by Ariana Kenny
****
The night was fresh and comfortable as we gathered once again at the loft. Elias had packed a bag, and I hugged him goodbye. “Where are you going?” I asked him, hoping it might at least not be far.
“Not sure yet – just need to find myself. Don’t worry I’ll be back to haunt you soon enough.”
“Better be.” Cassie playfully warned from beside me. “We’ll miss you.”
“You’re sure you won’t stay” Violet interjected from the other side of me.
“Nah, but don’t feel bad. The heart wants what the heart wants, so they say.” Elias accepted a hug from Violet, and he turned and then left. I would miss Elias greatly, that was for certain.
As we sauntered back to the living room where Russell and Myria were busy playing a game on the Playstation, Violet sighed. “Now the OldOnes are gone, I can finally really relax again.”
Viktor, who had been conspicuously distant in the background then piped up. “Yeah but it bothers me. Where are the rest?” asked Viktor.
“What rest?!” Russell asked suddenly distracted from the game and looking anxious. “The rest of what? More – there’s more?”
“There were two lots of OldOnes locked up. Ten he kept with him, 6 others he kept underground. I checked, but they aren’t in the tunnels anymore.
Violet groaned as Myria cheered in the background as she won the game from Russell due to his distraction. Cassie and Violet took over to challenge each other and I took myself to the kitchen to get a blood bag. I poured it in to two mugs and placed them in the microwave. It was nice to be able to eat in for a change. We had had to go out a lot lately due to dwindling hospital reject supplies.
Myria snuck up behind me, but of course I had heard her coming. She pulled herself up on the counter and popped a grape in her mouth from the bowl now sitting beside her. “Sorry I was such a bitch to you in the warehouse Matt.” The apology threw me off guard. She seemed upbeat today which was different to her recent brooding self, but I hadn’t expected an apology.
“Don’t worry about it Myria. We all had a lot going on. ” I consciously put some physical distance between us.
“I mean it. I don’t want there to be any ill will between us”.
“It’s good to see you seem a lot happier.” I commented, and she raised an eyebrow, cocking her head. “And it’s good to see you out of your room again.”
“Ah, well you see, I have a plan so that everyone can be happy again.” She quipped, sounding every minute of her young age all of a sudden.
“You said that once before.” What do you mean you have a plan...." I asked hesitantly. She gave me a cheeky grin in response.
“There is this myth, but there’s more to it than that. There’s a bowl which can restore life if you do a ritual with a crystal. I think then you drink it, then something happens and the person can come back. I'm going to find it and bring Cam back.”
“Sounds a bit vague.” I noted out loud. Myria considered me with sudden seriousness.
“I might be a little fuzzy on the details, but the point is that I can give you back your life too if you want. That way we can still be together Matt.”
I felt frozen in a moment I was a prisoner to. We had taken on the joint responsibility for looking after this girl. Dealing with a full blown crush wasn’t going to be easy. I had to clear things up, and quickly. “Myria…I’m not with you. I’m with Cassie. You know that.”
“I get that. I do” she assured.
“I don’t think you do.”
“I have seen it. You and I. The Runes never lie. I think it’s because I was too young, and you and Cassie have a bond. But eventually…. Anyway. I can wait.”
I was still as stone as the microwave beeped. She continued on as though nothing strange had just been said. “How come you breathe anyway” she asked. “I never asked Cam. You sigh too. How come, you know, if you’re dead." she asked.
I brought myself back to the room. “Um - Habit. To blend in. And to breathe means I can speak, smell…. Myria. I need you to be sensible for a minute. I love Cassie.”
“I know…” she sighed at me before she leapt off the bench top and skipped out of the room.
I took the mugs and ventured back to the couch. Everyone but Cassie had gone over to the balcony. I heard them laughing about some bet Viktor was losing. I handed a mug to Cassie. She studied my expression, curious. “What’s wrong?” she asked. I lied, kind of.
“I just, can’t believe what it felt like when I thought I lost you. I didn’t think I would ever be able to think straight, to feel right again.”
“Aw,” she kissed me, put the mug on the table then climbed on top of me “Don’t worry my love” she took my face in her hands. “My Matthias. I’m all healed now, and all yours.”
“I like when you call me that.” I said. She gazed intensely into me and I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. I recalled the fear I felt when I thought I had lost her. That sense of utter loss and isolation. It was nothing however, compared to what I would come to feel soon though. But that is a whole other story.
In the interim, I had lost one family and gained another, let my old life go, first when I let Cassie into my life, then forcibly when Michael took it from me. I had lost Michael, and instead of being drawn together from our experience, we had become enemies. Since taking the amulet from him and destroying it, I did wonder if things might change, if he might return to being more like the Michael I knew. After everything he had done though, I still knew in my heart that I could never forgive him.
Right then though, I mellowed next to Cassandra, taking in everything, and learning more every day about who I was, what we were, and who I was hoping to be. With Cam gone, the rest of my new family had drawn closer, and I had every intention of spending forever with these people.
