I am the Light - His last Redemption (Book 2)

Chapter 1 - Riddles

I listen to the soft murmur of the stream as the water softly hums its tune. It’s a different language, yet it somehow makes sense to me. It’s a song as old as time. A song only those can understand who have been born with the gift of the water.

I don’t remember my birth. I don’t remember my parents or my childhood. It’s a blank space in my head. An empty space in my soul that yearns to be whole again.

My fingers dip into the cold water, feeling its magic coursing through me. Magic, I didn’t know existed before I came here. A warm smile tugs on my lips as I feel its smooth texture. It’s lullaby soothing the ache in my chest.

The ache has been there from the moment I opened my eyes to a foreign world. I remembered how to speak, to walk, and how my body works, but my life before has vanished from my memories.

I inhale the fresh air. Spring blessing the earth with its gifts. Life blooming all around me. It’s a beautiful season. Maybe I like how everything dead comes back to life after the long, hard winter months.

I don’t know what it is about winter, but I am not a big fan. It’s like a cold, frosty reminder of something I have lost. It’s like my body remembers the icy feeling of pain and heartache. But my mind can’t put a picture to it. It’s just a blank space. Just a nagging feeling, whenever the first snow starts to fall. It’s not the cold that bothers me. It’s just that it makes me feel especially lonely. Even when I am not.

I’m never truly alone. I have found a family. Well, technically they found me. Unconscious in the snow. They gave me my name, sheltered me, and helped me through very confusing and scary times. My name still feels foreign to me. As if my tongue wants to form a different word, but it won’t come out the right way.

I woke up with no memories of who I am, where I came from, and how I ended up pregnant. The strange thing is, that being pregnant and not knowing who the father was, didn’t scare me as much as the fact that I lost him. I knew that he didn’t hurt me. I knew that we wanted this baby. How? I don’t know. It’s just a feeling deep down in my soul. Or maybe I just need to believe it.

“What are you thinking about?” Willa, a quirky little witch with long blond braids sits down next to me, dipping her bare feet into the cool water. Her braids are decorated with all kinds of stones and gems. She’s an earth witch. Each one of us is connected to an element.

Mine is water and it took me a long time to master its magic. I’m still learning. I didn’t even know I had any magic in me, but our coven leader says that I must come from an ancient line of witches. Whatever that means.

“I just thought about how I ended up here,” I say, “it’s still strange sometimes.”

“Oh, Lua, are you unhappy?” Lua. My new name. It’s part of me, but it doesn’t belong to me. I am still longing for someone to tell me my real name. Tell me where I came from and what happened to my family, but the answers lay hidden somewhere pas the borders of our village.

“No,” I say shaking my head, “but I feel like I’m missing something.” Or rather someone.

“Yeah, life is crazy, right? I mean, our coven exists for a long time. I grew up here, but we didn’t have any magic for years. We only got our powers back a few months before you came to us. I think Callie knew. She always made sure we learned everything about magic just in case it came back. Back then it felt like nothing more but keeping in touch with our roots, but now-,” she runs her hand over the grass and it bends to her demand. Curling around her fingers in a gentle embrace.

I have always been curious about the time witches had no magic and how they got it back. Calliope –the head of our coven- told me that it had something to do with our Goddess and that her powers have been trapped for years. That the supernatural world was slowly dying. Some of us quicker than others.

I spend hours reading about the supernatural. Vampires, Lycans, and Witches. Both Light and Dark. While the magic of the Light draws its power from the elements. It’s limited to what nature offers us. It’s a gift from the moon Goddess. Dark magic on the other hand requires sacrifice. It is drawn to chaos, and it can hardly be controlled.

“Do you think a dark witch trapped the Goddess?” I ask, always curious about these kinds of things.

“I don’t think they could do that. But I don’t know. Callie probably does, but she’s always so cryptic about these things!” Willa chuckles and starts splashing her feet in the water. The amber bracelet around her ankle glitters golden in the evening sunlight.

The color is beautiful. Intensified by the crystal-clear water. It reminds me of something or someone. A pair of golden eyes. I know their shape and their color by heart because it’s the same shape as my son’s eyes. I like to think that he looks just like his father. The only feature he inherited from me are his silver-grey eyes.

“Look who I found,” a woman with firey red dreadlocks, weeds woven into them, strolls closer to Willa and me. Calliope –or Callie, as she prefers to be called. She’s blessed with the “wisdom of the first”. Which means she is basically a walking and talking encyclopedia of witchcraft. In her arms, she carries a little boy with black hair and silver eyes.

“Who is that handsome little devil?” Willa asks as she stands and taps my son's little nose. He squeals with glee and stretches his little hands out to her. He’s always so happy, it’s infectious. He is my ray of sunshine, filling that void inside my soul.

He is everything to me. I named him River for obvious reasons. I spend so much time at the water, learning about its magic that it only felt right to name him after something close to my heart. I want him to be as gentle as the steady flow of the water and as strong as the raging ocean.

“Goddess, I could eat him alive,” Willa says, hugging him close to her chest.

“Please don’t,” I chuckle as she playfully starts biting at him. River screams with laughter holding onto her long locks. He’s always been fascinated with the gems in her hair and Willa usually lets him play with them as long as he doesn’t tear them out. There might have been an incident once or twice. But he’s just a baby. How is he supposed to know?

“Lala look,” he says holding a purple stone into the sunlight, so it catches the light. He can’t pronounce the word, Willa, so he calls her Lala. It’s adorable.

“Yes,” she smiles, “isn’t it pretty?” River nods enthusiastically, “it’s called amethyst,” she explains, and his eyes go wide, trying to comprehend the word she just told him.

“Ameme,” he tries, making all of us laugh.

“Almost, baby,” Willa says, “it’s a powerful crystal that protects me from nightmares. You know what a nightmare is?”

“Bad dem!”

“Yes, a bad dream!” she nods and kisses his chubby, little cheek.

“Mommy, look,” he holds up the lock of hair to show me the crystal he just discovered, “it’s Ameme gainst bad dems!”

“Awesome,” I laugh and take him from Willa, “ready to head home?” The sun is about to set and nighttime is about to settle in. We don’t like to spend too much time out in the dark. At least not out here in the woods.

As much as we love and cherish them, they have turned into a dangerous place at night. I remember –somewhere in the back of my mind- that I’ve never been afraid of either the dark nor the woods, but times have changed. This world seems to have become more dangerous than it was before. More violent in a way. You can feel a hint of hopelessness in every corner. Or maybe that’s just me.

With the return of the Goddess and witchcraft creatures that haven’t roamed the earth for a long time, crawled out of the hole they were hiding in. Dark magic coursing through their veins. There has been talk of a Wendigo close by and I do not want to meet such a thing under any circumstances.

A Wendigo is a man or woman turned into something horrific. It’s feeding off raw flesh. Preferably human. The younger the better. It keeps them alive and gives them strength like inhuman speed and strength. They look sort of human, but with greyish, translucent skin and deer-like antlers on top of their head. The older they are the bigger they grow.

“You seem sad,” Callie says as we walk along the stream back to our village. She has always been very sensitive to my emotions. Even if she doesn’t have magic like Willa and me, she’s still very powerful in her own way.

“It’s just the missing pieces,” I say, knowing that she’ll understand. She knows that it’s not easy for me to live without my memories. As it turns out, I have a curious nature and I am determined to find out the things I don’t know. But it’s hard when you don’t know where to start looking.

Books can’t tell me what I need to know. My body and my mind are the only ones who witnessed my life before I came to the coven. Before I had River. But they only offer me tiny bits and pieces of a riddle that can’t seem to be solved.