Mixing potions, speaking spells meant shooting arrows with Tiya, Eli and everyone. And apparently, it meant staying kneed down and trying to focus on my inner self. That was not what I had in mind.
I thought I was going to be mixing a bunch of odd liquids that produced a very terrible odor.
Stop overthinking. Just let yourself be consumed by your inner self said a voice that sound far away. Yes, there said the voice again.
I didn't know what the point was. I heard a snarl, this time a bit clear.
I opened my eyes when I felt a pair of eyes stare at me.
"You have the sight. I don't realize your problem" said Sister Lisa. "I don't know if you have noticed but I just happened to be new in this kind of inner self business" I accused.
I got up and felt her follow me. She turned me around from my shoulders and forced my tired eyes to hers that was beaming with frustration. "Thabo, you have to understand that by now they know of our little adventure and soon they will—probably catch up with us and we have to be ready and by that I mean you. The rest of the team have already learned fighting skills but you are witch, well technically, partly. But witches we are fighter and fight with--" "our inner self, yeah I know" I finished her statement. She looked at me and said "instincts, we fight with our instincts".
~*~
Natures first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leafs a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to dat.
Nothing gold can stay
Nothing gold can stay by Robert Frost
Instincts weren't my best word apparently. Instincts meant focus and I was anyway counted myself as someone who possesses focus.
That night I didn't sleep so did Sister Lisa. She told me to be awake.
The night was quiet and peaceful. Insects played sounds that made me appreciate nature. The trees made way for the wind to pass, it wrapped around the leaves and made them make a humming sounds. Some leaves fell down and crushed and cluttered. Twigs were loud throughout the forest but were peaceful. Not of wild animals but of the wind. Paving way for the wind.
Wind. That was one of the things I was supposed to get out of my instincts activities. Focus, that was Sister Lisa reminding me why were bare footed at night in the middle of nowhere in the forest. Her voice seemed to collide with the cold air making me shiver.
"This is who you are" she said again, it sounded far away yet clearer. This is who you are, this is who you are. The words repeated in my mind. "You were born to do this". That wasn't Sister Lisa speaking that was something else. It was soft yet thunderous, like the wind. "Speak to the wind, tell it stop". "Instincts" that word again, this time it was Sister Lisa.
I let my hair stand and my body shiver. I let the wind hit me with waves, the leaves fall on me.
The wind brew again, almost knocking me off away to some place but I let my feet fixated on the ground. The ground was one with me and breathed in as the wind was rushing at me.
It was like a body made of vapor circling me trying to make me dizzy but weirdly or instincts as Sister Lisa may say, I let the whirlwind to embrace me. I let the ground, earth, the earth to hold me like we are one.
Then there was silence, I took that as that was my cue, opened my eyes, they hurt. They felt dry. Sister Lisa run to me and hugged me so tight. "You realized what you have just done, girl?" said sister, thrilled. That made two of us.
"You controlled earth and wind not anyway most witches do, it was like you were the wind" her excitement was visible through her hands that were holding my shoulders a little too tightly. "Yeah, I am pretty sure I am the wind since it was trying chock me. I always wanted to chock myself to death" I said. "This is serious" she said "Clearly" I answered, bored. "This is a great revelation. Tomorrow we try fire.
I stared at her. After some seconds of staring at each other, she finally said, "Witches have one element they are majoring on we call it the instinct but on some rare occasions, one can major on more than one but the chances of insanity in those instance is quite high". "What makes you think that I might reach three or four?" I asked. "Your energy signature" sister Lisa answered. "My what?"
She stopped talking and stayed completely quiet.
"You can..." I started to say, Shh— she shushed me. Her eyes darted through all the corners of the surrounding. Hair on my neck stood and I looked at her and she looked at me. Just like how whatever it was had come it was gone.
The forest had sensed it too, it had held its breathe and didn't allow tree to breathe. It listen too to the potential intruder of nature.
Something of nature. Meanwhile, Sister Lisa was staring at me, a look I couldn't crack.
We have to receive now that I couldn't object. The place was giving me the chills.
Our feet crushed the dry leaves and wind meandered around us. it moved a little further away from me than before. It was blowing rush back miles and miles away. An intruder of nature. Something unnatural.
I was the thing unnatural. When the forest had stood silent and rigid I had been livid of whatever Sister Lisa was hiding. I was unnatural. I didn't fit in the mundane world, how then, could I think I could fit in the super natural world? I was the fool. "Walk faster, Thabo, fast. Away from the forest. Away!" I forced my legs to walk faster despite of the weird things sister Lisa was saying. I let myself be swept off by my legs. Away forest, like she said.
