by Darci Darson
“There are only two women I can love in my life,” Imre said bitterly. “This is you and Calla. The rest is for...”
“Don’t finish, you moron,” Alyssa interrupted. “I am warning you, Imre. There is a woman for you that will make you love her so much that you will die for her.”
Imre seemed to get lost in his own thoughts and for an instant, there was a yearning and timid hope in his red eyes as well as a flicker of something delicate and warm as if in the deepest corners of his dark soul, there had already been love for that Cherry whom he had not even met.
As they walked towards the churchyard Alyssa wrapped her long shawl around her arms, not a single word leaving her mouth. The stars twinkled a greeting and the humid chill bit to the marrow of the bone as Imre led her to their destination. He used his perfect sight to guide them in the darkness as the light dispersed by the oil lamp was nearly nonexistent, casting a trembling streak of light in front of them. She recalled in her memory that evening when Calla had been two and Imre had fallen to his knees in the back garden, his body overwhelmed by a wave of flames that ceased after an instant. It had been his curse and they had not spoken about it, not even once. Imre did not want to. He had recited the message from the witches that had appeared in his head and forbidden Alyssa to talk about it.
Their life in Westfad Manor was easy and stable. Imre was very hard-working and helpful, eager to compel any bothersome person who disrupted their lives. Calla adored him, Kitty let out deep sighs whenever she saw him and Alyssa argued with him constantly, having the impression that she looked after two children not one. They were such a happy family, though. Imre gave them his undivided affection, comforting Alyssa’s broken heart, playing and joking with Calla, taking over the duties from Kitty whenever he could. He had healed Jenny’s diseases with his blood until the old servant had died peacefully of old age... There was love, stability, roots for seven years.
When they finally reached the churchyard Alyssa stepped forward, releasing his cold arm.
“Calla,” she called. “Calla, it’s time to go home.”
An almost eight year old girl appeared as if from nowhere, meandering among the graves and she stopped a few steps away from Alyssa. Calla was a fragile and beautiful girl, with clever, blue eyes that emanated childish curiosity and joy. Sometimes when Alyssa gazed at her daughter, she could feel this jab of sadness as the pale and unearthly appearance of little Calla reminded her of losing Philip. But for the majority of time she just enjoyed her daughter as much as possible. Calla swept away her blond, loose hair from the face and smiled to Imre.
Alyssa chuckled as she saw Imre’s face full of disgust and fear. He hated when Calla visited her friends in the churchyard and argued with the little one each time she disappeared in between. Calla called it between and as she had explained to them, it was the plane for trapped souls and sometimes the ones visiting from the Further. Alyssa knew that her daughter sometimes could see Philip in that strange place. Alyssa, however had not seen him since Calla had been born. The wound in her heart had never healed entirely, with time it just seemed to hurt a little less.
Drasa had never answered Imre’s calls, constrained by the rules, but Alyssa still had hope, though less and less with every year that passed. Her attempts to localise Philip’s trapped soul in the churchyard were futile. It was as if he had served his purpose and destiny did not consider him useful for Alyssa any more. This was another reason connecting her to Yasmeen. She could now understand her mother’s bitter comments about destiny’s cruel and mysterious plans for the family.
“It is not a place for a young lady,” Imre said. “I forbid you to play here.”
Calla extended her arms and jumped into his. When Imre lifted her from the ground, she tilted her head and grabbed his neck.
“The Angels told me to come,” Calla said with her squeaky voice. “They said that you would leave soon. If mum doesn’t let you go they will put her in prison like Aaldir.”
Alyssa felt the sticky hand of her fear strangling her throat. She wanted to say something but could not, as if her vocal cords were frozen. She was not surprised, though. She had broken a lot of rules, the consequences of her actions hitting her unexpectedly in this moment.
“Don’t say such things, Calla,” Imre reprimanded her as he turned back, heading towards Westfad Manor.
“They are singing to me that you have to forget us,” Calla said quietly. “You have to go now because granny Cherry can’t come to save my mum and me.”
