WARNING!! -- this is old, and while recently updated with minor edits and the last of the chapters i never put up back in the day, it shall never be updated...enjoy it anyways!
...since a lot of you seem to keep doing so o-o ...
- Created By itsumademo
Chapter Six
The Catalyst
Chapter Six
“What are you doing, Jade?”
“Just…wandering. Why do you ask, Grandmother?”
“Don’t you know where you are, dear?”
“Uh, not really, I guess.” I stopped my feet. I had never really thought about it, but in fact I had no idea where I was or how I got there. “I’m just…here.” I exhaled. “Grandmother, where am I?”
I waited to hear the soft sound of my grandmother’s voice, however the silence continued. I glanced around only to notice that there was nothing and no one anywhere near me. The ground beneath my feet was rough and barren, going off into the distance endlessly. As I watched the clear sky move slowly up above I felt a tremor run up through my body and abruptly my legs gave out, dropping me to the earth I stood upon.
My hands pushed in opposition to the ground with my nails digging into the hard soil. I harshly bit my lip; breathing had suddenly become so difficult.
A cold wind rushed against my side, forcing me to the ground completely. I looked in the direction the gust had come from and saw a huge, black, mist-like mass gradually soaking up all the light that was filtering down to the wasteland I seemed trapped in. The being before me groaned with deafening strength, compelling me to shield my ears.
Finally able, I stood up awkwardly, facing the center of the darkness. It was almost mesmerizing, staring as I was, and the longer I watched, I began to notice a small figure appearing in the depth. I stepped forward without thinking, merely so that I could see more clearly. Just as I started to reach my hand toward the small creature forming in the black, two bright lavender eyes opened, knocking me backwards with invisible force.
Quickly, I jumped up and looked around, but instead saw the light of early morning shining on the floor of my grandmother’s bedroom. My chest rose and fell with rapid breaths; apparently it was only a dream.
“I’ve never dreamt something that felt so real before.” I sighed, exhaling a long withheld breath of anxiety. “…So real.”
I held my head in my hands as my body calmed down from the insanity of what I felt just happened. It was very strange, my thoughts wandered against my will back to the dream, a small black mass with lavender eyes…
I looked up again, staring briefly at the desk against the wall where my two fruits sat quietly, frozen like crystal. I had managed to perform the frozen spell once more on the peach from The Immortal’s garden.
“The Immortal!” I threw the covers off my legs and jumped to the floor to quickly put my clothes on.
I hadn’t seen the Immortal for almost three days now. “It’s a good thing I had found a bathroom on our way back to the room last time or I probably would have gotten lost and died in this damn tower looking for one.” I slipped into the bare minimum of my clothes, as I wanted to go and try and find him as soon as possible. I put on the under part of my dress and laced up the back.
As I opened the door and began heading into the hall, I attempted to comb through my hair with my fingers. “I wish I had a hair brush…I probably look horrible. But seeing as there is no time for me to head into the bathroom and take a quick shower...err, more like a bath really, I’ll simply have to bear with it.” I sighed.
I managed to find a staircase, however due to the darkness and the fact I had spent nearly all my time in my grandmother’s sun lit room, I was still not accustomed to walking around in the black of the tower.
Once I reached the floor again I turned both ways, I couldn’t remember which direction we had originally come from, or if there was even a way, or if it was a huge room or a small passage, or if I stepped forward I’d fall into a hole. It was simply too hard to see; to some degree I could make things out but otherwise I was barely able to notice my own hand in front of my face. “Crap.” My voice sounded quiet and minute.
I chewed on my lip as I thought, eventually I decided on right and once I found the wall I moved across it slowly as far as I could. There were a few instances where I came across a door…but not knowing what I would find kept me from looking, even though each time my side smacked into a doorknob my curiosity grew. I didn’t want to come across something I would wish I hadn’t, or perhaps irritate the Immortal, I didn’t think I wanted to piss off the man kind enough to let me, a stranger, stay here. “I suppose I’m not exactly a stranger. I mean he knew my grandmother, and from her stories I almost feel like I know him myself. Well, maybe a little anyways.”
I giggled slightly, which echoed in the hall.
Once I calmed down I heard a small wind blowing from somewhere near me, or at least it sounded as though it was near me. It was difficult sometimes to tell where a noise was coming from in these passages. I continued moving forward until I came across dim light drifting from a somewhat ajar door at the end of another corridor to my left. I could see an opened balcony similar to the one in my grandmother’s bedroom although it appeared to be larger. Perhaps it was one of the other real windows I had noticed outside the tower.
I walked toward it, heading through easily without holding against the wall to know where I was going. I placed my hands on the door’s side and edged it open so that I didn’t make a sound.
The room was enormous; books on large wooden shelves lined three of the five walls in the place. There were also two large old desks placed side-by-side, each having antique objects such as lamps and stationary sets. Lining yet another wall was a huge bed with four posts reaching up to the high lifting ceiling, on either side sat a nightstand lined with books and papers as well as a few old fashioned pens and identical twin lamps, both of which appeared to be oil fueled. Up along the last wall hung several types of weapons, most were sword-like in appearance, there were also a few bunches of daggers, some axes of different types, many spears and staff shaped poles, and at the top of this impressive collection were a couple odd looking guns, none of which were overly familiar to me. On the floor just beneath the arsenal rack was a bench with a few disheveled towels and blood looking stains spread upon it.
I reached my hand out and ran it along one of the larger claymore-like swords that had a strange greenish stone engraved into the blade. “You’re very beautiful.” Grandmother had once taken some sword handling lessons and because of that she had a few antique ones she kept in her home. She always told me that a sword is precious to its handler, just like a child to a parent; you always refer to them by gender and name. In fact, I would even on occasion talk to them when my cousin, Daela or grandmother, or my uncle weren’t around.
“I may not know your name, but you seem female to me.”
I stroked the stone gently when a sudden chill slipped in through the window. I turned around; I was tempted to close the balcony doors, however I didn’t want anyone to know I had been here.
Glancing about the room again, my curious urge couldn’t be stopped. I walked as lightly as I could as I moved over to look at the many things spread out on the nightstands. The papers were old looking, not unlike the ones in grandmother’s grimoire, with lovely articulate letters spread on it. I sifted through a few of the books but paused when I came across one that reminded me of a notebook or journal.
I felt a bit bad for snooping, everything about this room felt untouched and aged, however something continued to push me forward and so I opened the cover finding not only words but also sketching. Some was really incredible, practically photo-like sketching.
They looked like plans or something, although nearly every page was in different languages; there were a few that appeared familiar and some I didn’t think were even from my world, and probably weren’t. To be honest, I was a bit disheartened that I couldn’t read it. While still flipping through the pages I saw a drawing of a young woman, and she continued to appear numerous times, the majority of the notebook was filled with her. I stopped my scanning when a full-page portrait came up, and as I traced the lines with my eyes I found her familiar. I remembered back in my grandmother’s home, all the photographs she had and realized that this…was her. There was something different about her here though, her eyes seemed unsure but happy. Far happier than much of the time I was with her back at home. Her hair was cut a bit differently also.
