by Viviene Noel
‘Men of the south, clad in white, riding north for the fight
Leaving lilies for their wives, sons waving goodbye
To the fathers they will only remember
Men of the south, clad in white, riding north for the fight’
Mahena didn’t recognise the song as the words escaped her lips. It flowed, from that unreliable memory of a distant dream, prompted by the scent of lilies bordering the pond, white, pink, yellow, and orange. Continuing to hum the melody, she wondered who the song described. Could it be the people of the sand kingdom, or a song from the southern continent? The born traveller within her had beamed, stars gleaming in her eyes at stories she barely dared imagine.
She doubted the twins believed her story, not after the month and some she had resided with them. Mahena was a piss-poor long-term liar, too spontaneous and honest to hold a lie together. She had managed to recover every time she slipped; however, she caught the underlying looks the siblings gave each other.
And in all frankness, she wanted answers too. Especially after today.
A gentle wind arose, coming from the forest. A call to the outside world, it seemed, a teasing song for the curious minds. She looked westward, startled, the breeze an invitation she sensed for the first time. Her blood drummed in her veins as she took a step forward, the invitation travelling farther than her ears.
All hail to the woman who never watched a horror movie and didn’t know the butcher hides behind the first tree!
‘Maybe the witch awaits the little girl to offer her candies,’ she whispered, a mix of excitement and fear, and something else, tying a knot in her stomach. The difference between this instant and an actual B movie was the time of day and the absence of an intense orchestra in the background.
A rusty, mouldy smell with a lingering scent of peppermint hit her nose, powerfully overtaking her senses as it penetrated her pores. Her shoulders rolled back, as though shaking off the shiver it sent through her body. Beneath her shirt, her twelve-pointed pendant warmed.
‘And now we know why they open the door after all,’ she told herself as the force of curiosity compelled her forward. So many tales crossed her mind, stories she would love to live through. Witches had made her spine curl since she could remember, their link to nature and ability to use its power she somehow envied, even if they scared her.
She got to the path through the woods, the two oak trees towering over, guardians to the world beyond. As she stepped through, the atmosphere changed.
Mahena blinked once, twice. At every blink, her eyes accommodated to the sight, as though the veil of the night had dropped. It hadn’t, the sun was high in the sky. Yet, details around her shifted, modified. The pine forest at this time of year was still awakening from winter; animals were shyly peeking from their burrows, flowers were blooming. In other words, not so lively a road to travel on.
She blinked again, turning around as life took over. She faced not resurrecting wildlife anymore, but already grown, bloomed and full; the colours of the flowers and bushes she didn't recognise. Mahena’s face lit up, a broad smile expanding on her lips as she took in the raw beauty, the abundance of life suddenly surrounding her.
A fresh, sweet and rich scent tickled her nose, her skin, like a second epidermis layer growing over the first one, starting at the tip of her fingers, sliding along her arms. Her eyes opened wide, bright and smiling at the change. Mahena clamped her hands under her left breast, where her heartbeat accelerated.
‘What the…’ she exclaimed as the pendant between her breasts heated again, and this time she noticed. She grabbed it, squeezed firmly as though the answer would race to her brain by doing so.
Oh, it was strange…and not right. But right at the same time. How could it be wrong when her being seemed to sparkle from it? Why did that pendant react? And how could a pendant react in the first place?
There was something else too. A resurrecting sensation, not quite a rebirth, tangled up in the messy awakening.
Mahena shook her head, an attempt to reorder her emotions and thoughts. Were any of those flowers she inhaled intensely gifted with hallucinogenic properties? Was it how her brain handled the situation, by creating a beautiful universe around her?
‘God, you need sleep,’ she claimed, rubbing her temples. ‘That must be it.’
But then all wonder disappeared and a cold, rusty, iron smell slammed into her face. Old, patient and hungry. Her body twitched in reaction, a frozen shiver awakening the core of her soul. It danced in the air, sniffing out the intruder, the unfortunate guest. She was suddenly panting.
The curiosity she felt mere minutes ago was sucked into oblivion, replaced by a panicking fear as sudden and unexplained as the rest. Mahena yelped as a searing pain blasted through the bottom of her throat.
The medallion was now burning.
Her knees buckled under an invisible pressure. She was alone in the woods, on that pathway she’d gone through so many times before, facing an unknown smothering wind.
What the hell lived in these woods that they had not told her? Mahena decided she wasn’t eager to find out. Without wasting a second, she willed all the power left in her mind to move her stoic legs, to get her out of this bit of land.
‘My child...why are you so scared?’ A creeping, slithering murmur.
Mahena swallowed hard as the question, the whisper, sent shivering pains down her back. She swallowed down on the terror suddenly spiking and took a deep breath. She looked around, painstakingly steeling herself.
The rusty breeze swept again.
Then she was bent over by a twisting cramp. Her entire body was warming, her veins a painful stream of sharp needles. She choked down a scream, rolled back the tears that instantly lined her eye, and willed her mind to ignore the torturous pain, powered through the spreading numbness, trying to move her legs.
‘I have waited so long to meet you.’ It screeched along her skin.
