3

Of the Fifth.

I am kneeling in the snow, observing the tracks left there by some great beast. A Djinn, it appears, has been stalking these forests, upsetting the ecosystem. I cannot stand for this, for the forest is for the creatures who naturally dwell there, not for those who would intrude and upset the balance formed by the residents. I may hunt the denizens, but primarily I seek to liberate them from injustice, ensuring that enough of each creature lives so that all may dwell in harmony. This precedes the time I met the Huntress and her champions, the four who would change my life so drastically, and with such splendour. Perhaps precedes is the incorrect term; this is the time I met them, after all. It is, perhaps coincidentally, the first time I was hunting with arrows made of purified, isolated Woe. I pulled closer to my skin my cloak coloured white, made of the skins of the northern bears whose fur was translucent during the night, allowing them to blend with all environments.

It is no bear I am hunting here, for no bear leaves such horrid marks upon the trees as these I see before me, nor do they leave the tree smoking with the acid their claws drip as they walk. I take my bow from my shoulder and notch an arrow, for I smell the putrid air emanating from the foul beast; I can hear their breathing. It attempts to drop upon me from above, but I roll aside and let fly the arrow — true! The beast is hit and caused to fall upon its haunches. The Djinn has taken the shape of jungle cat, coloured red and blue, with eyes devoid of colour and teeth the colour of ash; its whiskers appear as the ends of rapiers — sharp and pointed — and its claws burn all they come to contact with. It pounces again, and I jump back, launching three more arrows before smacking away a swipe with my bow. The silver infused wood holds steady against the Djinn’s strike, but I switch to my spear, for the latter weapon requires less hesitation between attacks.

“You shan’t slay me, Hunter,” growls the Djinn, its voice heavy with volume. I ignore its taunt, which appears to instil further hatred for its target; the Djinn feigns a leap for a lunge towards my ankles; I nimbly leap over the Djinn and parry its tail, only to get thrown into a tree. In a flash, we are at it again, wrestling paw against spear; acid flies towards my head, and I barely roll from beneath the Djinn’s grasp to evade the burning liquid. With a great heft, the Djinn is airborne, and I leap after it, bringing up my spear to jam the tip down the Djinn’s throat. Four arrows, instead, pin the beast to the ground, and wolves surround it with relish. I land, watching the Djinn as it twitches in agony. It commences screaming; my poisoned tips have started working on it.

“No arrows of mine cause pain,” spoke a voice from above me.

“Nor mine,” was the refrain of three other voices.

The first voice intoned, “What foul hunter causes those he catches agony? I shall smite him.”

“Nay, ‘tis not pain,” hissed the Djinn. I hid from the four my smirk.

“’Tis not pain,” I echoed. The Djinn’s face showed tears pooling beneath the cat’s eyes. I knelt beside the Djinn, offering it my gaze as refuge. “What feel you, Djinn?”

“I feel… is that not enough? That I, a being damned by dwelling in a state above emotion, should feel?”

“Fair,” I said. “Would you return to your home, then?” The Djinn shook its head, and I nodded, understanding. Similar results had been produced when hunting with diluted Woe, but never such an emphatic one as this.

“With what venom did you taint your arrows, hunter?” The Djinn faded from my plane, allowing my attentions to turn fully to the beings who surrounded me. “What causes such a being feel emotion?” I plucked from my quiver a single arrow, examining the tip with the eyes of someone in marvel.

“You will answer our lady!” hissed one of the huntresses.

I answered, perhaps smugly, “Woe. Unmitigated, purified, isolated Woe. Its effects are novel, to say the least.”

“You have hunted here before,” another huntress remarked. “I know the scent of your furs.”

The owner of the first voice inquired, “You recognise him, Polaris?”

Polaris replied, “Yes. He is a child of Poseidon; we need not interfere with him. Recall—”

“I recall,” snarled one. They appeared before me, one in front of three. The three each wore a cloak of white, with a clasp fashioned to be a star of eight points. The one wore a similar cloak, save for a clasp in shaped as a crescent moon. “Why are you here, hunter?”

