by Sheena Bandy
"Your Cosmetic Magic-" Maji was going to ask why she'd changed, but Trina bid her to be silent.
"If you go out that window, you will have stepped into Astral." Trina said, "But while you stand in this room, so you're still in this girl's dream."
"How do I get back to my body?" Maji asked, wringing her fingers together slightly.
"Your Silver Cord must be pulled." Trina answered almost instantly.
"How do I get that to happen?" Maji looked at the window leading to a very bleak piece of Astral.
For a while, Trina was silent. Maji walked to the door that led to the bathroom before. She opened the door and looked at the storm of the little girl's nightmare. She turned back to Trina, who looked anxious and tossed a black metal object toward Maji.
A handgun.
She would have to shoot the child to get back to her own body. Maji had never used a gun before but she had a pretty good idea how they worked. She wondered if, when it came down to it, she would be able to go through it. This little girl hadn't done anything wrong. She'd been a random dream that Maji had fallen into. And for that, she would die in her sleep.
And then there was Trina. She didn't know why one of the mages would help her, even if it was Trina. Morpheus had turned his back on her and taken away her powers. She'd been cast out by the leader they didn't dare to disobey. But Trina was here, in disguise. Trina gave her a ghost of a nod and Maji stepped out into the storm.
She walked down the same path back and over the horizon where the little girl had run. It felt like it could have been days ago to Maji, but it was probably only minutes. Dreams only lasted minutes.
She trekked through cold mud that squished between her toes and reminded herself that it would all be over soon. But it was raining and then it was snowing and it wasn't her dream but she felt the cold all the same.
Maji saw the fuzzy outlines of monsters through the snow. Though they were every bit capable of killing the small child, they stood above her and just tried to look scary. She had curled into a ball at the base of a stone wall and was weakly sobbing into her hands. Maji remembered when she was small and frightened. Her heroes had betrayed her too, as all heroes eventually do.
Maji marched towards the monsters and noticed that they were paying no more attention to her than they had before. She stepped between them and looked down at the sobbing child. She was kind of pretty, but not a beauty queen. She had brown eyes and a few freckles. Her face was splotchy and red. Maji lifted the gun and pressed it to the little girl's forehead.
And hesitated.
She looked at the monsters that had been chasing the girl. One seemed to be male and the other female. Were these supposed to be her parents? Maybe this little girl had been abused. And now Maji, the only Human looking being here, was going to shoot her in the face. She closed her eyes and listened to the choking sobs. This was gonna suck.
She breathed out and pulled the trigger.
And time stopped.
The child and the nightmare evaporated as a tug at the base of her skull pulled her away from all of it, away from Astral, and straight to her body.
But it couldn't pull her all the way inside.
Chapter 10
'A knot in my Silver Cord.'
Maji could see herself, her body, as it was suspended in the clear glass coffin. The coffin floated among other coffins in the otherwise bare room. She looked through the other coffins at the mostly unfamiliar faces. They all wore the same kind of silver collar that was welded around her own neck. She squinted to see one of the faces in a far corner - a face she thought she knew. The girl from Astral.
The girl's collar was gold rather than the silver like all the others.
With the knot keeping her from going back into her body and the collar keeping her from using her powers, Maji saw no option but to abandon her body here and go find her daughter.
The hallway outside was filled with gold. Gold frames on gold tinted pictures, gold rails along gold speckled staircases, and gold vases sitting on gold rimmed pedestals at every available spot. She wondered why there hadn't been hardly any gold in the house they'd shared. She had to stop herself from thinking about the girl with the gold necklace. She knew what that meant and she would only feel worse if she lingered on it.
Maji climbed the staircase and realized that she couldn't hear her own footsteps and that made the house way too quiet. She listened for some kind of sound from anyone, though she'd be better off if she were completely alone. Just herself and all the others, frozen in the crystal coffins.
