Cray left early in the morning to help his friend, Luke, out of some problem, something to do with a wheel barrow and his Mercedes Benz.
The night before, we had talked till the early hours in his room, snuggling up while watching a few of his DVDs. We also did other things that were inevitable to happen when alone and in his bed. And though we were determined to be as quiet as possible, we didn't quite manage it.
I'd lost count how many times we'd been intimate. At times, it was as heated and frantic as that first night. Sometimes slow paced and savored. Every day felt like he was touching me for the first time. Each day he acted as though he had never experienced being so close to me. Again, I wasn't intentionally disrespecting Isobel boundaries. I really hoped they really couldn't hear us from their rooms on the third level.
I learned Cray was also studying art and textiles and that he was taking media and psychology classes; an interesting mix for someone who aspired to be an actor. I hadn't known he was studying art in another way like me. The first two subjects I understood. He knew so much about them. But the last one I didn't.
I got the answer in great detail. He liked studying the brain, what made us, in his words, tick like clockwork. He found the human mind complex, yet at the same time, uncomplicated once the reaction behind a function was pieced together and scrutinized without a microscope.
I wondered if he could read my reactions through my speech and very direct body language. Maybe that was why it always felt like he did see what I tried to keep hidden. Well, now I knew one secret.
After a low carb breakfast of mainly orange juice, I called Jess. The conversation soon moved on to my recent meeting with Elandra. I explained what she had suggested. I couldn't reveal my fears, Jess had a difficult voice to talk over. It was eager and straight to the point.
She thought I had no choice but to try and meet her coven. She was right in a way, I didn't. There were a billion questions floating around in my head that I had been trying to ignore. They had been popping up and then disappearing, only to make an appearance again, then fizzle out to come back another day.
If a couple of probable fruit loops believed they could conjure up the dead and bring me to life in another person's past to clear any confusion, who was I do judge or find a missing trick? It was time I faced the inevitable.
It was hypnosis in a way, with maybe some spell casting. Plenty did it. I saw something similar on Montel Williams.
At least I wouldn't have an audience. It would be just Elandra, Jess, and a bunch of no names I probably wouldn't remember after I was out like a flash light and hopefully back just as fast. It was only when I hung up that I realized what I'd gotten myself into.
~ * ~
Jess beeped her horn to let me know she was parked in the driveway. I ran downstairs, hoping to avoid anyone who might have wanted to ask where I was going. I might have blabbed and asked to have my brain reported or deported. Whatever. I needed restraining.
Jess was wearing aviator shades, an accessory I hadn't seen on her before.

She was also perkier than the last time we met, obviously excited about finding out what her grandmother had been talking about all those years.
We travelled along dusty lanes in her Nanny's old station wagon, bypassing the highway to take a longer, scenic route. She must have known I was quaking in my Gucci shoes as I twiddled with the ends of my hair.
"So. How's the day been so far?" she asked, keeping her attention on the lanes.
"I don't know. It hasn't really started yet. Ask me when I'm back from the past." I attempted to joke.
She smirked. "Now you know it's the right thing, don't you? You can bet your ass, you'll be getting the answers you've been looking for."
Need? How did she know I needed it? I had only discussed it with her a few times. It wasn't like I banged on and on about it.
I nodded, fanning my face with my hand. "I just wish I didn't have to leave in person to get to them," I groaned.
She gently squeezed my hand.
We didn't speak the rest of the way. I had a feeling she didn't want to in case the subject became Cray, or worse, Cray and me. She must have heard about us by now. I figured she wouldn't be keen on the idea either if she knew his track record. But people changed. I was beginning to.
I had to be secretive around Cray, as well. It was difficult keeping something so big from someone who had become so important in a short span of time. But I swore to Jess I wouldn't tell anyone. I gave my word and so had she.
She slowed at a curb and bumped over a cobbled road that brought us to a street named Riverton: Elandra's place.