“I seek to maintain the order between animals, as hunters are obliged.”

“You speak as if I know not the obligation of hunters,” she snapped.

“I sought no such translation,” I uttered softly. “If you wish, I shall depart. I do not intrude willingly.”

The huntress gripped her bow less tightly; I believed that all claims I had to being an intruder had left. Her fur-lined hood fell from her face, and she thus revealed rust and blonde hair that framed a face filled with such ferocity there was no question the wolves sitting about her belong solely to this one, whose eyes are filled with light; her skin glowed, like the snow does candlelight, gently; her entire essence seemed to calm and stir me up simultaneously. She extended a gloved hand, and I one in return.

She said, “You mean no harm, hunter. I sense this of you. What is your name?”

“I am Orion,” I replied, shaking her forearm as she did mine.

I am Artemis, goddess of the Hunt, Light Bringer and Eternal Midwife, amongst other things. These are my comrades, Polaris of the Pole Star, Eos of the Morning Light, and Hesperie of the Evening Star.”

“No… you’re not doing something right!” Despite Rhiannon’s best hints towards the ability to use magick, I appeared incapable of exercising even the smallest amount of control over another object.

“Are you emphasising what you want to occur?” she snarled.

“Are you determined?” she hissed.

“Are you even trying?!” As the number of attempts increased, her patience collapsed, though the rate suggested that Rhiannon was shorter of temper than could be hoped for.

“I’m sorry, Rhiannon,” I said after she caused the rock I was trying to move to explode. “I wish I were better. With practice, I’ll get it, I’m certain!”

Rhiannon shook her head and stood, hands on hips, looking over the lake. Her untamed hair was bound in a pony tail that resembled the feeble attempt made a few years ago on the mainland to dam an enormous river. Her wild curls erupted from the hair band, infuriated at her attempt to keep them kempt.

“Maybe you should consult your Tome, Lorcán… that may yield better results. I’m going home for lunch. Good luck.”

I watched as Rhiannon skulked off, shoulders hunched in that manner that alerted me to the fact she was upset. I sat down, leaning back on my hands as the sun twinkled through the trees, pondering. From what Rhiannon had told me, using Dance to cast meant using the feeling of things to connect to the target of your magick. For example, if grass meant ‘green’ to you, you should connect to ‘green’ and then you would be able to make the grass do as you wished. Simple. My problem was, in this regard, finding out what things meant to me. I didn’t see grass as ‘green;’ I saw grass as ‘life.’ But I saw an entire biosphere of existence as ‘life’ too, which interfered with my ability to affect a thing in the style of magick.

“In a way, Dancing to cast is the most difficult manner. It relies upon the connection between your Material and Aether self to be spread to other things, an extension of will, if that makes sense?” Rhiannon had told me the previous day. “You have to really be up to surrendering your typical sense of self and accept all things as an extension of yourself, something it takes many people years to achieve.”

“I don’t think I’ve years, Rhiannon,” I said.

She snorted. “Nor I. So, you should expedite the process, no?”

I crossed my ankles and lay down, placing my head upon my palms as I looked towards the sky. My eyes closed when a burst of sunlight suddenly invaded my pupils, and they remained shut for a while. I found myself listening to the sounds of the wood, the birds chirruping and flying from tree to tree; the gentle stirring of the lake, the soothing strokes of the wind upon my face.

“I would do the same thing at your age, except by the sea.” I needed not open my eyes to know that my mother lay beside me. She probably had her hands on her abdomen, fingers woven delicately together, with her eyes appearing to look towards the sky but her attentions towards nature and the subject of her observation, me.

Mum continued, “My dad and I would walk to the shore and stand a moment before deciding where we would sit, and sitting would make our backs tired so we would lay down, which led to us holding hands and pointing out clouds and birds with the free fingers we had left. It was a grand time, always, because we would observe things through our eyes and through our characters’ eyes and through our friends and siblings and parents’ eyes, and through each other’s lenses, and the conversations we had were always meaningful.”

