Hara and the Witch

Chapter 19: Stories of the Past

She didn't wait, turning and closing her ears to the things Mere called, not even allowing herself to hear the tone in which her words were spoken. She stepped back inside her old home and felt memories crowding around her, memories she hadn't even realised she had been making.

Hara had spent seventeen years longing to escape, to venture into a world where she could discover herself, all the while unaware she was already doing just that.

She slid off her boots and walked around her home, the cool floor and softness of carpets things to focus on. She didn't notice that it was some minutes before Plim found her out, flitting into Hara's old room and perching on the window ledge.

She didn't notice Charvay and Marigold begin moving about in other rooms, their voices quiet and rhythmic, her mind awhirl with Mere and Mere and-

This wasn't how her life was supposed to go. Something inside of her was breaking and Hara didn't know, didn't understand.... this wasn't supposed to happen. This wasn't the way it was supposed to go.

Mere looked down at her, her face clouded, lips pulled to one side.

'I thought you'd understand,' she said, sounding so hurt that Hara physically felt it, like an actual blow. 'I thought you, of anyone, would get it, Hara. I have a chance, a chance I probably never would've gotten otherwise. I can't believe... do you really not want this for me?'

'I- I know-' Hara tried to look at Mere, but meeting those eyes felt like another attack and she was defenceless. 'It was going to be us, Mere. We promised. We always said we'd leave together.'

'I haven't believed that for years. Trent is giving me a chance.'

'...I see.' Hara swallowed the lie down like a stone. 'Then you should go.'

'Hara - you and I know we'd never have made it out. And Charvay-'

Hara cut her off by turning, trying to walk away, but love it not easy and she could not...

'Will you come back?' she asked, but when she turned Mere was gone.

She saw her once more, the day she left the village. Plenty of people came to see the young pair off, but Hara stood still beside Mere's mother and cried for quite a different reason.

She met Mere's eyes just once and it was enough.

She would not, she later promised, ever again be the one left behind.

'She's gone,' Charvay said, stepping into the room and looking at Hara, Plim and Marigold all sitting on the floor, even though there was perfectly good bed. 'I watched her until she was past the forest boundary.'

'I... thank you,' Hara nodded. She didn't know how long it had been, her head still clouded when Marigold had slipped in long before, the words she shared with Plim spoken softly in the background.

'Don't be sorry,' Charvay said, knowing what her niece had been about to say.

'Can't help it,' she said, tone faintly belligerent.

'Well.' Charvay kissed her on the head and pulled her to her feet, guiding all three to the low table in the main room. 'You're still my girl.'

Hara raised her eyebrows, a little taken aback by such shows of emotion, but then her lips turned up in a quirk.

'And you're still my Charvay,' she said. 'Chasing my girlfriends off after they broke my heart, making sure they didn't come back.'

Mere, she thought. It had only ever been Mere.

'So, what are you going to do?' Charvay crossed her long, strong arms and looked on at the faces turned towards her. Late afternoon sunlight streamed through one of the small windows, making patterns on the table between bowls and plates and cups. The village had begun to stir in its subdued manner, the retuning village-folk chattering and laughing gently as they saw their homes at last. Charvay had explained her reason for being at home, when Hara finally thought to ask, saying she had known someone was going to call for her. 'The fact that it was you,' she had added, wrapping a strong arm around Hara, 'was the best surprise I've ever had.'

Hara now intently examined the shadows on the table, trying to work out if she found any of them familiar and determinedly saying nothing.

'Hara?' There was warning in Charvay's tone.

'...yes?'

'Don't say you-'

'We came to you!' she said in a rush. 'I'm sorry! But we're - I'm overwhelmed. People started talking about Mama and I just... knew I needed you. And I wanted to give you this.'

Reaching down, she pulled the blade from its sheath and pushed it across the table to Charvay who eyed it, recognition and distaste mixing in her face.

'I don't want it. It's yours, Hara.'

'It's not. She didn't leave it for a child. She left it for a sister.'

'She-'

'I don't know my mother,' Hara said, fierce. 'But I know you. This sword is yours, it always has been, and now I return it to you.'

Charvay didn't say anything, her eyes barely grazing the weapon that lay before her.

'What story does it tell?' Plim asked, hopping forward and tilting her head at the green blade, the gleaming hilt that is so recognisable to her but suddenly holds such mystery.

Charvay shook her head, but in the persistent, eager silence she knew she wouldn't win, wouldn't be able to keep her story a secret any longer.

'Sisters,' she whispered, voice soft and hard, strong and trembling. 'Promises and hopes and fate. I loved her so much,' Charvay breathed. 'But I let her down.'

Once there were two sisters, both alike and yet so dissimilar that no few could ever quite decide if they belonged together to not.

Whenever they were together, they were as if inseparable, hands clasped and words only for each other; you might occasionally hear a laugh as they huddled together, but it seemed like an escaped creature, flitting out of sight before you could even pinpoint it.

People told stories of these girls, tales of their future departure and adventures, their fame and fortune in the world beyond, stories that one of the sisters collected and clung to.

She had always intended to leave, Trif, yet her vision of the future failed to take into consideration the dreams of her sister. Trif knew they were different, knew Charvay never quite took to their exploring and adventures as she ought, but she decided sharing the same future would make them alike. She wove a story like fate was hers to control.

Then came a child, a little girl who seemed to change and solidify everything. As the child grew, wide eyed and pensive, dreamy and full, from the very beginning, of the same longings her mother felt. Charvay watched the girl so intently that she didn't notice, at first, the signs, the growing impatience, the familiar unrest that came of Trif planning something. And then she was gone, her child left behind and Charvay left with a sword and a note: a challenge.

Take your blade. Come find me.