Chapter Two: Memories

It was a chill autumn evening a number of years ago, twelve, to be exact. Kynan and Kyrill were little back then, children of no older than five. They didn’t have much at that time, just a little house and a mother who loved them more than life itself. Varali was a simple woman, very quiet and intense. She used to have so much vigor; she used to be in love with the whole world. That had changed when her one true love, the father of her children, had left ‘for their own good.’ Her heart was shattered after that, and her spirit broken.

            There were two things she didn’t know however. One, that her true love was a lycanthrope and hadn’t told her, and two, so were her children. Half, anyway. This was all made clear to her on that fateful night in autumn, right after the twins celebrated their fifth birthday.

            The moon was pushing upwards into the dark nighttime sky, as full as it could be. Varali was washing the dishes in the rusty old sink when she heard fighting from the children’s’ bedroom. They had probably gotten into another scuffle, she thought to herself. After all, they never really got along with each other; but then again, boys would be boys. Thinking nothing much of it, she went back to the dishes. After she had finished, she would go into there and figure out what had happened. For now, she’d just let them work it out.

            As time wore on later that night, the fighting only got worse, and began to sound like growling. Things sounded like they were being thrown across the room, and for a second, Varali worried that the two boys were really going to injure one another. She dried her hands on the towel and made her way to the door.

            She knocked sharply two times, and waited for a reply. Not getting an answer, she opened it herself and stood in horror as what appeared to be two dogs came rushing full speed toward her. Both leaped onto her, and she was knocked out before she had a chance to realize what was happening. But she would never get the chance to fully understand.

            Sunlight reflected off shattered glass the next morning when the neighbor entered the room, finding the aftermath of the night before and searching hopelessly for two little boys that were long gone.

 

            “Kye? Kye? Is everything okay?”

            “What?” the young lycan shook himself out of his thoughts to find that they were sitting on a slab of rock that jutted out from a cliff side to peer out over the clear blue ocean.

            “Are you all right?” asked a worried voice.

            He turned to look at the girl next to him, staring into the deep azure eyes that were flooded with concern.  “I’m okay.”

            “You’re also lying to me,” she said bluntly, turning back to face the ocean. It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.

            “I know.” They both stayed silent for a while, beginning to relax in the sunlight.

 

Torin had knocked on his front door at around ten that morning, asking if he still wanted to do something as they had planned the night before.

            “Of course,” he smiled. “Besides, I need to show you a few things, if you’re going to be staying in Dritton.”

            Torin cringed as she followed him out of the neighborhood. Was she planning on staying? The very thought seemed to hit her like a ton of bricks. She hadn’t really intended remaining in the city when she first arrived, but she hadn’t intended on leaving either. She was so used to taking life as it came, going wherever the wind decided to push her. There was really no way of telling where it was pushing her now.

Kye, however, was pushing her towards a little rocky pathway a few moments after they left the neighborhood. She turned towards him, arching an eyebrow. After all, it wasn’t every day that somebody brought her to some mysterious pathway, expecting her to follow wherever it might lead. He only waved her on as a reply. Shrugging her shoulders, she decided to trust her new friend, and began the steep slope up to the heavens.

It took some time to get to the top, maybe ten or twenty minutes; the long walk was well worth it. The path had brought them up to the top of a higher rocky land, with a little rock jutting out of the side that could be used at a sort of ledge to look over the side. The ocean could be seen in the distance, a darker blue than the sky, sparkling with the glare of the early sun. The roar of the waves could be heard from where the two stood, bringing the salty smell with the slight breeze. Everything combined just made the whole thing so breathtaking.    

Kye glanced at Torin as she seemed to take it all in. The wind was blowing her long red hair away from her face as she stared out over to the ocean that lie less than a mile beyond the cliff.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” she spoke up breaking the silence.

“Very. It’s been my own little spot for years,” he said, moving forward to sit on the edge, letting his thin legs dangle over the edge.

“I feel special,” she said half joking.

“Good,” he replied, smirking at her.

They both drifted off into comfortable silence. Torin couldn’t think to hard about much of anything with the incredible view in front of her. But why had Kye taken her here, her, of all people? Surely he must know other people that he hadn’t met just the night before at some mutant party. Why did she get special treatment?

She turned towards him, studying his face as he seemed to be lost in thought. Did he like her in that way, as more than a friend? Part of her liked the feeling, but for the most part, she shunned the entire emotion of love. To her, love was a pointless feeling that she didn’t want to waste her time on. Besides, she had tried relationships in the past, and they hadn’t ended up well. There was no real love there, just hopeless infatuation. They only wanted her because she was pretty. It was a curse. Almost literally.

That was what she didn’t want to tell Kye about. He might see her differently after she told him what she really was. Being half encantado had its downsides. Torin wasn’t sure of all the details of what an encantado really was; her mother refused to tell her more than the basics. What she gathered over the years was this. Her real father lived in an underwater realm, but craved the life of the upper world. So these encantados would rise to the surface, disguise themselves as humans, and mate with earth women. All the encantados were very attractive in their human form, and had exceptional musical talent. Aside from this, they were able to control minds in some sense, and inflict insanity or illness. And Torin had inherited this ‘curse’ as she called it. It was nothing but a burden to her, knowing that her beauty was caused from a parent who didn’t care who she was or what she was doing. Her stepfather was a lifesaver, coming into her life when before she could even remember. She had always known that he wasn’t her real father; his blonde hair and green eyes were an extreme difference to her red and blue. She had loved him as if he was her real father though. But both him and her mother had been taken from her before she even had a chance to say goodbye. She had moved in with her grandfather after that, who was probably the only person who didn’t care if she was half encantado or not, he loved her for who she was; he treated her like an actual human being.

She smiled, remembering the times they had before he had gotten sick. They had always made music together, and even during his sickness, he was always up for strumming his guitar or singing her a song as she sat by his bedside.

Snapping out of her trance as a salty breeze blew softly against her pale skin, she glanced over at Kye. They had been silent for some time now, just staring out over to the ocean. Apparently he had been as deep in thought as she had. But something told her that his thoughts weren’t happy ones like hers had been. There were tears in his bright green eyes, and he seemed to be completely lost inside his own mind.

            She called his name, and when he didn’t respond, called for him again, asking if he was all right.

            “What?” he seemed to shake himself, and quickly wiped his eyes.

            “Are you all right?”

            “I’m okay.”

            “You’re also lying to me,” she said, half joking. But it was true, and they both knew it.

            “I know,” he sighed, as they turned back to the ocean view. “This isn’t all I wanted to show you,” he spoke up again after a while.

            “It’s not?”

            He shook his head, all past worries seeming to have escaped. He stood up with a heavy grunt. “Come on, your next surprise is waiting.”

Author's Note

Let me know what you think! I wrote this all today, after getting over my horrendous writers block from yesterday.

Reviews

[Lindsay T]

Wow, nice work! I really like your style because you write gracefully, with no unnecessary words or phrases, but you're still able to have a lot of description and character-development. Can't wait to see the next surprise! Keep up the great work.

[Jason van Dongen]

To write a piece of this quality in a single day is an achievement. Your story is coming along very nicely. Often when we are recovering from writer's block, our first work back is forced. When we get desperate we sometimes clutch at any ideas we have and try to warp them into gold, but frequently work written under those cirumstances contribute little to advance the plot, themes and character development of our stories. You have done a great job of avoiding that pitfall. Keep writing.