“Grandmother was so lovely.” A sudden tear fell onto the page. “Oh damn!” I dabbed at the mark and blew on it as carefully as I could, and thankfully the mark lifted, for the most part. I quickly shut the journal and set it back under the books and loose papers. Hopefully it would dry completely and no one would be the wiser if they came to open it.
I moved away from the stand and noticed that there were a few empty and filled sheaths hanging on the banister opposite me. Unfortunately my notice of those belted holders drew my eyes to a green chaise which had the Immortal’s shirt draped upon it. The very one I had seen him wearing the last day I was with him.
“Oh hell…this is his bedroom.”
Now I felt even more like a trespasser than before.
Well, I suppose that it’s not the end of the world; I had been trying to find him. “If I wait here, he’d have to show up eventually. Although, if I wait here, there is no way he wouldn’t know that I probably rummaged about his room.” Then, as per usual, my thoughts wandered off a bit, “I wonder when he actually sleeps anyway?”
There had to be some way I could contact him, especially in a place this large. I walked over to the still opened door and slipped out, making sure to close it just enough to match were it had been before I came. I edged back through the hall until I made it to the crossroads were I turned from earlier. I headed left in order to go along my original path. I hoped.
After a heart-racing trip down a few stairs I managed to take hold of the banister, catching myself before I fell the entire way. Once I made it past the rather long set of stairs I ended up in the room I had first fallen into, meeting the shocked Immortal and a strange pink eyed woman. The ceiling was still broken with my blood spattered on the remnants of it, which sat despondently in piles on the flooring. I lifted a few pieces and looked nostalgically at the splintered edges where my blood soaked into the fibers. I winced at the vague memory, dropping the wood back to its place.
“Exploring?”
I leapt back, running into the broken wall beside the mess on the ground. An average sized woman, running closer to petite, stepped out from behind the floating wall in the center of the room. As she faced me her eyes opened fully, revealing two vividly pink marbles grinning at me on a breathtakingly beautiful face.
“You’re that woman the Immortal had imprisoned.”
“Oh no, we were merely playing a little game.”
“Game? Torture is hardly a game.” I stood firmly in place, mostly because I knew nothing about this woman to be uncomfortable in her presence.
“Hmm, perhaps it isn’t.” Her exposed shoulders shrugged, however, her gaze flickered to me with a dark mischievous glimmer. “To some.”
That was a bit unnerving; my own gaze began to watch her closely as a strange uncertainty started to slip through my veins. Suddenly her body seemed to vibrate and one blink later she stood directly in front of me, her eyes looking at my own with an expression that was rather unnerving.
“You know, I think you really are Guinn’s granddaughter. Your faces are a similar, and yet, not.” She giggled lightly, running a finger along my jawline.
I turned away from her touch, trying to maintain the blankest expression I could manage.
She scoffed with an amused look and, swift as lightning, I was tossed onto the floor where two loud brakes were made near my ears. I looked up and the woman was hovering over me, her hands dug into the wood beside my head. As I watched above me, her golden hair slid off her shoulders and fell onto my arms; the tresses were smooth but oddly slick and cold, chilling my skin.
“I think you’re much prettier though. Like a lovely porcelain doll.” I felt her fingers playing with my hair and running along my neck and collarbone. “Must be sure not to break you.”
I tried not to focus on her as she lowered her head to mine, the skin of her cheek touching my own. She was soft but cool, rather than warm like a person would normally be. I heard as she inhaled.
“You smell warm and sweet, just like strawberries wrapped in rich chocolate cake.” She licked her fingers, her face appearing to be in delicious thought, “I love strawberries”. I tried to slip from beneath her, but while her eyes were still shut she quickly placed a finger on my forehead, holding me completely still. “Precious dolls shouldn’t try to escape.”
“I am not a doll!”
Her face looked saddened by my words, but only for a moment. She quickly grinned again, “hmm, fiery are you? You should be careful though, you might burn up.” She laughed.
Abruptly, her amusement stopped.
In that moment, I become aware of a blood red satin ribbon with the bow on the side tied around her neck and attached to the center knot was a lone silver chain link. The fetter was strangely compelling, if I weren’t held down I would have been drawn to try and touch it.
“Oh damn, I wanted to play more.” She stood up lithely, pulling me with her and distracting my thoughts from the reflecting object around her neck. Her pink eyes caught mine once more, her hand moving to gently stroke my hair. “Until next time, precious doll.”
Right as I went to slap away her hand she was already at the far wall, grinning with a light giggle. In a flick of the eye, she appeared to vibrate again and then she was gone.
I felt as though her eyes were burnt into my brain. They were strange, almost like they were seeing through me and into my soul, and yet, strangely glassy and slick, like her hair. Although, what hung in my memory the most was the silver link that was joined with the ribbon neatly tied around her slender neck. Considering how strongly it called to me, I wondered if it were enchanted or something…though I suppose I could have also just discovered the unknown urges of onset kleptomania. “As if that’s even a thing.” I mumbled.
“Jade, why are you here?”
The Immortal stood in the doorway of the room, his eyebrows down in confusion.
“Uh, it-it was an accident. I just kind of wandered in here…I was looking for you, actually.”
“Me?”
“Well, yes. I mean, I haven’t seen you for three days. Haven’t you wondered where I’ve been? If I needed something? I mean, I haven’t gotten to eat either! Have you even eaten? Do you even eat at all?” My thoughts were sort of on the spam setting, hands held on my hips, the pent up irritation from that bizarre and unsettling experience with that woman seemed to be flowing free as I babbled. Plus, I really don’t know why I hadn’t realized it earlier, but I was very hungry. “Where have you been anyway?” I seemed to finish my rant and quirked a brow at him, with still kind of clouded but strong interest.
He shrugged nonchalantly. “I’ve been busy.”
“Don’t you think the person who is also now apparently living here would like to be aware of that? And you still have no food I bet.”
“Not as of yet, no.”
I groaned. “Immortal, there needs to be food here. I don’t know what or when you ever eat, if at all, but it obviously isn’t here seeing as everything is decades, if not centuries old.”
“I generally eat when I’m out. There is little need to have food here.”
“Well now there is. I’m here and I need to eat.”
He sighed and left the room.
Hastily I ran after him. “You said there was a town nearby…”
He blinked several times, seemingly in thought. “I never said anything like that.”
Crap, that was Caleb. “Uh, I suppose I thought it was you. Must have been something I considered asking about while speaking to you at one point.”
He said nothing and I exhaled thankfully. “So?”
“So what?”
I scoffed, “So is there a town or not?”
“Yes there is. Two, in fact.”
“Good, then would you please come with me to get some food? I would really love to have a decent meal. Plus…” I rubbed my arm, already feeling the weirdness of the moment that hadn’t, if ever, happened yet. “It would be kind of awkward to just stroll into a big place I have never been to as a complete stranger, who knows nothing all about them or this world, by myself.”
He was silent for a few minutes.
Does he really need to think about taking someone who hasn’t eaten for days to get food? I nearly mumbled that passing thought right as he began to reply to my question.
“I suppose. I do need to get a few things.”
