"TOBIAS!"
Elodie screamed as she watched her son disappear, so close and yet so far—and then she blinked and realized she was not in her home at all.
She was now at the top of a steeple, which basked in the fading light of dusk. Above her, a huge bell was suspended, one that looked like it was systematically used… the tower almost reminded her of the beacon at the top of Arthur's castle—if she remembered right, this was where Serene's people lived…
But then Elodie realized that something from her dream, her memory, had followed her: the same coldness of a shadowed witch, of the shadowed witch.
When Elodie looked down, her heart stopped.
One of Beldam's sisters stood in front of Mario, who was holding the Ruby Star in his hands.
"You!" shrieked Elodie, plummeting towards the spirit and lunging out as if to seize her neck. As expected, her hands went directly through the woman. Still, filled with a desperate fury, she continued to scream. "Where did your wretched sister take my son? What happened to him?"
"Elodie!"
She looked back at Mario, daggers in her gaze.
He blinked at the hostile expression, but did not take a step away or back down. Instead, he calmly said, "Vivian is on our team now. She's with us."
"Do not trust her, Mario! She and her sisters are sorceresses—they all stood against us when my friends and Arthur and I led the assault on their mistress, that wretched demon! She lies to you, Mario, please. Please, you cannot falter here."
Her voice was full of anger and pleading; and she knew that he heard it.
But it was not Mario to speak next. It was Goombella.
"What do you mean, 'the demon?'"
Elodie blinked, suddenly realizing what she had let slip. The words had escaped, perhaps before Mario and his group were ready, perhaps in a fit of anger rather than a planned explanation—and the way they were staring at her now told her there was no going back.
"I—" she started to say, but Mario interrupted her.
"You said there was no treasure," he murmured, eyes shining with realization. "There's no treasure… why would there be such a powerful seal upon the Thousand-Year Door? Because the seal wasn't to keep people out… it was to keep something in."
The four—Elodie refused to recognize that Vivian was his partner as of yet—of Mario's companions ogled at him, aghast by his conclusion. Seeing the somber look upon his face, they then turned towards Elodie, who could barely breathe… so to speak.
Realizing that she was expected to say something, Elodie sank towards the floor and attempted to say, "Mario, I—"
She could get no further. Between the nightmares she'd been forced to relive in her slumber, the realization that her champion might fall prey to one of the demon's servants, the suddenness with which she spoke… it was all too much.
Spectral tears flooded her eyes: this surprised Elodie. She had thought she wasn't able to cry as a spirit, but here she was, feeling that horrid despair she had become so accustomed to in the last three to four years of her life, and wishing that it would simply go away.
She sat, cross-legged, upon the stone floor, as she struggled to wipe her tears away. A shifting of the shadows told her someone had joined her.
After a moment or two to compose herself, Elodie looked to her side and was unsurprised to see Mario to her left, looking out of the window and allowing her a modicum of privacy.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled, scratchy and weak. "I didn't know when to tell you, or how—but yes, Mario. You are right. There is no treasure. The only thing that lies beyond the Thousand-Year Door is the spirit of the very demon my friends and I struggled to face."
Mario said nothing; he only reached out as if to comfort her before remembering that she was a spirit, and unable to register any touch at all.
A tense and uncomfortable silence fell over the group assembled at the top of the steeple. As Elodie looked outside, she remembered what Serene had said about the Dim Wood: that it was dark, and frightened most… but that it was also home to a strange and otherworldly kind of beauty, one that could only be appreciated if it was understood that light meant nothing without darkness.
Elodie gazed over the leafless trees, whose bark was so dark it was almost black. Crows flew from the branches and in formations within the sky, never alone: always together.
In a way, they reminded her of her friends and husband… and of the group that was assembled before her now.
"What do you know about my son?" whispered Elodie. Everyone knew who this question was directed towards, but she did not look at her as it was asked.
Vivian clasped her dark hands together and answered, "I knew that Beldam was under orders to relocate your son. Not to be killed, or hurt. Somewhere safe, where he could grow up in relative comfort… somewhere far away from you, where you would never be able to find him."
Elodie finally looked at Vivian, directly in the eyes.