I asked, already knowing the answer, “Is that why ours are oft so splendidly deep?”

I could feel the heat emanating from Mum’s body as she inched closer, coercing my hand from behind my head and interlocking her fingers with mine. Our connected hands lay between us; I opened my eyes and saw Mum reclining as I’d imagined, with her sparkling eyes apparently watching the skies but truly watching me. I focused upon the brilliant azure that was the heavens, marvelling a moment at how magnificent it was. Perhaps one of the most beautiful and yet taken for granted beings of the planet, I find, is the sky. Its beauty is bound to a trick of the light, sure, but such a delicate gambit generates utterly remarkable results.

“What have you been working on, kiddo?” asked Mum.

I replied, “Reading, talking about the book I’m reading with Rhiannon.”

“You two seem to have been getting along rather nicely. A nice girl, she.”

“Sometimes, yes,” I said.

“’Sometimes,’ he says! Ha! Certainly you, lad, the sole Y-chromosome of the household, should know the capricious nature of women.” I chuckled, which made Mum laugh even more. “Oh, my poor boy. Spoiled, perhaps, in that you only steadily interact with those who have known you your lifetime thus far. Was it she I heard storming off a little while ago?”

“So ‘twas,” said I.

Mum loosed a sharp and short laugh before turning to look upon me. “She’s probably fonder of you than she wants to be, I think.”

“No… it’s nothing like that, I can assure you.”

Mum giggled. “Like what? I was insinuating that she’s grown attached to you, much in the way most of your friends seem to subconsciously exhibit.”

“What mean you?” I queried.

Mum chortled. “Are you really that oblivious, Lorcán? They all want to protect you. I noticed it first with Violet, who seems to note your developing strength rather than anything else whenever we speak of your growth. Miriam — Slade’s mother — tells me that he wanted to return to the mainland to get stronger somehow, which she mentioned after speaking of your relationship with him. I can only assume that such a transition lacks coincidence. Even Claire, in her own way, wants to protect her younger brother.”

I scoffed, “I severely doubt the last statement.”

“You shouldn’t. I’ve known her both her and your entire lives. I can tell when you want to shield someone from something perceived as threatening, believe you me.”

There was a moment of silence as we decided how to proceed.

“She hasn’t spoken with me like we used to in over five years, Mum. We used to have such splendid conversations, but these days ‘tis merely a battle of wits, it seems. Her accent, hair, physique, attitude… it has all changed, and I’m not entirely sure that ‘tis a good thing.”

“Change is pretty scary, isn’t it? We’ve all been through some rough situations, dear. Claire is handling it Claire’s way, as Lorcán handles it Lorcán’s way, and Shannon does Shannon’s way. We’re all variant people, love, and so we cope differently.”

“I know, but…” I felt quite flustered because of the soundness of my mother’s argument against the fickle and childish illogic of mine, so I returned my gaze to the sky. A few decreasingly tense minutes passed before Mum spoke up again.

“I understand what you mean, though, Lorcán. It’s hard to watch Claire grow up and gain such behaviours. I, too, recall the days when she put on for us plays and included us in all her thoughts, and when she would sing too loudly in the shower and not care so much about what she ate — so long as it was healthy and well-made, with greater emphasis on the latter — nor drank, and when I didn’t feel compelled to check through her stuff every once in a while, because I have moments where I feel I cannot trust my own daughter. I miss the days when I feel like I haven’t failed you two in such a grandiose and terrible way. But the nature of days is to go by, Lorcán, and they cannot fight their fleeting existence. And we shouldn’t force them to stay with us who dwell, for that is a transgression most aberrant. Thus, Lorcán, my lovely thinking lad, I implore you: cease focusing so much on what is gone and observe with admiring eyes that which remains.”

I agreed, “Aye, Mum.”

“There’s a good lad. Could we talk about an exciting development, then?”