An echoing sound reverberated through her. Not hers, not a call she made, yet within herself. Deep, hidden underneath layers of disbelief and faithlessness. The same whispering tone that had kept her back straight for a month. The little voice connected to the malevolence of the voice whispering in the woods—sniffed at it.
Mahena swallowed down, torn between the blind terror her conscious self was battling, and the calming eagerness of that...thing.
She decided she had no intention of letting the little voice indulge in the curiosity.
Mahena shut the voice down and tunnelled down to the core of her physical strength. She rejected the otherworldly feeling caressing her bones and ordered her legs to flee.
The sensation of being spied on neared, getting closer by the second.
The second her legs responded, she turned tail and ran faster than she ever thought she could. All sounds disappeared into oblivion, only the echoing of that atrocious voice, and the wind sweeping past her face. Mahena ran through the plain with newfound power, pushed by the wind the way only prey about to become something’s dinner could. Was this the feeling thundering through antelope’s heart when a lioness neared?
Mahena was inside the cottage before she realised she had passed the pond. She rammed her back against the door as she slammed it shut, the terror hammering in her skull. The voice still echoed on her skin, burning like acid. Her ragged breath filled the utter silence of the house, the fear falling out of her in gasping waves. Her hand shot to her necklace instantly—a wave of relief brushed over her at its coolness.
Safe, she repeated to herself until her heartbeat evened and the air she inhaled stopped feeling like razor-sharp needles in her lungs. It could have been minutes or hours or days. Why had this never happened before? And what the hell had it been in the first place? They rode that path every time to go to the market. If whatever that had been living there, why did it wait for her to be alone to manifest—
The Chil
d Witch. That story—
Power, power, power. It reverberated through her bones, an answer to her silent question.
Those simple words sunk in a place she wished not to tread, a loud scream in her head without a reason to be. It opened a wrinkle inside of her, barely noticeable.
It was there, inside of her. What was it?
It... It...
Mahena cursed, low and filthy, when she hit a wall—as though there were protections erected around a part of her memories. She swore again, forcing herself to weather her rising frustration. She grabbed the milk bottle she’d left on the table and drank deeply. The cool liquid soothed her boiling blood.
Calm down, she repeated to herself once more, relax. She held a hand above her thundering heart, pressing as hard as she could to keep it from ripping out, the sudden change of emotion creating a loop in her conflicted mind. ‘No magic left in the lands, my ass.’
She stared at the door, at all the little dents in the wood made by Emmerentia’s flying knives, at the ones she had made herself, remembering the laughs they had shared and Fàaran’s gritted teeths at the damage.
Mahena rubbed her eyes. Would this be the end of it? Before letting tears overwhelm her, she stormed out of the cottage down to the little river where she went every time to stop thinking. Water always seemed to soothe her; the whisper of the stream running down the valley, the echo of its purity against the rocks in its way, the reflection of the sun on its surface.
A melody to her ears.
The only moment of sanity on her own.
Mahena discarded her clothes on the grass and stepped into the water. It was shallow in most spots, however a little deeper in the middle. Deep enough for her to immerse completely if she sat down, the cold feeling on her skin acting as a soothing, relaxing balm. The current brushed along her skin, finding its way around her body. Mahena closed her eyes, breathing out, acclimating to the chill now penetrating her veins.
She hugged her knees, propped her chin on top, and let her gaze follow the course of the river. Shutting down her brain, her non-interrupting flow of thoughts, her fears and weird excitement, she focused on nature before her. A butterfly flew past, its emerald wings shimmering in the afternoon sun. Mahena followed its path, her lips slightly parting in awe at the flawless grace. She followed it until it weaved between trees and she could no longer distinguish it through the leaves. Then she moved her attention to the birds on the branches surrounding her, their chirping so in sync with the murmur of the water that they transformed it into a symphony of their own. How could humans have destroyed this so remorselessly? She couldn’t be the only one who would trade back all technology to restore her planet. Yes, the convenience undeniably erased the guilt, pushed it back into a corner easily forgotten over time. But was the convenience as valuable as what had been lost?
Humans. Damned idiots.
Mahena wondered how the rulers of this world would evolve given the same opportunities and situations.
Home—she thought of home so little. She’d had moments in the early days when panic—no, not panic—guilt would have her jerk upward and clench at her heart, but then the little voice would whisper and somehow, somehow, Mahena felt deep in her core that it was ok. Now, Belgium and England and everything she knew seemed so foreign they had become a distant, mist-shrouded memory.
Another type of chirping joined the first one, higher-pitched, more discreet. And then another, deeper this time. The three species of birds she couldn’t name rendered the scene into a movie set. She exhaled deeply, savouring the bone-deep calm, then laid her head on her knees and closed her eyes.
10
Emmerentia stalked furiously through the field to where she suspected Mahena to be lingering. Her thunderous step seemed to bounce off the trees, disrupting the outside quiet; while her head, on the other hand, was roaring.
Mahena’s head snapped up when she heard Emmerentia’s approach. Before realising it, Emmerentia was in the middle of the stream, her arms crossed before Mahena. ‘From Elgona, is it?’