“I thought you said you were just out? What were you doing then?” I quickened my pace to stand beside him and glanced up at his face.
He smirked ever so slightly, knowing I was probing him for slipped out secrets. “I wasn’t out doing errands.”
“Ah, well what were you doing?” I smiled sarcastically at him.
“Nothing of consequence.”
“Hmm,” I huffed. “That’s just a fancy way of not telling me.”
“Perhaps.”
“Fine then. Buuut, you’ll be taking me to town, yes?”
We were paused in the intersection where the Immortal’s bedroom was hidden down the right corridor.
“I’ll go and finish getting dressed. You meet me there once you have whatever it is you may need.” I babbled off the arrangement like I were reading a list of what to do.
In his usual tone, “Of course, milady.”
“Oh, don’t be facetious.”
He quietly exhaled a tiny laugh at me. I smiled to myself; luckily he didn’t seem upset with me anymore. I had almost forgotten in all that had gone on the past three days how angry he was that evening when he found me with the grimoire.
While I moved along the passages to get to my room, I felt my heart beat faster. I didn’t realize how excited I would be to go into the town of another world, especially one as interesting as this. I wondered though if I was more excited as to what people would think of me, an unknown person appearing with the legendary Immortal at my side.
For a quick moment I felt my face burn.
Chapter Five
The Catalyst
Chapter Five
CRACK! POOF! BOOM!
I waved my hands fiercely, trying to move and disperse the smoke now swirling in angry clouds all around me. As the opaque fog began to clear I noticed the charred, broken bits of my ingredients spread in every direction.
“Crap…wrong again…”
I wiped all the debris from my clothes and started sweeping the excess pieces scattered on the floor into an increasingly large pile to my left. My hand reached back and grabbed yet another of the several random objects I had managed to find in the room. I set what appeared to be a half burnt shoe on the floor in front of me and then placed a few dead leaves I had found curled up in a corner on the balcony around it. I then gently placed a small heart shaped locket I had happened across in the drawer of my grandmother’s desk amongst the other pieces.
Quickly I went to make sure the doors of the balcony were still held open and with a brief glance to the sky, I ran back and kneeled before my pile of what appeared to be a conglomeration of useless junk.
“Ok…”I exhaled with determination.
I attempted reading another incantation I had found in the grimoire in hopes of finding the correct archaic translation for my grandmother’s English written spell. The locket flamed as it had done every time before, the leaves seeming to melt into the deformed footwear. However instead of freezing, as I had guessed the poem was for, the half flame-eaten shoe expanded. I leaned back from the chaos when it suddenly sucked itself into a thin mass and then fizzled up with the leaves as the locket flames enveloped it.
I thrust my fist against the floorboards. “Damn it!” Sighing, I sat down and then fell backward to the floor, covering my face with a tired arm.
“What are you doing?”
My eyes popped open and I turned back on my head to see who was behind me, as though I were standing and looking to the sky. Upside down, while leaning casually against my open balcony doors, stood my midnight intruder, Caleb. Though I was on the floor I could still make out his face, wearing the same smirk I remembered seeing the night before. “What are you doing?” I replied, somewhat sarcastically.
He chuckled lightly and sashayed over to where I was still lying in irritation with myself and leaned over me. “I asked first.”
“Just… shut up.” I rolled my eyes and sat up with my back to Caleb. I heard him step forward and mess with the pile of burnt ashes I had been making. “Stop that…”
“Stop what? I haven’t done anything.” Caleb appeared beside me and gracefully lowered himself to the floor. “But you have obviously got some issues.”
“No I don’t! I just…I just can’t figure out what these spells mean…” I looked to the open book but made my way back to staring sadly at my brand new pile of black residue. “I wish grandmother had made some sort of key to her spell book.” I leaned on my hand, several seconds ticking by in silence.
“They’re not that difficult.”
I had almost forgotten about Caleb, he seemed one to constantly make sure every person around was aware of him, and not hearing his voice made it seem as though I were alone again.
“It is difficult, Caleb. I can’t read this language. Plus I was never very good with finding meaning in poems anyway.”
“You don’t need to find meaning exactly…the words are simply over complicated. Guinn preferred being rather traditional in her homemade works.”
I looked at Caleb while he spoke; I never knew grandmother cared so much for customs…? “Can you understand them?”
“Of course.” He grinned proudly.
I reached for the grimoire and placed it in front of us, keeping the page with the English wording opened. I pointed a finger against the rough, ancient paper directly beneath the words of the small spell I had found and been attempting to decipher.
Frozen.
Drops of red wishes,
Bits of existence yet none that flow,
No breath to have,
Glow of life,
Dance of strength pulsed with text.
Simple answers,
Glean complex regrets.
“I don’t recognize this one; it must have been one of her last.”
I followed his quick moving eyes as he read through the words over and over. “So, do you know what it means?”
“Yes, it’s fairly simple. Permanent though.” He looked about the room several times and then abruptly jumped to his feet.
I watched him as he grabbed the apple I had placed on the desk. He seemed to look it over with great intensity. His violet eyes turned to me as he walked lithely back to where I was sitting.
“Use this.” The apple Caleb held suddenly dropped from above me; looking up I saw his face, a little more serious than I was used to. “Live matter is best for beginners.”
“This isn’t alive…” I turned the apple over in my palm.
“It may no longer be…but technically plants are living matter.”
Caleb’s even toned words were strange to my ears; he was acting very different. It was nice to know he had more than just perverted sly as a setting in his brain.
While he returned to his position next to me, I set the apple on the floor. “Ok, so…now what?”
“I suppose it will be easiest to go line by line.”
“Alright then. Frozen…I assumed that was a title or the purpose of the spell.”
“Pretty much, yes.”
“Ok then, drops of red wishes. What is that?”
Caleb took firm hold of my right hand, “Hey…” he slid his finger across my palm and a bleeding cut suddenly appeared out of my skin. “Why did you do that!?”
He shrugged nonchalantly at my question “It’s not my spell.” He moved my hand over the apple and squeezed with great strength, my bones felt like they would break from the force. Despite the pain, I continued to watch curiously as blood seeped from my hand and fell onto the apple, coating it in dark red splotches. “One down.” His grip was released and reasserted itself on a few strands of my hair, which he pulled out with no care for me.
“OW! Stop abusing my body!”
He chuckled with a grin as he dropped the few long hairs onto the blood-covered apple. “Bits of existence, yet none that flow.” He spoke.
I rubbed my head gently as he yet again stood up. “Where are you going? I thought you were helping me?” I turned and followed him with my eyes.
“I am helping you.” He quietly shut the double doors of the balcony. “No breath to have. It means the air around the spell must be stagnant, no wind at all.”
“Does that mean we can’t breathe either?”
“Yes, but only when we begin the incantation.”
I had all this time been watching Caleb move all over the room doing this and that and it was slowly dawning on me that perhaps Caleb wasn’t as bad as I had first thought. After all, if grandmother was close with him he must have something redeeming about him; idiots always put her off.
“Now for the Glow of Life.” Caleb opened his hand up at the ceiling and closed his eyes. I watched with interest, first at his hand then his face. He opened his mouth and began quickly forming words; however I didn’t hear anything, which deepened my attention in what he was doing.