The house was small: a cottage, alone among an everglade of shrubs and cedars. It was painted pastel blue with moss and maybe even fungus growing around the edge of a craggy roof. A small wood gate the same color blue led to a masonry brick footpath surrounded by uncut grass and various plants sat in pine boxes.
The pathway curved toward a pale brown door numbered thirty-nine. It opened as soon as I pressed the doorbell. Elandra answered, just like I supposed she would in her own home.
She beckoned us inside with her long finger, reminding me I was about to sit in a room full of witches. Something I hadn't anticipated really happening.
The house was even smaller looking on the inside, cluttered with novelty trinkets and goddess statues. The coat hooks beside me were heavily piled with jackets and pashminas; multi colored shoes and slippers lined the wall against a steel radiator.
An overpowering smell of dog breath and biscuits came from my left, mixed with honey dew and cinnamon that must have been burning somewhere in the lounge, or every room, considering the strength of it was making me light headed.
Jess and Elandra spoke as if they'd known each other all their lives. I wondered if they had. Elandra then took me by the hand and led us both into a room inches from the stairs.
It was too quiet inside. It was hard to believe there were a group of people waiting. But when we entered, there were at least fifteen of them sat in the shape of a circle, their eyes closed in some deep mantra as their lips moved like a silent movie with bad overdubs.
Men and women were dressed in long overcoats in a manifold of shades and patterns. I couldn't help but admire the ingenuity behind the designs. The way they seemed to represent some sort of trait, a meaning, maybe an secret.

When Elandra spoke, all eyes flew open.
The woman who spoke had a distinctive voice, a mixture of what I figured was something like French or Russian, and that created a snippy and extrinsic tongue to her every phrase. She also had frizzy white hair pulled back and lodged beneath beetle clips. Her coat appeared the most imperative; a midnight blue with a saturnine green. The leader?
"Come. Yur seeth heearr." She patted the circle where there seemed to be a shrine; a thick gold plague with the names Rashulu and some scriptures with a small pot of burning incense. Jess sat on a stool as I stepped lily-livered into the circle, trying my best not to sit on it.
"Yur seerk ther pest," the woman said.
I assumed she meant the past and not a rodent. I also assumed it wasn't a question, although I still nodded.
The others mumbled as the woman retrieved a glass bowl from behind her. It was filled with orange liquid that had floating bits of green and steamed like sulfuric acid.
She dipped a large brush inside it, then flicked it at me, especially at my face. My eyes streamed from the droplets that were probably melting my corneas.
She paid no attention to my yelps, and wiped the brush across my forehead and down my neck so that it left a sticky residue. I cringed. I hated anything wet on me.
"Thees clenss yur surl forum negertive energee," she said lifting the bowl. "Drrinkh. All drinkh." On closer inspection, there were blobs of something black and gooey swirling at the bottom. For all I knew, the orange substance could have been something pumped from someone's colonic eructation. "I should-"
"Drrinkh!"
I flinched and grabbed the bowl at a leisurely speed, trying not to look at the contents as I brought it to my lips and took the tiniest sip.
"Drinnkth!" she still commanded.
I flinched again, and inhaled a deep breath, as though I was about to nose dive into a spinning river. Elandra explained how the process was to restore momentous energy fields. It didn't make it easier for me to drink how I imagined fish spawn fried with duck gizzards would taste. Jess motioned me to hold my nose and chug faster, giving me the thumbs up when I tried not to regurgitate the drink out of my nostrils.
I stopped drinking to heave twice, only to have the woman push it to my mouth, assuring me it would help.
When I finished what must have come from the black lagoon, the woman finally smiled, along with the rest of them, who continued to mumble as the woman introduced herself as Shikra. Her smile didn't last, though. It turned dismal pretty quickly.
"Lie downth," she demanded.
I did, on my back, closing my eyes since she forced them to with her palms. She kept them there like a stodgy blindfold.
I think something was hovering over me. I peeked between her fingers and saw her holding a large stick burning with red smoke. It was cooling me. She was chanting. Something that calmed my nerves and made me sleepy. It wasn't so bad.
