by Linda Jordan
“Your soul has been stolen,” said Aste.
Amanda asked, “Who the hell stole my soul?”
“The Dark Queen, who rules this world.”
“You’re joking,” said Amanda.
“She’s not joking,” said Mira.
“Does this Dark Queen have a name?”
“Yes,” said Aste, “but I will not say it again. To say the name is to invite her presence and she is not welcome here.”
“But you said Roderick and Ronan’s names.” Mira was puzzled.
“They do not have her power nor her intent to do harm,” said Aste, looking thoughtful.
Amanda turned to Mira, gave her a long look and said, “You’re both out of your minds. If souls do exist, which I’m not even sure about, they certainly can’t be stolen. I’m tired.” She lay down, rolled away from them on her side and went back to sleep.
“I warned you she might be a little difficult.”
“Difficult! After all I’ve gone through trying to find her...,” Mira reached to wake her up.
“Let her sleep, she will need her rest. You must realize you will not get help from her. You may have to drag her through this whole ordeal.”
“I can’t do all this myself.”
“You may find assistance along the way,” Aste said. She nodded towards Dylan who stood by the kitchen window his hands stretched out in front of him. A foot above his upturned palms hovered three glowing orbs of light. He giggled as he moved his hands and the lights followed his movements like juggling balls. When he realized Mira and Aste watched him, his concentration broke. The balls of light swirled around him then danced out the window.
“It seems the faeries have adopted him,” Aste said with a sly smile. “They will help you.”
“What help will faeries be against a Queen who can steal souls and her Sorcerer?” Mira noticed that her grimy fingernails seemed to dig into her palms of their own accord. Despair was overwhelming her. The question lay heavily on her shoulders. Her neck and head ached from tension
“Perhaps more than you know. You have a choice here. You can either have faith things will work out, that you are here for a purpose and forge ahead, or you can give up and take your sister home. Either way, your life will never be the same again.” Aste returned to the kitchen, humming quietly.
She sat for a long time staring into the fire, listening to all the voices who didn’t believe in her, mainly her mother’s, “You aren’t a Witch, I just won’t believe it.” Mira could still feel the pain of her mom throwing her out, even though it happened when she was twelve. Aunt Rita, disappointed in her, saying, “You’ll never be any good at magic until you believe in yourself. I think you need to take a few months off, maybe a year or two. Go back home.”
Mira felt like she’d been punched in the gut. Tears streamed down her face. The scent of lemon balm steeping into tea wafted over to her.
She sat and worried. She couldn’t just take Amanda back home without her soul and would never forgive herself for not trying.
Mira heard the wind pick up outside and the tree groan in response. The house swayed slightly with the tree. She looked at Aste who was helping Dylan peel some sort of orange-colored, oniony thing. Aste seemed not to notice the wind.
She got up and helped Aste and Dylan prepare more potions.
“I will be coming with you for a portion of your journey, but must part ways with you after we cross the high pass. I have something I must do. A mistake to rectify,” said Aste.
“How will I know where to go and what to do?”
“I will make a map for you to Black Opal City. As for what to do, I think you will have to play that by ear, as they say in your world,” said Aste.
“How do you know about our world?”
“I used to travel a lot. There are portals between the lands that one can use. Of course they do change as the land is alive. I have a few other methods as well.”
She felt sure Aste wasn’t going to tell her what those methods were. “Why does your house seem so small from the outside, but much larger inside?”
“Magic, my dear.”
“What does that mean? What kind of magic?”
“The best kind, illusion. On the outside of my house I create what I want people to see and think about me. By the time they meet me and come inside most people have their minds made up about who I am and what this tree house is.”
“What do you mean the ‘land is alive’?”
“In your world you see the earth as dead, static. She is not. She is a living, breathing being. In our world we recognize this and as a result she lives and breathes more visibly. Even this house is alive and growing. She grows to fit my needs,” said Aste, gesturing to two extra beds now sitting by the fireplace, a small one for Dylan and a larger one for Mira
“How did you do that?” she asked.