'There must be someone.' She thought. She finally reached the top of the steps and went through the door. She'd been keeping her eyes down, by habit, so all she saw was the red carpet that stretched from wall to wall and the golden embroidery on the rug atop it. There were voices coming from the end of the hallway, barely audible. She followed the rug to the opposite wall and straight through to the other room.
"Elliana, you know better than that!" said a spiteful old man, "Your father's word is law. You must obey him in all things."
"But Ana said-"
"I don't care what 'Ana' said." the man said, "Your little imaginary friend does not have more say than Lord Morpheus."
Maji stormed through the room and threw her fist right through the old man's neatly combed hair. So this was how Morpheus planned to get her power under his thumb. Was it because her reeducation failed? She turned to her daughter who seemed to be looking right at her. She noticed the silver collar locked around Ellie's neck. Was this a punishment or were they keeping the child from using her powers?
She was so much more grown up than Maji'd expected. She was a good two and a half feet tall and her hair was long. Had it been years since Maji was put to sleep?. Ellie had her father's nose and Maji's eyes. She had curls that could have come from either of them but black like her father's and skin the color of coffee.
'Can you see me, Ellie?'
The girl tilted her head. 'Are you my Mother?'
Maji looked her child in the eye. Technically, yes. She was her mother. But she didn't remember carrying her. She hadn't seen her grow up this far.
The old man was still shouting and ranting above them, but it didn't matter. They were having- a moment? She was supposed to be telling her child how much she loved her and how badly she wanted to just hold her. She was supposed to throw her arms around Ellie and hold her tight. But she didn't do either of those things.
She did cup the child's cheek and watch the skin turn pink with the chill.
Ellie looked back to the teacher, who had paused to expect an answer.
"You're lying." The child said calmly, "Father can't control my powers. He can numb them and he can lock them away but he can't make me use them."
"His control of your powers is not the point." he said, "You must obey him in everything else and your powers are no different."
The doors behind her opened and Morpheus stood primly in the doorway.
"It's time for your training, Ellie." Morpheus said, crossing the room faster than should have been physically possible.
"Father." Ellie addressed, standing up as straight as she could, almost teetering backwards.
"Have you been giving Professor Smith trouble?" He asked. His voice was just rough enough voice for Maji to tell he'd hit the brandy already. That only happened when he was stretched too thin.
"She refuses to do the training exercises." Professor Smith answered.
Morpheus rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed. "We talked about this, Ellie. It's just like your tutoring. If you don't do your training, you'll lose privileges."
Ellie huffed and looked right at Maji.
And Maji realized that this wasn't abuse. It wasn't a father trying to control his daughter's mind. Maybe it was just a kid refusing to do her homework.
But then why the collar?
She swiped her hand through her daughter's and told her to run as fast as she could. She didn't know if Morpheus could fee
l her presence, but if he could, she would try her best to distract him.
Ellie ran a few paces while Maji threw her fists into her former lover, ashamed of the feelings she'd had for him. Her punches were met with no response as he walked right through her and advanced in long strides after his child. Her breath caught somewhere in her nauseous stomach as Ellie tripped and fell to the ground in a frightened sobbing heap.
"You've been a bad girl." Morpheus growled, plucking the girl from the floor as though she weighed no more than a feather and carrying her to her room. "I'm sorry sweetie, but you've forced my hand."
Ellie kicked and struggled, but was no match for the very large man that her father was. He bent her over his knee with his hand on the small of her back and raised his other open hand above his head. Maji held her breath as that titanic hand came down on her child's bottom, and winced at the 'crack' and accompanying cries from the impact.
The ritualistic beating went on for long enough to have Maji shaking on the floor in impotent rage. She waited for Morpheus to walk away before she crawled over to comfort her child. She looked at the face swollen from crying, still dripping wet. There was nothing Maji could do.
She sat on the bed while her daughter tucked herself in. Slowly, Ellie began to drift off to sleep. Maji had the perfect opportunity.