Her hands touched my temples and I was back to freaking out again. It felt
like permafrost was cutting through me. I grabbed hold of her hands and yelled at her to stop. I began to overheat, toasting all the way down to my feet so that a ticklish sensation crawled from my waist to my legs. The chanting grew louder. Shikra's inured voice recited words from an unknown text, but a language I somehow understood.

Seekh thi truf for it sha cum tu yur Garrd thi gate of Rumalu.
Seekh herr, see herr, farr fom vew Seekh herr, seekh herr mik herr yur.
I kept hearing the same words repeated. The name Rumalu strung like a mournful harp, humming and shattering Shikra's voice, until her twist of words became a whisper.
In its place became a resonant ringing, a dead signal like that of a life support machine when switched off.
I think my heart had stopped beating. I was drifting far away, farther than the Earth and the Universe. I could see our planet as a dot that blinked; a tiny incision. I couldn't reach it since I was being sucked backwards. My limbs snagged apart from my body and my head disintegrated. My previous life sped in reverse, to a past not of my own, but of someone's whose fear prickled my skin.
I opened my eyes and screamed from the top of my lungs. Just then, a scratching on my arms turned into a burning itch. I wasn't at Elandra's house anymore. I was in a dark forest. Knuckles kneaded the earth beside a blazing fire. Hands were blistered, and labeled potions were spilt on bracken. Winter leaves crunched beneath old worn boots.
Whoever it was walking away, opened a door to a dim room. Piles of worn books were on a large table; an oil lantern burned blue.
I was suddenly standing in a cupboard. It was empty, smelling of cold meats, salt and pepper, and cheese that smelled like feet.
I wanted to sneeze. I also needed to cough but was wary of being heard. I pressed my hands over my mouth, breathing hard through my nose. That's when I noticed a hole through the wood and peered through it. The room outside had no windows and was lit simply by candles, wavering to stay alight. The walls were made of a friable wood. The floor was carpeted with matted fur skin; maybe from a boar-like animal.
There was no furniture. No shelves or compartments except for what I was standing in. The woman from the forest was in the room. She was short, dressed in layers of faded brown. A young man with dark hair and a thick moustache followed after her, wearing old slacks and attached braces and a battered cotton shirt.
He took one last peek outside before closing the door behind him, then headed toward the woman. She bent down to blow out the candles. "Elsbeth," he whispered. Elandra's ancestor.
She kept blowing out the candles.
He grabbed her by the arm, but she pushed him away. "Bevan, I have nothing more to say to you. If you continue to tarnish your fate and ours by wanting to be with a Fallion, you are surely playing with fire. We are allowed to live among them, but we have been forbidden to court them," she hissed." Especially those of such ranking. I want nothing more to do with this."

She continued to blow out the candles, making the room seem to shrink.
"I cannot help how I feel," the young man said. "You must understand that."
"Your actions are selfish, Bevan. The only one to benefit from this is you. And when you are both caught." She wagged her finger at him. "Which you will be, you will suffer the consequences, as shall the whole coven."
"But I love Zangra; that must count for something," he said, his voice full of sadness and solitude.
"What about, Gundulla." she shout whispered. "You are aware of how she feels about
you." She blew out another candle, leaving only two aflame; the bottom half of them was the only thing visible.
"I do not want Gundulla," he said. "I could never harbor mutual feelings. She is becoming a cruel and reckless woman."
"That, my dear Bevan, is to be your own battle to commence." She blew out the last candle to leave them in darkness. Another voice entered the room. How did they expect to leave?
"Who speaks within the chamber," a voice yelled, harsh and dictating,
"Why, it is Bevan and I, Elsbeth, Priestess Gundulla." Elsbeth's voice had become timid and childlike.
"What is your business herein? I hear you whispering. Is there private news you must discuss in the dark?"
"No, Priestess, I was just blowing out the candles and Bevan kindly offered to help."
"I have never known of such idiocy. Bevan, if you wish to help, your services are required in the dormitory. Now off you go! Both of you!"
