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"The little girl told the fox that she wasn't hungry but that he could go and search for berries if he was," Janelle read aloud to herself, moving her finger under each word to help her focus on reading the foreign language. Since her teacher had chosen a children's book to start with, the words were easy. It was her first time reading without any help. Exhilaration filled her as she read the words with relative ease without the guidance of her teacher.

"The fox stayed in its place. 'Oh no,' it said, 'I am not going to leave you here.' The girl thought this act was kind..." Janelle trailed off, trying to imagine how the fox's refusal to go search for food was kind but then shook her head, thinking that the words meant something else in French.

She was through half the twelve-page book when she felt a tug pulling her towards the general direction of the door of her room. She could ignore it, it was weak enough to be passed off as just mere discomfort but she was taught to be wary.

The tug, however, it was pulsating. As if it was a heart, but weaker, like the thrum of rain droplet against the ground. She was pulled out of her thoughts by a frantic knocking on her door.

"Entre," the words came naturally to her in French.

A maid came in, pale, shaken and out of breath. Janelle's stomach rolled uneasily.

"Mademoiselle Janelle," the maid paused, taking a deep breath and trying hard not to fidget even though her fingers kept playing with the hem of her spotted apron.

Janelle waited for her to finish. "Oui?" She urged her to continue.

"Lady Cécile is...dying, Mademoiselle."

Janelle's heart dropped instantly. "What?" she all but shouted. "Where is she?"

"Everyone's in the parlour, Mademoiselle."

Janelle had never run so fast in her life, flying down the stairs and long hallways, skidding to a stop at the door of the parlour. Panting, she lifted her hands from her knees to find everyone already there—her father, two brothers and her uncle, all crowded around her mother's bed.

Her mother that was motionless.

"Maman!" Janelle pushed herself between her brothers to look properly at her now very pale mother. "Non, maman..." Her tears streamed down her face. "You can't be...you promised me..." She hiccuped. "You promised me you will stay alive." She sobbed, touching her mother's face gently, a few tears falling down on the woman's cheeks.

One of her brothers bent down and put a comforting hand on her back, rubbing it up and down in an attempt to calm the younger girl.

Shhh now, dear.

Janelle looked up in surprise, her eyes red and watery. "Wha..?"

Your mother finished her job in this realm, now to finish yours.

"Who's there?"

You will know soon enough.

"Jella?" The voice of her brother, Julian, took her out of her thoughts. "Jella, are you okay?"

Janelle looked at him as if he had grown a second head. "No, I am not...Mother is dead and..." She wanted to scream the words, but her throat was constricting.

"Shh, this isn't what I meant. I meant...you were speaking to air just now." Julian's tone was kind, silently telling her that he was there with her and would never leave her alone. Her other brother, as if noticing what was happening between the two, nodded his head.

❉

It had been one day since her mother's death. Word spread, and many attended the funeral. A lot of them were other wealthy families, but Janelle had never bothered to learn their names. Maybe it was because she wasn't important in the company, or maybe she hadn't cared to get to know them. It had been already decided that Jean and Julian would inherit the business from their father.

There was little place for her.

Fog circled around them like an unwanted visitor, blocking whatever sun rays that had seeped through the clouds. People donned their fur coats and black boots, some even had scarves wrapped around the lower halves of their faces to keep away the crisp air.

Janelle was dressed her finest, with a long black dress and full skirt to stave off the chill in the air, and a fur-lined pair of dark boots. Her gold curls trailed down to her shoulders and blocked most of the wind, however, her face was still pink from the cold sting in the air.

In front of everyone, she stood with her father and two brothers, forlornly spiralling her vision into the tombstone that marked her mother's final resting place. Behind her, the hitched breaths from her aunts and wails of other mourners crawled and hit her ears.

Thirty minutes had passed since Cécile's burial. Some of the families were mingling, some chose to mourn silently, and others were callously using it as a chance to strike business deals. Janelle chose to be alone, not interested in any of the children. It wasn't as if she'd been close to any of them before, and her mother's death certainly hadn't changed that.

She was deeply buried in her thoughts that she didn't notice the shadow that fell over her.

"Jani, can I have a word with you?"

Janelle managed not to jump in surprise and looked up. Her uncle was standing there, holding his fedora against his chest. She nodded her head, gesturing to a seat next to her.

"No no, let's go take a walk, shall we?" he suggested, tipping his head slightly to the side. An act made by adults when they were talking to children. Janelle was bemused by that but thought against voicing her thoughts. She, though, couldn't shake the feeling that something wrong was about to happen.

With a hesitant nod, she stood up.