Suddenly an intensely bright orb of light ripped itself into existence a few inches from the bedroom ceiling. I had to shield my eyes from the blaze; the small sphere looked exactly like a miniature sun.
“Hmm, not my best.” Caleb lowered his hand and turned back to me.
I quirked my brow at him “Do you make a habit of creating small suns or something? Because…that’s just weird.”
He laughed loudly at me.
I narrowed my eyes and then stuck out my tongue, which seemed to be my favorite expression of annoyance lately. “Well whatever. Now what do we do?”
“Not me, you.”
“But I can’t read this?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll teach you how to pronounce everything.”
I sighed lightly and bit my lip. “Ok, but what does this line even mean? ‘Dance of Strength Pulsed with Text.’”
“It appears that Guinn tried to add hand motions to the incantation. HA, I swear she only did that to piss off whoever read this.” He chuckled a little.
“What? Why?”
“Sometimes she added things like that simply to irritate some of the other lower class witches in town. They always snuck peaks in her grimoire when she brought it into town and wasn’t looking.”
“There is a town here!?”
“Well, duh. Did you just think this world was an out of place, fucking castle in the middle of an abandoned forest?”
“Sort of…grandmother never really told me many things about other places. She rarely mentioned other people besides The Immortal.”
Caleb’s face ruffled in anger for a brief moment before he took my hand and quickly sliced it once again as he ran his finger’s edge against my palm. The same palm he had cut earlier, though strangely the prior cut was gone.
“AH, What the HELL!?” I tried to pull my hand from him but he held it exact and in place.
“I’m doing what I’m supposed to do. She doesn’t actually want you to do motions to the text, she wants two more drops of blood added, one before and one after you read the spell.”
My face softened in mild shock and confusion. “How do you know that?”
“Guinn and I were very close; I know a lot of things about her.”
His face seemed blank as he moved my hand over the apple and squeezed it, however this time his grip felt weaker than his earlier bone crushing one. I winced slightly from the pain and chewed on the inside of my lip while watching drops of blood fall back to coat the already clotting blood from before.
“Caleb…are…are you alright?” He gave my hand back and I rubbed it gently, until I noticed the still bleeding abrasion begin to suture itself up.
“Yes, I’m fine. Here read these words, I wrote each to suit the way they would be pronounced.” He sat a piece of paper in front of me with characters written on them almost as though they had been typed.
“How did you..?” I pointed to the parchment in front of me.
“Magic, Jade.”
“Duh, sorry.” I shook my head briefly and then nodded. “So I simply read this over the apple, and what, it will freeze?”
“Should, just make sure you don’t mess up. One screwed up word alters the entire thing.”
“Thanks for the confidence.” I scoffed.
“Sure, anything to help.” He smirked sarcastically.
“Ugh, well hush up. Oh, and don’t breath, remember, I’m about to start.”
I took a deep breath and started to read the few lines of the ritual.
“Glayceealis,
Occoombow of rootilus vota,
Secooi of veeta eteeamnoonc noolloos oot permoveeo,
Hawd spearitus habayo,
Tripoodeeo of veares comotus per lacoona.
Simplex refero,
Mico ooniversa desiderium.”
Before I let myself take a breath, I moved my hand over the apple and allowed the last remaining drop of blood from my nearly healed wound to slip onto the fruit. Suddenly the clotted blood surrounding the red skinned apple began to fizz slightly, followed by small quick exploding bubbles which turned over on themselves, freezing instantly once popped. The splatters combined to make a solid layer of ice, however after a few moments in the makeshift sun the ice slid off the once blood covered skin, revealing a perfectly crystallized apple.
“Oh my gosh.” I lifted the fruit carefully and watched it gleam in the mini sun’s rays. “This is amazing…I can’t believe I did this!”
“Technically, we did this, since you couldn’t figure out the text.” Caleb poked a finger against my forehead.
I groaned at him as I stood to go place the apple beside the peach I also had sitting on the old desk.
“Well, as I read from the paper I realized that I actually did know what that is. The writing is Latin. I wasn’t able to notice it because I never actually took the class at school, my friend did, and she always joked around by reciting it exactly as it was spelled. Because, of course, as no one really knows how it is pronounced, they can’t know whether the idea they have for its pronunciation is correct or not.” I laughed mildly as I came back to stand beside Caleb.
“Yeah, that’s not funny.”
“Well, we thought it was.”
“Ok..well, now I’m going to go and not be here with your ‘Latin’.” He stood up and started backing towards the door, giving me sarcastic air quotes as he said Latin.
I frowned at his annoying behavior. “Sometimes I wonder whatever possessed me not to knock you out when you first snuck into my room.”
“Because I’m sexy.”
“Get out!”
He laughed at my command and continued to do so as he leapt from the balcony and away from the tower.
All I could do was sigh as I rolled my eyes.
Chapter One
The Catalyst
Chapter One
I casually repositioned myself on my bed when I realized that I had been staring at the small emerald lined box for over an hour.
Gradually, I opened the soft cover and exposed the perfectly clear gem, shaped similarly to a needle, nestled in a black onyx ring, which closed in around it in peculiar designs. I gently removed the piece of jewelry, and examined it closely beneath the lamp beside me. Every turn reflected the sudden rainbow of colors produced by the apparent prism within the onyx setting.
I slipped the smooth stones onto my ring finger and again observed its appearance in the light.
“Hmm…” I tilted my head curiously. I had never really been too fond of jewelry other than the simple rosary-like necklace I wore to ward off my cousin’s curse; I shivered reflexively from the memory. However, there was something special about this ring.
I solemnly remembered my grandmother’s story, the true one at least. She said she had slit her wrist in an attempt to kill herself. When she fell, her injured limb landed onto the old wooden flooring of her kitchen and the longer she laid there the more her blood seeped through the cracks in the wood.
For some reason, the ring and its box were directly beneath the boards her blood was spilt on. Every time a drop slipped down to the hidden area containing the ring it seemed attracted to the gem. She remembered that just before her final breath the ring must have become full, turning a deep scarlet, causing it to emit a slow pulse. Her flat hand had begun glowing in reaction to the rhythm and just a second later she looked as if she simply flashed out of existence, not a single drop of blood was left where she once lay.
I stared blankly at the wall before me, and then took a quick look at the ring resting comfortably on my finger. Sighing, I mumbled quietly to myself. “I suppose I could try…it couldn’t hurt. Well, to try, not…not literally.”
I quietly pulled off my bed and walked over to my bookshelf; resting neatly on top was a medium sized chest carved from wood and intricately painted in various warm shades of green. The clasp slipped open easily and I carefully opened the top. Deep within the several objects filled with past memories was a small clean steal dagger my uncle had given me before he disappeared.
Once I had replaced the chest I moved to the center of my bedroom and kneeled to the floor. My natural inclination toward strange and possibly dangerous things caused my nerves to flutter anxiously as I steadied the dagger above my left palm. I tried to keep my breathing steady as I prepared to start and in my head counted: 1…2…3…cut!
