9. Amelie
Amelie
T he Bloch family never owned a dog.
The boys and I always wanted one, but we could barely feed ourselves, let alone a dog too. My friend Prita from childhood had a dog and it would always chew up her things, then fold his ears back and tuck his tail between his legs when he got in trouble for it.
That’s what Kiaran reminded me of today.
A dog in trouble. Since the night he’d admitted to a dark part of his past, he’d been moping around the house with his theoretical tail tucked between his legs and his ears flopped back in submission.
I could tell he was waiting for me to cut the tension, but it was evident to me that he had some penance to pay, and I was not God.
He could work that out with himself.
So, after three long days of shuffling around each other awkwardly, and a big lunch from Fern I decided I needed some fresh, non-Kiaran affected air.
“I’m going out for a walk. You can eat dinner without me if I’m not back by then.” That perked up Kiaran’s ears a little further than intended .
“Around the cottage? Why wouldn’t you be back for dinner?” Kiaran began strumming his fingers against his thigh again.
“No, I thought I’d go into the Forest.” I grabbed my satchel off the table.
“You can’t go out there alone, Amelie.” His tone was demanding, as if he could stop me if I walked out that door.
“Listen, you’re sulking, and I can appreciate that you need to sort through whatever you’re feeling, but I don’t like to spend my days with people who feel bad for themselves.
No time for that.” Maybe he didn’t deserve my snapping at him, but it was the truth.
Spend too much time down on the ground feeling bad for yourself, and you leave yourself vulnerable to more attacks.
Your only option was to get the hell up, dust yourself off, and brace for the next hit. That’s life.
“I’m not feeling bad for myself,” he snapped back. “I just, I’ve never.. I–”
“No, Kiaran, you are feeling bad for yourself. The poor, lonely Witch who tortured people for his own sick reasons. You made those decisions. You hurt people. You made people live out their last moments on Earth living in their darkest fears, as if impending death wasn’t terrifying enough.
” Apparently, there was a bit of fight left in me.
“Amelie, you don’t know what or why I’ve done anything. You don’t know the half of it. In fact–”
“Then tell me! I told you last night that the only fear I’ve felt since arriving here was of you.
You want to explain yourself? The floor is yours.
” I dramatically swept my arms around the room, knowing he wouldn’t take the opportunity.
Kiaran broke my gaze with pinched brows and a tight line on his mouth.
His stare was locked on whatever sat past the window in the kitchen.
“Didn’t think so. What a privilege it is to feel bad for yourself instead of the souls who deserved your pity on Earth. ”
I turned on my heel, not allowing the chance for a rebuttal. Fern swung the door shut fiercely behind me, the period in my statement as if to say, yeah, what she said.
Floating over the bridge, feeling confident that he couldn’t follow me, I approached the tree line at the edge of the clearing.
I hadn’t returned to the thick of the Forest since I arrived.
I hadn’t needed to. My confidence shook a little at the immensity of the wooded area before me.
Kiaran wasn’t exactly wrong about not knowing what could be out here.
I glanced back at my safe cottage. Kiaran was staring at me through the window, a look of concern and sadness laced his face.
He wasn’t masked right now, he knew I was looking back but he held the expression.
Sending up a silent prayer that he’d keep that demeanor and not turn into the immortal torturer of souls and cast his wolves out, or any other lethal predators for that matter, I took off into the Forest, hoping I looked more confident than I felt.
The clearing was out of view within seconds.
The massive, ancient trees and thick brush took the cottage out of sight.
I was sure I’d get lost if I didn’t mark my path, so I took a few pieces of journal paper out of my bag and stabbed a hole through the middle.
Then I hung them on a branch every hundred paces as I walked and hoped they’d stay put.
The Forest was vast. The stories I’d been told growing up, and the fear it instilled in me seemed to be a far cry from what was in front of me right now.
It looked like what I assumed any other Forest looked like.
But it felt different. The churches detested magic and the danger of those who held it.
The Priest said it was a malevolent force on Earth and all who possessed it were damned.
At minimum, the light show was proof that it wasn’t all so bad.
I tried to decipher between my memories that were tainted by adrenaline during my life or death escape here and what was right in front of my eyes now as I trailed deeper and deeper .
