.
It was the custom, once the family finished speaking and putting what they brought into the fire, for everyone to say the name of the dead. Some shouted, others cried, and some whispered his name. The sound echoed over the tops of the trees and sent an icy chill down his back. Alex was truly dead. So who was he? He walked through the village and back out into the wilds. The shadows of the trees wrapped around him. His eyes felt frozen. His hands burned cold. And his heart turned to ice as he accepted his own death.
He sat down, leaning back against a tree trunk and waited. He was alone for only a few moments when Maggie came up beside him and sat down.
“Hey, Blondie. What can I do for you?” Her voice was so warm and soothing.
He sighed. “Nothing.”
“What are you going to do now? Have you lost your will to live?”
He closed his eyes. “What’s it to you?”
When she didn’t answer he looked at her. She rubbed the stone on her necklace and chewed her lip.
“What?” he asked her.
“I’ve seen things, in the stone… Sometimes it shows me snatches of the future. I didn’t see you at first, but I do now. You’re important. The way you are now. Your transformation was necessary… There’s a storm coming.”
He glanced up at the cloudless sky. “Obviously.”
She smirked. “Not that kind of a storm. I don’t know when it will arrive, but only you can calm it.”
“Me?”
“You.”
He rubbed his cold eyes. “I don’t know anything. I don’t know where I’m going, what I’m doing, or even who I am. Leave me alone. I’m not ready to leave all this behind, yet.”