I heard them scurry out of the room as I tried to recall where I'd heard Gundulla's voice before. It was vaguely familiar, yet I couldn't place it. The room was still occupied. I heard footsteps in the room; confident ones, as if the person could see in the dark. Maybe they could. Maybe their coven powers and spell casting allowed them to.
The footsteps hurried out of the room and descended some stairs. I was left alone, perhaps completely. They might have even vanished by now. I must have been watching some type of replay. Or was it a hallucination? Something Shikra had conjured up to make me see?
Just then, everything turned white, blank like a clean slate with no trace of any other past or future. I panicked and screamed, but the fear was trapped within me, stagnated, possibly forever. When it cleared, I was blinking away black ash falling on my sweating face. A clump of
burned leaves circulated my head. I coughed due to the strong smell of smoke entering my open mouth. Nausea kept me from screaming.
"There, there now. Rest your little head," a different woman said. A cold compress was placed on my forehead. A long, thin hand eased me back onto the hard bed.
I rubbed my eyes to get a good look at who was speaking to me. A slender woman was bent over a steaming pot that smelled of roasted peanuts and freshly cut grass.
I gagged.
With a cupped hand beneath the large wooden spoon, the woman held it beneath my sore lips. "Just a sip will do you fine."
I reluctantly took a sip, instantly regretting it. It tasted like tar or something equally as foul. I swallowed hard and took deep breaths to stop myself from vomiting, nodding my
decline to another spoonful.

It was then that it dawned on me that the woman could see me as if I belonged in the moment. How? It had to be a dictated dream.
I knew I didn't belong here from the way she was dressed like a peasant. Her hair was an almost silvery white, spiraled into neat curls that were tucked beneath a starched hat.
Her pretty face had delicate features, wrinkled but incredibly symmetrical. Whatever Fallions were, she had to be one of them. I could see they were inhumanly different; kind of elfin in features. Except human frailty had marred who I could tell was once a perfect and astoundingly beautiful woman. I was about to ask how I got in the bed, but she turned to look at a wooden door opening behind her. A wreath of holly leaves decorated the center.
"Mama, is she well?" a small voice asked. A young, blonde haired girl stepped out, heavily pregnant and wearing a floor length, cotton nightie.
She lifted the bottom of it and tip-toed along the uneven floor lined with quilts. When she stopped beside my bed and lowered her head, her soft, golden locks brushed against my tender arm. "Are you a traveler?" she asked with innocence, seeming too young to be having a child.
I couldn't bring myself to speak, only stare. She was just as mesmerizing as the woman, just as majestic, but more...human.
"A widow?" she pressed. Her excitement decreased then increased with each question. Her eyes narrowed on my ruby ring. "A betrothed." She smiled, shrinking it into a frown. "But how?" The woman held up her hand to silence the girl then grabbed my hand to inspect the ring.
"Who gave you this?" she asked, almost angrily.
"It was my aunt's," I choked out. The stench from the pot still aggravated my nose. The woman leaned closer, searching my eyes; concern wrinkled her lips. "Now I see," she muttered to herself. "Now I see who you are," she said. "And you have no place here, even if you aren't a complete Fallion." She finally blinked. "Are there others with you?" She pulled away, standing to quickly untie the rag from her waist.
"Others?" I belched out loud by mistake.
"I suggest you return to where you came from and continue to keep your distance," she said. "Without our powers available in the human world, it can be a dangerous place. You must be aware of this." She wrung her hands.
I had no idea what she was talking about. She couldn't have known I might be from the future. How did she even find me to bring me here? Who were these people? I had my ideas. But... A door slammed closed. A man with dark hair graying mainly around the ears threw a
loaded sack onto the floor. It was Bevan, but older.
The woman rushed over to him and helped him to shrug out of his sheepskin coat. His face was red from what I guessed was the winter cold. The girl was still surveying me.
If the woman was from another world with great power, she had obviously left it behind to live the life of a poor, working class family. She must have been the Fallion that had a child with a human.
Was the girl Arrious?