~*~
Bells rung in my head. A warning. It was my heart thumbing. My legs finally gave away and my body crushed its self to the ground.
~*~
Eyes. Pair of countless eyes were all I could see. Dimly visible through my partially opened eyes. Through my flashed mind I could pick out mummers. "Open your eyes child" i heard a voice say and I did. And there indeed set of eyes, unblinking.
“What happened? I asked. “A lot happened, where I should start” said Sister Lisa. I was in the forest, myself and her and we were running. She must have known what we were running from. That, I remembered. Just how the broken, fragment memories played around my mind, that is what sister said happened.
"Next time, we will try in a containment" said alpha Vincent, "before thinking about next time, she needs rest" sister Lisa jumped in. "Those powers are too unstable, at this very moment they are most definitely tracking her using the last night's power" said alpha Vincent.
The conversation was making me go deaf, really. "I think you should cease talking to me like i am not here"I suggested. They continued the conservation as if they didn't here.
"Do the contimation thingy" I declared. "Its containment" corrected Eli. I scowled at him but he was already busy gathering some broken metal looking things, beads, horns or, whatever they were. I looked away before my eyes could burn out. I looked back at the two and said "let’s start" I shouted. A little bit too excited form my part.
~*~
The tree burned. It wasn't supposed to burn but to grow. All I did was to kill that poor tree completely.
Try again
And another try and error. Sweat was dripping from the forehead of Sister Lisa.
Again.
The ground shook as the tree fell down. "I think I have had enough" said Eli. It looked simple when Sister Lisa explained it. I had to be control of my powers and to do that I and to be focuses. She said Simply focus but it was far from it. I didn't see it as difficult, that was then but after a number of I burned trees I could say it was going to require more burned trees.
"Again". I stared at the tree. I did as sister Lisa had said. I pictures the rain drops falling on the roots and the petals at night, the sun shining at noon and the flowers blossoming.
This time I felt something, something, something whatever. What matters is that I did felt something and that thing was vibrant.
This thing was bringing light into my heart. I knew that I had done something good. Not burned them, this time I knew they had blossomed and I couldn't wait to stare at the work of my hands.
I opened my eyes slowly and stared at the tree that was intact. Well, that was a god thing except it was just intact like the same way as it was before.
"At least you didn't burn this as well" said Joshua "That's good enough". "OH shut up Jo" eli said. I didn't not notice he was still there. "That is me attempting at a compliment. Give me a credit" said Joshua. "Give me a credit" I jumped in and Eli groaned. "What? I thought you were on my side just now. What's with that face whatever that is" I said while waving my hands around Elis face that had turned into an expression that was so had to crack. "There is nothing there that need to be credited and that goes to you too Joshua" Eli laughed.
"Don't mind them, this is an improvement but don't get too comfortable we are far from performing magic" said Sister Lisa.
"Again!"
I adjusted my jersey and closed my eyes and visualized the tree. I had to do this. Time was up. Soon enough they would find us, I knew that. I could feel that they are closer. It was maybe just a matter of days.
I had to, every one of us was still here because I had not mastered my powers. Joshua made it clear that I was a liability which needs to be eliminated. For elimination not to happen, I had to do this not just this but more.
I squeezed my eyes extremely closed and let my thought wonder around my mind towards one end. I redirected all my thought and strength towards one thing, to my fingertips. I felt tingling on the tips. I raised my hands and waved my hands into the air. I heard a laugh but I just ignored it, I needed to focus.
I concentrated on the trees I had pictured in my mind. I saw the flowers open up and shone so blight, brightening my darkened corners of the mind. It was time to open my eyes. By the time I was opening my eyes, my head was hurting. I just wanted to sleep. ‘No time to be thinking about sleeping I mentally slapped myself.
What was in front of me was bewildering. Sister Lisa had a smile that seemed to be suck, Elis eyes were practically falling of their sockets and Joshua looked bored.
"I did it!" I didn't mean to shout or jump it just happened. I did it I danced, literally. Well, we add earth form the fire and wind. Practice because tomorrow is the last day staying here. What comes thereafter is unknown because they are near spoke Sister Lisa.
~*~
It was around noon and everyone was cooking. Sweet aroma had filled the whole air and it made my tongue want to burn out of hunger. Any feedback on the training asked Sister Lisa. I was sure it was about me but why was she looking at Eli when asking.
As I was about to answer Eli beat me to it. "She had grown a tree with thorns she seems to be a bitter kind of an earth user, I said this to her and broke my nose with the tree so fighting using earth is check, wind is a total yes, water, she still need to master it considering that she couldn't beat Joshua with it. The fact that she suffocated herself with the water is still a mystery though" said Eli.
