A Matter of Blood

The Levitating Woman

Cold rain poured, and grey darkness filtered through the canopy.

It pattered over the runny, muddy forest ground. A figure, clad in a dark cloak, made her way through the forest, unperturbed. Her cloak, which covered her dark hair and bronze face, was warm, dry, and her expression was cold. Her face, however, was beautiful, in a way not quite human. Her sleek black gown almost touched the drenched soil. 

Almost.

She was halfway home, when the rhythm of the rain was disturbed by a harsher sound. As she glided through the forest, the sound sharpened into a wail. 

I shouldn't bother, she said to herself.

But the pressure of curiosity was perhaps greater than the fear of going home late. She trusted that her child would not be foolish enough to hurt herself in the time she had decided to waste. She turned, sailing against the wind, to the crying.

The trees grew gloomier. The fragrance of wet earth and rain was contaminated by something rotting. Thelda was even more curious, because she was traveling to the heart of the forest, a place the villagers marked as 'restricted' and told dire stories to their children about, every night. The wailing sharpened.

A stone's throw away, she saw a tiny being, and something disfigured behind it. Thelda willed earth from the forest floor to uproot and rise in level with her palm. She let her feet touch the ground, ignoring the mud running over her gown and shoes. Her senses were on high-alert as she approached...

A baby.

Crying. Helpless. Writhing.

Her dark eyes shifted to another form. Torn clothes, torn flesh, the gritty hair separated clean from the mauve skull. The rotting stench numbed her senses. She stepped back, letting the floating piece of earth sink back to the forest floor. She didn't need to attack anyone with it, yet.

 Then, she knelt down to the baby, whose cries were weakening. An emaciated infant, still blind.

How long has this child been here?

Carefully, Thelda placed her hand on the baby's cold, moist chest. A wave of mana drained from her body. Her wrist snapped away from the baby.

She grimaced. 'A human child,' she said, out loud, drowned by the rain's echoes.

Thelda stared at her hand.

But it was impossible. Thelda glanced at the corpse. It must have been over a week old. A human child would not survive that long....

She inhaled, and prepared herself. Gingerly, she placed her hand on the child's skin again. This time, her mana did not drain.

Half human... half sorcerer....

Thelda's stomach sank. She got up, and left. The baby's cry dwindled. 

***

Upon reaching her cottage further into the forest, Thelda was unsettled. She knocked on the door once- just to make sure her daughter remembered her warning. She waited for a few minutes, processing her thoughts. 

When the door did not open, she knocked again- five knocks. The door opened instantly.

A tiny girl beamed at her as she came into their warm house, and closed the door, cutting off the sounds of wind and rain.

'Mother, did you find a unicorn?'

'No dear, I was too busy to find one...'

She took off her cloak, which, strangely, was soaked. She must have gotten distracted and turned off the spell that kept water from touching her.