30. Maya
thirty
Maya
A s Asher placed the protective film over the tattoo on his wrist, something I had never felt before washed over me. The feeling of dedication and our souls intertwining to a new extreme. He was familiar from the beginning, but now it felt like the gods were stitching us together with the threads of fate. I stood there staring at the tattoo. Love filled my heart as I stared at the soft white creature with a delicate flower crown.
After the tattoos, Asher offered to open the shop so I could have a cup of tea to prepare for the day. As I heard him shuffling downstairs, I ran to the mirror and lifted my shirt, revealing the tattoo. I reached down and ran my fingertips over the film, enjoying the dull ache touching it brought me.
As my tea boiled on the stove, I glanced into the bathroom and noticed the still-soaking pile of clothes from the other night. I blushed as memories flooded back, and I made my way into the bathroom. I began grabbing them up, and I lifted Asher's pants up, swinging them over my arm. Suddenly, something heavy and shining fell to the floor and rolled underneath the bathtub.
I set all the clothes down and bent over, reaching as far as I could under the bathtub. My fingertips brush it, and I pull it out and stand up. As I glance down at the heavy object, dread fills my heart, and I can't fight the growing anxiety inside me.
In my hand was a small white coin with a star engraved into it. As soon as I ran my fingertips over the shape, a sharp pain, just like before, crashed in my head, and I dropped the coin, losing my balance. I fell backward into a nearby shelf and knocked it over. Various plants and trinkets fall, crashing to the floor.
"Maya?" Asher called from downstairs.
"I'm okay. I just tripped!" I called back to him. My breathing increased, and I held my head in pain, trying to comfort myself. I crawled back over to the coin and picked it up in my fingers. Suddenly, I looked around me, and the apartment was the way it was when I was a child.
Is this a memory?
I hold the coin, now three sizes bigger, in my hand as I rush through the apartment. As I pass the now giant mirror, I catch a glimpse of myself and freeze. I'm a child again. I have my short, fluffy brown hair and favorite frilly white dress.
"Maya, is everything okay?" My grandmother suddenly peeks her head in the door, and I shove the coin behind my back. My heart is racing as I look around the apartment. Memories of my childhood begin to flood back to me, and I feel overwhelmed.
My grandmother walks out before me and grabs me by the shoulders.
"You have to be careful, my dear. It's very important that you don't get hurt." She looks at me sincerely. I reach my hand down to my hip, hoping to feel the pain of the tattoo. A wave of relief washes over me as the familiar pain rises.
"What do you have there?" my grandmother asks. She reaches behind my back and pulls the coin from my hand, and suddenly, her look becomes dangerously angry.
"Where did you find this?" She asked me, clearly upset.
I tried to answer, but my words fell short in my mouth, and she grabbed my arm harshly. She drags me to the table and throws me into the chair. Fear begins to engulf me, and I feel like a child all over again.
"What have I told you about this? It's not time for you yet." I stare at her, shocked and fearful, when suddenly I get an idea.
"When will it be my time, grandmother?" I ask her, trying to seem innocent.
"Not for a long time. You're not old enough yet. We can't very well have a child taking over a job as important as that, can we?"
"What job?" I realized my mistake as soon as the words left my mouth. My grandmother suddenly turns around, eyeing me suspiciously.
"I've told you countless times. Have you forgotten?" She talks up to me and looks deep in my eyes as if searching for something. After a moment, she smiles as if realizing something. "I see you finally found it. Well done, Maya." She stands up straight and suddenly snaps her fingers, and I'm back in my apartment, holding the coin in my hand. My items surround me, and I almost cry because I am relieved.
I sit on the bathroom floor, my hands trembling as the coin weighs heavily on them. Suddenly, Asher bursts through the door, and when he sees me, his eyes are panicked.
"What happened? Are you okay?" He crouches down and grabs my shoulders. "You did not trip Maya," he says, looking at the various things on the floor around me.
"Where did you get this?" I ask him.
Asher looks down at my hand, and his face is pale. He takes a breath and thinks for a moment before looking at me sadly,
"I found it on the side of the bakery in the alley. I didn't think that it was important. I know nothing about this." Clearly, he wasn't lying, but I was angry nonetheless.
"Do you know anything about this?" I ask him.
"All I know is that Emmett had one," he hangs his head in shame. My body freezes as his words ring through the empty apartment, hanging heavy in the air.
"What do you mean Emmett had one?" My voice is dripping with venom, and I don't break eye contact with Asher.
"He said that Nicholas gave it to him the night of the festival." Asher doesn't look at me, and it makes me even angrier.
"And you didn't think to tell me this," I snapped at him. "I trusted you to communicate with me, Asher." Tears brim my eyes.
"I'm sorry. I didn't think that anything would come from it. I didn't know what it meant at the time." His voice is barely above a whisper.
Suddenly, a strong, boiling energy begins to build in me. One that I cannot control. The coin grows hot in my hand, but my body refuses to let me drop it. I suddenly begin rising into the air, and the wind begins to whip around me wildly in all directions. As I rise into the air, Asher reaches out to me frantically, trying to grab me, but I'm too high up for him to reach.