“Absolutely!” said I, knowing that whenever Mum had an exciting development, it was somehow related to her writing, and that I would be able to have an insight into her next book that many a reader would never have.

“Well, Hannigan’s granddaughter — Mallory, I’ve named her — has been taken by a group of rival pirates who aim to hold Mallory hostage until Hannigan brings them the cure to some horrible disease they’ve gotten. Mallory escapes their hold, though she remains in the caves the rivalling pirates live inside, but she comes across these scrolls that detail the life and disappearance of the original leader of the gang of pirates who kidnapped her. This guy — he’s pretty cool, I think — could move things with his mind by extending his emotion over them, because he figured out that emotions are no more than electrons moving in certain patterns and so if he wished a thing to move in a certain way, he just had to extend that emotion over it and he could.”

If I lived in a cartoon, an aisle of light bulbs would have exploded from how much light they gave off in that moment.

She finished, “Isn’t that grand?”

“More than you could realise, Mum. You’re pretty brilliant, if I may say so myself.” The concept placed in my mind was that the use of Dance was not one of mere physical motion; that would be senseless, considering that Dance was used to galvanise the aspects of a thing in higher planes to affect it in a lesser one. If I didn’t output energy on the level I was trying to affect, how could I be successful in my endeavours?

“You’re sweet to me, Lorcán. I do appreciate it. Now…” Mum rose to her feet and I to mine, and we embraced. “I must off and scribble some more in my journal before meeting with the publishers again. I probably won’t be home until later this evening. You know their enjoyment of drawing out torture. Until then, Lorcán. Farewell.”

“And you, Mum,” I said as we disengaged, and she walked back towards the house, her splendidly bouncy brown locks jumping up and down with each step. When I was certain she was back inside, I turned to the lake and extended my hand in a way I felt invoked my concept of water. For me, freshwater such as lakes stimulate a kind of stillness that is fickle, a delicately balanced being who held great power in being able to sustain life. As such, I felt attached to this water a generally amicable peace, and so my movements were languid and smooth, my arms moving in wide and grand waves, slowly, as if each movement were carefully calculated and measured accordingly, my hands resting in positions mimicking those of one suspended entirely in water and succumbing to the gentle waves.

Movement was fine, but I recalled that I require intent to actually cast anything. Thus, I willed the lake commence forming a lopsided shape, that one side swell where the other recedes, that I should see the cave’s mouth. After a period of five minutes, however, I found that no amount of casting could cause me to see the cave entrance, regardless of the minute amount the lake had swelled unequally.

“Do not count this as unsuccessful, Lorcán,” I heard a voice utter from behind me. Turning to face the speaker, I saw that the Tome was open, and that the world had fallen into its twilight state. The Hunter stood there, leaning on a tree. “Water is to magick and energy what black holes are to light, save that it is easier for energy to escape from water than the latter. I assume your basic chemistry and physics classes told you why?”

“They have, yes,” I replied.

The Hunter nodded, his eyes focused on the distance rather than to whom he spoke. “Interesting thing, water. ‘Tis my father’s domain — the sea, not all water — and one that is least understood in some matters. A theory out there is that certain waters are purer than others because of the gods who created them, for water is naught but the tears of the gods.”

“Why would gods cry?” I asked.

The Hunter smiled a dazzling beam that reminded me that he was a constellation. “Why do they kill, or love, or exist? Why do they create? Because they can, they will, they want… I can think of an infinite amount of reasons, but never know which is correct.”

I blinked, and the world was colourful again, and the Tome was closed, and I, once more, was alone in the woods behind my home, with rays of golden light assaulting my eyes and skin. I felt too warm, and so removed myself from the friendly presence of my childhood pillars, and to my room.