She touched the sleeping child's temple and found herself standing in Astral once again with her daughter standing in front of her.
In one smooth motion, she picked up the child she didn't even know and cradled her in her arms. Maybe it was the magic they shared that pulled Maji toward her daughter, but she couldn't bear the thought of not holding her any longer. Here, they were safe. Here, they were together. Here, there was no Morpheus.
Ellie relaxed into the embrace and Maji immediately started to rock and hum to her baby like she was never able to do before. It had to be the magic causing this. She had no logical reason to feel this attached, but she felt sick that she hadn't been there to watch Ellie grow up and that she'd allowed the collar to be strapped on the child's neck.
"Talk to me." She said. She wanted to hear her daughter's voice, saying sweet things. She wanted to hear innocence and happiness in that voice, though she knew that she wouldn't. She wanted to hear that voice anyway. She wanted to hear her and she wanted to show her how much she loved her, to show her Ellie joy.
The joy she felt in holding her daughter, her missing piece.
Even if it was just the magic pulling them together. It was something that should come naturally for a mother. If it didn't come naturally for her, the magic was there to help. But there was something artificial and fake about the way her heart beat faster when she looked at those blue eyes, so much like her own.
Maji closed her eyes and listened to the soft breathing of the small figure in her arms. This wasn't what it should be like to hold her first born child. But was this special for Ellie? Did her child feel a connection more real than her mother felt?
Her own mother had been there when Maji was little, but she'd left when they were barely older than Ellie must be now. Maji had no idea what she was doing with a child. She couldn't pretend that the road would be smooth even if she could be a mother now. Were the years before now so important or were the years after, which Maji had missed with her own mother, enough to raise Ellie right?
Love or no, Maji was her mother. She had a responsibility. She couldn't just walk out.
A noise behind her froze the tension in the air. Ellie's breathing quickened and Maji turned to face the intruder. The girl she'd lost in the Core was looking down on them. She smiled at Ellie and was received with a hero's welcome. Ellie bound from her mother's arms and threw herself around the waist of the pert teenager.
"I'm Ann."
"Ana keeps the bad people away!" Ellie said.
"Morpheus’ been up to some of his old tricks. Certain people are taking notice."
Maji could only imagine how many of Morpheus' enemies would go after a little girl to get to her father. Morpheus would do the same thing to them, without hesitation. She ran her hand through her daughter's thick, dark curls. It helped but didn't chase away the fact that her daughter was in danger. She had been for a while.
They had to get her somewhere safe, soon.
"Do you think Trina could help?" Maji asked, "She still has her powers! I don't and I don't think you do."
"Frankly, I think anyone we asked would help." Ana said. "But Ellie's body will still be in danger."
Maji felt back to her body and could still feel the collar around her neck. It never stopped her from reaching out to Morpheus. Maybe it wouldn't stop her from reaching out to Trina.
"You know, I used to have some wicked powers!" Ana said, "I think if someone can get the collar off of me, I can get us through Morpheus's wards."
Maji heard a strange noise from over the nearby hill. She reached for her child, like she would reach for any child in danger. She pulled the teen towards her as well.
'Maji? What's happened?' the voice of her former mentor rang in her mind, making her jump.
'Ellie's asleep.' she wrapped her arm around Elliana, 'We've got her here in Astral.'
There was a mental nod and the connection cut.
Maji turned back to the sounds that had not only failed to get clearer but seemed to be getting closer. Maji hoped Trina would be joining them soon. If that sound was any of the types of Astral beasts Maji was thinking of, they really needed someone with powers intact.
A crack like thunder was heard over the hill and hundreds of mice scurried towards them, cutting to each side like around a three. Maji watched as the number dwindled and most of the rodents had fled the scene. They'd been scared of a bunch of mice?
'It wasn't mice when I got here.'
Maji looked up to see her mentor walking languidly down the smooth grass of the hill.
