by RJ Crayton
Chapter 14 - Final Words
I spent an uncomfortable ten minutes sitting next to Jasper as Pylum looked for linger effect. He found none. I tried to chat with Jasper, a peace offering, but he was fairly terse and unresponsive.
I was all the happier when Pylum told me that Master Shanzu was with Nigel and that he was fine. Pylum escorted me down to the healing room, where I found my aunt sitting up, embroidering a silk scarf. When she wasn’t baking, my aunt had liked to embroider. She always said she wasn’t great at it, but I thought her designs always turned out well. Despite her dislike of the end product, she said the focus on little details took her mind off her troubles.
Given how many troubles she had, I could see why she’d managed to get someone to scrounge up the needle and threads for her. I walked over to her, and she smiled. “What are you making?”
She looked at it and sighed. “I’m not sure, yet. It’s just a repeating pattern at the moment. I suppose something more will occur to me at some point.”
I nodded.
“You look upset,” she said.
I was. I proceeded to tell her everything that happened, and she was appropriately shocked at the right places and comforting in the places that needed them. She wrapped me in her arms and told me how sorry she was. It felt good to be in her arms again, to be me and Auntie again. I had missed that so much while I’d been here at the temple. I liked Akilah and Jasper and the others here, but no one was like Auntie.
I pulled away, and she said, “Honey, I’m so sorry. If I had known I would have kept the crystals here.”
“Why would she even take them? They have nothing to do with her.”
A crease formed in Auntie’s forehead as she thought. “Perhaps she wanted them because she realized they were important to you.”
I reached into my pocket and dug out the one crystal that remained. “I still have this one,” I said.
She looked at it, and sighed. “Have you watched it?”
I shook my head. “She stole Jasper’s memory orb, too. Surely the moon temple must have memory orbs. I don’t know why she would take it, but she did. I’ll have to figure out a way to get Jasper another one.”
She laughed gently and patted my leg. “I doubt he’ll be that worried about it,” she said. “But I’ll ask Pylum to provide him with another one.”
I wasn’t too sure about her assertion. Though I’d left out Nigel’s assertion and my awkwardness with Jasper. So she couldn’t really make a reasoned assertion there. Once I’d offended him, I purposely chose not to bring up the fact that his memory orb was stolen as we sat there with Pylum. Especially as I didn’t have a solution on how to get him a new one readily available.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something floating over the curtain separating us from the rest of the room. I looked up to see it was a memory orb heading right toward us. It was my hope that I wasn’t causing that without realizing. But the orb landed in Auntie’s lap, meaning she was the clear culprit. “In the meantime, why don’t you watch on Yaritza’s memory orb? I’m sure she won’t mind.”
She nodded for me to take the orb, but where would I take it to? I didn’t want to go to my room, nor to a light room. Those both felt like such lonely places right now. Plus, I worried this crystal had something I didn’t want to see. “Auntie, will you watch it with me?”
She hooked an arm around me and pulled me to her chest, kissing my forehead. “Of course I will sweetheart. If that’s what you want.”
I nodded, and proceeded to place the crystal in the memory orb’s slot.
Its globe filled with mist, and when it cleared, I saw my mother. She was still huddled low, and it appeared she was talking just to me. “Dirah,” she said. “This is the final crystal I am making for you at the moment. It should tell you all you need to know. But remember, we are all able to be filled with light or with darkness. You, my love, are a vessel for light, even if sometimes you channel the darkness. You were meant for light. When you feel as if you are not as strong as you like, seek the light. The light can always fill your soul and replenish you. When you were young, you were a vessel soaking up all the possibilities. Now, you have the ability to make choices, and I hope you will choose light and love, over darkness and destruction and self-pity. You may watch these important memories to help you on your path.”
Auntie gave my hand a gentle squeeze as my mother dissolved into mist and a new scene formed inside. It was my mother and Zygam sitting at a stone table in one of the temple’s gardens as they watched me crawl along a nearby path. I stopped my crawl, sat on my bottom, and levitated a flower over to myself. “She’s really incredibly talented,” Zygam said.
“She has magic, as we all do, and she’s happy,” my mother said. “Her light shines through in everything she does. She’s able to be happy, in part, because of you, Zygam.” I watched as my mother placed her hand on top of Zygam’s, which was resting on the table. “I know that if it were just me, I would have been a terrible mother to her. I feel so sad and lonely without Idris at times. But in those times, you have always come, you have always taken her, and let me have my time of sorrow. I have been able to parent her when I am most at joy, and I have been able to do everything with her, with light. And you, too, have been filling her with joy, or else she wouldn’t be so adept with her magic.”
He smiled at her, and in some ways his look reminded me of the way my father looked at my mother. Those same eyes, that same nose, but my father’s hair was lighter, and his face wider, not as long as Zygam’s.
“Tima, it gives me great joy to care for her. Idris asked me to look after her when he knew he was sick. He’d expected longer, as did I, but I keep my promises. I will care for Dirah always.”