"Promise me that is true," said Elodie, her voice hard and still filled with dislike. Her silver eyes flared as she glared at the spirit. "Look me in the eyes and do not try any of your tricks. I know them all, Vivian, and should you attempt to deceive me now, you will be sorry indeed."
But Vivian simply looked at Elodie and, with no trace of any of enchantment in the air, repeated, "Your son grew up safe and loved, Lady Lancaster."
More tears trailed down Elodie's face. She was not quite sure how to take the news. Of course she was relieved that Tobias had grown up, had perhaps managed to live a life with love, even if it wasn't her own—but on the other, she was devastated to think of all she might have missed.
Elodie missed Tobias's coming of age: his wedding: maybe the grandchildren she'd once dreamed of having: perhaps the publication of the book he'd so wanted to write, the one about the scholar who also wished to be a general of a powerful army, a soldier responsible for repelling a force of demons…
She turned away from Vivian and looked back to Mario, knowing that she looked vulnerable at best and maddened at worst.
"I have no choice but to trust in you and your judgment, Mario," she said. She took a deep breath, more so out of necessity than comfort. "If you say Vivian is on your side… then I will accept this as best as I can, and wish you both luck in the future of this journey."
Mario smiled; it was a small gesture, but a genuine one. "Thank you, Elodie. After all you've done for us, the last thing I would want is for us to part on angry terms."
These words brought Elodie some distant form of peace, although it did not completely assuage the wailing hole in her heart. But she knew that she had to put her feelings aside, no matter how fiercely they raged. So it was that she stated, "I assume you have questions about what I have told you tonight. Ask them quickly, so that I may give you as much information as I can. You are over halfway finished with your journey now… it is time you learned everything."
"Then start from the beginning," said Mario.
Elodie glanced at him from the corner of her eye. "It is… a long story, Mario. I cannot promise I have the strength to relay it all in one visit."
He said nothing, but the understanding in his eyes spurred her onward.
"Very well. I suppose I must bring you to my youth.
"My father and I were very close. His name was Tobias—I named my own son after him. And both of them were taken from me much too soon… my father passed away from a dread illness when I had just become a woman. My mother was devastated. She tried everything to cure him: and when it became obvious that there was no saving him, turned to dark forms of magic to retrieve him from the afterlife.
"None of these worked, for there is no snatching anyone from beyond the veil. But she was desperate, and desperate meant dangerous… she began consorting with evil spirits whose offers were too sweet to resist, and minor demons that she could summon and converse with. Over the following year, she grew less and less like herself—and more and more like the dark powers she called upon. I do not remember exactly when she lost her goal of saving my father… but before too much longer, her only course of pursuit was to gain further power. She forgot my father. She forgot me. She forgot everything that once contributed to who she was—slowly, gradually, but completely.
"I tried to save her from herself, many times. But she never listened; in fact, she began regarding me as an obstacle. Her affections for me lessened with each passing day. At last, after an… incident… I was forced to recognize there was no saving her. She was no longer my mother—she was a monster."
Mario's eyes widened and he opened his mouth to speak, but Madam Flurrie gasped dramatically before he could and cried, "Egads, my dear, you don't mean to say that this demon you mentioned was your mother?"
Elodie glanced at her darkly, but nodded.
Flurrie gulped and placed a hand against the necklace of pearls that she wore, massaging her neck. The rest of Mario's companions were just as uneasy—many wore far-away looks, as though they could hardly contemplate the horror of witnessing such a transformation over a loved one.
Figuring, however, that there was much more to say, Elodie continued: "The city that I once called my home was soon in grave danger. I ran, as far and as fast as I could, to the neighboring country of Petal Meadows. It was there that I met kindly souls once again: a woman named Alexandra, and the man who would one day become my husband.
"I told him of the darkness emerging from my hometown, the Hallowed City. Arthur listened and waited for a long time for the newly born demon to reveal her plans. When at last she did, he summoned three of his greatest friends to his palace. Their names were Matthias, Serene, and Ingrid. When they arrived, we converged immediately to talk about how to combat the growing shadow.
"It was Ingrid, the wisest of us all, who suggested that we attempt to infiltrate the demon's home to recover her plans. She knew that out of the five of us… that I would have the best shot.
"And so I went ahead with her plan. I knew the secret passageways in and out of the palace. I found myself in her office, looking across so many horrid things. Experiments she had been running… countless demons she'd summoned and drained powers of to gain more for herself… and then, I found them—plans for the creation of something called the Crystal Stars."
