As You Draw Near

Reflection

Sunlight beams down through the clouds. The wind whistles through the trees and all around the meadow. I am my happiest when I am in any natural setting. I have always been one with nature. When I was younger I could never explain it. Never found the reason why. Never understood it either. But as I have gotten older, I have learned to just kind of let things happen as they go. I always remain on guard though. No matter where I am at. I lost everything at such a young age. Even though I have now come of age, I am still very much alone. I am still learning. Still growing. Still trying to understand everything there is to know. I still have my memories of my family. There are times that they will visit me in my dreams. Those are the times when I try to learn the most because my parents were the greatest teachers. Yet just like the dreams, I still have those nightmares right along with them. Of the fire. The fight that took place before the fire was set. The taunting and the threats that were sent. All the meetings. Everyone trying to go about their daily lives as if nothing was wrong. But everyone knew better. You could feel it in the air. You could sense it all around. Everyone was worried. Everyone was scared. No one knew what to think. What move to make? What to say? Or even what to do. Until it was simply too late to do anything about it at all.

I still remember bits and pieces from that horrific day. That very horrifying and terrible day. To this day I still tend to question the Moon Goddess above, because I am the last of my clan. I have no one. All I have are the natural beings that surround me as well as the little critters that come to visit me at my very quiet and secluded cabin. There are times that I wish I could remember every little detail of my clan’s final moments so that maybe I could understand better what happened and why I survived, but then I get to thinking that maybe it is better that right now I don’t know all the information about that day. I’m sure the memories and information are there in my mind just locked away due to it being such a traumatic event, and it will eventually come to the surface. Or maybe it will just stay suppressed for the rest of time. Who really knows. Some days I really do spend too much time thinking about it and that is when I truly start to miss everyone that much more and realize how truly alone I am in this world. What could I have done so wrong at such a young age that I had to be made to be all alone? It’s not fair. I was only 8 years old when I lost everything. I just keep thinking to myself that maybe it is best to keep some things hidden in the dark. They will surface when the time comes for them to see the light. Until then, I remind myself that even I must remain hidden along with those secrets that are still unknown to me.

Remaining hidden in plain sight is currently my best option. I can get what I need and remain in my cabin. No one knows me. Nor I them. It is best this way. To me the reasons are obvious. I am without a home. Without much of a memory of that night. Without a family or a clan. For all I know I could be the reason why my family and my clan are gone, so I could be being hunted by the elders. There are so many factors and unknowns. I am hoping that my parents will come to me in my dreams again soon. It has been days since they have last appeared to me. I’m hoping that I will eventually get the answers that I am looking for. But for right now I really would just like to see my parents since this is the only way that I am able to see them now. Seeing my parents through my dreams for the last ten years has not been the easiest. It is probably one of the hardest things that I have ever had to go through in my life so far. Which at my age, you would think that magic and things of that nature would be more worrisome than having to fend for myself and teach myself everything that I know and have known for the last ten years. I walk over to the window to see the sun beginning to set. The clouds start to turn into vibrant colors of orange, pinks, purples and slight hints of reds. Sunsets and moon rises always made me smile. I walk over to my recliner after grabbing a whiskey glass, bottle of whiskey, and some ice, sit down and open up my laptop that I keep concealed in a hidden compartment by my recliner. I have many files on my clan and our village. Some would say that it is a little too much. But I need to know, want to know what happened to them. Some would even call it an obsession. Call it whatever you want. I will get to the bottom of this. Even if the truth hurts me in the end. I open the last file I had begun reading because, as all the other files, they were so long. So I had not yet finished reading it.

I enjoyed learning about the history of my clan and our people. I am certain that eventually I would be able to find the history of my own family if I dug far enough which obviously would only lead me farther down the rabbit hole I was going down. By this point, I was at least 5 glasses of whiskey deep in my research. My eyes were getting noticeably heavier and the words on the screen getting blurrier by the sentence. I decide that was enough for the night. After making certain that my laptop is placed back within its secret place, I manage to get the whiskey bottle and glass put away without breaking anything or hurting myself along the way. Without bothering to change out of my clothes, I just curl up into my bed and drift off into what promises to be a deep slumber.

-Flashback-

Smoke is rising rapidly into the night’s sky. Fire is spreading at an increased rate. At first I can’t tell where it is coming from because I am hidden within my little cave behind the waterfall to where no one can find me. I just hope that no one set that fire on purpose. Nothing good ever really came from fires. Whenever someone set a fire, it only ever caused pain and destruction. Sure I could try to manipulate tiny little flames but that was about the extent of what I could do at eight years old. I’m just learning the extent of what my little powers can even begin to do. I look down at my little watch and realize how late it is. I purposely missed Ri’s birthday because everyone keeps making fun of the way I practice my magic. Ri is the daughter of our clan leader. She is eight years my elder. She was always nice to me. Although I hated missing her most special birthday, I knew I couldn’t face everyone that was going to be there. I was just too embarrassed and I knew they would try to embarrass her for trying to help a little failure like me. Tears fell from my eyes knowing that everyone would always make fun of me because to them I would never have the perfect technique. But again, what did I know? I’m only eight years old. Pretty smart for an eight year old though as my mom always told me. Finally letting my guard down, the protection spell that I had placed around the waterfall had come down and I decided it was finally time to go home. I looked at my feet most of the way home until I really began to smell the smoke in the air from the fire. ‘Oh No!’ I exclaimed. Running as fast as my little legs and feet could carry me, I now knew the fire and smoke was coming from my village. My only hope was to find my parents. Once I got to the outer gates of the village, I could not see a clear way in. All I saw were flames and smoke. I yelled for my parents. I yelled for Ri. I yelled for all of my friends, my aunts and uncles. I yelled over and over hoping that someone would hear me. In the end, I heard nothing. I saw no one. I sat in the same spot as the rain came down and put out the fire. Not once did I dare to move. I was so scared. All I could do was cry and nothing more. The days and nights went by before I finally moved from the little spot outside the village gates. I decided it was time to see if my family had maybe returned to our home through a different place in our village. As I make my way to my home, I see that everything is burnt in a way that it does not seem anything could be recovered. “Home.” I said almost in a small whisper. Tears began to well in my eyes once again because almost as soon as I touched the door, I just knew my family was in there. My heart shattered and my stomach sank. Dropping to my knees, I let out a cry I never thought possible. Remembering what daddy had taught me about scrying, I try to detect any sort of dark magic around our home. Finding no trace of any, I find items that my mother had enchanted or protected and packed it all up as quickly as I could and run away as fast as my little legs could carry me with all the extra things that I was now taking with me. I wasn’t sure of what to do without my parents. I wasn’t sure if I was even supposed to be alive…-