Alyssa’s eyes filled with tears. She knew what was happening as in the far end of the churchyard she noticed two hazy figures of light, visible only for her and communicating with Calla. They were the pure Varuh, a bound couple with folded white wings of a diamond sparkle. They sent her their warm support and also a strange sadness that they would hurt her. They had to protect the timeline even if it meant taking freedom from Alyssa.
Alyssa came closer to Imre and melted into his embrace, a quiet cry shaking her chest. He must have understood the seriousness of the moment as he came to an abrupt stop and held the two girls tightly, as if he was scared that they would be taken from him. As he kept them in the embrace, Alyssa could sense his despair and pain. He did not see the guardians but seemed to sense them.
“Tell them that I shall do everything,” he said as his voice faltered. “I shall do everything to keep you both. You are my only family,” he lowered his voice. “Calla, ask them not take you from me.”
“You have to go,” Calla whispered. “I want to meet my granny Cherry and granny Yasmeen. They miss my mum and me and Yasmeen cries every night.”
Alyssa liberated herself from the embrace and took Calla from Imre, her soul falling apart. The pain of inevitable loss and sadness had already started to stab her chest. She had lost her parents and in some way Ettrian, she had been stripped off the happiness she had with Philip and now another important person would leave her. She could do nothing about it.
“I’m one of them and the same for Calla,” Alyssa said with a firm voice. She felt united with her ancient ancestors and understood the greater purpose of protecting the flow of time and balance of all things. She was one of them, a guardian, the realisation of this suffused her chest with every portion of the pure Varuh’s love and friendship. “We have to preserve the timeline. There are things more important than us, Imre.”
Imre shook his head as if in desperation and wanted to protest, tears welling up in his naughty yet now desperate, burning eyes, but in that moment a bright pearly light of pure love engulfed everything. When it got dark again Imre’s memories of Alyssa and Calla were erased, apart from the knowledge that he had saved a girl named Alyssa and the coven had cursed him for that. Only one thought circled in his head. He wanted to return to Hungary.
Alyssa and Calla appeared in front of the back door of Westfad Manor. The house looked somehow different as though it had been abandoned for years. Alyssa felt a sudden surge of uneasiness as her eyes swept over the building. Some of the windows had broken glass, the garden having been neglected for a long time. The left flank of the house wore signs of fire, the features emerging in the first rays of the awakened sun.
She put her daughter on the ground. They moved towards the back door that opened with a creepy noise breaking the silence. The putrid musk of the inside hit their nostrils. Alyssa grabbed Calla’s hand and pulled her behind her. They entered the kitchen and stopped abruptly when they noticed an old woman putting the kettle on and turning in a slow movement to face them.
Alyssa rubbed her eyes as she wanted to make sure that she had not been dreaming, the echoes of her heartbeat hitting her ears.
“Kitty,” she called. “Kitty, I’m so sorry.”
“Twenty six years, miss. Twenty six years...”Kitty said with her hoarse voice. “I kept this all for you and told others that you were sick and that you were travelling. They stopped asking after a couple of years.”
Alyssa approached her old friend an
d close her in a tight hug.
“I will look after you now, Kitty,” Alyssa said firmly. “And we will make this house great again. I’m back and I’m not going anywhere. This is our home, mine, Calla’s and yours, Kitty.”
“I kept this all for you, miss,” Kitty said, returning the hug to Alyssa. “My Thomas helped a lot but two years ago, our Lord called him to his kingdom.”
“Did you marry the boy from the mill?” Alyssa asked with curiosity.
Kitty nodded, saying, ”He was a good husband, but we had no children.”
Alyssa sighed. She wondered whether Kitty’s determination in preserving the estate for her had been the result of Imre’s compulsion or their honest friendship. What mattered at the moment was that Calla and she were back to ease Kitty’s hardship. Alyssa rolled her sleeves up, not paying too much attention to her disappearance for twenty six years in Kitty’s life as for her, this was only an instant. She was a Varuh with the ability of travelling in time and space, as well as a tough elf, determined to repair the house and a human being that loved Kitty and Calla with her whole heart. Nothing would surprise her and very little could have broken her.