"Warm me some broth, my love," Bevan said before kissing the woman on the lips. "Why are you all awake?" His puffy eyes landed on me, answering his question. "Who might this be?" He didn't seem pleased, although mesmerized by my CBGB t-shirt.
"Papa this is..." The girl whom I assumed was Arrious looked to her mother who shook her head. "A gypsy," the girl finished. Her mother's hunched shoulder dropped.
Bevan's bulky boots boomed against the floor as he headed toward me. "Say. You have a name, Miss?"
"C-Crystal."
He eyed me, much like the woman had, though less certain.
"And what brings you here this Christmas Eve? Are you from out of town?" He peered down at my t-shirt again. I nodded, then belched and threw up on his boots.
My hair was lifted, a clay bowl was placed by my mouth. Bevan mumbled something and stomped out of the room.
"Arrious, fetch papa's broth before it becomes cold," the woman snapped, confirming my suspicions.
Arrious fled from the room.
"You should rest and leave by morning," the woman who must have been Zanga said, dabbing a cloth at the wet strands of my hair. "We cannot have any interference. They have the stone. You understand?" Her eyes watered.
"Yes." I sighed.
She held my gaze for a moment. "Tell...tell my creators-"
The front door thumped, rattling the chains across the wooden plank. Zangra leaped to her feet, just as Bevan returned to see who was causing the disturbance.
I had the urge to run. Something didn't feel right, and it wasn't due to the fact that I was speaking to the long dead.
Bevan opened the door with a distempered swing. Three men stepped inside and grabbed him by the arms.
"What in God's name?" He struggled. His one hand managed to punch one of the men under the chin. His elbow rammed into the eye of another.
He gave a good fight until five more entered and pinned him to the wall.
Arrious returned, almost deafening me with her screams. She threw herself at the men, thumping their backs, but they pushed her away.
I stayed nailed to my bed, hidden in the shadows.
"Why are you doing this?" Zangra yelled, tears streaming down her face.
When they didn't reply, another man entered, robed in black and carrying a bible. He had a moustache that curled up and over his plump lips; his pointed beard was tinged a greenish gray.
He looked familiar.
"Worshippers of the satanic verse must suffer for their mistakes," he replied. His voice sounding pre-programmed.
"I don't understand." Zangra frowned.
Bevan grunted and swore at the man. Arrious was at the man's feet, begging him not to hurt them.
I wanted to crawl away and not witness the inevitable. Things I couldn't change. Or could I? Would it change my outcome?
They hadn't noticed me, so I decided it was best if I crept off the bed and hid behind it. I didn't even know if any of this was real. There was no way I was interfering.
"Father Sinclair! Please don't burn us alive." Arrious sobbed into his boots. "Please. We aren't witches."
Sinclair? As in Reverend Sinclair whom I'd met? Was this telling me it was him who had burned them at the stake? Or was this man a relative of his? I didn't get it. If it was him, in my
Time he was alive and young, yet here he was...middle aged, verging on old.
The man grabbed Arrious by the arms and lifted her like she weighed nothing. "You shall be spared for the child within you." He smiled at her stomach. "Take them away," he commanded, lowering Arrious. She screamed, struggling to free herself from the men's clutch as Bevan and Zangra were dragged outside.
I gathered up the courage to run out of the house to do something, maybe save them if I could, but my feet became stuck in the dirt and snow. My pleas resonated through my ears, hitting an invisible wall so that they bounced back as whimpers.
"Well done," an old woman purred into Reverend Sinclair's ear. They faced the raging fires, stoking them with pointed canes as they roared with laughter. The stench of burning flesh grew suffocating. The anguish of terrorized screams stabbed at my heart, plummeting me into complete darkness.
This time when I opened my eyes, I was in a forest, lay on grass with my knees bent and my hair dangling from the craw of a riverbed. The moon glowed and looked almost three dimensional. The crows flew in reverse.
