The Shadow Wanderers

Chapter 7

One of the first families to inhabit Erini included a woman in her forties. People accused her of being a witch because of the rumors that said she could inflame things by only her sight. Wherever she went, something caught fire, and none could extinguish it. Only she was able to put it out if she calmed her mind. When things got out of control, the villagers started to threaten her and her family. They threatened that if the witch, along with her family, didn't get out of Erini, they would burn them and their house. Not that the fire could harm them, some people feared. They worried for the safety of their own families.

So, the woman, not wanting to trouble her family, tried to flee from the island in the middle of the night. She didn't know if she really was a witch, if she really inflamed things just by looking at them. She didn't know if she was ever cursed because she had only begun to show signs when she arrived in Erini with her family seven years earlier.

Confused and heartbroken, she didn't know how to escape the island, so intending to end her misery once and for all, she went to the edge of the cliff. She stood there, but before she could fall, her husband caught up with her. He shouted at her to stop, but she merely turned around to look at her beloved husband for the last time. Tears trickled down her cheeks as she recited the poem loud enough for him;

Oh, the guardian of angels and demons
I believe there's a portal.
Do not deepen my wounds,
And open doors for the mortal.

She let herself fall back into the sea, where nobody could ever find her body. Her husband spread her last words to everyone willing to hear, and that's how the poem reached unchanged to future generations. Everybody thought she created a portal for herself and fled into another dimension. But the poem didn't specifically mean she wanted a 'guardian of angels and demons' to open a portal for her. She made those verses up in her last moments and summed up her feelings in a few lines. She was hurt and wounded, and all she wanted to do was escape the land where she was threatened at every opportunity. 'Portal' was a metaphor for dying, which, to her, was an escape from the cruel reality. Her death would mean the safety of her family; they would no longer be threatened by the Erinians, they would be given an opportunity to start a new life without her.

The story of the woman became a legend. For a dramatic touch, holding a candle and something beloved was added to the context.

It was almost nightfall when Calista finished the story. Zayden had been curious about the legend she had performed.

"Although I still believe it to be merely a coincidence that our portal opened when you were meaning to open one yourself, it's not wrong to think that there might be a connection," Zayden had implied.

He could see now, why the Erinians would get furious. The first incident with fire had happened in the morning and Calista was spotted at the scene. It would create suspicions in the minds of even those who were mindful.

As Naomi left for her place, Calista retreated to her room. Zayden left but she didn't know where he went or where he stayed for the night. She collected all her homework notes from the bed and felt her eyelids droop. Pulling herself back on the bed, she took a pill for her headache and laid down, her eyes scanning the darkness from the window. In a blink, a figure appeared in her window sitting carelessly on the sill. Calista gasped, sitting up, but started to laugh just as quickly.

"I don't recall being that scary," said Zayden, amused at her expression.

"You don't have to be. You'll still keep scaring me," she joked.

"Ouch," he said, turning to face the dark outside.

"What're you doing here at this time? Does my father know?"