The willows that cried that first night were singing beautiful melodies now. The oak trees chanted what you might hear when men were walking into battle. They were the leaders calling it out. The grass, fallen branches, flowing creek water and rocks were the men chanting it back.
I listened to the music and hummed along hoping my harmony wasn’t imposing on their melody.
Coming to another clearing, I saw what looked like a campsite. It had a small fire pit in the middle of a large dirt circle and a glittering lake sat behind it. I hadn’t seen one other person since staying at the cottage, well besides Kiaran. Only the creatures that showed up for the dusk show.
Taking another look around and feeling as if I was being watched. The campsite looked empty, but the fire pit still had smoldering ashes popping inside it.
Sitting with my back to a tree, I kept a keen eye on my surroundings as I pulled out my book, a pen, and the remainder of the paper I had. Fern had pulled another alchemist book out for me and it was the best one yet.
This one was older than Kiaran and talked about the origin of studying alchemy.
How the first Witches who practiced were hardly magical at all.
They’d been exiled from their Covens for being utterly horrible at magic actually.
They’d failed every simple test that would’ve allowed them to keep learning their craft so they turned to trying to draw from the elements.
From the recounting of it, it sounded like many lives were lost in the process. Witches were extremely smart but lacked the ability to admit what they didn’t know, the author’s words, not mine. However, my time with Kiaran was proving that to be pretty accurate.
After the introduction, it talked all about how alchemy was a concept of magic and it didn’t care if you had celestial bloodlines.
It was just as I told Kiaran it was, a manifestation being blended with the elements to create what the maker willed it to be.
I wasn’t sure what drew me to these books but I was fascinated by the concept of being able to form something tangible by willing it alone.
With all my notes I’d accumulated from my days of reading and the free time I now had an abundance of, I wondered if Fern would help gather what I needed to try some of these recipes for myself.
I didn’t have any magic, but it sounded like maybe I didn’t need to.
Maybe it was the Forest, or the years of pent up rage that was slowly fading with each passing day in the Forest, but something deep inside of me was trying to crawl its way out.
Every time I turned a page, tingles pricked the pads of my fingers and my eyes seared like hot coals.
But in a good way, one that my soul seemed to welcome.
“Miss? Oh miss, you shouldn’t be here.” A quiet, grumbly voice shook me to my core. I figured if anything was going to attack me out here it would surely be something larger and much more terrifying than the small, plump woman hobbling toward me.
“I’m sorry!” Getting to my feet, I stuffed my things into my satchel. “Is this your campsite? Nobody was here. I just assumed it was free to anyone!”
The small woman played with her fingers like if she grabbed the right one it would tell her what to say next. “This is Frea’s campsite. The men will be here soon, though, so you need to leave!” She darted her eyes around the area with furrowed brows, bobbing back and forth on her feet.
“Miss, did you hear me! You need to go!” Totally panicking now, the small woman grabbed my hand and started pulling me back to the treeline.
I couldn’t help but laugh. I’d dreamed of a Dwarven woman holding my hand and guiding me through the enchanted Forest so many nights, maybe I was dreaming of the one dragging me into the trees .
“Do you think this is funny? Frea does not like visitors, and those men will not take kindly to you.”
I felt no fear with this woman. Even midst her panic, my heart felt calm with her hand wrapped around mine.
She didn’t let up or let go as I ducked and weaved through the branches. I saw the first piece of paper and wondered if she was who I felt watching me. “What’s your name?” I asked, trying to soothe this woman’s anxiety.
Not stopping her little strides but turning back to me, she replied, “Ethel.” Then continued to tug on my arm as I walked at a perfectly normal pace behind her near jog.
“Who’s Frea?”
She stopped dead in her tracks then, looking up at the Forest’s roof of limbs and leaves.
Ethel slowly spun to me, motioning with her finger for me to bend down so she could whisper in my ear.
“Frea is all around us.” She stared back up at the towering trees, then back to me, arching a brow.
“Do you see? Frea decides who lives, who dies, who comes, and who goes. So, you need to go back to where you came from.”
“Does Frea live in the trees?” I asked, not understanding.