FLAMES part 3

Chapter 31

*You will be alright. I’m here. Just remember your promise…*2

I opened my eyes and realized this was no dream. Rob was laying next to me on the floor. He was awake and talking to me.3

“Morning. How are you feeling?” he asked happy and bright eyed.4

I moaned. “What time is it?” I rolled over and a stick dug itself into my back. 5

”Ow!” A sharp pain vibrated through my entire body starting at my spine.6

I rolled back and sat up.7

“It’s 6.13am on Tuesday morning.” He replied plainly. “You kinda fainted.”8

“I did?” Why would I have fainted? Then it all came back to me. “Laura..” I began to get up but Rob grabbed my arm. I yanked it out of his grasp as pain shot up from where I had cut weeks before.9

“Sorry.” He looked genuinely scared. “Let's go back to the tree house and if she’s not there we can ring her mobile.” He said. I nodded my head slowly whilst rubbing the pain out of my arm.10

We walked to the tree house slowly, for even though we both knew we had to get there fast, we also didn’t want to find anything bad.11

“What were you saying about a promise when I woke up?” I asked him.12

“Do you remember that poem you wrote me with the affirmation at the beginning?” he asked. He stopped and looked right into my eyes. I stared back instantly opening my soul for him to see. If I could trust anyone it was Rob. I looked into his eyes and saw his soul. After about 2 seconds I could stand it no more and put up my protective shield and he instantly moved his eyes to the ground.13

“Wow” he breathed. “I could feel your pain as if it were my own.”14

“I’m sorry. I just couldn’t stay open for..”15

“It’s okay. I couldn’t take much more of it anyway” he smiled at me. “So do you remember your poem?”16

“Yes.”17

“Remind me how it went” He asked. I knew what he was doing but I went along with it.18

“Erm... I think it was something like: 19

‘I become strong through facing my fears,20

I become strong by ignoring my tears,21

I become whole by engulfing the night,22

I release my soul by facing my fright.23

I will be strong by joining with death,24

A connection with life, through more than just breath,25

Love and Hate in me are re-born,26

Terrors of mine, apart they are torn.’” I quoted.27

“Yes that’s it. Keep that in your mind. What about the sentence after that?”28

I knew what it was and I silently made a note to thank him later. 29

“I am strong and free. 30

I do not know how to give up. 31

I have beaten pain. 32

Once And For All.” I had memorized it when I wrote it. He knew it as well as I did.33

“Good. Now focus on that.” He smiled at me. 34

We reached the tree house just as the sun was rising. It came into our view at the top of the hill and we stopped. In front of us was the tree house, the same as it had been earlier. 35

To our left was the sun. I turned and stared straight into its heart and felt the power course through me. Every vein in my body felt enthralled. The essence of my very being was injected with power and serenity. I could sense Rob going through the same process. I closed my eyes and felt the wind rush through my hair. She was here. My mother. The Goddess. The She-Wolf. She was awakening at the dawn of this day. At that moment, I knew everything would be alright. It is unknown how long we stood there for. Maybe 10 minutes, maybe an hour. All I could feel was power and joy. Joy unknown to humans. Joy only a wolf could feel. The joy of running through a forest in the dead of night, howling to the moon. Howling thanks to the Goddess. 36

I turned my attention back to Rob and smiled. I was panting like a wolf and felt eager to run down the hill. He stood firm and strong. Determined and ready for action. I growled politely to him and turned away as he looked at me. To a wolf, it was rude to look someone in the eye. After all, eyes are windows to the soul…37

We walked down the slope together, fighting off the urge to run and howl. He was a bear as I was a wolf but we both had Earth as our element and could relate to the other person’s soul. I questioned his being as he loped beside me. I swear his feet fell to the earth as pads of a wolf. We reached the tree house in no time and the sight of the ladder broke my thoughts of rob's soul.38