Volume III Everything in Between
War is in the frame of mind. What we make of the situation we are in, how we perceive it, even if we recall how or when it ever started in the first place. Love is like war for that in that sense. All bets are off, there are only reasons, and not excuses, and the word forgives any action we may take. Life starts and ends regardless of what we have done, or what we intend to do, but War and Love, well, that’s just known as everything in between.
An age ago….
At an approaching sunset, over a dessert landscape and in between sand dunes there peaks a small town surrounded by rich gardens. The town is attached to a small tributary, and on the water, a small Egyptian barge in unloading, with camels guided by robed merchants to-ing and fro-ing with cargo.
By the river, fig trees sway in the last of the setting sun and young children rush about using sticks to push a ball made from reeds tied together. In a cloud of dust one of the boys skids to a halt when the ball knocks straight into the sandals of an older man sitting on a rock ledge under a tree. The boy regards the man with concerned interest, wanting to reach for the ball but reluctant to do so. The man raises his head from the papyrus he is working on and sighs, lifting the ball from his feet and considering it. The man has a full, ungroomed beard blowing in the hot wind and equally bushy brows almost obscuring his eyes. The boy extends a hand passively, requesting the ball in silent expression. Two other boys join him from behind and stand submissively as if anxiously anticipating the outcome of the moment. The man smiles and extends the hand with the ball towards the boy, but as the boy reaches for it, the man retracts his hand, pulling the ball back to his own chest. With his other arm, the man is holding down the papyrus from blowing away in the wind.
The boy, startled takes a step backward and one of his friends puts a hand on him as if to guide him away.
The man starts to make a tut-tut sound and beckons the boy back, still holding the ball. The boy stands firm and regards the man again. The man starts staring at the ball intently, peering into it as though looking hard for something inside it, then he closes his fist around it, brings it to his mouth. A whispered word is u
ttered into his fist, but it is indiscernible as to what the word is. On opening his hand, the ball has been changed to gold. Disbelieving, an awed exclamation comes from the now small group of children who have gathered. The old man chuckles, clearly pleased with himself. Rolling the ball to his fingertips, he extends the ball back to the boy, who reaches out and takes it. He turns away and smiling shows his friends who crowd around. One of the smaller boys snatches it and runs away, the others all run after the ball and the younger boy. All except the boy who had taken the ball back from the man in the first place.
The man, who had by now gone back to writing on the papyrus turns back to face the boy. The boy just smiles at him, and stands there staring. The old man, now suddenly looks concerned. He gathers the papyrus, rolling it up, and picks up the ink and writing tool in his possession to put them in a small cloth bag hanging from his neck. Moving as fast as he can, the man walks off towards a small building but glances behind, appearing almost frightened. It is well past dusk now and the boy continues to remain in his place, staring over his shoulder to where the old man is headed.
On entering the doorway to his home the old man seems to sigh in relief and takes his bag off over his shoulder to place on the table. As he sets it down however, the boy is already standing in front of him on the other side of the table.
Gasping, the man drops the bag, and falls backwards onto the stone floor. Faster than possible, the young boy is already there at his side and pulling the papyrus from him. The man grips tighter, shaking his head and the boy responds by putting his free hand to the man’s throat, squeezing. The man chokes, grabbing at the hand taking his life. The boy continues to grip the man’s throat rather than let go, so the man stops struggling, reaches up to the boy’s face and draws a line with his finger across the boy’s temple in the shape of a ‘Z’ and marks three dots across the lines. The boy, who is smiling at the man’s discomfort suddenly starts to look like he is in pain, the smile fading from his face. Where the man drew the sign, a purple mark raises from the skin and starts to burn him. Rising to his feet the boy starts to yell, clutching at his head. The old man lies, barely alive, on the floor. The boy is throwing himself around, in to the table, knocking over the chair. Herbs fall from the window sill where they were hung to dry. The old man starts to laugh quietly and moves to sit up when a strapped booted foot steps on the man, pushing him back to the ground. Before he has time to speak, a dagger is thrust through the old man’s throat and the blade removed. Drawn upwards, the blade leaks blood to the floor as it is raised up to the face of the man who wielded it. Belil considers it before licking the blade and savoring the taste. The boy, on the floor clutching at his skull remains in obvious agony, and Belil walks over to him. Opening a vein in his wrist, Belil offers it to the boy, who gulps unceremoniously. After a few seconds, the pain seems to have subsided and the boy looks enraged. Charging over to the body of the man, the boy kicks it.
“ALKA (Come)” shouts the boy at Belil, who nods his head.
“Abum (Father)” Belil responds. The boy storms out into the night and Belil gathers the papyrus from the floor. Now seeped at the edges in blood, the paper bears the mark of the amulet Belil later wears at his neck to control the Old Ones. As Belil follows his maker in to the darkness outside, he passes a book filled with more sketches, more symbols and sigils. From the gust caused by Belil’s swift exit, a leaf flies to the floor, a bowl like etching with a person wearing a crown of ostrich feathers, symbolically laying an offering in one hand, and drinking from a cup with another. The cup has an ankh on it, and as the paper flutters in the breeze by the door, a map is just identifiable on the other side of the sketch.
