Chapter 2
The Turning
Arriving at the clearing, I laid Lana down in the winter grass. Kissed her forehead and whispered to her that everything will be alright. I placed the book next to her and started placing the Candles in a star formation calling out each element
"Earth" at the top "Air" to the top left "Water" to the top right "Fire" to the bottom left "Spirit" to the bottom right. I stood in the middle of the star, looked at Lana and raise my hands, took a deep breath in and focused on the world around me. When I opened my eyes the wicks of the candles burst into flame, raising high above my head. The wind picked up and the once clear night sky became flooded with storm clouds. A burst of lighting and claps of thunder danced all around me. I could feel water droplets fall on to my exposed skin.
"Lolita!" I snapped my head in the direction of the house. There I saw a girl not much older than I with long scarlet red hair a tiny body covered with buttermilk skin, drowning in the fabric of her dress running towards me.
"Maria" whispered to my self. I've never been happier to see her okay in my entire life. When she neared me she stopped dead in her tracks. The look of horror on her face showed brightly in the glow of the fire from the candles
"Lolita, what are you doing?" she asked, I could feel the fear in her voice.
"Those monsters! They killed everyone in the house! I was too late Maria. I couldn't get here fast enough..." I broke down into sobs and crumbled to the earth
"Lolita you have to get out of here! The hunters they are still here. You have to grab Lana and run. We have to go now!" Maria yelled at me, grabbing my arms and pulling me up. I broke free of her grasp.
"They killed Lana! They killed my baby Maria!" I pointed to the body of my daughter in the middle. Maria was taken back and I could see the tears form in her eyes "But it's going to be okay, I know how to bring her back" the wind picked up and the thunder got louder
"What? Bring her back? Lolita that's against Nature" I shuck my head and grabbed the black leather book. When I showed it to her, she looked like she's looking at the devil himself. "No! Lolita how did you get your hands on that! I thought your grandmother hid that long before the massacre"
"She did, but as a curious child, I followed her. After we left that night I remembered the books. So years ago, before I had Lana I went back to our old home and dug up this old batty book." Looking back at Lana "You don't understand Mar, they killed her and this book will bring her back. Nature will understand. She always does"
"No she won't Lolita, Nature doesn't approve of Black magic, out if all Carpes you should know that!" Maria screamed. Lolita turned away from her, clutching the book to her chest. The heat from the candles giving her warmth against the winter air "Your mother would be ashamed of you for even picking up the book!"
"My mother would have done anything for her family!" Lolita whipped around as thunder shook the sky above.
"I refuse to let your marks be stripped. I promised Nina I would protect you as she laid dying in my arms and you are not going to make me break that promise you wench" astounded by the name her best friend called her, Maria took this opportunity as an opening and tackled Lolita to the ground. Rain poured from the sky, the winds howled among the clearing, the fire remained burning as strong as it did when they lit. All the elements acted like the others didn't exist around them.
"No! You will not stop me! This is for the better Maria" the girls were a mess of hair, fabric, and flesh as they fought on the ground. Each one trying to gain control of the other, until finally, Lolita straddled Maria, raising a hand she slapped her across the face, her nails scratching her deep in the cheek. Seeing what she had done, she smiled and wiped the droplets of blood away, leaving her blood fresh on Lolitas' fingertips. Standing up,
"Do you know its a full moon tonight?" Maria just looked at her in horror and touched her cheek "There was a diagram in this book, about controlling someone's body by bending their blood. I was captivated by this and I memorized the hand movements. I was never going to use this in my lifetime…not unless I had too, and I certainly never thought I will have to use this against my best friend"
"Lolita-" Maria's' body froze and with each movement of Lolita's fingers, one limb of Maria's was forced to move until she was standing in front of her,
"I wish I didn't have to do this Mar, I really do, but you gave me no choice. I have to bring Lana back" Forcing Maria to walk out of the formation of the star, and when she was at the edge Lolita let her body be free again. Once free, Maria turned around but was stopped by an invisible force
"No" Maria whispered against the barrier Lolita had put up. She watches as her best friend walk to her dead daughter's body and knelt down. She opened the black book, to a page where she knew well.
"Look around you Lolita, do you see Lana's spirit?!" Lolita looked at her from the inside "She isn't around, is she? Lana moved on, you cant cross sides and force her spirit back into her body. That isn't Natures will! Please Lo, please don't do this! Maria screamed over the roaring of the thunder.
