Red Strings and Ashes

1. Lore

We were tied together, destined despite every choice we made. We burned together, the eternal fire seeking our potential. We were marked together, through every kiss and every bruise. We were fated, within the ashes rested our love.

However, that wasn't the beginning nor the end. He and I knew one day it would happen, we knew we would eventually meet who rested on the other end of the line, but the tangled web of life was more complicated than that. We were 15 and we were clueless.

15 is a big number. When someone in Evermist turns 15 they become an adult. In a society built by hopeless romantics and inspired by the idea of soulmates, they took the magic they saved from the dawns of times. They took this magic and made something that ties together soulmates, red string. The string is unbreakable, like the fated lovers' connection. It's invisible, but you know it's there, like love itself. It's a beautiful story that parents tell their children around their 13th birthday. I hate this story.

Don't get me wrong, love is great and all, everyone deserves love, all the textbook mushy love and making out and the rain. Everyone except myself. I, Ember, am bad at love. I find public affection uncomfortable and the romance in movies unbearable. But mainly, ever since I was thirteen I never could understand the concept of a soulmate. It felt like an arranged marriage. Being told "You will get it when you're older" every time I asked didn't help either.

The only person who got me was Asher, my childhood best friend. He never felt like that was for him either. We both just didn't get it. Asher Red and I met in 5th grade when he picked me up after i ran into a door- it happens a lot. I am the clumsy type and he's quite helpful- the yin to my yang. We have been inseparable since then, our favorite pastime being judging whatever we could see. Couples eating each other's faces off at trains, movies with soapy scenes, and the funniest of all divorce. Because apparently, you might marry someone who isn't your soulmate. The fate concept was quite confusing.

On your 15th birthday, your parents tie a red string on your pinkie. This red string is anything but regular, for it is magic. Each household has their own. They cut the string leaving a long line to throw in the fire. The fire eternal, something very important to Evermist. This fire can't be put out, it is magical. However, it can be stored. Each family keeps a piece of the main fire eternal in a little jar, to be let out on main holidays but especially this one. The red string is thrown into the family's personal fire eternal and once the string catches on fire it disappears into thin air. Stories say that the string goes into the fire eternal and waits there, for your soulmate to then merge into one string. That it turns invisible and waits there for when you first lay eyes on your soulmates. I say it's bullshit.

The ashes are then collected and stored for when you meet the soulmate because they turn into ink. This Ink is considered priceless for there is only one ink other than yours that's exactly the same makeup, your soulmates. The ink is to be used for emergencies only not for conversation, in fact, it doesn't work when tried, there's only so little. That ink isn't permanent however whatever you wrote it mark shows on for soulmate to see whether that be on a wall a piece a paper or their skin. But I never understood why this was.

In Evermist, there's still breakups, there is still heartache, cheating- there's still divorce. Most people in evermist forget about the ink. For the first years, they stare at the ashes they've saved in a glass jar and wait. Wait for it to turn into the ink so they could have a happy ever after. But they move and they leave, they forget as it gets packed into a brown box tucked into an attic forgotten. No longer letting the ink dictate their relationships, they live their life. They suffer the same trauma and sometimes they do end up with their soulmate but they would never know.

After observing with Asher all the people surrounding us for years we just couldn't believe the fairy tales. If people would die not knowing who their soulmates was, what was the point of the tradition. A young couple would be on top of each other in the park making our eyes burn one month, but be fighting the next. There would be married couples with kids crying in the park after somebody had an affair.

Of course, some were happy, some were even soulmates. One time Asher spotted a mark on a kid's wrist, he had been cutting himself. And a week later I saw another kid the same age, using the last of her ink for what I could assume was a plea to live, same marks only more bruised than sliced. They were engaged that next week. These would form questions, questions adults wouldn't answer:

Why age 15? Why a string? Is there more than one string? More than one soulmate? We had been asking questions since we were told of the lore of Evermist. We had been told the same thing every time,

"You will understand when you are older."

I was 14, a week from my birthday still having no clue how they would answer our questions.