“I did nothing. The land sees a need and grows this house for me, as I do her work, healing others.”
“I don’t understand, how does the land live?” she asked, cutting up some potatoes Aste set in front of her.
All this seemed hard to believe, although Mira should be the last person to doubt. She should be studying to be a Witch, a Healer. Why was believing in magic so difficult for her? She could believe in little things like synchronicity and your own ability to change your life, but this felt overwhelming. Growing houses and living worlds were Magic with a capital M.
“I think I will leave that for you to discover on your journey.”
“Is this true in the other lands you know about?”
“I know of several other worlds besides yours and yes the lands are alive, although in at least one of those worlds the land is clearly male.”
“Male?” asked Mira. “How can land be female or male?” This made no sense to her. Mira spent a lot of time reading books on Wicca and Goddess studies, but the whole ‘moon and earth as feminine’, ‘sky as masculine’ stuff made no sense to her. Rita always said she had too much intellect, too little intuition going on.
“I think you should ask why you think it should be neuter. When your world stopped thinking of the land as female, it became much easier for different peoples to view it as dead, just a patch of earth to be cut up, sold and abused. That culture saw the land as a commodity to sell, use up, then throw away. That is rape and murder. The things stolen from the land this way, food, shelter and luxuries are products of those crimes.”
Mira realized, with a shock, that Aste described earth. The Western World, maybe the Eastern part too for all she knew, had lived this way for a very long time. Too much of the earth had been thrown away until people began to realize there was no away anymore. “So what’s the alternative?”
“How much better would it be if you realized the land was alive, nourished her and helped her to create what you need to survive and thrive without the expectation of ownership and then abandonment when she became worn out? The gifts she could give would be beyond your dreams.”
Mira moved on to cutting up onions, her head spinning. The onions brought her back to herself as her eyes started watering. Even as Mira rubbed her eyes, she felt herself growing sleepy. All she wanted to do was lie down. She wiped her hands on a towel and began to walk toward the fireplace, watching the room change as she went. Black tendrils moved through the air, pulling her towards the floor. She felt heavy. Sinking in a chair she vaguely heard Dylan cry out, “Go outside. Stinky.”
She slumped down and rested her head on the back.
Aste cried out “Ventilate!”
She watched as the other end of the house vanished. Windows and doors that hadn’t existed before opened. A strong breeze blew through. The fresh air felt bracing to Mira’s face, invigorating her.
Aste stood in the center of the room, her lips moving, no sound coming out. Mira saw amber smoke swirling around her and circling out to the rest of the room. The missing walls reappeared, the windows and doors slammed shut with a bang. Dylan crouched under the ki
tchen table, shivering.
Mira felt alert and awake again. She rose and picked up Dylan. “What was that?” she asked Aste.
“The Queen,” Aste said grimly. “She caused a potion to go wrong and tried to put us to sleep.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure,” said Aste, walking to the kitchen window and peering out. She opened the window, letting the small falcon in. She whispered to the bird and off it flew. Aste closed the window and wiped her hands on a towel. “That should take care of it.” Aste’s face looked unconvinced.
Mira tried to get her to explain, but Aste would say nothing more.
Amanda woke up again, briefly, in the evening.
“Why did she want my soul? Why not someone else’s?” Amanda demanded to know before she would drink the medicine.
“Your soul is very kind and compassionate or you may live near a portal,” replied Aste, with great patience.
“So how do I get my soul back?” she wailed, holding Dylan tightly on her lap, more for her comfort than his, it seemed to Mira.
“You and your sister will need to solve that when you get there.”
“How long will that take?” she asked, scowling.
“Four days.”
“So if we have nine days total,” said Mira, “that leaves us four days to get her soul back.”
“No, yesterday began the first day and tomorrow we have more preparations to make. Amanda will not be strong enough to leave until the day after. You will have less than a day if we arrive late on the eighth day. She will perform the ritual just after high moon, which comes in the middle of that night,” said Aste.
