by Alexis Batty
“And what exactly are you?” I ask warily. This feels a little more real than a dream.
The woman laughs and her voice rings like bells. “You have always been so suspicious of everyone. Don’t try to deny it; I’ve been watching over you almost your entire life. I know you better than you know yourself.” She holds up a hand stopping my next question. “I haven’t been given enough time to explain everything, but there are some things that need to be explained.”
She gestures for me to sit next to her, so I sit.
“My name is Athena; yes the same Athena from Greece. We aren’t actually gods, it’s complicated and not enough time exists in your lifespan to explain.
“Witches were created when eight of us wanted to have assistants on Earth. We would have more time to pursue other avenues of interest.
“After several centuries, we were ordered to stop interfering in the lives of the mortals. We were given permission to organize the eight families into a council.
“Your family was chosen to be the head to direct the council with wisdom. This doesn’t mean absolute rule or control. The other families will not let you do that. Please stop worrying about it. Also, feel free to tell them you need time to decide, they are used to that response. Trust yourself. Wisdom is encoded into your magic and DNA, you just have to learn how to connect with it.
“Eris has found a way to come back and the first thing she has apparently gone for is the Family Council. The Koesmoes Order must be destroyed. You cannot let it continue or chaos will rule the world causing other forces to interfere. If that happens, billions of people will die.”
“But there are only roughly 7 billion people in the world.”
“I know.” Athena pauses. “You may ask me one question before I must go. Be careful what you ask there are some things I cannot answer.”
“Why did you save me when you were told not to interfere in our lives? And-”
“One question Gwendelyn. Your mother was not killed by the Order. Piper sacrificed herself to allow me to be able to interfere when your life was in danger. When you are unable to defeat your opponent and no one there is willing to help, I am able to step in and help. I must go Gwendelyn, and you have work to do.”
I wake with a sigh. For the first time in a long time, I feel truly hopeful and dream of my future. Letting my mind wander, I think of how I will want my wedding to look. I wondered if I would have kids and how. Will I keep working or stay home?
Internally, I start berating myself. There’s work to be done and getting married and having kids is not what Athena meant, well at this particular moment.
Suddenly, I realize the mattress doesn’t feel the same. I open my eyes and recognize my room. So why does the bed feel different? I roll over and find myself face to muzzle with a very large wolf.
A moment of fear captures me as I try to roll out of the bed. The wolf jumps on top of me trapping me. I can hear Ash laughing in my head. In a split second, I go from being scared to wanting to inflict bodily injury on another person.
“Ash if you ever want to see the light of day again, you will get off of me!” I screech.
Ash speaks in my head, “But I’m having fun. This is the first time I’ve gotten you all to myself.”
It’s really hard to keep from laughing when you have a big fur ball licking you. Not only is his fur ticklish, but so is his tongue.
“Ok, ok stop it, Ash!” I gasp out in between laughs. “Please, you’re getting drool in my ears.”
Ash turns back and laughs as he rolls over pulling me on top of him. We lay like that for a while laughing quietly.
I can feel the drool hardening on my face. “Ash.”
“Yes, Buttercup?”
“I’m hungry, but I need to shower before my face is encased in drool. Would you mind making breakfast?”
“Anything for you Buttercup.”
I rush through my shower excited by the prospect of having breakfast with Ash. He said we were alone. Binawalka set out a pair of jeans and a t-shirt on the sink counter. Sometimes it’s nice to not have to worry about picking out your clothes. The t-shirt is a wonderful bright teal paired with some dark purple yoga pants. I rush out of the bathroom ready to run downstairs for breakfast.
21
Expect the unexpected. Isn’t that a life motto or something? An unknown man is standing in my bedroom wearing a dark gray suit. What in the world is going on?
“Please, don’t say anything. I’m Binawalka,” he states.
I send a thought to Binawalka telling him that if this is really him, then he has to sing I’m a Little Teapot.
The man rolls his eyes, “I am not singing that horrid song to appease your suspicions. I assume at this point that they are well appeased. Yes, yes I know that you made me promise to not appear in person unless you were dying and needed immediate assistance that I could give. I can’t by the way. If you try to touch me or if I were to try to touch you, we would pass through each other. No more questions. Your parents are in trouble. After Ash said that the cult was on the run, they wanted to go back to their house. They’ve been worried about their garden and wanted to collect a few things for you.”
“What?” I whisper.
“Shhhh. He’ll hear you. Trust me if he were to find me here there will be major issues. The problem isn’t that they went to check on their garden; it’s that they left the house under duress. I was unable to bring them back. Something blocked them from me. I have not been able to sense them since then. The same thing happened to you last night.”
I scream. My parents are missing. Rage builds inside me. My fingernails dig into my palms as I fight the second scream. Everything around me goes hazy tinged with red. My lips curl back into a snarl.
“No one messes with my family.”
It’s easy to forget how quickly your magic will drain you if you don’t control it. You may also end up somewhere you don’t mean to be. I receive this wakeup call again when I emerged a foot off the ground in my parent’s living room.
A deep breath as I lay on the ground helps me to rein my anger in. There will be no saving my parents, if I don’t control myself. I have to use just enough magic as necessary till I find them.