If you wish to psychologically analyse me based upon the contents of my room, I shall present to you the necessary observances. There are six walls — two of which are referred to as ‘ceiling’ and ‘floor.’ Upon the former, there is a painting my sister made of a path we found in the forest one day, a trail made well-worn by, perhaps, many children leaving streams of sand that conglomerated into a path. The trees were thicker the further we went down the path, which made it seem as if it grew shadier the deeper we walked. Claire had encapsulated perfectly this concept in her painting, for the vanishing point — the centre of the work — was nothing but absolute darkness. If you focused on the centre, however, you could see — just barely — a micrometre of light, as if to help the viewer remember that even the murkiest of paths end with great illumination, a brightness that overcomes even the most terrifying and consuming of darknesses.

My bed was no more than a lump of oversized pillow left upon the floor; there were no blankets covering it unless I was sleeping upon that odd bed. The wall opposite the entrance door to the general room was mainly composed of clear dry erase board. If one were to remove this board, one would find oneself touching the wall on the other side of the staircase leading both into the attic and down into the basement. Mum had placed a pole beside the stairs so that should one require a hasty escape — as, say, a young boy wearing a wolf’s costume would require absconding from his Viking princess sister — it would be possible and without much injury to self or others. But with the dry erase board that was coloured much like a mirror, I could write and draw whatever I wished without damaging any of the other walls or wasting paper, which I was prone to do when I was younger. I’d grown attached to that lovely dry erase board, so I kept and used it often.

The wall opposite the board held the entrance door, a door surrounded by blessings and wards that my mother had carved into the door frame, and various references to other famous doors painted again by my sister, this time as a birthday present. If you were to come through this door and look left, you would see a wall covered in nothing but baby blue paint and various posters with quotes from my favourite songs and stories. On the wall where my bed was closest, the window, shaped as an oculus, two feet in diameter, and surrounded by the numbers one would find on the face of a clock, the sole decoration on a completely white wall. My floor was kept clean and orderly, the piles of books I kept around placed in arrangement by subject and age. The library shelves I had were carved into the wall; I had three sets of five shelves, each shelf two feet long, all cut into my grand white wall. A desk sat with a lamp upon it; the desk was on the wall painted blue, with a chair behind it (closer to the wall) and various writing instruments upon it, along with my laptop and typewriter. Within its drawers dwelled a few quills and inkwells of various colours, parchment paper, a sheet or two of papyrus, three small canvases, and a book or two on calligraphy and other languages’ written forms, such as Japanese, Korean, Russian, Greek, Hebrew, and a few others.

In my closet sat books in boxes and memories in other boxes and various costumes and such from past years. We’d given my old clothes away, but the Halloween costumes were too well-crafted for me to leave for other children, so I kept them stored in a box in the back of my closet, and sometimes I would marvel over the brilliance of my mother at handcrafting fabrics. She could have gone pro, if that she wished. Most of the clothes I wore currently were shorts and t-shirts, since the weather of Hollowhaven has always been so moderate. I have never in person seen snow upon the island, nor had a chilly autumn. Occasionally I would wear jeans, or slacks and a button-down long-sleeved shirt (with the sleeves rolled up) if the occasion called for it, which was rare. I did like dressing nicely, though, and so the amount of dress clothes I wore was equal to if not greater than the amount of casualwear I owned.

In any case, my room was more a crafted study than a room, and I enjoyed that it was a place I could come to peacefully work and then sleep rather than a base of operations. This room was my study; the woods my playroom.

The phone rang, and I exited my study, ran down the hall, slid downstairs, and landed at the site of the ringing, plucking the phone from its charging dock. “Hello?” I said.

“Little brother? It’s Claire. Obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“Where’s our mother?” I shrugged, which — as it didn’t really translate over the phone — I clarified by stating that she was in a meeting with publishers. “That’s why she’s not answering her cell. Well, can you take a message?”

“I’m capable,” I said once I grabbed a dry erase pen and was waiting at the refrigerator.

“Tell her I’m coming home tonight?” It was a command intoned as a question.

“Isn’t that early?”

Claire rolling her eyes, unlike my shrug, translated very well through the line. “Yeah, it’s early. I decided that this trip isn’t really for me.”