I couldn't lift my head since my hair was caught within a meander of twine. I tugged at it with my working hand, the strands rip from my scalp. It felt like I had been electrocuted from my teeth. Once apart, I eased myself up. I had company. A cluster of people were around a fire not
so far away. I could almost see the sputter of flames through the trees and the figures moving into the circle and then stepping back and raising their hands. It gave me the heebie jeebees. I wanted to get up and run the opposite way, but I knew I was here to witness it.
Crawling to a stand, I limped toward a bush. From there I could see people robed in black and dancing around a large fire. Their heads were bowed in a numinous worship; their lips moved in rhythmic turns.
They were uttering perhaps a vow to the slender figure stood in the center of the circle, cloaked in a pernicious red.
Their hands lifted to the sky. I figured the person must be Gundulla.
"Free my soul to keep," the figure spoke, confirming it. "For I want not a soul to bear the defects of a heart that will only be torn apart. Tear out. Tear out with your talons of blades, cut through the flesh, now canker it to ore. I am but a mere opening to the whims of your commandment. I will forsake my humanity for power. Indestructible we shall become. Invincible we shall be. Immortality shall be ours!" Those gathered applauded. "Rimmant, rimmanth shor mrue lah," she harked. She was handed a child. It was so small it fit in her one hand. Its nakedness was concealed with a drape of red satin. Gundulla placed a finger on three dots of the same color that had been painted on the child's forehead, hands and feet. I wanted to snatch the child from her but felt glued to the ground
The child cried, squirming as Gundulla placed it onto a bronze pillar. "This here lies our victory, our savior born to be exchanged for youth. In exchange for its mother's life, we must diminish its cause and the womb from which it stemmed. We must turn her mother into meaningless ash so as to commence our journey into eternal life. There, youth and, of course beauty, shall be ours." She smirked. "This child here shall be the first sacrifice."
Arrious, dressed in a white gown, was dragged bare foot across the threshold, struggling to free herself from the clutches of those cloaked in black but hoodless, or old men, bald and with long, wiry beards.
Arrious's feet bled, her hair covered most of her scratched face. I tried to budge and save her, but remembered I couldn't, even if I wanted to more than anything. I was only there to watch. Everything could possibly vanish if I interrupted, and I had to know what happened, no matter how painful.
"Please, please don't hurt my baby." Arrious sobbed.
They tied her to a stake with rope, continuing to chant as the devil herself rose to douse her followers with something from a golden bowl. She placed it on the ground and clapped her hands twice, ignoring the pleas from Arrious who was being bound from the neck down.
Gundulla brought out a stone from under the bronze pillar. It reminded me of a globe of the world, containing the sea and every place unknown. It was like a dome that encased everything and everyone, every face and race, those privileged, those poor, those placed in a throne or dethroned. And it could see everything alive and bestowed to it. My birthmark thrummed, seeming attracted to the stone. It felt as if it was peeling away from my flesh. I held a hand to my chest, wincing from the pain. My mark had something to do with that stone. I was afraid to know how.
The stone soon fragmented in Gundulla's hands. It flew away as silver doves that returned and made the stone whole again. I gasped in awe and horror.
"The underground palace of Fallions shall repay with their lives," Gundulla yelled. "Their abode and their honor with defeat. We shall disengage their shields from which they hide. With this cast from the Lebrus stone, we shall be led to a future where we shall reign victorious and obsolete. We shall once and for all conquer their defenses, execute and take reign."
Her voice resonated through the forest. The sky caved, billowing like a volcanic mound that spewed a yellowish excrement. It coughed up the ghostly heads of perhaps a thousand beasts with demonic growls. I covered my ears and crouched to huddle in my own warmth. My stomach churned, my fears intensified like a wild tornado. I didn't want to be in the past. I wanted to go home, to my real home in Salt Lake City. I screamed, but no sound came out.
"Seek us," Gundulla yelled, her arms outstretched, welcoming the creatures in the sky that coiled around her and attached their tails to her like an umbilical cord from the dead to the living. Horse hooves approached. I removed my hands from my ears to witness who it was.
