Chapter Five
I can feel my heartbeat pounding in my ears as I run out the door of my childhood home and through the village forest.
Pumping my legs as fast as they will take me. Not caring where I’m heading, only wanting to get as far away from that woman as I can.
The bitch who wore my mother’s face.
A scream lodges itself in my throat, struggling to get past my lips. I slow -down and allow my burning legs to drop to the ground. I throw back my head and let the heart-wrenching sound that has been trying so hard to break free, finally find its escape. Tears flow with abandon down my cheeks.
She sounded so real .
Her cooking was the same, even her scent was the same. My mother always smelled like sunshine after the rain.
But there was also something a little off . Something I might have let myself ignore because I wanted this to be real.
I wanted it so fucking much.
The memory is just too much. It’s like the overwhelming pain of my mother’s death all over again, and I feel as if I am breaking in two. I can’t stop the sobbing that ensues, so I allow my body to sink down to the ground while I wrap my hands around my center and hold on tightly.
This time, the hold isn’t for comfort. This time I hold on to stop my soul from leaving this body… to be with her.
After giving myself over to my grief, I slowly begin to feel my tears burning away and being firmly replaced with my anger.
I force myself to sit up and look around at my surroundings. This place… that woman.
No… that bitch who thinks she can just pretend to be my mother. She could never even dream of coming close to being Elswyth Grimshaw.
So if it wasn’t my mother, then who? And why?
And most importantly, where the actual fuck am I?
There are only a few magickal factions that have the ability to shift. The most common are semi-aquatic creatures that can spend 12 hours on the land, before needing to return to the water for another 12 hours. They also have a magickal affinity for… you guessed it… water. However, they have been a very reclusive bunch since the war started, and are barely seen or heard from these days. So the possibility that this was their doing is highly unlikely. Not to mention that their shift would not allow them to fully look like someone else.
True fae were rumored to have the ability to change their faces. I am not sure if that is true or not, but they do actually possess most abilities shared amongst the non-fae magickals, with each individual fae having their own unique strengths. But, they’re assho–I mean... they are a bit snooty, and don’t “lower themselves” to dealing with anything outside of their realm. Even my own grandmother doesn’t spend much time outside of the elven sanctuary. So I wouldn’t bet on this being the actions of any fae either.
That means that this was probably more of a triggered memory that someone was able to invade. That type of talent is rare, and most common only amongst one type of magickal.
Demons…
Demons are actually the counterpart to witches. Witches are non-fae magickals with affinities relating to the Earth, the home, and with deep connections with forests and wildlife. Also, a witch’s abilities are heightened during the day, especially when the sun is at its highest peak.
Then there are the demons, who are also non-fae magickals, but their affinities relate to the air, fire, and senses (or influences). Likewise, a demon’s abilities are heightened during the night, especially when the moon is full or new.
It’s a beautiful symmetry. That is, it would be if demons weren’t such egotistical, ruthless, power-hungry beings.
They hate witches.
That’s fine, though, because witches hate them as well.
Maybe this was all the demons’ doing. Making me relive a beautiful memory. One of my very last before she…
Deep breaths
I can’t go there again. Not right now. I have to figure out where I am, and figure out how to break out of this torment, because who knows what is happening in the real world.
But how?
How can I escape my own head?
Blinking hard to clear the dryness from my eyes, I notice that I am still in the same forest I knew to be outside of my childhood village. As I continue to survey my surroundings, I begin to recall the memory that is most similar to the one I seem to be stuck in.
The birthday breakfast had happened with my actual mother, almost three years ago. However, in the real version, we had nearly finished breakfast when the attack came and everything changed. An attack led by the demon faction and carried out by their prized monster.
Mother died that very day.
I stopped celebrating my birthdays after that.
That is not what I need to focus on right now though. I need to retrace my steps and figure out where my body actually is… and how to get the fuck out of here.
I remember my home with Ori in the woods. I also remember that Ori had gotten hurt, I think? I had gotten him back inside the house, but…
Dammit!
Everything after that is just dark. It’s making my head hurt trying to focus on it all.
Oh no...
Maybe we are under attack right now!
The possibilities swirl through my mind when the wind begins to stir through the trees and brings with it a scent I have never smelled before. I breathe it in deep, hoping it might hold a clue. It reminds me of the burning metal scent that was often carried from the blacksmith’s forge in the village or the wood fires we would sometimes have for celebrations. But at the same time, it smells almost cooling and calm, like gentle autumn rain.
I have never smelled anything like it. It has this strange longing that calls to me and says, “ this smells of home “. But that isn’t exactly what I remember the village, or my mother’s house, smelling like. This is something... new .
I inhale deeply again, wishing I could bottle it up and take it with me. Breathing it in once more makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and my skin feels almost ticklish, as heat begins to build in my stomach. Then the heat moves lower and I close my eyes for a moment.
This scent awakens something inside me. Something primal. I need more of it.
What an incredibly strange reaction to a scent. I can honestly say a smell has never turned me on before. Things here are just getting weirder and weirder.
Shaking my head of horny wind thoughts, I force myself to focus again. The cold breeze after my crying jaunt was obviously a little too much for me. I try rubbing my arms to warm them up and stop the weird sensations. The wonderful scent and the feelings it brought on quickly dissipate, and I’m left a little... empty. Feeling almost as though I have lost something.
Or maybe I missed a clue? Maybe this was the smell of the person who trapped me here?
That theory immediately feels wrong to me, so I let it go because I still need to work out how the hell I’m going to get out of here. Until then, it doesn’t really matter who is behind anything.
I take a deep breath and try to channel my inner Ori. Think logically.