“No, I can go tomorrow,” Amanda proclaimed.
“Can you walk?” asked Aste, her arms folded and a look of disbelief on her face.
Mira got up from the bed to let Amanda out. Dylan scrambled off the bed, “Walk, Mommy,” he said, his face wrinkled with worry.
Amanda tried to stand but collapsed into Mira’s arms and back onto the bed.
“Why am I so weak?”
“Because your soul has been stolen and you have a black hole in your psyche and your energetic body,” said Aste. “It is to be expected. You will not be ready before the third day and even then you probably will not be walking without help. Now, drink this,” she said, handing the cup to Amanda.
Amanda took the cup reluctantly and drank the liquid. She gave Aste a dirty look, then curled up into a fetal position and went back to sleep.
“Will we be able to travel?” asked Mira. She felt worried. How could any of this work?
“Yes, she will be weak, but the closer she gets to her soul the stronger she will become. Still, I must find some horses tomorrow.”
Aste got up and walked to the kitchen window. She whispered a few words out of it. Mira heard rustling in the tree outside the window.
Dylan’s face lit up and he said, “Faya?”
“No, no faeries tonight. They are busy elsewhere. But the land will provide,” said Aste.
“No Faya,” he said, clearly disappointed.
Dylan and Mira climbed into their new beds and Aste went off into another part of the house. Dylan bounced. He talked to Freddie. He talked to Mira. It seemed hours before she could settle him into sleep.
In her grogginess, Mira thought she lay in bed back home or at Aunt Rita’s and the TV was on in the other room. Drifting off to sleep, she heard Aste laughing and could have sworn she heard Oprah Winfrey’s voice in the background. Then her dreams turned dark with black tendrils invading her ears, nose and mouth, choking the breath from her. A shadowed woman laughed as Mira tried to breathe.
Chapter 9 - Mira
“You will need different clothes to blend with the trees and shrubs and to seem as if you belong here,” Aste told Mira. “Try these on.”
She handed pants and blouses in green tones to Amanda and Mira, brown pants and a shirt to Dylan. She also gave them simple, brown leather shoes with brown, wool socks. Capes with hoods were for the sisters and a sweater to Dylan. “It will be cold in the mountains.”
Aste wore a brown split skirt with a blouse and brown cape. which made her look like a normal person from this world, Mira guessed. Aste braided her long, gray hair, coiling it on top of her head.
“I’m not wearing these drabby clothes,” said Amanda. “No way.”
“Fine, we’ll just go home without your soul,” snapped Mira, impatiently. “This isn’t exactly a picnic for us either.”
Amanda glared at her and grudgingly put the clothes on.
Amanda was acting like a three year old. Even Dylan didn’t act as badly. Other than running off while she slept that once, Dylan hadn’t acted out much at all. And he’d just lost his mom.
She kept telling herself, seven more days, just seven more days. We’ll have her soul back, we’ll finish it all and go back home. If she didn’t kill Amanda first.
They spent the day packing food, infusions and herbs. Aste planned several stops to sell herbs and infusions along the way. She had customers who lived a long distance away and there were shops in the coastal towns where she traded periodically. They stashed their packs with the traveling clothes and food in a cave a short distance from Aste’s home, so they wouldn’t have to carry them all down in the morning. It meant several trips up and down the stairs, but it would give them a faster start in the morning. She wondered how they would carry it all. So far no horses had appeared.
Amanda worked hard to stay awake, but was crabby all day. She wanted to try the stairs, but Aste wouldn’t let her, keeping her busy packing things. Thankfully, she collapsed into sleep just after dinner. Dylan played with the faeries. Aste drew a map of their journey for Mira. It seemed like a straightforward road, but the longer Mira looked at it, the more dubious she felt.
