Chapter 10 - Dreamscape

A Chapter by Nataliya Maize

Keira searches for answers within her mother's journal, and finds something of curiosity.

“You did well out there.” Rozlend spoke, trying to hold back his amusement. “Like you knew what you were doing all along.”

“Yeah, weird isn’t it.” Keira replied, wiping the sweat from her brow. She was still confused by the ease of her new found abilities.

“So how’d you do it?”

“I don’t know... it just felt... natural. Like it’s always been there, and holding that staff...” She shook her head in thought. “Just made it that much more real... comfortable, almost easy.” Keira studied her open hands, overcome by a feeling of sudden disbelief.

“No one finds wielding easy Keira. Not even the most skilled wielders have the ability to pick up a staff and learn the motions in a day’s time. It takes alot more training than that.” Rozlend replied, as he closed the door behind him. “Thomas and Maedoc will want to train you with wands next. But I doubt you will find it as easy.”

“What, no faith?” Keira smirked.

“This isn’t a game Keira!” Rozlend demanded. “There is a real war out there! And if what happened to you the other day wasn’t just a coincidence then...” he voice trailed off, as he climbed into the comfort of a nearby chair, resting his elbows upon his knees.

“Then what?” she questioned as she turned to face him.

“Let’s just say that the fight might be a little closer to our doorstep then we thought.”

“You think I don't know that? I never said that it wasn’t! And I don’t look at this as some type of joke either! Besides, how is it that you know so much about me? That you know so much about everything that goes on here when I know nothing? I’m completely oblivious! Playing some game of follow the leader! Never knowing where I’m going next or what I’m doing. Never knowing what to expect. I know Thomas and Maedoc mean well, but it still doesn’t change the fact that I feel like a mindless twit.” she mumbled. “Doing what everyone tells her, going where ever they say, and never knowing why exactly.”

“It’s really that hard for you isn’t it.” His amber-green glare was sharp and direct. His brows clinched as he studied the ever-changing emotions stretched upon her face. And she realized as she glanced back at him, that it wasn’t a question, it was a statement.

“Yes. It is.” Keira replied simply. “One day I’m picking vegetables from my mother’s garden and the next... I’m off preparing to fight some battle I never even knew took place in the first place. Meeting creatures I never even thought existed. I left a family behind.” Keira paused in thought, running her fingertips over the open flame of a burning candle. “The only family I ever knew.” she whispered softly. “And I just up and left them, no questions asked.” She blew the candle out and looked towards him. “No, this isn’t exactly easy for me. I realize I ultimately made this decision for myself, but in the end... did I really have a choice?”

“I’m sorry.” Rozlend replied. “But I thought you knew... I mean I...”

“No. Don’t... it doesn’t matter anymore, it had to be done, it was bound to happen anyways right? I’m here now, and this is the way things are. I just don’t really understand why.”

“Keira...”

“Just leave me alone Rozlend. Maybe you didn’t know me as well as you thought you did after all.” she muttered under her breath.

“Keira wait, I just thought that...” He stood to his feet as he tried to explain. “That maybe you knew.”

“Knew what?! That all of this would happen?! That this is what I could expect to hear when Thomas tried explaining the truth of my family's past and where I came from?! No! I didn’t!”

“Geez Keira! Does everything really need to be spelled out for you?! You protected them! And they protected you! That should matter for something at the very least! You followed your instincts, that’s what a wielder does. It’s in their nature. It’s in your nature!”

“My nature?! And what about yours? You’re my brother right? Then isn’t in your nature as well? Oh wait, that’s right... you don’t like to talk about it much do you?! You’d rather I just turn around and walk away! So tell me Rozlend... what is this all to you? Why do you all of a sudden give a damn about whatever happens to me?! You want me to try and understand things better? To understand -these instincts you speak of? Then why do you still refuse to give me the time of day until now?! You why do you refuse to share with me the tinyest... little... thing... about you?! My own brother! My own flesh and blood!”