“Can granny Cherry come to us now?” Calla asked with her excited voice.
“No,” Alyssa said firmly. “She will want to take us from here and we need to figure out how to bring your dad to live with us.” She closed her eyes for a moment and to her dreadful surprise it was Ettrian’s face that appeared in her mind. She remembered then of how she had tended to get lost in the woods as a child and that it had been Ettrian who found her each time. She smiled to herself at the memory of that elf reprimanding her and calling her the naughtiest child in the elven community and something deep and strong and warm stirred at the bottom of her heart. Another flow of images surged through her head like the movie that she had seen with Paige. These recollections were unexpected and disturbing and emerged despite her great efforts to hide them from herself even.
It was a week before her abrupt leaving of Iioliv caused by Portia’s attack. She was almost twenty one but looked only nineteen. Ettrian and Rav were preparing to set off for a trip to the human town for some books about ancient knowledge for Yasmeen. Alyssa put on a light white dress and urged by a sudden impulse, darted towards Ettrian’s house to ask him for a supply of adventure books for her. Her naked feet floated through the cool grass as the strappy softness of the ground brushed the skin of her heels and toes. She ran, correcting the sleeves of her dress as they stubbornly slid down her arms. The air was still and hot, thickening in anticipation.
Whenever she left the book shopping to Rav she was disappointed but Ettrian truly understood her taste and brought the exciting reads that would grip her attention for weeks. As she ran through the village, meandering among the wooden and stone houses, the sky gifted the Alyssum Forest with a summer storm flooding her with refreshing streams of water whilst the evening began to replace the day. She fell into Ettrian’s garden and almost rammed into him as he was about to finish planting an exotic tree with orange leaves of square shapes. He straightened up whilst she stood in front of him, wiping her face from the droplets of rain water and staring at his naked chest as the moisture poured down against his skin. He kept his arms which were covered with soil, half elevated and sent her a surprised gaze. The storm went away as quickly as it had come.
“What can I do for you, Alyssa?” he asked as his lips curled into an honest smile.
“Can you buy me some good books?” she murmured as her cheeks flushed. She swept away a soaked wisp of her hair from her face and scanned her dress that clung to her body like a translucent veil, exposing her curves in the most immodest way possible. To her incinerating embarrassment, Ettrian seemed to notice this too as his eyes fixed onto her breasts which were visible in full, like she was naked.
“I will buy you good books,” he promised and narrowed his eyes that burnt with an addictive elven danger.
There was this dense, electrified tension between them and Alyssa jerked her arms to cross them over her chest. For the first time ever the real meaning of their immortality hit her. Ettrian had no age anymore for her. They were equal now and she somehow struggled with this realisation that he looked two or three years older than her so she rejected it at once. An unnerving jolt went through her veins. It was her whole life whereas for him it was only an instant. The world around her slowed down as her chest rose and fell in a rapid effort. She sensed fierce vibes, tingling, tantalising, threatening. They gazed at each other.
Her eyes lifted towards the house as she heard somebody opening the back door and walking towards them. It was Ettrian’s mother carrying a large towel and observing Alyssa with a mysterious smile on her full red lips. Alyssa had seen her only twice so far as she was a mountain elf and moved back there a long time ago when Ettrian’s father who had been an elf from the Alyssum Forest had died during one of his voyages. Ettrian had decided to live in the Alyssum Forest on his own. His resemblance to his mother was striking as they both shared the whiteness of hair and the ivory shade of skin. She looked young yet emanated ancient and mystical vibes in her aura.
Sheedra spread the towel in her hands and approached Alyssa, turning her back to Ettrian and separating her with a screen formed by a chunky red rectangle of fabric with a fringe.
“Take this wet dress off, Alyssa,” Sheedra said.
