The Night Rider

Chapter 41

'Hi Rafiki', My mother smiles kindly, at least that's what she wants to make it look like. For me it is a smile full of hypocrisy. The more I know about this woman, the more I blame her for my life. I wonder if she knows what I really am, what curse I wear and where it comes from. If she knew, I would have to wonder if I blame her even more than I already do. Efforts to rid me of this nightmare I have never seen her give me.

'Mother', I say on purpose to show detachment. Celeste stands beside her, supportive. As soon as I feel a hand on my shoulder I relax something. Noa's touch makes me calmer than I would like. He is a kind of drug which I did not know existed. 'I asked Nuri to come because I have to tell you something' We all look at Celeste with interest as soon as she utters those words.

'Come with me,' says Celeste before she starts walking towards the woods. Noa stays next to me while my mother and Celeste walk a few meters in front of us. It's quiet and nobody seems to bother to say a word, until Celeste and Nuri start talking inaudible about something. 'Why do you hate your mother so much?'. I look up at Noa looking at me with his dark eyes.

I sigh deeply and look for the words. 'My mother has always been very different from me. How searching Celeste has always been for a solution to my curse, she became so distant. From the age of seven to twelve I did nothing but sit in the castle, she wouldn't let me out. Every time I did anything that could be linked to that curse, she went crazy and called in the guards'. The words come out of my mouth with pain from my heart.

'I heard that Nuri used to be one of the most feared witches ever. Where has that changed?'. Something in me says that he doesn't ask this because he doesn't know, rather to move my head. Even though it's a limp attempt, I'm playing along. 'My birth'. He looks at me in amazement. How it sounds like a standart answer from a depressed person, in my life it is indeed the truth.

His gaze betrays that it is not news to him. 'Can you explain that?, he asks. I shake my head right away. 'You're asking for something you already know,' I bite him. He raises his eyebrows in amazement. I look straight forward and only see it from the corners of my eye. He sighs once and keeps his mouth shut while we walk further into the woods.

Suddenly Celeste stops at a small lake deep in the forest. The atmosphere that hangs around the water feels strange. It feels distant, oppressive but also powerful. This tells me enough to know that it is not normal water, it carries magic. The water is dark, almost black in color. It makes the shivers run down my spine. The grass around the water is dark red, almost black, colored.

Celeste turns to us. 'This water is possessed by the dead souls of this forest. It carries a powerful magic but is not the most powerful water we have. The lake of the Andes valley is the strongest and most powerful water that exists here. With the earth lines crossing the mountains, that water has been used for centuries by magicians for the most diverse spells'.

Her story is not necessarily new to me. I just don't understand why she's telling this and led us to this black water. 'Yesterday I got my hands on a book. It turned out to be written by Chanel and brought the answer I had been looking for all this time. Chanel has been looking behind our backs for years for a way to drive Yin out of your body Rafiki, a way to keep you alive. She didn't necessarily find a way that you will like, but she did find the only one that will be there'.

A small spark of hope comes back to me, a spark I don't want and dare to believe in. 'We are going to connect Rafiki to those life lines that are in your body: Light, blood and wind. The lines have to be alive so we are going to connect you to people. Light to Chea, Blood to Nuri and wind to myself. In this way you will stay in connection with our world. Yin is in your body and partly in your soul so there is no way to expel it, except to move your soul. We will have to weaken Yon until your own soul can drive him out. The only way to do this without disappearing forever is to put you in the human world for a lifetime'

I stare at her. The words slowly work on me but I can't grasp it. A lifetime means around 80 years. 80 years away from here, away from Reviri, away from my magic. It will be 80 years in a world without witches, without dragons and without the people around me. I don't know what I find worse at the moment. Dying or a life without magic.

'Does that mean she still knows where she came from?' Noa's voice is soft, he seems almost afraid to ask this question. Celeste swallows visibly. 'No, probably not'. Then I completely lose my mind with those words. Not only do I lose everything I know, I lose my sense of existence, my memories. 'And will she get them back as soon as she comes back?', Noa asks further. 'We hope so but I cannot give a guarantee' my world seems to collapse even worse.