She felt different without the silk covering her eyes.
How long has it been?
Anthea walked over a purple flower.
The path to her house was covered with polished rocks.
The moon was covered by the trees, but its light reached the rocks and
reflected on her feet.
She was humming the only lullaby that she remembered
from her childhood.
It’s raining…
They’ll be here in the morning…
If the rain ends by then…
Yes…
In the morning the rain will be over…
She walked towards an empty lot of land, at the end of
the road she stopped and lifted her hand. She touched the doorknob and the
image of an old wooden house shimmered before her.
“If I can’t see
it, no one can.” She smiled.
***
“Look how late it is.” Blodwen was laying on the couch
looking the ceiling. “We woke up too late, it’s almost lunchtime.”
“Where’s the clock?” Harleen asked.
Stasia pointed at the ceiling, Tana and Harleen looked
up to see an old clock stuck it. Its hands marked sixteen past twelve.
Harleen chuckled.
“Do I even need to ask?” Tana remarked.
“What?” Blodwen sat straight up. “Who wants to help me
prepare something to eat?” She looked around.
“You mean cooking?” Tana asked.
“No, no, no, we will eat some good old books that I
have already prepared.” Stasia laughed.
“I’ll help you.” Harleen offered.
“Excellent, come with me.”
Blodwen jumped and grabbed Harleen’s hand, they walked
to the kitchen.
“I never cooked. Otherwise I would help.” Tana said
before Blodwen closed the kitchen’s door.
“I’m bad at it myself.” Stasia was covering her new
tattoo.
“We can always judge the result.” They smiled. “So…”
“Hm.” Stasia looked at her.
“She gave you the key, right?”
Fear crossed Stasia’s eyes for a second.
“What?”
“The key to the bathroom downstairs.”
“No, I don’t think that…”
“I saw it.” Tana interrupted. “When I left to check on
her. She forgot to be cautious about it.”
“Damn it…”
“It’s alright. I knew that you knew about it the
moment she gave you the key. It also goes to prove that you have known each
other for a long time. Which is something that I didn’t know.”
“Oh…”
“So, what happened between you two?”
“Can I lie to you?” Stasia smiled.
“I wouldn’t advise it.”
Ada was resting over Ælfgiva, who was besides Tana
taking a nap.
“I see… We used to be best friends when she came to
Tonieë. But we had some problems keeping her strength in place. She was always
a bit angry, ever since I met her.”
“And you tried to help her, but she beat some people
up and you could keep helping her, right?”
“How do you…?”
“Well, you see, that’s the thing, there are patterns
that repeat themselves in society. It was just a guess. With the information
that you gave me you showed that you disapproved of her actions, and since you
were friends you would try to protect her. Something that she would also want
to do, therefore she attacked the ones that attacked you or someone else that
was dear to her.”
“There’s no need to even tell you then. You figured it
out…” Stasia sighed.
“No, I just know a part of it. I don’t know the
reasons.”
“We’re both orphans. Well… I am. I don’t know much
about her parents, she left them to come here, I don’t know if they’re alive or
not.”
“I see… Foster parents?”
“Me? Yes.”
“But you don’t have a real connection to them, do you?”
Stasia just looked at her.
“Otherwise you wouldn’t want to come along to learn
magic with a stranger.” Tana smiled.
“Well, yeah.”
“That’s why she was cutting herself, then.”
“What?” Stasia sat on the couch.
“You didn’t know?” Tana looked at her. “No, you knew,
otherwise she wouldn’t give you the key…” Tana closed her eyes to think. “You
thought that she had stopped.”
“Yes. I did. She had stopped when I was with her. She
thought that she had to punish herself. She didn’t have to do it, there was no
reason for it.”
“And when you left she might have thought that it was
her fault, then she punished herself for it too.”
Stasia gasped and her eyes filled with tears.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
“No… It’s alright.” Stasia wiped the tears from her
eyes.
“No, it’s my fault for bringing this up. I just wanted
to know more. Learn more about you. All of you.”
“It’s alright, really. I’m fine.” Her hand reached the
rune on her arm again.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Why don’t you like magic?”
“What?” Stasia looked at her. “How do you even do
that? You can’t read minds, can you?”
“Well, if I had enough power I might be able to read
emotions. But you are easy to read.” She tried to smile.
“It’s because of Blodwen.”
“How come?”
“So she didn’t tell you about it? She told me once
that she didn0t like magic, she said something about an accident a long time
ago. She didn’t explain it really. But every time we talked about magic she
used to feel bad, I could see it on her face. So I ended up disliking it
because I think that it might hurt other people. There’s not many that can use
it around here.”
“Yeah… The further away from the pool, the less people
can use it.”
“But she always had it.”
“What?
“Magic, I mean, Blodwen always used it, even if she
was afraid of it. Whenever I got hurt, or when my cat broke a leg. She always
cured us.”
“I see…” Tana smiled. “Did she cure the people that
she hurt?”
“No, she said that they didn’t deserve it, that it was
something to be used with those that were your friends or were good people.”
“Hm…” Tana reached for Ælfgiva’s head.
