Illusion and Reality

Cabin in the woods

"It's been two days....two days, Samara! What are we waiting for? The stone to become useless and stay here forever?" Lily paced around in the living room, biting her nails.

I sighed, "We need Lucius' help if we want to find that witch, remember?"

She stopped walking and stared at me.

"We are wasting our time. Let's ask Valeria to go with us and forget about Lucius, I mean he does not care so why should we? He knew we don't have time and yet where is he?"

I bit the inside of my cheeks, she was right Lucius was with Astrid when they were told about the stone losing its powers.

"Valeria does not know about the place where the witch is living and I don't think Astrid would be happy if we told Valeria about it either."

She continued walking in the room, "Now you care about what Astrid thinks?"

"If she is the only person who can help us get back home then yes I do care about not upsetting her."

Finally, she took a seat and looked at me, "Are you okay?" she asked.

I stared at her in confusion, she pointed towards her neck but didn't say anything loudly.

I nodded, "I didn't have any nightmares."

She looked at me from head to toe to confirm her suspicion.

“Good, you both are here, I need to have a word with you,” Astrid stood behind me.

Lily and I glanced at each other, “What is it?” I asked, “Is everything alright?”

“You and I are going to see the witch today,” She announced looking at me.

“Absolutely not,” Lily sneered, “what about me?”

Astrid sat down rubbing her forehead.

“She is right, Lily.”

“No. I don’t care, I am not going to stay here while you both risk your life finding that witch,” Loly argued.

“Lily, I can not take you both with me. I do not know what might happen and I can not use the magic there,” Astrid tried to make her understand.

“Fine. Then take me with you,” she folded her arms.

“I can not do that even if I want to. The stone responded to her blood. I do not have any other choice and you do not have time.”

“Lily, we don’t have time.”

“Fine,” with that she stormed out of the room in anger.

“When are we leaving?”

Astrid stood up, “Meet me here in 30 minutes, I have to do some preparation before leaving.”

I nodded, “I should talk to Lily before we leave.”

I knocked on Lily’s door and waited for her to open it, “I still do not think it’s a good idea,” she said with a frown.

“I know. It’s a risk we have to take. Everything will be fine soon and we will be back in our apartment.”

She sighed, “Listen to me very carefully if you see any danger….run. If a hungry animal tries to eat you, offer Astrid to that animal and run. If you see some magical creature use Astrid as your shield and run,” she instructed me in a completely serious voice.

“I will remember all of these things,” I replied, stifling a laugh, “I have to get something from my room before leaving.”

“When are you leaving?” 

“In about 15 minutes,” I said closing her bedroom door and walking towards my room. I stared at Lucius’ door, only if he was here. How could he do that to us after promising so many things?

Shaking away the thoughts I went to my room, I opened the bottom drawer of the table beside my bed. Picking up the book, I looked at the bracelet Valeria gave me. 

I put it on my left wrist, making sure it was hidden completely under the sleeve of my jacket.

When I reached downstairs, Lily was talking with a lot of hand signs to Astrid, who was replying to her in the usual calm and composed manner.

Astrid looked at me walking towards them, “Are you ready to leave?”

“Yes. Are you sure we don’t need anything?” I asked, looking at the side bag she was carrying.

“I have everything we need.”

I turned towards Lily to give her a hug, “If anything happens go to Valeria,” I whispered in her ear.

“And you remember everything I told you. If you have any scary nightmares just tell Astrid everything about them,” she whispered back.

Astrid and I went to the garden and Lily stay the door looking at us.

I gave a confused look to Astrid, remembering her words about magic and that place.

“With the help of this, we can get as near to that place as possible,” she explained and started chanting some words under her breath. 

A light flickered from her hands and a red circle appeared in front of us, taking a deep breath I walked into the circle.

Walking out we were standing in the middle of the field of sunflowers. Astrid started walking silently and I followed her.

While following her my hand touched the petal of a sunflower and the flower died instantly, the flowers surrounding it turned bright red from yellow.

“What…”

“If anyone touches them, they change their color and warn the people about the intruders. Red color means you just touched it, it will be orange after a few hours and finally return to its original color,” she said pointing towards the red flowers.

“Won’t it be a problem for us?” I continued walking with her trying to maintain some distance from the flowers.

“No one lives here anymore, but try not to touch any other pretty plant in the future. Beauty can be deceiving and deadly.”

Leaving the sunflower field, we entered a thick forest, just like the one in which we followed Lucius, the only difference was this forest was darker and we probably more dangerous. 

“Do you think the witch knows about our presence?”

“She might already know we are here,” Astrid replied, removing the vines from her way with a stick.

“Is that a good thing?” I asked again.

“We will find that out soon.”

We kept walking deeper in the dark forest, without exchanging many words, other than Astrid telling me about the plants and how dangerous they could be.

The silence was more comfortable than words between us.

I was not expecting Astrid to help us out of all the people, I remembered her words, I am helping you because of Lucius only and I do not care if anything happens to you.

What changed her thought, I wondered.

Walking carefully I tried not to touch any of the plants, Astrid was moving swiftly in her signature long dress.

A butterfly with the most bright and large wings I had ever seen flew by the tree in front of me, leaving small glitters on its way.