“Oh… what happened?” I asked.

“I’ll tell you later, okay? I’m coming home; tell Mum. Also… bye.” Before I could determine whether the last bit was to be towards me or Mum, Claire hung up the phone, an action I would soon copy, like the message I wrote upon the refrigerator message board. Something in her voice had come across to me as strange, as if she were biting her tongue because there was something she couldn’t quite — my cell phone vibrated on the kitchen island. In a less majestic swoop than I’d like to admit, I grabbed the phone and unlocked the screen, which opened a text from none other than my sister:

“I realised upon this trip that I was pushing myself too far and too hard to join the ranks of those who claimed to be my friends. In actuality, as I’ve learned just recently, these are none more than impish and envy-filled wretches, horrible people who would gladly set ablaze someone to further their own careers. Rather than listen to those who have known me either my or their whole lives, to those who I hope love me as unconditionally as they have said in the past, I chose to attempt release myself from the bounds of family by putting myself through a cookie cutter, so to speak. That is bad analogy, but I think you get the point, dearest brother.

“I want someone to know this, but I can’t tell Mum what I’m about to share with you. Not yet. I have much to apologise for and I don’t want it belittled by this information. I trust you, however, to never allow such an event cloud your harsh judgment of my actions, and so I feel you should know, as the one person I can tell everything to without feeling patronised by a response, that at 00:42, two days ago, I tried to end my life. Luckily for me, I suppose, the poison was only concentrated enough to knock me out until fifteen hours ago, when I awoke in a hospital bed. The boy claiming to have the right to refer to me as his girlfriend (I suppose he’ll be titled my ex, then) dropped me off and hasn’t returned since he found me two days ago. He has not answered my texts, nor my calls. I cannot depend on him any longer. Upon reflection, I never could.

“The hospital I’ve been staying in notified me that they know our uncle and that they’ve, at my behest, contacted him to help me return to Hollowhaven safely. Our flight departs in an hour and arrives in two; after that is a small trip from the aeroport to the ferry from mainland to Hollowhaven, which means that in six hours at the most I shall arrive home. So, little brother, until then. And thank you for not giving up on me, even when I have. Love, Claire.”

I took a deep breath, for it was all I could do.

That Claire, my star of a sister, had been torched so violently she felt the need to end herself… a part of me was shocked, but a large part — the part that frightened me the most — was that it was, to me, predictable. That I had, in some way or another, been waiting for this moment to arrive. I read the text four more times, four times hoping that I had misread it, and five times relieved that I hadn’t. I tried to distinguish the woe from knowing that Claire had fallen into such a deep pit from the joy I felt that she was returning — and in a greater sense, returned — and found that I was quite incapable of doing so. The contrast of these feelings was horrific in its magnitude; I felt that I was being ripped apart by two poles of equal and enormous strength, as if Samson were pulling from both neck and ankles, the last surge of strength before Delilah stripped him of his hair and vigour.

I sat down, feeling heavily winded. About me things seemed dishevelled, for I was in the woods now, sitting upon the cliff at the part of the wood beyond the lake, overlooking a portion of Hollowhaven. Leaves were flying in swirls, refusing to land despite gravity’s claim to power; there was no breeze.

“You seem a bit ramped up, Lorcán,” uttered Rhiannon. “I had to tell my sister that you were only practising, hence the surge in spiritual pressure in the area, and that you weren’t trying to bring a creature here that we’d have to take out. Again. What’s wrong?”

“I cannot say.” My voice came out gravelly and tired.

Rhiannon tutted at me, “That’s no good, dude. You’re heavily telekinetic right now, which means your mind is dancing faster than your body, and that could bring something nearby that’s rather hard to stop from attacking, y’know?”

“Have you been drinking?” I asked, for her words seemed looser and slightly slurred.

Rhiannon shook her head messily, sending her hair about in a flurry, like a wet puppy. “Not at all. Are you going to tell me what’s the problem or not?”