Ignoring Maria's screams, I focused on the words on the page in front of me, consecrated on the elements around me, breathing slowly and blocking out the world surrounding me. I pressed my cold hand on the still chest of my daughter. And when I opened my eyes the lighting cracked above me, lighting up the stormy night sky I had brought in.
I felt the warm sensation start at my mark on my right wrist, curling around, forming the beautiful design of knots made of vines and roses. Then traveling down across my upper right hand and fingers. I felt it move to my chest and down, forming a knotted design around my heart cavity. Becoming so focused on the sensation on my chest I almost didn't feel it working its way up my backbone. Starting from the bottom I could feel it hot against my skin, forming a knotted tree-like design, only to stop and break apart into two creating a circle around the center in our ancient language. The prayer to Nature, and connecting back into one till it reached the middle of my shoulders. Then it exploded across my shoulders in waves of ivy forming what felt like wings, which cascaded down to the edge of my elbows. And finally to end it all, the beautiful designed ended on my left hand, mirroring my right beside the knotted band around my wrist. Now I'm ready,
And slowly I spoke
"Cruor Pectoris Mei, Tutela Tua Est, (Blood Of My Heart, Protection Is Thine)
Vita Vitae Meae, Corripiens Tuam, Corripiens Meam, (Life Of My Life, Taking Your's Taking Mine)
Corpus Corporris Mei, Medulla Mensque, (Body Of My Body, Marrow, And Mind)
Anima Animae Meae, Animam Nostram Concete, (Soul Of My Soul, To Our Spirit Bind)
Cruor Pectoris Mei, Luna Mei Aestus Menus, (Blood Of My Heart, My Tides My Moon)
Cruor Pectoris Mei, FAtum Meum Mea Salus" (Blood Of My Heart, My Salvation My Doom)
"No! Lolita, please listen to me, nothing good is going to come out of this!" I heard Maria slam over and over again on the barrier. But something good is coming out of this, my daughter Lana will be alive. Grabbing a nearby jagged river rock, I held it in the air and watched as the fire grew higher and higher above, and the lighting dancing in the sky. Bringing the rock down I sliced through the soft flesh on my left palm, causing scarlet red blood to pour out of the opened wound, and drizzle down till it formed a droplet at the edge till it disconnected from the red river and fall gracefully down like a ruby falling from the sky, shattering among the winter wet grass under me. Looking at my paled daughter I placed my hand at the gap of her now purple lips and I spoke the last of the spell,
"I give you my blood, I give you my breath, I give you all that I am till death" I felt my body get tight like I couldn't breathe, or move. I could see the storm get worse around me, lighting touching the ground close by, thunder shaking the earth...or was the earth really trembling beneath me? I couldn't tell anymore, my vision got hazy. My body started to jerk in a different direction, it felt like the wind wrapped around me and had me on puppet strings. Each jerk felt like a bone was breaking one by one, I let out screams and cries of agony. I could hear Maria yell in the distance, I couldn't hear what she was saying over the cracking of my bones. Suddenly my back was arched up and I was brought high on my knees like someone sucked the breath out of me. The wind brought in leaves and grass, anything laying around on the undisturbed earth. Till it came together in front of me as a woman, the rain droplets seem to freeze where she floated and formed a figure while the debris around shaped her crown, dress, and hair. All of this still moving with the wind. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me due to the pain that was being inflicted. But then she spoke,
"Lolita Katerlina, Child of the Roe, Daughter of I" she came forward and placed her froze hand made of water droplets on my heart. This couldn't be happening, I'm not awake, I have to be dreaming. Nature is standing right in front of me, touching me.
"You have gone against Nature, you tainted your marks I have bestowed upon you at birth"
"My Daughter Lana-"
"Alana Ray, Child of the Roe, Daughter of I, was killed and her young spirit had moved on to the second world, a door you are to guard and help the weak go through, never to enter and you had. You caused an unbalance among the worlds"
"Nature, do you not see what is going on here? They are killing your children!"
