The Enchanted

Chapter-27

I let out a gasp of surprise.

"How can you be my mother?" I yelled over the howling wind. "My mother is back home- I've known her all my life."

She smiled sadly.

"When I died, some other family adopted you. You don't remember me- but again, how can you? You were just a few months old."

I looked at her and felt the colour draining from my face. She looked just like me. We had the same dark hair and the same eyes. I wondered how I hadn't noticed it. I knew she had looked familiar to me but she was my birth mother? I felt so shocked I could barely breathe. My real mother was Azari and she had been killed. She'd warned me not to tell anyone about my powers to prevent me from the same fate.

It wasn't her fault she hadn't been there for me. She'd found a way to appear in my dreams when my powers had been triggered for she'd known I had needed help. She had tried to give me hints and had cared about me in her peculiar way. The stain of blood on her dress, the dark one in which she'd died had scared me before but now made me want to cry out in horror. It was my mother they had done this to and would have done it to me without a second thought.

I felt tears well up in my eyes again and felt myself sobbing.

"I wish I could hug you." she murmured. "I'm so proud of you- my brave and beautiful daughter. You are all I wish I had."

The dream was shaking and flickering but I could feel her glowing with happiness and pride.

"How could they do this to you?" I choked out. I'd felt bad for her when I'd read about her but now I felt as though I was drowning in sorrow.

"No," she said sternly, her voice a little garbled due to the dream's quality. "Adriana, do not do this. Do you hear me? Do not let the past haunt you. I do not want you seeking revenge or troubling yourself with any thoughts of such kind."

"I can't just sit back and do nothing!" I burst out.

"You don't have to do anything. Justice is always served- such is the way of nature."

"What?"

She refused to say anything else than this cryptic line.

She was silent for a while and then spoke up again.

"You know, people say we are harbingers of evil and we bring signs of death. We bring ill omen. They are afraid of us and fear leads to hatred. It's not their fault for they do not understand how our powers work. We instead help the society for we warn them of evil, the very same evil that breeds within them. Never let anyone tell you that you are a bad person."

"Is that why they killed you? They thought you brought ill omen?"

"They didn't understand," she said softly and sighed. "When you are as old as me and have a lot of time to think, you learn to understand and forgive."

"You forgive them?" I asked incredulously. She nodded.

"As should you."

I stared at her in disbelief. Both of us were silent for a few minutes.
 

"How do you appear in my dreams?" I asked, sniffling.

"The lives of banshees revolve around dreams," she said. "Blood calls to blood. If our intentions are pure, we can appear in dreams during our afterlife but only a certain number of times. It requires a huge amount of energy. It's wrong to be selfish to hold on to you when so many others have had to let go of their loved ones."

"What are you talking about?" I stared at her.

"This is my last time talking to you Adriana. That is why I told you the truth. I didn't want to at first because I knew you would start to obsess over it instead of focusing on the imminent danger you are in."

"You can't do that!" I cried out. I didn't want to lose her again- not so soon, not ever.

She smiled sadly.

"Such is the way of the world. Just know that I love you and I am the luckiest mother in the world to have a daughter like you. Your other mother raised you right."

I just sobbed.

"My little flower, my brightest joy. Shine forever, my daughter."

Her hair which was always soaking wet dried and fanned over her shoulder as a breeze blew throughout the landscape. The wispy white clouds glittered as the sun shone overhead. She raised her arms and let out a cry. It wasn't mournful- it was a cry of acceptance.

She slowly began to glitter and the bloodstain from her dress disappeared. Bit by bit, she began dissolving like sand was pouring out of her.

"No!" I screamed. All that lay was glitter at my feet. It slowly began drifting towards the sun. I sank to my knees feeling numb.

The dream shook again violently and I felt myself plunging out of it. I sat on the bed and gasped, sucking in big lungfuls of air. I wanted to cry and yell out for this grave injustice but stopped myself. For the first time, Azari had looked truly happy when she was letting go and accepting her fate. The thought brought me peace. I still couldn't help the tears that ran down my cheek for the mother I would never know again.

Her voice echoed in the back of my head.

"You're in danger Adriana."

She'd told me to wake up immediately. Did that mean Ethan was the killer? Or Elara? I felt stupid for staying over. People had warned me again and again not to trust them and I'd just barged in here recklessly even though I knew the weather was turning bad. I wished with all my heart it wasn't them for I'd thought they truly cared about me. I fingered the necklace hanging at my neck and bit my lip thoughtfully.

That's when I noticed that the door was slightly ajar. I felt my heart start to race. Someone was here. I was just about to leap out of the bed and head out when something hit me hard on my head from behind. I put my fingers to my hair and drew them away. There was blood on them. With a groan, I felt myself losing consciousness.