The scene dissolved yet again, and this time, it was my mother and Zygam in a room I wasn’t familiar with. It was a private quarters, and there were drawings of the Talisman of Elpida hung on the walls, and all sorts of ancient scrolls lay around, and books on the few pieces of furniture — a sofa, a chair, a table that might be used for sitting. My mother was angry, her face contorted in a rage she seemed to be trying to suppress.
“I love that Dirah loves you. I am so happy that she gets to spend so much time with you, Zy. I am, I really am, but she is two years old and has no need to understand portal magic, let alone do it. Why would you teach her that? I just came back from Jenna’s. She’d portaled into her chamber to play with her friend Jasper.”
Zygam smiled at this. “That’s wonderful, Tima. She’s exercising her power. That’s what her name means — power.”
“She is a two year old, Zygam. She doesn’t need power at this age.”
Zygam’s nostrils flared, and he shook his head. “She is filled with greatness. I do not see why you wish to suppress it, Tima.”
My mother closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I need you to stop teaching her advanced magic. There is a reason schooling is reserved for older children.”
Zygam snarled. “It is reserved for older children because usually younger ones show no such promise. But you and Idris have produced a miracle of a child, one born of the lands of the Northlands and the Midlands.”
My mother looked around the room, up at the walls, focusing on a drawing of the Talisman. “Zygam, you have to let go of this prophecy. It is not about her.”
“There’s no way you can be sure of that.”
“The same can be said for you,” she retorted, raising an eyebrow. She blew out and then held out her hand, as if she wanted him to take it. Zygam looked at it hesitantly and then scooped it into his.
She looked into his eyes and said. “Please, for me, just be with her, the way Idris would have been. Show her the wonders of her environment. The things we find naturally, not through magic.”
He nodded and said, “I will try.”
My mother gave a slight frown, but finally said, “Please try your best. I want Dirah to spend time with you, but she can’t if you keep showing her magic that s
he can’t control. And she can’t control her urges at this age, Zy.”
He nodded again, but lacked sincerity.
The scene dissolved again.
When a new scene formed, it was my mother and I together. I was sitting in her lap, and she was reading a story to me. The picture showed a woman with a ketesh sending a spell. I smiled at the moving pictures in the book. Then, I suddenly jumped from my mother’s lap and started to run away.
“Dirah,” she called out, and I stopped and turned back to her.
“He’s back,” little me called out. “Alab is back at the temple.”
My mother waved at me to come back to her. “Then I am sure he will see you soon.”
“I want to see him now, mama,” I said.
She grinned at me and shook her head. “You love your alab,” she professed. “And that is good, but he and your cousin have important things to discuss. Zygam, I am certain, will come see you as soon as he is able.”
Little me frowned, and then my mother reached over to grab the book that had flown aside when I’d hopped up. But it was apparently a bad idea to take her eyes off of me, even for a second. I made a portal, and as she turned back, I was stepping through it.
“Dirah,” she called, irritation tinging her voice. She shook her head, muttered a curse, walked downstairs to Pylum’s office, and she pushed open the door. I had seen this scene before. Her uttering apologies for my rushing in and then me drawing the talisman near and pulling the rays of power from it.
I watched the scene play out as my mother pulled me from the room. Then another scene formed. My mother was packing a bag and Zygam was standing there, his lips pinched together, his eyes seething. When he spoke, his voice was strained, but there was no overt anger in his tone. “You can go and see your relatives, and I’d be happy to care for Dirah,” he said. “It seems an arduous trip for the two of you.”
My mother continued packing, putting cloaks in a bag that was on her bed. “Talitha will be with me, and the entire point is for Dirah to meet my relatives in Bailsi.”
“Then, at least reconsider my offer to accompany you,” Zygam said.
“You have work here at the temple,” she said, and then turned to smile at him.
“So do you,” he retorted. “Master Yoshita must teach your telepathy class while you are traipsing about.”
My mother sighed. “I’m not traipsing. Idris wanted Dirah to know her family, the way the two of you never got to know yours. I want to give her the things he’s not able to because he is gone. Surely, you want what Idris wanted for the Kadirah?”
Zygam waited a moment to respond. He took a step back and finally, he said, “I feel like you’re still punishing me for what happened with the Talisman. I didn’t call Dirah down, and I didn’t even offer it to her. It went to her.”
My mother put a hand up to stop him. “You’ve told me before,” she said. “I believe you.” Though in truth, she didn’t look like she believed him. She looked like she wanted him to go away. “I am not punishing you. Idris wanted you in her life. I wouldn’t take you away from her, but I am her mother and I want to take her to see my mother’s relatives. I didn’t take her to my aunt’s funeral a few months ago because she was so young and you offered to stay with her. But I want her to go on this trip. I want her to see the land of the dwarves.”
“She won’t even remember it,” he said. “She’s too young.”
“But I’ll remember it,” my mother said.
The scene dissolved yet again and this time it was later. My mother and Zygam were sitting together on a sofa in my mother’s quarters. My mother had nestled back in the cushions. “I want to thank you,” she said, laying her head on his shoulder.
At that gesture, he smiled and said, “What is it you want to thank me for?”
She grinned and said, “Mellowing out.”