"Life comes and goes daughter, but you must have faith and trust. And now the dead has a beating heart
and breath in her lungs. There will consequences, you are no longer a daughter of I, and you are a fallen of the House of the Roe"
"No! Nature, please! Please don't strip me of my name, please don't take my marks! I was only doing what a mother should do!" I begged her
"You are a mother but no longer a Daughter" She tapped her frozen fingers on my chest and kissed my forehead. And the pain that I could never possibly imagine came upon me, I couldn't breathe, I could feel hands grip my throat and it kept getting tighter and tighter. My eyes rolled in the back of the head as my lungs gave their last ounce of oxygen. I started to scratch at the hands to try to loosen the grip so I could get free, but there was none, just my bare neck. My skin was getting hot, like that kind of hot when you lay out in the sun a don't move, hot. But at the same I felt like I was slowly being set on fire, starting from my hands,
"Lolita!" Maria shook me "Oh my Nature"
"Maria, my body feels like its going to explode"
"Your marks" she gasped, I looked down and cried out in horror. My marks were fading into me. My skin was ash gray and my veins were black as night. But they were moving, the blackness was moving up my arms. Maria saw this and ripped open the top of my dress, revealing my nude corset and chest. The wind blew, my slowly this time, the storm I had brought in had gone and the fire went back to normal, just casting just enough light for us to see with the help of the full moon looking down on us.
"Your marks, they are disappearing" Maria touched my chest where the mark that surrounded my heart was being swallowed by the blackness that finally made its way up my arms. It broke into two clouds and moved slowly up my collar bone and behind my shoulders. Maria turned me around and watched as the beautiful masterpiece of a mark that claimed me a Daughter of Nature.
"Nature, she took my marks" I cried, the tears came as streams "I should have listened, but I had to save her—Lana!" I broke away from Maria's grasp and crawled to my daughter. Her once pale white skin is now back to its normal peachy, and her rosy red lips parted and her small chest moving up and down as she breathed.
"Shes alive Maria….I did it, I saved her"
"But now you are a fallen child of the Roe" she knelt down right beside the sleeping Lana and ran her fingers through her knotted brown hair.
"A risk I was willing to take, it won't be the same but as long as my daughter is safe and alive it doesn't matter" grabbing her right wrist I checked the inside, and thank Nature she still had her mark "I can still teach her"
"Let us gather up some supplies from the house and-" Maria was cute off with the yelling of a man coming just before the clearing. She looked at me "Did you hear-"
"Yes" I looked at Alana and then back to Maria "Take her" I pleaded scrambling to my feet
"W-what?" she looked taken back
"Take Lana, take her far away from her. England isn't safe anymore"
"What about you" I tugged Maria to her feet and picked up Alana and handed her to the only person left I could trust. In a hurry to get out of sight I pushed Maria towards the clearing of the wood.
"Don't worry about me, I'll try to stall the hunter for as long as I can while you run"
"But how?" She asked, once in the lining of the forest edge I turned to her "You don't have any magic. You were stripped remember? To bring Alana back from the dead-" She looked at me with wide eyes
"Maria, whatever is on your mind spit it out" Tugging her farther in,
"Nature," she said low and slow
"What?" confused to where she was going with this
"Nature Lolita. You broke Nature. You went into the other side and brought back a spirit that moved on. Everything in Nature has consequences."
"Maria, we know this. My punishment was me getting stripped of my name and marks"
"No. Lolita." she walked closer to me, the crunching of the dead leaves beneath her feet and the small intakes of breath that escapes our mortal lips is the only noise around us "you gave the dead back life. That means a life should be taken….take a life to give life" silent tears rolled down her cheeks, red with the cold of this winter night air
"Maria, that's a Myth, something my Nona use to scare us with as children to stay away from black magic. But look at me" I flung my arms all around me to get her attention "I'm fine, I was only stripped. I'm not dying"
"Lo, please come with us. The hunter is probably already at the cottage" she started to pull on my arm to make me follow her
"No Maria" I freed my arm and took a step back "Listen, let me distract him-even if he's not there, I need to get some stuff that I can't leave behind. Jedidiah" just speaking his name brought tears to my eyes. I've been in a race with time and trying to run to save the lives of Maria, Lana and I that I haven't had time to processes that my older brother is dead. I looked into the eyes of Maria
"Jed, I have to say goodbye. I have to lay them to rest. Their bodies can not find peace on the other side." I walked up to my best friend and my sleeping daughter. Kissed her on her cheek whispered 'I love you' then hugged Maria "I have to do this, I couldn't do it for our fallen village...for my parents. At least I should do this for him...them"
I got closer to Maria. Touching the nape of my neck I felt the necklace my grandmother passed down to my mother and on to me. Taking it off I looked at its historical beauty and kissed it. "Give this to Alana for me when she wakes up. Tell her its something to remind her of where she comes from and who she is" placing it in Maria's hand, I wrapped her fingers around it. Smiling up to her I started to walk backward and finally faced away from her walking back to the cottage
"Wait! Lolita!" Maria yelled out for me, but I was already back at the clearing. Streams of tears that felt warm against my winter kissed skin rolled down my cheeks as I said silent prayers for Lana's and Maria's safe journey. Scoping out my surroundings for the hunter we heard no longer than ten minutes ago. When I determined that the coast was cleared I quickly ran up the stone steps leading into the kitchen, where for the second time I saw Cole's lifeless body. The blood started to dry and the house smelled of death and blood. I can't give them a proper burial but I can do the best I can.