Mahena blinked, and her lack of reaction infuriated Emmerentia even further. ‘Anything you want to clear up before I say my piece?’ she bit out.
Mahena pushed herself up slowly, almost as though she was stalling for time, looking down at her bare skin, then back up at Emmerentia. ‘Can I put my clothes back on first?’
Emmerentia grunted and gestured to the streambank.
‘What did you mean?’ Mahena said once dressed, her tone almost too cautious with each word.
‘We’re really going to play this game?’ she plunged her hand into her satchel and slammed a book against Mahena’s chest. ‘We found it in the valley. I highly suggest you explain before I throw you out on your ass.’ Something tugged slightly at the notion, the sensation almost lost in her roiling blood.
Mahena’s eyes widened—seemingly genuinely—as she clutched the journal and stared at it blankly. Opening it slowly, as if to confirm it was real, she stuttered, ‘Ha…have you read it?’
Emmerentia could almost taste the smoke of her anger curling in her mouth. She sucked a breath in, gritting her teeth as she said, ‘The first page gave enough.’
There was a moment of silence where a thousand emotions flickered across Mahena’s face. The girl really was an open book. Her shoulders dropped and she sighed, ‘What would you have done in my stead? I woke up in a stranger’s bed, with no idea of how I’d got there. I had to figure out who you were, what this place was and what I was doing here.’
Outright lies. Fàaran had been right.
‘And have you?’ Emmerentia ground out.
But Mahena held her breath, and her body seemed to relax. She held Emmerentia’s stare, although a hint of fear shone in her green eyes.
‘What exactly are you pissed off about? You gave me the tonics, you decided it was true. The answers were the truth.’
Emmerentia clenched her teeth, ready to do anything to stop that hammering inside her skull. But the girl had a point. Why was she so enraged about it? Mahena was right, they had made her drink and had deemed the answers satisfying. The tonics had always worked.
That thread pulled, tugged, calling her to believe.
Mahena cocked her head to the side. ‘You...you trust me, you know I am telling the truth. The problem is Fàaran, isn’t it? Why?’ Before Emmerentia could reply, the girl continued, placing a hand on Emmerentia’s heart. ‘It feels like home, and it feels right. I’ve never had that feeling before.’
Emmerentia dragged her gaze to the hand, her heartbeat suddenly frantic. She shrugged it off, abruptly turning on her heel to head back into the cottage, but Mahena grabbed her by the shoulder, forcing her to turn back around.
‘You let me stay for a reason. I never asked, but I can tell you’re not the type to let a stranger stay in your home without a motive of your own.’
B
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
The first page of the journal showed the date she acquired the notepad. Where she was. Her date of birth. Her place of birth.
Stop fretting. Stay and learn.
Mahena took a steadying breath as Emmerentia shot her a murderous look. Every time Mahena balked, let fear brew, the voice pushed against it. Despite her reluctance to accept the occasional hiss of cruelty, she was deeply thankful for that steely presence.
Whatever it was.
So, they knew she was from another...dimension.
Dimension. Was it even what it should be called?
She had been hoping, desperately hoping, that this moment would not come but...were gods-damned portals a thing here?
She stared at the twin walking away, at the knuckles whitening beneath her skin as she clenched her fists. But why? The twin’s issue seemed to be about the lying part of the situation, not with where she actually came from.
Shit. Shit, shit, s
hit.
She had to find a solution for them not to kick her out, to keep her in their little haven. There was no question she would not survive in the woods alone and would probably go insane from her dreams.
If, if, travelling between dimensions was a thing in these lands when magic still roamed, how common was it? If they did throw her out and she introduced herself somewhere else as having fallen through a portal, would that get her in trouble? She had no money, and her map-reading skills were at best questionable. She could fight—apparently, that thing inside of her would not let her die from assailants, which was all-in-all a reassuring point. She could always work in a tavern or an inn—
If—so many ifs—they had found her journal, then maybe there would be other things of hers? A bag, a purse, some objects she could pawn.
Clutching her journal in one hand, Mahena followed Emmerentia into the house. Fàaran turned to face them. Even though he seemed calmer than his sister, his hostile glare also seemed almost...smug. Like he’d been proven right.
‘Did you find something else?’ she asked, ignoring the accusing look. The twins frowned even deeper, looking so similar it was almost comical. Mahena waved the book. ‘Did you find it in a bag? It’s got a big middle section and two sleeves you can slide your arms in then hang on your back.’
Emmerentia sneered.‘So you knew you left items behind?’
‘If I had, do you think they would still be there? None of this makes sense. I didn’t lie to hurt you, I thought you’d think I was crazy.’ When the twins stayed silent, she continued, ‘If there is a bag laying around not too far away from where you found this, is it not worth checking?’
Fàaran rolled his eyes. But Emmerentia followed Mahena.
They found the backpack. And when Mahena slammed it on the kitchen table, the oldest twin choked on a laugh.
‘So? This proves nothing.’ He crossed to his sister. ‘Do you have nothing better to do than waste time on a stranger who’s fooled you already?’
Asshole. What on Earth had she done to him?