The initial feeling was strange, but not bad. Nevertheless, almost immediately after that the pain hit me, the cries of millions of nerves struck my body and I instinctively clutched my hand tightly, making a strong fist in an attempt to dull the pain.
Biting my lip hard, I released my grasp. The cut was much deeper than I had intended, the wound reaching from the center of my hand to the top, thin skin of my wrist. The flow of blood was very strong, spilling onto the floor in small pools of red. My body began feeling a little heavy and I seemed to be slowly rocking my head in a gentle, rhythmic circle.
Slowly, I took a deep breath and balanced myself as best as I could. Despite my attempts to control my body, I continued to feel the same as I felt the blood dripping away from my existence, like an hourglass leaking it’s sand, and slowly my ripped hand began to throb angrily as though it were being refused oxygen.
“Damn.” I exhaled, “I think…I cut..the veins... but...but I wouldn’t have thought that…I would pass out so soon…I-I never would have pegged myself for…squeamish…” I took a few more deep breaths while weakly holding my wrist, trying in a near futile attempt to slow the blood. “I’m…going to pass..out…”
The strange feeling of constriction and pain continued to increase its overwhelming hold on me; in an effort to cease the confusion I quickly jabbed the odd ring deep into the flooded abrasion and then slapped my hand onto the floor. I nearly slipped in the blood covering the surface combined with the clotting layer on my hand, but I caught myself awkwardly just as the fabled red glow traced along each stained finger. I watched the light until suddenly the world turned black.
Large shadowy figures were everywhere; it was so very dark, my eyes ignored my hopes that they’d adjust. Being practically blind, I began running my hand in along the ground I sat on, soft dirt, small rocks, and little clumps of grass and moss rubbed against my fingers.
I quirked my brow slightly, “…Is this the place?” I thought out loud.
I leaned forward and used my hands to help push myself up. A sudden sharp pain swept through my calf, causing me to topple over and catch myself alongside a hard mass.
“OW!” My voice echoed eerily through the blackness before me.
With an unseen, but definitely annoyed, expression on my face I pulled away from the object and rubbed my hand along my now sore back. Using my other hand, I reached backward for the thing I had run into and found a rough, bumpy, moss covered tree. The tree wasn’t very big and upon further inspection I found that I had just nearly missed a broken, protruding branch, which was covered in sticky sap. I quickly pulled my hand away from the substance and wiped it against the trunk and a little on my most likely filthy dress.
Continuing to feel around, which gleaned only more evidence of foliage, I mumbled to myself, “This must be the forest grandmother talked of.”
I stumbled briefly in the dark against a rock lying in my hidden path; thankfully another tree broke my fall. “If this is the woods, it’s not quite how grandmother described. She said it had been strangely bright with animals rustling all around her. I don’t hear anything.” I stopped my blind groping and looked about at the deaf air around me. “What was that thing about silence in a woods?” I tapped my lip as I thought. “If-if you don’t hear anything, that’s when you should worry…because…animals scatter when they sense danger...”
My heartbeat sped up and my eyes observed the black anxiously. I suddenly felt my hand grasping the metal cross of my necklace.
“Help me, Daela.” I heard my voice whisper.
The sound of my deceased cousin’s name seemed to echo back to me, spreading though the hidden trees like light reflected off metal. Beneath my hold the tree shook abruptly, knocking me backwards. Daela’s name still fluttered to my ears in the dark.
A warm wisp of air ran across my neck. “Guinevere?”
I jerked slightly at the sound of my grandmother’s name, even though the darkness prevented me from seeing anything.
“Who’s there?” My voice echoed once again. “How do you know my grandmother?” Once the words of my second question passed over my lips I noticed there was no chime of echoes but more of a dull, flat nothing, similar to talking at a wall.
“Grandmother?” The mysterious voice spoke clearly, as though it were right before my face.
Abruptly, bright light broke out around me, startling my eyes, and I reactively brought up my arms to shield my face. A small, soft hand lightly touched my arms, urging me to put them down. I blinked my eyes a few times before they adjusted and settled on an attractive child, no more than, perhaps, eight years old. I opened my mouth to speak but was interrupted by a delicate, albeit, demanding voice.
“Who are you?” bold, golden eyes were fixed on my own. Waving wildly in half curls were long thick locks of completely brown hair, nearly the exact same color as the dirt and trees I now saw clearly around me. Her golden glare narrowed at my silence. “Who are you!?” she demanded again.
“Oh, uh, sorry, I’m Jade.” I grinned politely, but continued sitting quietly beneath the young girl’s gaze.
“Jade?” She lowered her brow questioningly, “How do you know Guinevere?” Her tone suggested she was confused by my answer.
“Guinevere is my grandmother. I’m the only one of thirteen grandchildren who enjoys being with her.” I chuckled a little awkwardly.
“Grandmother? Grandchildren? Guinevere never had children.” The girl gracefully crossed her legs and sat down across from me like we were about to have some long conversation. Since she no longer protested so forcefully I assumed she wanted me to elaborate.
“She did eventually. Ten children, six boys and five girls, however her first two boys-twins actually- they were born at an entirely different time period then the other eight but they have been missing for a few centuries. And since obviously she never told anyone but me about her life here, none of her other children have any idea about their older brothers or their mother’s past.” I paused, realizing I had kind of babbled off, but she remained watching me, as though waiting still. So I continued, “Uhm, unfortunately most of her children dislike her, so they never come to visit.” I looked off, thinking, “there was one son who cared for her and one daughter who tolerates her, that would be my mother. I had also been rather close with my uncle, he was like another father to me…” my gaze lowered sadly, “but he went missing after my fourteenth birthday, three years ago.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” The girl shook her hands angrily, “I don’t understand. I thought Guinevere left because she never wanted a family or children?” The girl seemed to be unintentionally leaning toward me with intense curiosity in her eyes.
“Oh um, no…is that why you thought she left?”
The girl nodded anxiously.
“No, she told me that she was heading for this forest to tell someone something, I would imagine you. I think it was to mention that she may be pregnant.” The girl inclined forward a little more and opened her small mouth to speak but I held my index finger to her lips. “She said was running through the trees when suddenly the setting just changed and she was on a rain drenched cobblestone road in the late 1700’s,” I quirked my lips in thought, “I think around 1798 or ’99. Grandmother told me she researched for many years, but was never able to figure out why she went back or why she could never return.”
Surprisingly, the girl had a large smile drawn across her face.
“What?” I tilted my head.
She ignored my question and leapt up happily, her long hair bouncing about her face and shoulders. “Hello Jade, granddaughter of Guinevere, I am Autumn, the druid of Talen Forest,” she spread her arms around smiling proudly.
The gesture leads me to notice she had a vine twisting around and going into parts of her left arm. I didn’t have much time to observe it though, since she continued her exaggerated introduction.
“It is a great pleasure to meet you.” She held out a small hand and, although I was wary, I took her invitation; the second our hands met she swiftly yanked me off the ground. I attempted to pull my hand away, but Autumn held fast. “The Catalyst suits you well.” I watched as the rainbow effect reflected onto Autumn’s young face.