A man pulled back the reigns of a white horse, halting to a stride of immense control. He brandished his sword after dismounting. His hair flowed behind him as fair as corn silk, his eyes were as clear as stained green glass. He revealed himself as Vander Asholme, a man as gallant and as handsome as his name sounded.
"Let them go," he said, his eyes darting to Arrious. She was unconscious. He went to her and Gundulla allowed it, creating strange movements with her hands as if she were dancing with an invisible partner.
"Save Aleya," Arrious cried when she opened her eyes to find him untying the knots in the ropes. "Please. You have to save her first."
"You're too late," Gundulla said. "The deed has been done. The cast is set by the stone. If you do not allow me to proceed in fulfilling Arrious's death, it will make sure your child perishes too. You will be accountable for both their lives."

"You are nothing but a monster disguised as a sorceress," Vander said without a shred of concern. "You have no rightful place in such craft. You are a cowardly, insane woman with no power to behold us to your commands." He untied Arrious and yelled at her to run, assuring her he would save the child. She staggered toward the woods. Vander turned and raised his sword to Gundulla's throat. She stood still, unhinged by it.
"How dare you," he snarled. "How dare you forsake the one I love for your petty needs. You have loved, have you not? How could a woman such as yourself have been so pure? When you now reek so solely of sin?" He spat at her feet.
She threw back her head and laughed, causing my face to heat with rage. "Love is for the weak, you fool. And yes, I had fallen for its throes, but now you shall see how I will reap the rewards that stale old love could never give me."
"You have gone and lost your mind," he growled. "The love you felt has turned you into a bitter woman who will stop at nothing to blame others for her loss."
Her shoulder hunched, a painful nerve had been tampered, maybe making her recall a time before she lost her sanity.
"I have gained, not lost," she said composing herself. It was ushered with a certainty that made him step back from the emotionless veil. "Now, off you go! Your beloved is about to plunge to her death."
He didn't wait for an explanation. He ran for the woods. Since my feet were able to move, I followed him. "Arrious, what are you doing?" he shouted through the howling wind, reaching out for her. She was standing at the edge of a cliff, just like I had in my dream with Cray.
"I don't want to burn alive." She wept, keeping her back to him.
"You shan't. I promise!"
"I will. Gundulla will make sure of it."
"I won't allow her to harm you or the child. I will protect you both. Always. You have to trust me" It was like watching a reenactment of my dream with Cray.
"Know I love you, Vander." She sobbed. "I don't regret you. I don't!" She stepped off the cliff. Vander's hand remained outstretched.
He collapsed and screamed, so loud I had to crouch and cover my ears.
The sound of the baby crying in the distance eventually made Vander stumble to a stand. We both headed back to the circle. The coven had dispersed into smaller groups. Vander grabbed the baby and turned to Gundulla who was standing motionless. She had her back to me.
"You will pay for this," he yelled, eyes red and practically pulsing. "I will return to finish you for good."
The hood of Gundulla's cloak lowered. Yet I only saw her scarf-wrapped head.
"I cannot be killed, fool. I have the youth of your mistress and child, the strength of a thousand gods. Her sacrifice has given us our immortality and the child its life." She cackled. "For now, that is. As for this ritual, it shall continue until the day a female is born with a mark of the stone."
I instinctively placed my hand above my birthmark. It hummed, perhaps answering to her call. Bile rose to my throat and burned, the forest spun, bringing me to my knees.
Gundulla brought out the stone from under her cloak. "Your child shall bear a child and that too will be sacrificed, much like Arrious. Every mother from this lineage will bear daughters, and every mother will meet the same end so as to bring us closer to our destination. They shall open the portal to Shimmarian once again, and with this stone, I shall have the power to take my place as the leader of a world that is supposed to be mine. I am now the master of my destiny. Every Fallion shall bow down and beg for my forgiveness"

Vander ignored her and mounted his horse. With his child in his arms, he rode into the night. Gundulla turned and I clamped a hand over my mouth. The woman cackling was Isobel.

o(Wv