I just sat where I was seated like a foreign being among a group of alike animals. "Hello, I am right here. I think" I interjected.
"Well, tomorrow, we leave first thing in the morning although she hasn't masted but we need to keep moving or else this place will be swimming woth blood" responded sister Lisa.
Food came on the table in front of us and we started to dig in. I didn't know how hungry I was when I was training. I finished the plate with four pairs of wide eyes staring at me like I was a freak. Plainly speaking I was kind of one, a freak.
"What?" I shouted. "You have never seen a girl eat before?" I asked. They all said no. "Nah, I have never seen a girl eat the way you do" said Eli and Joshua made the sound that pigs make. Yah so funny
~*~
The next day came, a little quicker than no one anticipated. We had already packed all our things. Sister Lisa and some of us with the sense (the witches) were with her reading the air to see how far were Sister Theresa, father Mateyu and their people. I couldn't feel anything eerie, what I got was the wild wind like where a storm is coming. "Storm?" I asked.
"Good job" said Sister Lisa. I felt something else. Not just storm with rain and wind but wind and fire. It didn't make sense so I stayed quite. It might have not meant anything.
“They are just a matter of miles. We need to go now, now! Call the others." Said Sister Lisa "We need to leave".
"What about the people of the north. When they come here won't they kill them? asked a girl from our group. "They wouldn't. no one would because they know a war would break out one they wouldn't win" answered sister Lisa.
"So lets stay and fight them" I suggested. "That is no option, in every fight even the winners can lose lives also" answered sistey Lisa.
I took my back park and stood with the others. We took the root we used when coming here.
"We will go by the Lake" said Sister Lisa. She was joking, right?
"The same river that drives people to the deepest waters" asked another person and sister Lisa bored.
"Isn't that the fastest way to die" asked Joshua.
"We are going to die one day one way or the other" said Tama "That is not helpful Tama" I said. She shrugged.
We weren't all of us on the move. Some had remained to the northern park, those who decided to join the park. It was just seventeen of us heading towards the lake. The boat was visible as we neared through the clearing. But then we heard the screams coming from where we were coming from.
I turned and looked and I saw nothing but red and smock. "Move Thabo, stare ahead no matter what,keep moving everyone" shouted Sister Lisa. So much for ‘they wouldn't attack the Northern park’.
"Everyone move to the boat. Run! Run. Almost there. Get to the boat!”.
Somewhere ahead, some had reached the boat and they were swimming towards it. The people were supposed to be losing the minds from the water but the water was silent. Like a beast that has a master and the master tamed it.
While others were near the boat I was just in front of sister Lisa who was practically the last one running.
I heard a wind, no, a storm hit and then sister Lisa screamed a deafening scream. Everything stopped and I turn around just like she said I shouldn't. Was I going to turn into a mountain of salt? Well, it was too let to be asking those kind of questions because I was already facing where I was coming from.
There was Sister Lisa playing a game of ‘play dead’ surrounded by a sea of blood, eyes looking horrified staring at me. I fell down and stared at her, unblinking. Like I was in a spell. Not the kind of spell you hear in fairy tales. Where a maiden falls into a spell after staring in the eyes of a dazzling prince or knight.
Maybe the prince or my Knight was Sister Lisa but princes in fairy tales are never unclothed with blood and dirty maybe the knights but not princes.
Princes wore fine golden garments and their eyes don't just stare blankly, they sparkle with determination and confidence. These eyes were from a nightmare. Seeing Sister Lisa on the flow bathed with her own blood, gone before we could cross the lake made me lose my mind. She was like a mom t all of the orphanage children. She died because of me I whispered.
I saw movements simply in front of where Sister Lisa laid. It was father Mateyu with green eyes mine wear bloodshot for sure with tears. They were burning with rage.
I stared at him and thought of his heartbeat, his purse, his blood plumbing in a rhythmic scenario. I thought of ceasing it and he fell down. I felt hands hold me.
I was too consumed with rage and pain that I didn't fight back at first but then my mind registered. It could be Sister Theresa holding me to take me back to the orphanage. No! I screamed and like a storm came out of my mouth, the earth shook.
“Its Eli, calm down, its me, shhhh". "They have retreated" a voice assured me. The voice did no assurance on my part I just wanted to destroy everything. I wanted to burn. I felt myself burning.
I wanted to freeze anything, I felt myself shiver with cold. "Hold it together" said another voice that sounded irritated. I felt my body collapse and being carried away. Fear enveloped me. If I was being taken back to the orphanage so be it and everything went blank.