In all the chaos I had almost completely forgotten about the ring on my finger and the cut on my hand. I pulled my arm away from her at last in order to see my once mortally wounded limb; a long, pale, somewhat silvery taut scar lay where the bloody slit once was.
“Don’t worry, the scar will go away a little more in an hour.”
“Only a little?”
“Yeah, the first wound you ever get when you come here stays with you as a scar forever, but all the others completely heal once you arrive in Talen.”
“Hmm.” I ran the tip of my finger along the smooth, slight protrusion on my skin.
“Well, now that we’ve been introduced, it’s time that you got going!”
“Wha—” she turned me around as I protested and pointed a finger directly ahead of me.
“Just go straight, heading for the shadows. That’s where it’ll be.” I felt her give me a gentle nudge forward.
“W-wait, that’s where what will be?”
“You’ll see.” Her voice whispered across my ear as she had done the first time we met.
“Autumn?” I swung around, but she was nowhere to be seen. Taking a deep breath, I returned to face the gradually darkening shadows. “Ok, I guess it’s off to… somewhere.”
Once I started walking I yet again felt the sharp pain in my calf, it had lessened now but still not good enough to walk well or quickly. I gasped through clenched teeth and continued, limping along with the help of sporadic trees. After about an hour, the sky had nearly fallen into the blackness I once sat in and the bright Talen Forest still shown faintly behind me. The further I went, the fewer the trees became, but then about fifteen feet away an odd, large tower stood on the ground, the area around the edifice was far spreading and barren of all nature. Once I finally managed to get out into the clearing, I was better able to view the structure hidden within Talen Forest.
“Wow, that’s a very tall building.” I craned my neck so that I would be able to view the peak of the tower.
Large rectangular bricks wrapped themselves around the cylinder with perhaps three large windows set into the stone, two of which had balconies with black iron railing warped into a strange mess of designs. As I limped in a daze around the side, I found vibrant green ivy growing from nowhere up the wall and slightly tangled with a railing. The leaves stemming from the vine were large and soft with small veins of blue emanating from beneath its thin skin. For some reason, I felt rather compelled to hold and take one of the hypnotic leaves. Gently, I slit through the stem of one leaf and carefully tucked it into the bosom of my dress, as I had no pockets. The plants appendage was warm against my chest, calming my racing mind, which eased some of my discomfort with my wounded calf.
While I continued my observation I came across a large door. “That looks relatively heavy and impregnable, maybe steel or some other form of iron. I wonder why? It’s not very probable that whoever lives here comes across many robbers.” I cocked my head and noticed the handle, it was vertical iron and just as warped as the railing along the balconies edges.
“AHHHHHH!” A muffled female shriek echoed in the clearing.
My heart skipped a beat as I gasped, “holy crap…w-where’d that come from?” I gazed up the tall structure, “the only possible place is this tower.”
Although the voice was obviously expressing pain from who knows what lurking inside, I reached for the large handle and pulled. Dust, dirt, and small rocks drifted from the top of the door molding, it had evidently not been opened in several decades or centuries even. Luckily, as I strained to open the door, not one rusted cry came from the hinges. I heaved a sigh of relief, just in case there was a murderer or psychotic torturing fiend waiting in the tower, and so I then carefully shut the heavy door behind me.
The inside was even darker than the clearing until my eyes adjusted and I noticed a small amount of patchy, pure blue light drifting in from most likely one of, if not all of, the three windows.
“I didn’t see the moon while I was outside?” After a moment I shrugged my shoulders and began to look around.
I quickly found that the room was enormous and quite empty, with polished black marble floors and smooth ebony banisters lining the two elegant spiral staircases, one on each side of the room.
A sudden vibrating creak sounded from above me.
“Eheh…that’s right, I had almost forgotten about the scream I heard. Maybe I shouldn’t go on...” I had my head tilted slightly in thought and my upper lip pushed out over my lower one as I looked cautiously up into the ceiling’s abyss.
The excitement began increasing its force and fast paced adrenaline advanced its once steady flow through my veins. My thoughts raced quickly with all I could imagine, good and bad, and something clicked in my brain. “Urg…” I groaned, “It seems my curiosity has gotten the better of my fears.” I bit my lip lightly and then stepped toward the left staircase, but before my foot even touched the first step I felt the blue, clear light envelope me. It was strangely warm, like walking into the sun’s rays. I looked up to find the source of the light and discovered that the blue only seemed to continue toward that black nothingness above me. The light was similar to the source-less vines that grew on the outer walls of the evidently huge tower.
Turning my head away, I again focused on the dark stair that twined before me. Another shrill creak rattled the wood of the banisters and pulsed eerie vibrations through the tips of my fingers. I stepped onto the smooth step and began to lift myself up. The blue light dulled bit by bit and the further up I went, the deeper I headed into darkness and consequentially toward a possibly life threatening danger.
When I finally reached the continuation of a stair I assumed I had reached the top level, although I couldn’t actually see to be sure. As my eyes adjusted to the pure black around me, I noticed a ray of white light emanating from what was most likely a crack in the floor. I made my way over to the hole rather slowly, groping about with my hands straight ahead of me. I kept feeling the general paranoid thoughts of sudden blindness, like I were about to hit a wall or fall down a never-ending pit.
The hole in the wood flooring, or so it appeared to be, was not very large but did give me a view of two peoples in a brighter room, though it was dimmed in several areas. It appeared to be a man speaking to a woman tied to a wall coming up out of the floor. “A wall in the middle of the floor?” I whispered without thinking, but my hand quickly smacked over my mouth. Hopefully they hadn’t heard me.
For a brief moment I thought I saw the woman’s disturbingly bright pink eyes twinkle excitedly in my direction, but I must have only imagined it. Her eyes were very vivid.
She suddenly screamed violently toward the man who leapt back with anger on his face, at least that’s what it looked like. I didn’t really have the best view from where I was. She definitely glanced at me this time and her eyes seemed to glow before she winked briefly at me. I pulled back my curious eye in confusion and concern. However, an almost immediate cracking sound erupted from beneath my body. Before I knew it the floor had given way and I felt myself falling a good twenty feet down, however, before hitting the ground, I was caught lightly in the air and then set down on the broken rubble. There was a sudden flare of pain from my injured calf; no doubt falling through a ceiling didn’t help matters much.
Everything was blurry for a few seconds due to the abrupt change of light and startling fall, but once I could see clearly I saw untainted black eyes staring back at me. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what his expression was, but I assumed it wasn’t a good one. We continued to stare at one another, though I kept my gaze for mere uncertainty of what could happen if I turned away.
A few long black hairs draped down over his shoulder and caught my attention, making a good excuse to stop looking so intently at him. He seemed to begin the attempts of forming a word when the woman abruptly rammed into him, knocking a chunk out of an arch molding and breaking several small objects.
Many more loud bangs came from the room openly connected to the one I had landed in. A bit of the separating wall beside me began to crack and dribble pieces of what looked like dry wall but smelt completely different. I leaned forward to touch the strange substance when the wall unexpectedly ruptured and collided with my head. The peculiar scent hit me along with a painfully nauseous dizziness, I felt my eyes roll against my eyelids with small patches and blurs of moving light and then I drifted into unconsciousness.