“I’m mellow?” he asked, his voice teasing. “I can truthfully say I have never before been called that.”
My mother laughed and even in the memory, it sounded perfect. I sighed, wishing I had known her more, wishing I could remember more of her. She turned to Zygam and looked serious. “When I took Dirah to visit my family, I was upset with you, with how things were going. And I even contemplated leaving the temple for good. But Talitha said I just needed to give things time, that Idris loved the temple, that he would want Dirah to grow up here.”
“He would,” Zygam said
“I know,” my mother said. “And that’s what I want, too. But I also want her to grow up happy and not pressured to do magic beyond her years. You were doing that before. But since we’ve been back, you haven’t pushed her. You have been her kind and loving alab. You have brought her much joy and it makes me happy to see her carefree like this. And I want to thank you for not pushing your belief that she is the child of the prophecy on her.”
Zygam looked at my mother, his green eyes warm and kind, kinder than any other time I’ve seen them, either in the present or in a memory. “I want what’s best for you, and I wanted to show you that I respect your desires. I can know that she is the child of light without having to tell her all the time.”
My mother grimaced, but then blew out a breath. “She’s Idris’ daughter, so she would, of course, be filled with light, as he was. I can’t believe he’s been gone for three years. I wish Idris could have seen how wonderful she’s grown to be.”
Zygam’s voice was bitter when he spoke. “But he didn’t live. He died. He left you both.”
My mother turned to him, her eyes widened slightly. “He did die,” she said, her tone a bit cool. “But that wasn’t his choice, Zy.”
Zygam nodded, and leaned in close to her. “It wasn’t his choice, but he didn’t leave you alone. He left you with me.” With this, Zygam leaned in and pressed his lips to my mothers.
She pulled free of him and shook her head. “Zygam, we can’t.”
“Why not? I adore you and Kadirah adores me. We could be happy together.”
My mom looked at him with a mix of pity and shock. “I can’t be anything other than your sister, Zygam. When I look at you, I am reminded of Idris, of how much I loved him, of how much I miss him. I can’t be with you in that way.”
His open mouth shut hard, and he looked like he wanted to say something cruel, but then he managed a neutral expression, blew out a breath, and said, “Maybe I did this wrong, Tima. I know I’m not the best with people, but I think we could be good together. It should have been you and I all along. Idris hadn’t even noticed you until I pointed you out. I told him I thought you were pretty. And the next day, he was floating you roses.”
I’m not sure if this news was as much of a revelation to my mother as it was to me, but she slid away from him on the sofa as she tried to contemplate what to say. Finally, she spoke. “I think you are a wonderful man, Zygam. Like Idris, you can be kind and thoughtful and you are brilliant at magic, and maybe if it were a different time or place, but I can’t be with you in this way. I don’t want to hurt you because your friendship has been invaluable to me since Idris’ death. And your love of your niece, it is one of the reasons I think she is so filled with joy and light. But you and I … I ... I’m not able to do that.”
Zygam stared at her, and then stood. “I shouldn’t have said anything,” he said.
“It’s …” my mother started, but she apparently was at a loss for what to say. She stood there, struggling to find the words to express herself, but nothing seemed to capture what she wanted to tell him.
“Let’s pretend this never happened,” Zygam said, and before my mother could respond, he was heading out the door.
My mother and the room evaporated and what appeared next was me, alone in the same room. It was the common room in my quarters with my mother. I was holding a ketesh and creating glyphs that shimmered in the air above, sort of like mini fireworks. I knew from my class with Master Shanzu that they were called hasta glyphs and were used for decoration. I was surprised that younger me
was doing this. My mother burst through a door from another room in our suite and pulled the ketesh from my hand. “Dirah,” she said sternly, as the ketesh retracted into its compact form, “You are not to play with my ketesh. It is for magic and it is dangerous for children to use.”
“Alab lets me use a ketesh,” little me proudly told her, and then little me put a hand to my mouth, as if little me realized the mistake I’d made.
My mother seethed. “Alab lets you use a ketesh?”
Then the me of memory started crying. Huge tears rolled down my cheeks and my mother knelt beside me and put an arm around me. “Dirah, sweetheart, why are you crying?”
“Because you’re going to punish alab,” little me spit out. “He said if I told you about the ketesh, you would be mad at him, and now you’re going to punish him.”
My mother’s face filled with more fury, but she pulled little me tighter and forced a smile to her lips. “Your alab is right that I would not be happy, but to punish him would be to punish you, and I have no interest in punishing you for his mistake. Mommy loves you, alright?”
Little me was still sobbing, but it had lessened with her pronouncement that alab wouldn’t be punished. Little me managed to nod my head as I held tight to mama.
“Alab and I disagree about using keteshes. Because I am mommy, I will choose for right now,” my mother said. “That means you do not use a ketesh. It also means that you do not keep secrets from mommy.”
Little me wiped my tears away and looked up at mother. “But alab said it’s alright to keep secrets if you know that telling the truth will hurt someone. Like the time when Jasper couldn’t levitate a ball, and I didn’t say his magic wasn’t very good, because that would have hurt his feelings.”