“’Tis a matter of confidentiality, Rhiannon. I cannot, in good faith, tell you.”

Rhiannon nodded, seemingly understanding of my predicament. “That’s fine, I guess,” she said before she pushed on my back and sent me flying off the edge of the cliff. When I was in middle school, a gymnast had come in for a few weeks to teach us the basics of gymnastics, supposedly in hopes of finding a student that she could train to represent the Silver Crescent in the next Olympics. By the end of the first week, she’d chosen seven children from my school to join her every day for the next two weeks after school. During the three hours they would be with her, they would learn how to fall, to flip, to tumble, to move. I, luckily, was one of those seven. For months after our initial contact, I would practice in the woods how to tumble and sail through the air, how to free run and the like using a forest environment, a practise I still do. It is because of this training, I am certain, that I could fall off the cliff’s edge and safely tumble to a halt at the ridge of the forest.

Rhiannon was a sparkling gleam in the air that kept becoming increasingly imminent; I realised that her spear was drawn, and that she was attacking me directly. I sidestepped her spear — she’d thrown it — and leapt away from her fist, which would have hit the rocky ground, had she not risen with such alacrity and launched another punch towards me. I spun away, causing her to hit the staff of her spear and thus hurt her own hand. A side kick sent me stumbling backwards and into a bush, which I rolled from as she snatched her spear from the dirt.

“Allow me to show you how my sisters and I fight those who lose control of their casts and magicks. You see, a spell — so long as it’s not far enough along — can be ceased when its caster is incapacitated, and their will suppressed or extinguished. The more powerful the cast, the longer it takes to bring its effects to fruition.” The way Rhiannon was twirling and spinning her spear about alerted me to the fact that she’d probably practised with it every day for a long while. “The theory is, then, that we take out the caster rather than attempt to override the spell. You comprehend?” She stopped moving towards me, her spear’s head scarily pointed towards the ground between my legs.

“I comprehend,” I answered.

“Good.” A wicked gleam appeared on her face, and my reflexes found themselves far too inferior to launch my body sideways as a blast of fire flew towards me; I found myself surprisingly unscathed, however, untouched by the flame, and on my feet a few metres away. Rhiannon smirked wildly. “You’ve learned quite a bit today, haven’t you?! I feel like I should take all this pent-up frustration on my pupil, hm?”

“What?”

Curious, Rhiannon exclaimed, “You didn’t intentionally displace yourself just then?! Even better! Let’s see how far you can go, hm?”

I felt my face fall as Rhiannon lunged towards me, her spear’s head exploding into flame as she moved closer. I ducked beneath her lunge and spun on my toes before leaping away from the sweeping kick she offered me. Another burst of blaze flew towards me as I was in the air; I caught onto a branch and yanked myself above the attack and over the branch, spinning towards Rhiannon and landing right before her; she swung at me her spear, but I found myself in a crouch and taking over her legs.

Rhiannon chuckled as we rolled through the bushes and into a set of exposed tree roots. Rhiannon launched herself over the root and sent her spear towards my hip from beneath the root, but I arched my back enough to evade the attack before getting back to my feet. Rhiannon stuck her spear in the ground and leapt onto it; the flexing of the wood allowed her to rocket towards me faster than if she’d jumped unaided. A sensation similar to my body sneezing ripped through my essence, and I had again displaced myself, evading her attack. Rhiannon landed gracefully and rapidly step-side kicked towards me. I leaned back and pushed her foot away with one hand, punching at her abdomen with the other. Rhiannon parried my punch and spun into a spinning heel for my face; I landed on the roots again. Rhiannon, in the air, crouched over me and expelled from her mouth an explosion of sparks. I caught them in a kind of bubble between my hands and tossed it towards her; the bubble exploded, and Rhiannon displaced herself into the tree’s branches.