Grasping both Cole's wrists I shuddered at the reseeding warmth of his skin. Reminding me that I was the fault they all died. I should have gotten here sooner if only I had I wouldn't be laying their bodies to rest. Dragging his body into the seating room. Moving on to Cras, I pulled the sword from his chest and the sound that it made, made me go limp in the knees and empty my stomach. I looked to the dead hunter in the fireplace, the erg to butcher his body washed over me. Picking up the sword that I pulled from Cras's decaying chest I plunged it right into his. The blood that no longer runs through his veins sprayed all over me. I felt so great to feel the metal go through is dead flesh and breaking the bones of his rib cage, crushing his non-beating heart. So I did it again, and again and again and again. Feeling satisfied with the now mutilated Hunters body, I moved on to the room I've been trying to avoid.
Opening the wooden door slowly, I first saw the hunter that I had killed off then the crib I had found my daughter lying dead in, then my brother. Sucking in a breathe I built up the courage to walk to him once again. Touching is thick brown hair matted with sweat and drying blood I slid to my knees. Tears formed in my eyes and collapsed in on themselves creating salty clear streams down my cheeks. I grabbed his body in my arms, crying heavily willing this reality away and hoping it to be a dream.
"Lolita" turning around, I saw him. I saw my brother. But not the way I ever imagined him.
"Jed" I spoke lightly. Laying down his body lightly I walked to the ghost of him. Touching his arm like it would break under any pressure "I can't feel you, all I feel is cold"
"I know. Lolita, you have to go. It is not safe" he grasps my shoulders but all I feel is freezing air
"If I can see you that means you haven't passed on yet, why haven't you—wait how can I see you. I was stripped of my marks, I shouldn't be able to see you"
"You can see me cause I'm allowing you to see me"
"What? Why?" I started to get extremely lightheaded. Like it felt like my body was slowly spinning.
"I wanted to tell you to forget about us, go find Maria and Lana. Go far far away from here—Lo are you listening to me" I was but I couldn't find my voice. My vision started to get really blurry and I started to shake. "Lo? Is everything alright" he touched me, or so I thought. All I feel is the cold air. I started to cough, nothing too serious but then it got worse. Brought me down to all four.
"Lolita, what's happening to you?" I couldn't answer him, my throat began to burn and my ribs started to hurt every time I coughed air out. Then I choked up blood and a lot of it. All over my hand and floor then I finally let out a scream. Jed was right by my side, wishing I could feel his touch. My skin, it turned ash gray just like it did when my marks were being stripped. My veins turning black and slowly my fingers began to cripple. Then I heard it.
"Lolita, someone is in the house. They must have heard you scream. You have to get up!" Jedidiah yelled at me. I tried to get up but I couldn't. It's like my legs refused to move. I pulled up my petticoat to reveal the same thing that's happening to my arms to my legs. My vision was going in and out. Blood everywhere, all over. I could see Jed getting worried, I knew he was angry at himself cause he can't help me. Its written all over his face.
"Get up Lolita! Get up!" my body was getting weaker and weaker. A black dots formed in the corners of my
eyes. And before this sleep took me over I saw a man enter the room and raise an arm.
"Jed" I whispered out. Then I felt it, my body burst with pain
My eyes snapped open and panic ran through me.