Alyssa shivered with her mouth wide open and Sheedra laughed. The elf woman emitted an authoritative aura waking Alyssa’s immediate respect. She pulled at the wet fabric and peeled off the garment, revealing her naked body with only white satin shorts clinging to her thighs. Sheedra scanned her shorts and nodded so Alyssa took them off as well, catching Ettrian’s amused gaze with naughty flickers in his eyes. The elf woman wrapped the towel around her frame and put her arm around her back, with her other hand squeezed the excess of rain water from Alyssa’s hair. Pushing her with a slight force, Sheedra led her inside the house to the living area, pointing at a wide yellow armchair with ornate legs and small pillows for comfort. The interior had an oriental design as Yasmeen had described it on a number of occasions.
Alyssa took her seat and glanced at Ettrian who had followed them closely in silence. She corrected the towel, making sure that she looked decent as Sheedra dropped into the other armchair opposite her.
“Ettrian,” she said to her son, “wash yourself and make some tea for us.”
Alyssa wondered how she would go back to her house and as her face tinged with consuming redness, she realised that she had left all her garments including her underwear in the garden. Her reflection in the silver framed mirror that hung above a black chest, reminded her of her immodest appearance with no mercy.
Sheedra observed her with curiosity flickering in her grey almost translucent eyes and rolled up the sleeves of her red tunic.
As Ettrian came back, still half naked but clean and in dry trousers, he was carrying a tray containing three crystal cups with steaming fluid. He put it on the round black and golden table. Sheedra locked her eyes onto Alyssa’s.
“Do you know why my son doesn’t want to marry any elf woman, Alyssa?” Sheedra asked and looked at her with a strange intensity and seemed to already know the answer.
Alyssa shook her head and widened her eyes, a surge of discomfort tightening her throat.
“Mother,” Ettrian started.
“Sit with us, son,” Sheedra said and made a waving gesture towards him.
Ettrian handed Alyssa her cup and grabbed a chair to place it next to Alyssa. As he settled into his seat, Alyssa sipped her tea, more and more surprised with the whole situation whilst the question remained unanswered as if it was hanging in the air. Sheedra was one of the Eldest. Every child in the Alyssum Forest respected and feared the Eldest.
“Alyssa, don’t be scared of me,” Sheedra said and laughed. “Promise me that you will fight for your true happiness. Promise me now.”
“I promise,” Alyssa muttered, unable to comprehend
anything at all.
Sheedra rose from her seat and leant over Ettrian to squeeze his hand.
“I can’t see the end and there is a lot of pain,” Sheedra said. “But she is a tough girl like us and I hope that she will choose the right path.” She approached Alyssa, leaning over as her hand stroked her cheek. “Stay with us for tonight, Alyssa. I’m going back to the Mountains tomorrow but I want to spend this evening with you.”
“My parents...” Alyssa attempted to object.
“I’ve already told your parents,” Sheedra said. “My incantations are faster than the wind. They are drunk and happy. Your mother is moaning so loud that her neighbours will have a sleepless night. Enjoy the evening with us, Alyssa.”
Alyssa nodded with a burning consternation diffusing into her chest and sank lower into her seat as her glance met Ettrian’s dark one. “What does she want from me?” Alyssa whispered to Ettrian as Sheedra walked towards the kitchen and disappeared behind the heavy wooden door.
He chuckled and whispered back, “She wants to enjoy your company. She is old but not scary at all.” He then tossed her hair like he used to do when she had been a child but she moved away her head, correcting the towel around her breasts and attempted to cover her thighs a bit more. There was not enough of the fabric and she pulled her legs to sit with her feet tucked under her bottom. Catching his intense glance once more, she dropped her eyes. This was an awkward and surprising situation for her as she became more and more aware that Ettrian was a young man with an appealing appearance to her now. His whole being oozed an addictive elven charm and every atom of her body absorbed it with greed.
Sheedra came back, bringing two plates of different fruits and a dark green bottle of wine from the Mountains. The bottle looked like an enormous egg with a thin and short neck cupped with gold. Sheedra put the food and alcohol on the table and also burned the red and green candles scattered in the room. As the flickers began to appear one by one, a distinct smell of roses and vanilla and apples with a hint of musk travelled in the air.