“Quick learner,” I heard her whisper in my ear before shoving me again off the final ridge of the woods, sending me towards the water below. I tried not panicking, remembering that my mind could work faster than I was falling, thinking of what I knew that could help me, thoughts hearing the word Aurai, voice calling for Aurai, heart hoping it hadn’t stopped beating, muscles tensing, feet sliding on something soft and soothing, spiralling, opening my eyes, finding myself safely in the water, with my feet barely submerged. And I could see the Aura who had caught me, or the one who remained. Her four eyes were coloured gold, her body entirely translucent and bare, her hair reaching her ankles and moving in a trillion different directions, and her smile revealing her apparent lack of teeth.

“Thank you,” I spoke after catching my breath. She placed her lips upon my face, leaving the feeling of a soft breeze passing my cheek, and vanished upon the wind.

“Because our electrons are in tune with the universe on a deeper level than most, we can move faster than most would. Our electrons are more slippery than others’, if that makes sense,” explained Rhiannon when I asked her how we could displace ourselves as we had. We sat on the porch of my home, watching for Claire to arrive. The texts subsequent the one she’d originally sent had alerted me to her progress homebound; each checkpoint had been reached early, so she hoped that she would arrive sooner than later. Rhiannon was keeping me company, talking me through understanding all the things shaman could do when casting by the Dance.

Rhiannon explicated, “There’s a deep level of cosmic collaboration when one uses Dance over, say, Summoning. It’s our electron flow galvanising other electrons, rather than bringing a creature of a higher frequency to a lower plane. I find Incantation and Dance are of the same level, though some claim that Incantation is closer to the cosmos than Dance on the fact that Dance requires a material form. I disagree, though, because Dance is used by creatures from other planes too. The Mousai, for example, who stand for music and the like; they innately utilise Dance as an aspect of their existence.”

“So, you would agree with the claim that Summoners are, during combat, the weakest casters?”

She shook her head, denying my claim. “Not at all, honestly. Perhaps in a direct fight, yes. If you can knock them out before they activate a Summoning. But when they are in their element and Summoning things beyond the strength of the shaman fighting them… Summoners can be the strongest shaman ever faced. Believe me on that, Lorcán; never take a shaman for granted, nor underestimate one. We can be the craftiest of creatures.”

“I promise to never underestimate nor take for granted a shaman.”

Rhiannon quaffed the remainder of her strawberry lemonade. “Good,” she said when she’d finished. “Also, we should consider training you in a weapon. Of course, since your sister is here, I guess that shall wait for later.”

“She’s here?” I nearly asked, but I realised first that Rhiannon was gone, and that Claire’s car was pulling up the driveway. From the parked vehicle came a young woman with strawberry blonde hair pulled into a pony tail, Claire, who was carrying her backpack and a rolling suitcase that I easily took from her and brought upstairs, where she promptly sat on her bed and allowed her shoulders to relieve themselves of their mini-pineapple-shaped backpack bind. These shoulders, though loosed from their strain, sagged beneath a great weight. I stood before her after placing her suitcase at the foot of her bed. Claire looked up to me, her dusty irises filled with more blue than should be capable; her lip quivered, and mascara commenced running down her face. The moment was absolutely silent, save for the occasional sob Claire let loose from her glossy lips. I sat beside her on the bed; she lay her head on my shoulder.

From outside Claire’s room, Mum called out, “Lorcán? I saw a car parked in the driveway that looks like Claire’s, but I—"

Mum walked into the room and stood there, frozen, seeing her daughter crying on her son’s shoulder, the elder being consoled by the younger, and knowing that something was utterly wrong, that something had hurt Claire’s heart so much that she needed to release whatever was pent up over the past few years, that Claire was home and heartbroken and all things so twisted that she’d needed to use her younger brother for consolation, that her daughter was home and heartbroken and things were absolutely incorrect, for these were tears of sorrow, not of solace.

As with the Christmas so long ago, I looked towards Mum and Claire for support in what to do. As with the Christmas so long ago, I was left to figure it out for myself, for the two women to whom I looked for direction were themselves so entirely lost.