"No!" cried Goombella, breaking Elodie from her memories. The spirit jerked somewhat at the suddenness of the exclamation and was unsurprised to note the young woman looked devastated. "The Crystal Stars… they can't have been created by her, can they? They're supposed to be used for good—they open the Thousand-Year Door, they give Mario powers to help us find the rest!"
Elodie raised a delicate eyebrow in Goombella's direction. "They are used for good when they are in your hands, certainly. When my mother created these gemstones, she overlooked a miniscule detail—and yet that detail was enough to save the entire world a thousand years ago, and may do so again one day soon."
Goombella frowned but was silent, obviously wondering what that detail could be.
Seeing that everyone was hanging upon her words, Elodie sighed and ran a translucent hand through her golden-white hair. In a hushed voice, she said, "She did not give the Crystal Stars an allegiance. Their powers are at the behest of the one who wields them. I do not know if she forgot to give them a conscience out of oversight, or whether her arrogance was so great that she did not think providing them with loyalty was necessary. And that is why, when Ingrid, Matthias, Serene, Arthur, and I all fought her—at first, she was unstoppable. She was able to resist the most powerful of my spells, the swings of Matthias's blades. She foresaw the strategies that Ingrid made, the charms of Serene, the attacks Arthur tried to coordinate… And we knew it was the power of the Crystal Stars giving her knowledge beyond our comprehension. So we stole the jewels from her, and with their combined might, were able to win the battle…"
The way she trailed off was hesitant, however; and Mario noticed.
"But you were not able to win it completely, were you?" he murmured, shifting somewhat so he could look Elodie full in the face. "If you were, there would've been no need to seal the Thousand-Year Door. You wouldn't have hidden the Crystal Stars, or created this Map, or bound yourself to it…"
Elodie chuckled, glad that Mario was as intelligent as he was strong. Sighing, she answered, "You are correct. We were unable to kill the demon's spirit. Her body was destroyed, but her soul—the dark magic she'd learned was nothing we'd ever dared to think of, not even in our worst nightmares. We could not destroy it."
"So…" whispered Koops, trembling from his head all the way down to his green boots, "that means that the demon's still… alive?"
"Yes," was his answer—a shudder ran through the open steeple at the heavy undertone their guide's voice had taken. "Her spirit, and much of her power, still lingers. She remains trapped behind the Thousand-Year Door, and yet… I fear she will not be contained there for much longer."
Now Mario's eyes widened. For the first time since she had reappeared in front of him, he looked truly uneasy. "For much longer?" he repeated.
Elodie's eyes flickered to a dull grey as she was reminded of the fact that a thousand years had passed since she'd put the seal on the Door. She couldn't help wondering whether the timing of her hero's emergence was coincidence or destiny.
But there was that telling stab of ice through her chest again; there was not much time left for Elodie in the waking world.
"The seal is weakening," she gasped, feeling the ice shard grow larger and colder with each second that passed. "It has already been a thousand years, Mario. One way or another—she will be returning, and soon."
The adventurers gathered ahead of her exchanged anxious looks, and Elodie could not blame them. Despite the many years, she still remembered what it felt like, to be on the verge of a battle the likes of which she was unlikely to return from: she had felt angry and afraid and guilty—angry that the demon was forcing her hand, afraid that she would fail and the world would be purged in shadow, guilty that everything had reached that breaking point, that her husband and her friends and her children were affected.
She knew, with a single look at the expression on Mario's face, that he was processing some of the same things.
"There is hope, Mario," said Elodie, taking care to keep her voice gentle, despite the overwhelming fatigue. "If you collect the remainder of the Crystal Stars before the seal is broken—there is a possibility that you will have a power the demon does not expect, and thus have the upper hand when at last you meet her."
Mario looked up at her, a fire burning in his blue eyes.
This was a look Elodie was more than familiar with: it was the look that Arthur gave her when they charged into the Great Battle.
"Then that is what we shall do," said Mario. His tone was strong, and it seemed to rally his companions—all of them inhaled deeply and straightened their posture, once again looking like the adventurers that they were.
Elodie sighed and, with this comforting vision swimming through her mind, succumbed to the swirling abyss of sleep.