Ennah
Sentisse, 66 years after the Rise
I wake up with a start. All is still silent, and it takes me a few heartbeats to realize why that seems so important to me right now. Then, it all comes rushing in. Amador’s note, tucked away in a pocket of my dress, the steps I took outside the vineyard, how exposed I felt and how I fled inside.
I have no way of telling what time it is — if midday slumbers are upon me or whether they’ve already passed. I’m hungry, so I guess I have slept for a couple of hours. I cannot hear a furious Uncle Aniol at the door, but he’ll probably return soon. I need to make sure he doesn’t find me here, cowering in bed, for he’ll surely demand an explanation.
On the other hand, I could just say Càgila scared me so much that I didn’t dare to leave the door unlocked. He’d believe me — even if Càgila had been friendly the other day, Uncle Aniol would believe a girl to be so scared that she’d lock the door and hide under the covers.
Feathers, I’m a mess. How am I ever going to see Amador if I’m acting like a scared little girl? He’ll want a woman, somebody he can rely on. Not a child that hides in her bed just because she’s been out in the open for a few heartbeats.
Yet I still get the shivers from even the thought of passing through the gate again. I feel I should wear a cape, or…
My eyes open wider as the thought dawns on me.
I have something far better than a cape. I have an obscurity spell. It’s one I copied years ago, but I copied it nonetheless. And if I place it on myself, I will be invisible.
No Mage to see me.
No Càgila to capture me.
No Uncle Aniol to stop me…
If I take the book from the shed now, this evening I can pretend to get an early night’s sleep and sneak out of the house without him even noticing.
Why haven’t I thought of this before? I’m such an idiot, hiding under the covers when all I had to do was go to my very favorite place on the grounds and perform Magic! And while I’m there, I can also add the last ingredients to the brew.
I shake my head. Really, I’m an idiot. But an idiot with a plan, which makes the idiocy lessen — at least a bit. The door to my room creaks ever so slightly as I slip out. All seems perfectly quiet. It makes me jumpy, so I hurry up.
The sun has passed over its highest point, midday slumbers are over. Has Uncle Aniol spent the slumbers in the village? I suppose so — he used to do that quite regularly when Granny and Aunt Carme were still around. I loved the time we spent in each other’s company back then, it brings a smile to my face even now. The memory helps soothe the unease that I’m carrying with me as I walk the paths along the vines. They look scrawny and pitiful. We’re going to need the brew I’m making.
My thoughts return to Uncle Aniol. It makes sense for him not to be home yet. He hasn’t been to Sentisse in a long time, so going to the pawn shop is probably not the only task on his ever-immense list. I shouldn’t be worried.
As I pass the graves and send two hearts of light into the earth, another thought rises in me, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. I’ve thought it before… What if he doesn’t come back? What if something happens to Uncle Aniol, what would I do then? He’s scared of losing me, and I can see why, but the other way around…
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
I take in a deep breath to steady myself, I even consciously put my feet on the path. Little bits of gravel press into my soles, I adjust my height to just feel the ground enough to sense some support — nonsensical as it is to need the ground for support when I don’t even need it to stand. Still, I feel I want to know that some things haven’t changed. That down is still down, and that there still is some sense to my world.
I cannot suppress the second wave of unease flowing through me, though. What if he dies too? For all I know, he could have been attacked coming out of the pawn shop — people walk out of there with coin in their pockets all the time, don’t they? Or what if he does return, only to have the same illness that took Aunt Carme take hold of him? Or…
I cannot do this. I cannot think this way. It’s depressing, it’s making me nauseous, and it doesn’t help. Uncle Aniol will be back before I know it, and if I don’t take my book inside in time, he’ll see it and my chance of meeting up with Amador will be annihilated.
My heart jumps. Amador. Meeting Amador at his house. Making love to him in a proper bed, in the dark like normal people do according to the few romantic books Aunt Carme and Granny used to read — books that I snuck into my room when I was too young to even comprehend love. Now that I am living my own romance with Amador, in a way no novel has ever shown me, it would be nice to have a bit of normality added to the relationship.
My smile is back. This one cannot be chiseled off, I’m sure of it. Tonight, I will see Amador in his home environment and I love it!
There are pieces of wood outside the door of the shed. I frown, and that smile that was so vivid on my lips is suddenly faltering. I can feel my heartbeat in my fingertips as I touch the door handle, twist it, and press against the wood.
The creak the door gives makes the little hairs on my body stand on end and I give an extra push.
The chest has fallen from its recess.
Or at least, that’s what must have happened. There are splinters and pieces of wood everywhere — Granny’s spell has so far only made a little dent in the sprawl on the floor. In the middle, shards of green glass make me gasp for air.
No heart. Not my own, not Granny’s.
Lost. Forever.
The pouch I took all my money from yesterday, is a bit to the right of the rest of the rubble. Empty, of course. Might that be why it fluttered to the side?
But that doesn’t make sense, does it? If the chest fell due to my carelessness, it would have been fine until it crashed into the floor. It doesn’t make sense for the pouch to have flown that way. Granny’s spell has all rubble move outside, towards the door, so…
And then I see the ladder.
This was no accident.
I know it within a heartbeat. Uncle Aniol saw my hiding place yesterday. I don’t know if he’s been looking for more money or for the spell book — or both — but he’s the one that took my chest. He’s the one who dropped it. He’s the one that made me lose the last piece of love Granny left me.
Tears fill my eyes as anger floods my heart. I fly to the closet, my ankle bracelets trying to keep me grounded as I no longer want to touch the same floor as Uncle Aniol did, as I want to flee from the broken glass and splintered wood and pure betrayal lying on the floor. I hate the fact that I’ll have to get down to even enter the closet, but I do it in a swift dip, only to rise again as fast as I can, reaching for the book I left there.
The soft feel of leather against my fingers. I can snatch it just as it rises into the air and I pull it to my chest. I am so mad I could scream, and so hurt that I could scream even louder. I only notice that I’m actually crying when a tear floats in front of my eyes, a round droplet that faintly shimmers in the light coming from the open closet door.
I need to go. I need to move. I cannot stay here any longer, I need to…
Amador.
It’s too early, I know, but I have nowhere else to go.
My feet don’t touch the path. My ankle bracelets keep me from flying over the vines, but I’m too shaky with emotion to get them off now, and I don’t have the patience to stop. I need to move. There is so much going through my mind that pausing to do anything else, even something as smart as taking the ankle bracelets off, is unthinkable. I need the wind against my skin, I need a way to unload the tension. So I make an effort to take every corner too fast so I almost spin out. My hands are cramping up from how tightly I am clenching my fists. I thump my feet on the ground and I kind of like the way the gravel hurts me, because it gives me another reason to waddle in this anger.
I’ve given him all.
I have given that no good, blasted, not even a real uncle everything I had to give, and still this is how he repays me.
No more.
No more!
I make my way past the storage units. Past the glass heap. Past the tree, past the gate.
I know I am exposed now. I can feel the fear start to creep into my insides again. But I am still too angry to care, and the bitter taste of betrayal is so much stronger than the prickling of fear on my tongue.
No turning back now. I’m on my way to Amador, and Uncle Aniol is not going to stop me.