There are several problems with me running off without back up or help, I’m still learning magic and have no idea what I’m doing. However, there’s no going back. I can’t risk it. This may be my only chance to find my parents and stop Juliana.
Athena said that I can tap into the wisdom in my magic. I just needed to find a way to connect to it. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to do that.
I wander into the kitchen hoping to find some clues. On the table, there are two cups of coffee both are half filled. Some habits are hard to break, I smile. They always ended up distracted by something in the middle of their coffee.
I move back into the living room hoping that I missed something in my rage. There’s nothing. No clues are in the living room, office, or bathrooms.
I start up the stairs thinking about how foolish it was to run off without telling anyone what’s going on. Binawalka may not even be able to tell anyone what he told me.
My parents’ room looks untouched. Out of habit, I wander into my room. On the window is the same symbol from the caves. The one that was painted on the ceiling except this one is turned on its side. I clench my fists. The window shatters. Juliana.
Anger is building up inside of me again. I know it isn’t helpful. I look around my room trying to distract me from my anger. My bed is shoved in the corner like always, but there are a couple of boxes on it. The boxes are the only other evidence of my parents being here.
Curiosity pulls me to the boxes. My anger is momentarily forgotten. I wonder what things my parents decided to pack for me. What treasures would they think I wanted most?
One box is filled with books, from the looks of it they just emptied a shelf on my bookcase designated for my all-time favorite books. I smile. I had actually missed just seeing these books
in my new room.
My bachelor degree in Library Sciences is in another box with a few other odds and ends. The last box is a little smaller than the other two. It has a couple of my notebooks. A couple of comic strips that I had put on the fridge are neatly placed inside a page protector.
One of the notebooks looks like it had been dropped in the box. The others are neatly put together with their spines up. I pick up the notebook realizing that this may have been the last thing that my parents had touched.
Hope surges through me. Maybe if I tried really hard I could force myself to have a vision. This notebook is the most recent notebook that my parents and I passed back and forth to each other. We would put little notes, quotes, stories, or pictures in it.
There’s a photo sticking out of the side of the notebook. I open it to fix the photo. Shock runs through me. My parents had added a new entry. It’s a picture of Ash with his hands buried in his hair as he sits next to my bed. I’m asleep and very pale looking.
This must have been right after the crazy fire lady. He looks just as pale as I did, but his eyes look haunted. It’s almost like he’s worried that I’m never going to wake up, and that would be completely devastating. His pain is so real to me that it brings tears to my eyes. My heart aches for Ash.
There’s a quote on the page. This quote had to be important. It says, “We build deep and loving family relationships by doing simple things together, like family dinner and family home evening and by just having fun together. In family relationships love is really spelled t-i-m-e, time. Taking time for each other is the key for harmony at home. We talk with, rather than about, each other. We learn from each other, and we appreciate our differences as well as our commonalities.”
I close the notebook and stare at the picture on the cover. That day is one of my favorite days spent with them. The memory flows through my mind like a movie. It was just after I graduated high school. We went to this place in town where you could have paint balloon fights.
For an hour, we ran around trying to avoid getting splattered with paint while trying to splatter each other. This picture was taken a few minutes before my parents dumped two Dixie cups full of paint on me.
I could see them laughing and taking as many pictures as they could while paint ran down my back. It seemed like it took forever to get the paint out of my hair. I found random strings of paint in my brush for weeks.
An image of my parents grim-faced and surrounded by trees pops into my head. I brush it away not wanting to imagine what they may be going through right now. Looking at the picture again, I realize that it’s changed. I drop the notebook.
My parents are kneeling on the ground blood soaked my dad’s shoulder. My mom looks like she’s ready to collapse as she leans towards him. Her arm is sliced open. Several of their fingers look bent at odd angles. I close my eyes to the grim sight only to have the image playout in my head.
Juliana is in front of them. I watch as she flicks her finger at my mom. I watch as my mom screams silently. My dad doesn’t move or say anything, but tears roll down his cheeks.
Who knows how long this has gone on? One thing is certain; it’s gone on long enough. If he had done anything, Juliana would only have made it worse for mom. I’m sure of it. I instinctively reach out to them.
22
I open my eyes and find myself surround by trees. I close my eyes again, hoping to see my parents again but also afraid to. I wait trying to focus on them, but nothing comes. I hit the tree closest to me and immediately bring my fist to my mouth. Not sure when the lesson that acting out of anger doesn’t help. Inspecting my fist reveals a scrape across my knuckles.
Figuring out how I had found them is more important than my anger. The only thing I remember doing was looking at the picture and remembering how happy we were. A bell goes off in my head. That has to be the answer; I just have to focus on my parents in a happy, loving memory.
Closing my eyes, I focus on another memory of my parents. We were camping and roasting marshmallows around the campfire. None of us particularly like marshmallows, but it’s the traditional camping thing to do.
Mom’s caught on fire, so she tries to blow it out. Dad and I laugh hysterically. We fail to pay attention to our own marshmallows. Mom starts pointing at our marshmallows; they had caught on fire.