Prologue
The Catalyst
The Prologue
“Jade, do you remember the story I told you as a little girl?” My grandmother gently held my hand between her own, her soft aching whisper carried on the heavy smelling air of the room she had been in the last few weeks of her gradually worsening illness.
I nodded slowly and placed my other free hand over our entwined ones. Her hazy gray blue eyes still held the youthful glimmer I always used to see when she looked at me as a girl. A small grin pulled at her delicately aged face and then she nodded as well, disrupting her pure white hair, which flowed in soft waves all around her face and head.
“Jade sweetie, can you hand me the box over on the vanity.” I rotated my waist toward the small table near the bed. The container was about the same size as a ring box with a strange greenish metal or stone lining the edges and forming in the center of the cover to create a strange design. It appeared to be a hand.
I placed the package in her open palm and watched as she stroked the unique design on the top. Tears flooded her eyes and her breath shook slightly as she ran a finger across her cheeks.
“Are you alright?” I moved forward to make sure everything was normal.
“I’m fine sweetie, fine.” She eased herself up against her pillows along the headboard while still cradling the box in her hand as though it were the most precious thing in the world. “Jade, remember how in the story the simple girl ended up in a magical world and met the man of her dreams?”
“Yes,” I quirked my brow in confusion.
“The story is actually…very different.”
“I don’t understand, what do you mean different? Why does it matter?”
“You see, the story is true but not exactly how I told it.”
I shook my head. “But—”
“Jade.” Her quiet voice interrupted my question, “I feel that it may be time to tell you the real story, or at least how it really began, but I warn you, it’s not what you may think.” She chuckled a little, “You probably won’t believe me, if you ever even did before.” A small smile stayed on her face for a moment, as if she were reminiscing on something, but then her expression drooped a bit, “…just, please, wait until I finish telling you. ”
I nodded somewhat reluctantly and repositioned myself as she took a deep breath in order to begin speaking.
“Back in the 1600’s, around 52 years after the landing of the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock and the Pilgrims had settled into their lives somewhat, I was born. It was the 21st of June 1672 that I was born as the second daughter of a prominent family among our colony. I grew up like all children did in that time, however I had always felt…different. And some of my interests were likewise. Unfortunately many of those were things our families, my family, would consider evil. Around my 18th birthday I decided to start quietly voicing these interests, which caught the attention of a small group of three woman and two men in our town. It turned out they were what our village dubbed as witches, though, despite everything I had learned and heard and been forcefully taught since I was an infant, I simply didn’t see in them the qualities our reverend had described. I worked with them for about a year, learning and discovering all these incredible things I never knew but felt I was somehow always meant to know. It was so, fulfilling, so wonderful that I was,” she chuckled “I was over the moon. And in all the haze of acceptance and confidence in myself, I stupidly decided to try and tell my parents who I really was. What I really loved and wanted in life.”
For a minute she paused, looking off, her lower lip slightly quivering before she pulled in a deep breath to continue.
“They disowned me; called me a devil worshipper. I spent two weeks living in that horror from not only them, but soon the whole of our town. You know, back then, the world wasn’t like it is now. There really wasn’t anywhere I could go, and even if I could, this place was my home. Our sense of community was so strong, so, completely normal, that when it was stripped from me it was hard to live.” She sniffed a bit as a few tears ran down her mildly flushed cheeks.
Clearing her throat a tad, “Well, not long afterward all of this happened, it had been decided that two of my spell-casting friends and myself were condemned to be burned at the stake. The remaining three of my friends were kidnapped for a time but were able to escape, and as far as I know they lived safely for the rest of their lives. Oh, and just so you know, this was close to the time when the famed Salem Witch Trials occurred. I guess we sort of gave the final spark to that flame.
“Anyway, back to before that happily ever after my friends hopefully managed, these three appeared the night before our death, and rather stealthily rescued us from where we had been confined. Thanks to their excelled skills, they were able to burn a hole in the wall so that my two captive friends and I were able to slip out into the woods unseen. We were on the run for three days, and while I knew that I shouldn’t feel badly, I reached a point where I finally couldn’t stand the guilt that welled up inside me. The main problem was that I missed my two younger brothers terribly. They had always played with me, and called for me and not my mother when they were scared or sick. So, after a great deal of tumultuous thought, I eventually decided to leave my company and went back to my cottage home.”
She exhaled a small sigh, “It was about one in the morning when I arrived, so I crept in through a window and, as quietly as possible, headed to my brothers’ bedroom. They were asleep together in their one bed, their shiny black hair rustled on top of the pillows. I was rather eager and wanted to run over, hug them, and never let go again. But I had to be quiet, so I went over and gently tapped them awake. Neither were too surprised to see me; they were always rather mischievous and not easily scared little boys.” Grandmother smiled sadly at the thought.
“The boys both sat up and, instead of a warm reception, I was met with cold glares. They had these big green eyes, so full of expression, almost just like yours actually,” she grinned lovingly, though her own eyes were still saddened, and brushed her thumb across my cheek. “In the beginning, I thought…I-I was so sure they would find me more exciting due to their rebellious nature, but when they looked at me, I could see so clearly that they were very angry. I wanted to ease my way to them and so softly spoke their names, but…in return th-they spat at me and turned their faces away, calling me a...a devil worshipper.” Several tears were streaming down her cheeks, “I-I was stunned. Of everyone, I thought that surely they would still love me, as young and stubborn as they were. But, I was wrong. They shunned me, in every way. My family and other friends had refused to acknowledge me, the entire colony rallied together to burn me alive; throwing me away like garbage. And yet, I never allowed that to seep in, not all the way at least, because I still had my brothers. Then, suddenly, with that one moment of pure hatred in their eyes, I felt the weight of all the rejection I had ever received for so long run me over.
“I walked away like a dazed ghost, sweeping easily through the hall, and eventually I stopped in the kitchen, or well, what was as close to a kitchen as possible nowadays.” Her lips quirked a little, her eyes having shifted to the little box in her hands.
“Everything seemed empty, I felt so alone, completely worthless. A broken shell that had been discarded by every person I had ever known and ever loved. The feelings that had before plagued my mind now came flooding back to me. Horrid, evil things, but I soon found I didn’t care, I didn’t feel much of anything the longer I stood in the light of gentle darkness. I slowly searched the area until I clutched a smooth wooden handle and I slowly picked up a surprisingly clean blade, which my fingers excitedly held. I knew my people’s ideas in regards to killing oneself and, honestly, a part of me wanted to spite them. My life was over no matter what I chose to do in the end and without the love of my brothers; I just saw no life to be lived. Why not curse their precious ideals? So,” she exhaled, “I quickly ran the blade through my skin and severed the veins. There was a strange mix of sharp pain, then a tingling, dizzy numbness drowning my senses, and then back to sharp, now throbbing pain. I sat down and soon fell to my side, my entire arm felt as though it were being simultaneously strangled from blood flow and flooded with biting fire, all the while attempting to recite the Lord’s Prayer. I remembered that just before I was gone, basically lying in my own blood, there was a faint red glow dancing in front of my blurry, tear-filled eyes. The next thing I recalled was bright sun, it was like a sudden jerk from a second of unexpectedly tripping into sleep.”