Ok, so I can at least take comfort in the knowledge that I’m not dead, because if I were, I would return to the Ether and be at peace.
That’s how it works for non-fae magickals. Once we die, our energy is released from our bodies, where it can return to the Ether. There they can meld together with other energies forming something new, or break apart and become new life force energies for newly conceived non-fae magickal babes. It was a truly beautiful life-cycle process.
But... I am definitely not at peace, so that is clearly not what is happening here. Wow. Maybe I am channeling just a wee bit too much of my sometimes overly cynical friend.
GET UP
I jump at the volume of the voice or thought, or whatever it is, that is suddenly broadcast through my head. My body is on the move before I even have a chance to make the decision. I’m on my feet and running through the woods yet again. I have some serious stamina in this dream world.
The air has gotten colder, and the sun is setting much faster than usual. I don’t feel afraid, but something feels incredibly urgent.
I truly hope that this isn’t going to flip right over into some crazy ass nightmare. Although, it’s already pretty damn close.
Well, at least I’m not naked. Ever the optimist, right?
I’m not sure where I’m heading, but my feet seem to know where to go, so I don’t put much thought into it and let my body push me as fast as it can go. I do try to assess my surroundings to get an idea of where I am, or maybe of where I am headed.
Looking around I see… tree… tree… oh, look! Another fucking tree…
Well, that is completely useless.
Hmm… I wonder…
I seem to have my magick in this weird world, so maybe I would have better luck by using my trisense. Oh! I wonder if I would be able to sense what was around me in the real world?
Meh, probably not since I no longer had magick in the real world. It couldn’t hurt to try it, though.
Spotting a dip in the path ahead, I slow my pace. I lower myself to the ground by a log ripe with mosses.
Giving myself a moment to steady my breathing and adjust my body into a comfortable position, I gently close my eyes and open my senses.
It’s like a punch to the head, and everything intensifies immediately. The wind becomes too loud, the breeze too hard, and the light tries to pry open my eyes with a burning intensity.
Closing off my senses as quickly as I opened them, I attempt to protect myself from the onslaught my clearly out-of-practice magicks created. I have to remember that I don’t need to open up quite that much to get a read on the area. I’m seriously so out-of-touch with my magick to have made such a novice mistake.
Although... I don’t think my trisense was ever that strong before.
I take another deep breath and steady myself. Slowly I flex each sense, allowing it to open just slightly more than usual. First, the air smells of a deeper decaying wood, but almost somehow sweet. Then the moss beneath my legs feels softer, far more plush than it should be. Then my ears become more attuned to the sound of my breathing, my heartbeat, and a voice—too distant to decipher completely, almost as if it were being carried on the wind. Finally, I open my eyes, slower this time, so that I can properly adjust to the new vibrancy of my surroundings.
I’m prepared for the mesmerizing visuals, as colors are always far more saturated with my trisense.
However this time, nothing has that awe-inspiring vibrancy I associate with using this form of my magick. Instead, everything looks… muted…
That alone is enough to confirm my suspicions that this is some kind of dream or memory, or whatever is inside my head. Not in the real world. Even if part of me–a very large part–wanted to hold on to the hope that my real mother was actually here.
I shake my head in hopes of dislodging the path my thoughts are trying to pull me down. I can’t give in to those feelings right now. I have to keep pushing forward. Giving in to my sadness is not the way to get out of here.
Ok. I still have the most important sense to reach out with… my magick. With it, I can check for other beings, magickal or not.
Alright Forsythia, you can do this. It’s just like riding a bike. You don’t forget the motions, you just get a little timid.
Since it’s the least-used of my senses in quite a while, I open my magick slowly and very delicately. Opening this part of me has always felt like peeling back an innermost layer of clothing that you never realized you were wearing. A layer beneath any actual fabric. A layer that feels almost… intimate .
A small shiver works its way up my spine as I adjust to the feeling.
Once I’m able to focus, I can feel Ori’s magick pulsing close by. Close enough to touch even. It comforts me in a way I had forgotten from our lack of familiar bond over these last few years. Reaching out further, I feel a few non-magickal wildlife creatures, but nothing else.
Wait a minute…
There is something else. Or someone else I should say...
My eyes readjust as I pull myself quickly out of trisensing.
Feeling Ori so close, and not being able to actually see him is just too much. I want to cry and scream and run… but instead, I just feel paralyzed.
I start gulping breaths at a panicked pace. My eyes dart wildly around. Trying to latch on to anything at all that must be real.
But I can’t.
It’s a trick.
All of it.
After a few more panicked breaths, the view in front of me begins to distort and spin. The ground feels as though it’s trying to heave me up off of it. I flail my arms out. Trying to find something, anything , to grab hold of and anchor myself. But my arms feel like they are moving through syrup and everything slips from my fingers before I can latch on.
The only thing solid is this sudden tug I feel in the center of my chest.
The ground eventually gives out beneath me and I feel like that girl from my favorite human book, tumbling down a hole to an entirely different world. Except I didn’t follow a silly rabbit, and it feels like I’m leaving that weird world behind, only to be falling into somewhere else.
I can only hope it’s back home.
I hold on to the tug in my chest like a beacon of hope. Praying to the Gods that this is the tether to my body and I am being pulled back to it.
My vision starts getting blurry, and although the fall should be scaring me senseless, I feel content.
No, not content. I feel unbelievably sleepy. A yawn falls from my lips as my eyes slowly drift closed, far too heavy to be open any longer.
The last thing I hear in the dream world is my mother’s cold voice in my head...
He is coming.
I haven’t a single idea who ‘he’ is.
I only hope he catches me when I fall.