This time I’m prepared for it. I watch as Juliana sends a rock hurling through the air. My dad throws himself in the path of the rock at the last minute. It hit him so hard that it knocks the back of his head into my mother’s face. He falls to the ground. Mom’s nose looks broken with blood pouring from it at an alarming rate as she crumbles to the ground.
I gasp feeling the ground shift beneath me. When I open my eyes, I’m in a different part of the forest. There’s someone yelling, but they’re too far away for me to be able to judge the direction they are.
This next time my parents come to me faster. There’s a knife in Juliana’s hand as she stalks toward my parents. I pull myself as hard as I can towards them until I stumble. The image that greeted me is not a pretty one.
Juliana is holding my dad’s head up by his hair with a knife at his throat. It’s sickening to watch the smile spread across her face. She enjoys hurting people.
“Well, it took you long enough. I was getting bored with these two. They stopped being fun hours ago,” said Juliana. She sounds like we’re old buddies meeting up for some fun. There is no malice or anger in her tone.
“Yes, I’m sure it’s never fun when they learn to not give you what you want isn’t it,” I reply hoping to keep her distracted long enough for me to formulate a plan. I need to get her away from my dad before she does something horrific.
“Oh please, what would you know? You’ve never had a parking ticket or an overdue book at the library. I mean learn to live a little. You are so boring.” Juliana screams as she plunges her knife into my father’s neck.
My breathing stops. I can’t move as I watch her pull it back out just as quickly. Later, I’m sure someone will describe it just like they do in crime shows; quick, clean, and businesslike.
A burst of anger forces me to breathe again. I scream as I throw my magic at her. It’s something I thought of when my bell trick worked on Ash.
I watch as Juliana starts gasping for air. Her clothes had become much too tight. One of her ribs break. I hear it snap. Her screams spur me on. As I glare at her, the dress tightens even more.
Juliana tries to fight back, but my shield holds fast. She’s unable to concentrate enough to get any force behind her spells. The dress holds as she scrambles backwards trying to get away. A couple more ribs snap. Her legs tangle in the part of the dress. The heel on one of her shoes breaks as she tumbles to the ground.
Doubt creeps up my spine. I feel a rush of adrenaline and a cold sweat down my back. Can I really do this? Am I really capable of killing someone?
Her eyes are no longer on me. Juliana is frantically looking around terrified at what she sees. I hope that the ghosts of her victims are haunting her in her final moments ready to drag her to hell.
Juliana is so consumed by her terror that she doesn’t notice she is holding the blade of the knife. There’s a smear of blood on the ground. The bright red blood stands out against light gray rocks and brown leaves.
Something’s wrong. I can hear a weird rumbling almost as if a bunch of animals are growling. Looking up from Juliana’s face, I see them. Giant wolves form a wall behind Juliana.
“Gwen, please stop. This isn’t you. I’ve seen you cringe when someone smashes a spider. Please! Just let the pack take care of her. You don’t have to do this,” begs Ash.
“Why would your pack even care?” I ask quietly. I don’t understand why his pack would have such an interest in helping me. They have helped so much already. I just don’t get it. Every member of the pack that I have met has treated me like family or an old friend. Why?
Ash grabs my shoulders forcing me to turn towards him. I stare at his chest. Gentl
y, Ash nudges my chin up till I’m forced to look him in the eyes. “You are pack. You are my mate, and I am begging you not to do this. It will haunt you for the rest of your life.”
I lean forward into his chest as his arms wrap around me. Sobbing, I release my hold on Juliana. Snarling ensues followed by one last fatal cry that rings out through the woods and ends abruptly. It’s done.
Somehow through my sobs, I manage to say, “My parents.” I try to pull away from Ash, but he holds me still. “Ash we have to help them. My dad he, he needs help.”
“Buttercup, I didn't come alone. Nicholas and Taylor are both here doing their best to help them. I think it’s better if you don’t interfere,” said Ash as he clutches me tight.
I push as hard as I can against his chest moving only a fraction of an inch backward. “Let me go, Ash. I can’t just stand here.”
Ash has tears in his eyes, “Buttercup, I’m sorry, but there is nothing that you can do. Please, trust me. You have enough horrific memories please don’t add to them.”
I expect more resistance as I turn and pull out of his grasp. Two steps is all it takes for me to register the dead glassy look in my dad’s eye. My mom’s blocked from view as Nicholas, Taylor, and apparently, Doc all worked on her.
Sorrow clenches my chest tight. I can’t breathe. It takes a full minute for me to register my own screams. They mingle with the howls coming from the wolves surrounding us. Ash wraps his arms around me, but even his warmth can’t dispel the cold inside of me.
Xerxes appears in front of us. “I will take you two home. I will handle this Gwen,” he promises shakily.
My eyes clear long enough for me to see the pain and emotion in Xerxes' eyes. He’s just as shaken as I am by this. I nod my consent. I’m too tired to fight anymore.
We’re in the kitchen of my house. Thankfully, Xerxes just squeezes my hand and leaves. If he had lied and told me everything will be all right, I would have gone off the deep end. Everything isn’t fine. I’m not sure that it ever will be. I don’t know what I’m going to do.