I watched as she took a long, deep breath and sighed, sniffling a few times.
“It turns out that this little box was opened beneath where my wrist had landed, catching the blood as it went through the wood of the floor. The ring this holds was just waiting for it to come. You see, to work, the clear gem needed to absorb fresh blood and once full, it would glow that scarlet I saw before everything was supposed to go black. Forever…” Her words drifted off.
“Grandmother?” I placed my hand on her shoulder, worry in my gaze.
“Hmm, oh, I’m fine. Just tired, sweetie.” She nodded, patting my hand calmly.
Clearing her throat, “now, I stayed in this new world for a while and found it to be quite pleasant, somewhere freeing, although I never did hear of a name for it. In that place I was able to practice my witchcraft and study many more different types of magic, most were things I had never heard of before. It was a dream come true, one I never could have been able to imagine coming from where I did.” Her gaze had grown a bit happier as she spoke of the fairytale world I grew up on.
“About a year into my time there, I met him. The Skeleton Man is what many referred to him as; others simply called him the Immortal.”
I nodded at that, recalling his title name since he didn’t seem to have a real one. This story was now beginning to come to what I remembered as a child.
“I soon began to work with him. He opened doors into dreamlike wonders my old friends and I could have never imagined, never thought could even be conceivably possible, and soon I was able to create an elixir, which, in a way, could make a person immortal.”
I furrowed my brow at this. She never talked of creating a way to be immortal; actually, all the magic in her story felt a lot more like the kind of magic you read in books or on.
Despite my being caught up in my thoughts, she continued, “In reality it merely prolonged life depending on the amounts of certain ingredients added to each portion.” She paused, her lips growing into a smile like I had never seen before. “We spent a great many years together, more than two centuries. Not only working together, him teaching me ways of this world and it’s magic that I would never have been able to learn on my own, but also just…being with each other like friends, the closet of friends. It wasn’t too long into our meeting and working that we found we had fallen in love.” She exhaled a laugh, “It was literally like a fairytale, the fairytale that I would later tell you off in my many tales of our life. Yes, we were very happy for such a long while and one evening I discovered some exciting news, something I couldn’t believe and was dying to let out, so I left in search of a friend to tell as quickly as possible.”
Unexpectedly, that smile I had never known fell away, “I was running through the woods I had originally appeared in when I first arrived, but then, suddenly the soft sounds of my feet on the moss and grass changed, the air became heavy and thick with moisture, and the scenery was now quite different. The forest I had grown to love so dearly was no longer there, instead there was numerous dreary buildings coming up all around and a rain drenched cobblestone road spread beneath my running feet.” She shook her head, “I felt like I had gone mad. This completely foreign city had just appeared without the slightest warning, the shift had been so smooth, even beyond when I had first arrived in that world I loved. When I realized I was no longer there, when my efforts to saturate my ring refused to work, I fell to the filthy wet ground and cried harder than I could have that humanly possible.”
Tears had been falling silently as she spoke, like she had given so much to her mourning already that her heart couldn’t give anymore effort beyond those instinctive tears.
Ignoring the salty water drying on her face, “I discovered that I had landed in 1798, on a city road somewhere in Massachusetts. A lengthy while afterward, I mean well beyond my life in that early time period, I was able to do some accurate research and found it to have been around my hometown of Plymouth now called Plymouth County, Massachusetts.
“In any case, after spending what felt like ages trying to find whatever possible job I could procure as a pregnant single woman with no family or money and a little over nine months later on February 23rd, 1799, I had twin boys whom I named Crispyn and Gabriel.” A tony smile tickled the edge of her mouth, “I remember, just like it was yesterday, both my boys had black hair and shared each other’s eye colors, one grey blue like mine and the other violet like my mother’s. They were so handsome, such good, strong boys, and I loved them more than anything. However, on their 21st birthday they made a joint decision to leave and explore the world.” She huffed, “Crispyn was always very stubborn and adventurous, and Gabriel, oh sweet little Gabriel, he never left his brother’s side. So, regardless of my protests, he gave up his artistic talents to go with Crispyn. I knew I couldn’t hold onto them forever, and I knew just because they did so didn’t mean it would be forever. But still, it…it broke my heart the day they left. When my boys never returned…I died a little inside.”
She made no expression like I thought she might, but simply looked at her hands calmly.
Sighing, she grinned and began speaking again. “I spent decades waiting, but deep down, I knew they weren’t coming back to me. So I left our little home and decided to travel as well. Sometimes I went places as a mere tourist and other times I traveled on my own, usually only when I was low on cash.” She giggled girlishly. “Oh, then when I had the appearance of a twenty five year old I met your biological grandfather, my first husband. I loved him very much and we lived quite comfortably. It was during my time with him that I had my first three children, your eldest two uncles and your mother.
“Unfortunately, disease came for him, crept up so fast that before we knew it, it was too late and he died. The doctors never found a reason for it, which only made things so much worse. I had a hard time after that, again a single mother, dealing with medical bills and funeral expenses on a teacher’s salary. Through my years of working to keep food on the table, I inadvertently developed a close relationship with a co-worker and friend of mine. That man would become the grandfather you know, Kalen. We were just as happy as I had been with my first husband, and soon had many more children. Then of course, as you know, he died the year before last.” She sighed again, nearly out of breath from her long story. “Now, that was the short version. Maybe some other time I’ll tell you the long one.” Her smile stretched across her face in a mischievous way and her eyes glittered happily.
“That’s the short version?” I blinked with confusion, “…wow, but that was so long.” I shook my head as the normally internal thoughts finished slipping from my mouth.
“Dear, you’re speaking out loud again.” My grandmother patted her hand against my arm.
“Hmm?” I looked up at her, “Oh, sorry,” I shyly mumbled, my cheeks mildly pinkened in embarrassment.
“Now back to this little box of mine.” She stroked the small container with a smile. “This is my friend. I have carried this with me everywhere, but when I remarried to Kalen I promised myself that I would say goodbye and never wear it again.” She gently popped open the top, revealing a stunning thin shaft of a clear diamond. “I want to die, Jade. I want to be with my husbands, my brothers, everyone I loved and lost once again.”
A light, sad smile barely tugged at her lips and she turned her tearful gaze on me, a hint of something unspoken reflected in her eyes, but I couldn’t tell what it meant. “Here,” My grandmother placed the small box in my unsuspecting hands.
“W-why are you giving me this?” I jerked my gaze back and forth from the box to her then her to the box.
“It’s your birthday gift, my last to you, and also the most precious thing you’ll ever own.” Her grey blue eyes twinkled at me. “Now sweetie, why don’t you go read your books.” She yet again brushed my arm lightly as she lowered her eyelids to sleep.
I kept the box palmed as I walked out of the room, my face still held a slight hint of stupefied awe and immense confusion at what was going on.
Later that evening, my grandmother went to see her family at long last.
End