❉

Her uncle walked silently with Janelle right next to him. He had a hand on her shoulder, leading her through the forest. The sun sifted through the leaves, spattering them in alternating shadows, but the cool wind still surrounded them with the pervading cold.

"Uncle?" she spoke after a couple more minutes of silent walking. "Where are we going?"

"To a place where your mother liked to be," Bates answered in a heartbeat, as if he'd prepared that answer beforehand, and knew that she was going to ask him.

Her grey-ish blue eyes looked at him in curiosity and a bit of scepticism. She started to feel that queasy feeling again, like when the maid had come in her room the day before. Counting the steps she took to shove off any unwanted thought out of her mind, she failed to notice how the forest turned somewhat creepier. There were no leaves on the trees, the trees themselves looked dead. A punch of a toddler could make those large trees fall down in crumbles.

She brought her eyes up at last when she noticed how the ground looked ruined and smelled of rotten flesh. She gagged a bit but urged her stomach to stay still and not throw up its contents. She brought a hand up to her nose and started breathing from her mouth. When she looked up, however, she couldn't help the horrified gasp that escaped her lips.

The place looked...dead.

"Mama...liked to be here?" She couldn't believe her eyes. Everything was ruined, marred, had mould on it. The place looked as if it had seen a massacre and no one bothered to clean afterwards. She hoped she wouldn't come across bones; she wanted that idea to stay, well, an idea.

"Yes, your mother liked to be here," Bates answered, his voice was cheerful but there was an eerie undertone to it. "I had to bring you out here for this," his hand slithered into his trousers' pocket and fished out an old, folded piece of paper.

Janelle took a step back but she only managed to go as far because of the hand on her shoulder. "What..."

"Your mother talked to you when she was dying," Bates started, taking his hand off of her shoulder to unfold the paper but not before putting his foot behind her feet to stop her if she tried to run away. "And I simply can't let a shaman be in this family."

"She was dead when I arrived!" Janelle's voice took a frantic tone that Bates noticed. He frowned.

"Your mother, she was quite talented...the best Mage out there, but she is dead now because she gave birth to a vile creature like you." Bates' eyes had a murderous glint in them that caused Janelle's own to widen in fear. "Oh, why did she have to go ahead and make that stupid deal?" He lifted his hand to rub his face as he sighed. "To protect you, she had sacrificed herself."

His hand was back on her shoulder as he started reading. "Shamans were once the saviours of Humanity, they were able to heal anything with the powers bestowed upon them. But once they realised how powerful they were against Humans, they started killing instead of healing. They justified killing Humans by saying that Humans defiled the Earth and nature. But now, Humans have retaliated and started killing every Shaman they encounter with the help of Mages. who have the ability to sense the presence of a Shaman."

Janelle couldn't shake off the terrified look on her face. She saw Bates' hand coming towards her but she didn't react quick enough. He backhanded her roughly causing her to fall on the ruined ground. But oddly enough, once she touched the ground, a shimmer of light appeared beneath her hand inducing the ground to grow grass. She lifted her hand in surprise, the ground returned dull and the grass disappeared under the surface.

Her terror turned into curiosity in a split second that again she didn't see Bates crouching to meet her eyes.

He sneered at her. "This place, among a lot of other places spread on Earth, is dedicated to killing Shamans." He raised his hand again, but something in the woods caught his attention. He cursed under his breath and stood up quickly.

What―or who―caught his attention was a young man around the age of her brothers, she guessed from his appearance. He walked up to them slowly, his eyes narrowed when he realised what was going on. The wind ruffled his black hair, which was strange since she didn't remember feeling any wind.

And now that she was aware that there should be wind, she still didn't feel it.

Before the young man reached them, Bates pulled Janelle roughly on her feet. The ground under them shook slightly. Janelle's curiosity was piqued by that.

"Ah, Anthony, what brings you here?" Bates asked in English. Janelle nearly missed what he had said.

"Bates, what brings you here?" The man, Anthony, retorted.

Bates seemed embarrassed. "I...I was teaching little Jani here something."

Anthony quirked an eyebrow but didn't say anything back. He, instead, looked at Janelle who was dusting her black dress of the dirt that was never there. "Did he do anything to you?"

Janelle understood what he said, but she didn't have the energy to answer. She was about to nod her head when she felt her uncle's hand on her shoulder again, and his grip tightened in warning. She shook her head.

"Good. I wouldn't like it if I was facing the Master's fury, am I right, Bates?" Anthony taunted, smiling as he asked rhetorically.

"Let's get back to the others," Bates grumbled in French, turning around and leaving Anthony behind them.

"Oh, but Bates, I will be around."

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