I climbed the ladder first, not wanting Rob to be hurt again. 39

I stopped three quarters of the way up so that just my eyes reached over the top of the ladder. I could see clearly in the half-light of the sun, now risen fully, shining through the trees. The cabin was empty save the furniture that belonged there, and a note. I scrambled up quickly and ran on all fours to it. I was shaking and the power I had felt minutes before had left my waking consciousness.40

Rob climbed up slower and crouched behind my kneeling body. The sun suddenly came out from behind a cloud and I felt the warmth of it shining down on me. The God. The Goddess’s consort. The Alpha male of the pack. I opened the envelope and read the note 3 times through before putting it down.41

“Dear Kenaz.” It said. “ I am writing this to let you know I am okay, and to tell you I have run away from home. I was going to live here and text you to come and meet me when I was unpacked but it seems you were already here. I am sorry I lost my temper on you and Hallow. If you need me just text me. I will ring you if you ask me to but I will not answer my number if you call it. That way my parents will see the bill and know I am alive. Sorry again for the troubles I have caused you both.42

Howl to the moonlight and know I am with you…43

Love, Torment.”44

I gave the note to Rob and he read it through 3 times too. 3 was the magickal number. 45

“She used our magickal names.” I expressed my surprise to Rob.46

“How did she know I was Hallowed Midnight?” he asked me, clearly in shock.47

“I have no idea. I would not tell her.” I replied. 48

“Why has she called herself torment?” He asked me.49

“Her name is Tormented soul.” I said solemnly.50

“Does she know your full name?” he asked me suddenly.51

“What do you mean?” I was confused. “You mean my true name? The one the goddess gave me when I was born? Even I do not know what that is.”52

“No.” he said. His voice lowered to a whisper so that I could barely hear him. He started speaking in growls that sounded so complicated and fast to understand. “Kenaz~canis~lupus~” he answered. My breath caught in my throat. He had said my full chosen name, in my own language. How could he have known?53

“How did you…?”54

“Forgive me river…” his eyes lost their spark and he looked to the ground. “I am your wolf cub. You are the lost soul and I the guide. Pretty strange but if you think about it, true.”55

At that moment the sun went behind a cloud and I looked to the sky. Black clouds threatened rain and I could smell a storm coming. Rob looked too. A flash of lightening hit the hill where we had stood barely 20 minutes before.56

As the flint blade of light descended, a single shaft of sunlight penetrated the gloom of the storm onto our faces. I looked at Rob again and saw him. Not as the great bear he had always been, but as a young, vulnerable wolf cub. I turned away and saw the wall where i had thrown Laura earlier. I looked at myself in the broken mirror hanging askew on the wall. I looked right into the heart of my brown eyes. My brown eyes turned golden in the dark. I saw a young wolf. She howled and in my eyes were her eyes. It was not the yowl of a cub that I heard, but the pure song of a young wolf just finding her feet. A soul searching for her identity. Just as I had been searching for the year before. 57

Coming out of this semi-meditative trance I looked at Rob’s reflection. He was standing behind me looking at me through the mirror. I looked at the reflection of his eyes in the mirror just as I had done with my own reflection. I saw the same scene. A wolf howling at the full moon. Yet this was a cub. I saw his turquoise blue eyes and heard his heart wrenching cry of loneliness and felt the emptiness that had torn him apart for so many years.58

We would fight this together. My brother and I. We would work together as our own pack and find our sister Laura.59

No matter what happened.60

We were related in our minds. By an eternal connection. We were soul mates, and we knew it.61

We climbed out of the cabin longing to run free. We ran through the stormy rain and let it mingle with our tears of joy and pain. We howled to the sun and realised it was waning.62

“The eclipse!” Rob shouted to me.63

“Until a night within a day, Let your troubles never stay..” I remembered something I had read in a book.64

“To see too much........to die too soon........ To see too much........to save a life.......” he used a quote to reply.65

The words whispered in my head and mingled until I heard one fluid sentence.66

'A night within a day, to safe a life…'67

“Laura” I whispered. It was a sign. Was she even alive?68

“A night within a day, to die too soon......”69