Trina no longer looked like and older, ragged version of herself. But without any glamour at all, she looked nothing like the angelic beauty that had overseen her own Newling training. She had brown hair and a flatish chest. Trina looked like a real person, proportionate and imperfect.
Maji could feel her shoulders finally relax as the stronger, unleashed mage joined them. Ellie buried her face in Maji's shoulder but no more scared than the average little girl was with a stranger. Maji rubbed her hand across the child's back in small circles. It was strangely satisfying to feel the muscles relax under her touch.
'It's rude not to introduce us.' Trina chided.
'Have you ever known me to have manners?' Maji responded.
"Anaral, dear," Trina waved her hand in blatant dismissal, "Would you go take a peak over that next hill and tell me what you see, please?"
After a good huff, Ana went. She climbed the hill and peered over at the horizon. Maji could hear Ellie's breathing quicken as Ana got farther away. Ana let out a word too grown up for Ellie and bolted down the hill.
"What is it?" Maji asked, clinging Ellie closer to herself.
"Giant. Thing." she said. Ana was out of breath already. Physical materialization took power and that was one thing they didn't have much access to.
On the other hand, they had the 'giant thing' to deal with.
Trina didn't seem too concerned, so Maji shook the concern from her own mind. There was surely nothing to worry about.
Ellie relaxed too, apparently reacting to her mother. Ana seemed to be having trouble calming herself, but she'd taken a knee and was breathing. Maji used the chance to send query to her mentor, a pressing questioning.
'It's really just Ellie.' Trina said, 'She expects danger around every corner. There was nothing there till we had to wait to see if anything was there.'
'Her powers?'
'She seems to be able to use her powers here, even though she couldn't use them in the physical plane.'
'Even with the collar?'
'She is your daughter.'
Maji could hear the large steps coming towards the hill that shiel
ded them from whatever beast her daughter had created. She watched the hill, waiting to see evidence of the things Ellie had seen at such a young age, haunted by her father's enemies. She heard Trina mumble something by her side.
Something familiar.
Ellie fell limp into a deep subsleep. She wouldn't be creating anything as long as she remained in that state, which left the three of them free to worry about real dangers. Trina moved to calm Ana, who was still in panic. Maji closed her eyes and pressed her face against the face of her sleeping child. She could feel the power going back and forth between them, like water through a grate.
Ellie was beautiful asleep. She looked like her father but soft in a way that Morpheus would never be. Maji kissed the child's forehead and soaked in the feeling of the small, warm body in her arms that felt so right.
'Enjoying yourselves, ladies?' came the deep tones of her former partner ringing through her head like a loud siren in the deep of night.
'Until you showed up, Morpheus.'
'Don't you know it's rude to have a party and not invite someone?'
Maji backed away from the man who'd appeared quite too close to her and felt a boot connect with her side, as it had so many times when she had been his servant. Ellie slipped from her arms and Maji reached out to her only to be met with another blow from Morpheus’ boot. She didn't know how the man managed to be so damn powerful, even when his magic was powering the suppression collars. Professor Smith took the child into his arms and disappeared with a whish.
"Kidnapping is also a bit rude." Morpheus said, approaching Maji.
"I could say the same to you." The pain from Morpheus' previous blows to her side made is painful to talk.
He tsked, shaking his head, "Didn't I teach you better than this?"
Maji's retort was cut off by a boot to her left cheek. When she looked up, Morpheus had disappeared and Trina was lying impotent on the ground. Ana crawled to the older mage and helped her up. Wounded, but she wasn't dying.
Anaral looked up at Maji, her eyes shiny with tears. Maji never would have pictured the perky teen in pain but everything was too real. She choked on the air that still reeked of expensive coffee and tried to wrap her mind around everything that had happened.
"What now?" Ana asked, "What about Ellie?"
The truth was that Ellie wasn't actually in danger with her father. She was maybe even happy when she wasn't resisting homework.