“Do not look at it directly,” Astrid warned and I immediately closed my eyes just as around five of them appeared from the same way.

“What are these?”

“Somnus fae, if you look into their eyes, you will start to follow them and will keep walking in circles if you are lucky, their bright wings and glitters make people curious to look at them, under those wings are tiny fairies. It is a good sign, it means we are on the right path.”

“Why can’t you use your magic here?” I asked, keeping my eyes closed tightly.

“The forest is made specifically for supernatural beings like us, we can not use our powers as long as we are in this forest or else we would get lost here. It is also the border between our kingdom and the superior shifters.”

“Why did you come here if you knew this is dangerous?”

I did not hear her sound at first but then I heard some shuffling, “It is not like we would get lost here forever, after a few days the illusions disappear and the place becomes normal again.”

“No, I mean why are you still helping us, you could have kicked us out the minute Lucius walked out of the door?”

I heard her sigh, “You can open your eyes.”

I opened my eyes and no creatures with bright wings were around anymore, just a lot of trees with vines hanging from them.

“It is not your fault. You did not know about any of this and you did not do anything wrong. I am not an evil witch and Lucius is not a bad person. I am just as confused as you are.”

I followed her silently, with the loss of words. I never thought it was difficult for Astrid as well, our lives were changed but nothing was the same for her as well.

Her words seemed genuine, her loyalty for Lucius was genuine, she trusted him more than anyone. She agreed to help two strangers because of him without asking for any explanation in return. She was hurt, but she did not have anyone to share her feelings with.

“What other creatures could we found here?” I asked, looking around.

“More than you can imagine, this is their home and we are the visitors here, if they feel threatened they will do anything to protect their home.”

I stood in my position holding my stomach to catch my breath, the walk was not easy and we had been walking for more than an hour for sure.

Astrid looked at me with furrowed eyebrows and opened her bag to remove a bottle of water, I took the bottle mumbling a thank you.

A took a gulp of water and felt the soothing coldness spread through my body. 

We stood there for a few more minutes.

“We have to leave now, it is not safe to stay at one place for this long,” Astrid said, putting the bottle of water in her bag.

I nodded and tied my shoes.

We continued walking, with small talks in between. Astrid would stop occasionally to check the direction in her compass. She would put the map of the forest on the ground and then put the compass on it, the compass would magically start to rotate on its own.

“I thought you can’t use magic here,” I asked, looking at the compass.

“I can not use magic here but magical items work perfectly fine here.”

With a scowl, I continued watching the compass, that was rotating on the map.

When it stopped moving, Astrid picked up the compass and map putting them back in her bag. She started walking and I kept following her without touching anything on my way, or so I thought.

When I looked at my right hand, it was swollen and purple. I gasped, looking at it. Astrid turned around after hearing my voice and stared at my hand.

“Hold it tightly,” with the other hand I held my wrist. She ran somewhere and came back with dull green tiny leaves in her hand. 

I closed my eyes trying not to look at my hand that seemed to be getting bigger with every passing minute. I opened my eyes when I felt something cold on my hand, Astrid was putting a green paste all over my hand. 

“This is going to hurt a little bit,” she then took a small knife and made a s***h on my palm, dark red blood poured out of my would. I quickly looked away but felt my hand getting normal once again.

Astrid tied a clean cloth with something inside of it on my wound, “Thank you,” I whispered gratefully.

“You must have pricked your hand with the thorn of the toxic woundwort. You were lucky we saw it on time, otherwise, we would have to cut your hand”

My eyes widened just by hearing the name of that plant.

We started walking once again and I tried to be extra careful with everything.

The dark forest started getting more darker, “Do you think we would find her before the dark?” I asked staring around, whenever I heard even the tiniest sound.

“No.”

Her answer made me stumble on my steps and she looked at me to confirm if I was okay.

She continued walking after making sure I was still behind her.

“We will stay here for tonight,” she pointed towards the small cabin between the trees, “many creatures go for the hunt during the night and we do not want to be their prey.”

She opened the door of the cabin. The cabin lit up just as we took a step inside. It was a small cabin, with two beds on either side of the window, a table in the middle, and the fireplace on the other corner. The fire started by itself as I sat on the bed. 

I breathed in relief as I felt the comfort of the bed underneath me. The cabin looked too clean to be empty, “Are you sure no one lives here?”

“I am sure. They made the cabin in the woods for people to stay if they got lost or if it is night outside. This is perfectly safe, do not worry about anything,” She said, putting a few things from her bag on the table.

“Who are they?”

“Old witches and wizards,” she put the water bottle on the table, “eat something.”

“I am not hungry, I just want to sleep.”

“Lily will make me deaf with her annoying whining and screaming if you even lost a nail here,” Astrid said, with a smile.

I raised my eyebrows at her in surprise, Astrid was joking with me.

“She can be a little dramatic sometimes, but I love her.”

Astrid chuckled, “She gave me a lecture before coming here, which ended with I will cut your hair in your sleep and burn your flowers if you left her there.”

“She had a point to worry, you hate me," I said, picking up the bottle of water from the table and taking few sips.

“I do not hate you, Samara,” she replied, looking at me seriously, “I had my reasons for everything.”