Mira fell asleep quickly and dreamt about hearing the tune from Jeopardy in the background and Aste running on a treadmill in a tropical flowered, crop top with workout shorts. Her hair wasn’t long and gray, but short and spiky.
She woke to a blazing fire. It felt a little too warm.
She snapped awake, fully alert. Flames jumped out of the fireplace. Herbs burnt on the ceiling, filling the room with thick smoke.
Aste screamed, “Wake up!” and pulled Amanda from her bed. Mira got up quickly and followed Dylan to the door.
“No, the stairway is burning. Out the window,” cried Aste, pointing
Mira pulled Dylan to the large open window opposite the front door. A rope ladder hung down. The window had not been there yesterday.
Dylan quickly grabbed Freddie the dinosaur. As Mira picked him up, he clung to her neck, wrapping his legs around her waist. The fresh air felt rejuvenating. Her throat burned and eyes felt raw from the smoke. She climbed down the long ladder through the dark tree, kicking branches out of the way. Shaking with fear, she went down. Her soft hands burned from hanging on so tightly to the rope. Above, she could see Aste coming down the ladder, carrying Amanda. Dylan looked up and kept silent. Then he buried his face in her chest.
It was hard going. She gasped for breath when smoke blew her way. Burning branches fell from above. Looking up she saw flames clawing out the window. They needed to get down before the rope burned.
As she descended the ladder, more fires grew visible. The tree burned near the trunk where the staircase connected, and above the house. How it could be that the stairs burned if the fire began by escaping the fireplace?
Her legs collapsed upon hitting the ground. She looked around. Who might be waiting for any survivors of the fire? As she set Dylan on the ground she gasped. He was covered with spines. He had quietly transformed into a porcupine with a tail. He spun around squealing with delight, tossing Freddie in the air with his tiny paws. She kept her weight on the ladder to hold it taut, astounded that Aste could climb down and help Amanda at the same time.
Mira’s skin tingled, feeling itchy. She looked at her hands holding the rope. Hair and spines grew and her fingers shortened to bec
ome paws. She tried to keep her weight on the ladder. It took some time for her to realize Aste was changing her. Mira’s eyes adjusted to the darkness. She shrank to the size of a real porcupine. She felt each individual spine and whatever it touched.
Aste and Amanda made it to the ground. Mira watched closely as both transformed into porcupines. The look of amazement and surprise on Amanda’s face was priceless.
They scurried away from the large tree. It felt strange to run on all four legs. As they bounded away the tree exploded into flames behind them. Only then did Mira realize that Aste had kept the flames at bay, along with carrying Amanda and changing them all. She marveled at how powerful a magician Aste must be, yet how subtle she was about showing it.
They wove between trees, Dylan touched Mira to keep close. He carried Freddie in his mouth. It was dark, yet with porcupine eyes she could see in the murkiness. Aste stopped, rose up on two feet, looking around, her nose twitching. She ran over the rocks to the cave, where they had stored their provisions, and pushed aside the leather flap.
Mira felt the walls surround her as she ran inside the hole. It felt good and safe to be surrounded by the earth. Once they were inside, Aste chanted under her breath rearranging the leather flap over the cave’s mouth. Mira transformed back into a human again. It felt as if the spines drew back into her skin. This time the change hurt and Dylan cried out in pain. Her eyes went back to normal and became night blind again. She sat, leaning against one of the packs. Aste stopped chanting and a dim light appeared in her hand. Mira thought about the packs and wondered if Aste had suspected there would be a problem. Was that why they moved everything out of the house yesterday? Was the fire intentional? She turned to Aste, who looked exhausted, yet had held all of them safe.
It was a small cave. They could sit, but not stand. The air smelled clean and Mira felt fairly safe. Amanda looked worn out and Dylan was alert. Aste seemed deep in thought, so Mira kept silent. The light went out. Outside there was a loud, long, crashing sound and Mira felt the earth shake. Dylan climbed onto her lap and she held him tightly.
“My tree is gone,” said Aste, quietly.
