Banish Me

What Happened That Night

“It was dark, the sun set half an hour before. She always told me that picking herbs right after sunset was the best. There was a storm coming, I could hear the thunder in the distance. I told her we should put it off till the next day but she insisted.”

“Cassie, don’t be silly. It’s just a storm.”

“I know but I don’t want to get caught on the island.”

She looked at me with a soft smile. In the end she convinced me to go. She always had a way of doing that, convincing me to do something I really didn’t want to. We kept a boat down at the shore. I rowed, she directed. We got there just as it started to drizzle. I picked what she needed in the meadow while she picked the ones in the woods. Those were always the hardest to find.

I was in the middle of picking lavender when I cut open my finger. I cursed myself for being so stupid, I’d done this hundreds of times before. When I looked at the blood, all the color was zapped out of the world.

Images so terrifying flashed through my mind that I didn’t believe them.

As I came out of the vision, I knew they were true and I only had a few minutes…

I dropped everything I held in my hands except my flashlight and took off. I had to find her, I had to keep what I saw from happening. Lightning crashed and the thunder boomed. I kept running, faster and faster.

I crashed through the trees, my heart pounding in my chest. I could do this I could…

I heard her scream in the distance and it was drowned out by another crack of lightning.

I ran faster but then the toe of my boot caught on something and I tripped. My head hit a rock and I almost back out. It hurt, my head, the pain throbbing like another heartbeat. My blood dripped down my face but I ignored it. I got up and continued my race to my mother. I had to get there. I had to stop it.

My vision started to blur but it would clear before it got too bad. My palms were all scratched up and hurting but I ignored it all.

I got to the clearing I saw in my vision just in time to see it.

Lightning flashed and in that split second I saw the two figures standing in the middle, fighting.

But my mother was too slow. He’d grabbed her by the shoulders and as she forced him to release her, he found his opening.

I watched him slice open my mother with a knife I didn’t notice before. She gaped at him. I saw his face. It was the man from a few days before. He’d come to hear his death truth. He didn’t like it.

I screamed and they both looked at me. My mother had fear in her eyes, it was plain to see even in the dark. She called up her magic and a vine snaked through the grass quickly and wrapped around him, pulling him back and into the trees across the meadow.

She turned in my direction and took a step, stumbling as she tried to get to me. I ran over to her and held her up as she covered up her wound.

“Cassie, run.”

She wanted me to leave her behind but I wasn’t going to do it. I started towing her back to the boat and I was afraid we’d never reach it. It was pouring down rain but I was some how able to find my way.

I put her inside as gently as I could and took off my short sleeved shirt I’d worn over my long sleeved one. I pressed it to her wound along with a cloth we were going to use to wrap up the herbs.