“I’m not a wielder Keira!” he shouted. Not exactly anyways.” he continued in a tone that was a little more then a whisper.

“Then what -what are you... exactly?!” Rozlend’s face remained expressionless. “What! Just some angry person?!”

“No.”

“Looking for someone to take it all out on?”

“No!”

“Is that it?!”

“No!”

“Than what is it?”

“Ugh! Does it really matter what I am?! You never belonged there anyways Keira! That was never your world! This was! This -is where you belong! I didn’t see it before and I didn’t want to either, but now I know... now I...”

“Good! Well I’m glad you do because honestly... I don’t know where I belong anymore! All this time I’ve wondered where I came from. Wondered whatever happened to my real family! If I even had any brothers or sisters! Hoping, that one day maybe my questions would finally be answered! And then one day they were... and what did you say? Oh, that’s right... leave!” Her voice was low and soft spoken, but the words from her mouth whipped off her tongue like a vicious snake bite. Angry and upset, Keira turned her gaze away from Rozlend and left him, standing there alone, and speechless in the middle of the open room.

That night the heat of their discussion echoed in her head. The words adding themselves to all the questions that had begun to flood her thoughts. She was upstairs sitting at her bedside, fiddling with the small strap that held her mother’s journal preserving it of its golden pages. Slowly she unwound the leather strap, opening and flipping the book until she could find a blank page to write upon. In it she wrote:

“It’s in my nature. That’s what he said. But I wish I understood exactly what he meant. I wish I could understand half of anything that goes on these days. How Rozlend could know so much about my life before here; the details of my thoughts... and the forest. What my mother Ermina meant when she said “what if he could control her through these dreams?” Who was she talking about? The demon? Could she actually be referring to the man I saw in my dream? And if so... how? I never told her of him? But could that have been what she meant all along? Could it all be true? The dreams I’m having -real? Strange how no one has bothered to mention the detail of how these dreams tie to the reality of this world. Why? Everyone is so dead set on the idea that something bad is going to happen and soon, and I’ll need to be prepared. But no one has explained to me why the images I see in my head each night are happening. Why? And how could someone have powers over me through dreams? So many unanswered questions.

And mother and father, all this time I had thought I’d abandoned them, but Rozlend was right, in my own way of protecting them, they to were protecting me. Ermina had wanted me to go, wanted me to find... no... wanted me to know the truth. They knew this day would come? But why wouldn’t they prepare me?

And Rozlend, even though he was surprised to see me, it was as if he already knew me; just like the dreams.

Is it all just as it seems? A huge puzzle with several pieces I can’t quite put together? There must be a reason, something more, something... missing."

Keira continued flipping through the pages of the journal, searching for answer it could give her. “It’s in your nature” the phrase continued repeating in her head. “Surely there must be something in this journal about the nature of a wielder.” She thought to herself, as her fingers flipped through the book vigorously. Surely her mother had written something in regards to it other than the obscure entries Keira found previously.

And suddenly, as quickly as the questions had come, the answer was found. Two short scriptures and passage beneath them, the answers she had been looking for.

Entry - 24

“And when the lord came down from the heavens above, he spoke to the men of this world and gave onto them the power of his spirit. The spirit that was placed upon the seven elders, and when the spirit rested upon them, it would come to pass that these men would prophesize and behold, speak breath and give life upon the gate keeper’s existence, but after which they will prophesize no more.”

“And you will know there are prophets of Evo among you, when I reveal myself to them in visions, and when I speak to them in dreams and in whispers, for so too will they onto you of those... that have been chosen.”

Keira read the two passages out loud, her fingertips brushing over each of the scriptures beneath them, until running across the last two words as they followed...

“The Dreamscape”

And then the two penned initials beneath them:

“C.C.”

They were the initials of her birth mother; Callynndria Callowmere.

prev chapter