Chapter 25

Maruska smiled.

She had not felt this good for a long, long time.  Having told Bastion that she was leaving, vocalising a desire that had been bubbling up inside her, scared and exhilarated her.  But the ratio was not fifty-fifty.  It was more along the lines of ten percent scared, ninety percent exhilarated.  To know how she felt, one example would be if you had been reading a book slowly, and let’s imagine it is a very thick book.  You don’t have much time to read it, but you stick with it and gradually work your way through it.  And then finally, after years, you finally finish reading the last page.  It is finished and now you have that amazing moment when you can relax, and get to choose what to read next.  Or you don’t even have to read anything if you don’t want to.  Well it was a little bit like that feeling.  Only more complex, and it had feelings of abandonment by the love of your life intertwined with it.  However you want to look at it, Maruska was feeling alive for the first time in decades.

She had packed her essential belongings into a yellow cloth rucksack.  Everything she needed in her new life was in there, and it wasn’t much.

She looked on her table and there were three things on it.  And now sadness seeped back into her.  The three things were one, a big, well-worn spellbook.  Two, a small purple velvet pouch, that was tied up with some golden string. And three, a letter that she had just finished writing.  Maruska picked up the letter and read it again, just to make sure it said all that she wanted it to say.

 

Dearest Fog,

 

I want to start by saying that you are my favourite person in the world.  Please know that I will never forget you, and my memories of the time we have spent together are most precious to me.  As you are well aware, I have been sad for a very long time.  And I realise that my pain and suffering is self inflicted.  I have totally stuffed up my life.  I want to have a fresh start.  I don’t want any reminders of the past of my terrible mistakes.  There is much that I regret.  And so I have decided that I will leave tonight and go somewhere very far away.  We may never meet again.  This saddens me greatly.  I wish you could come with me, I truly do.  You are the one person on this planet that I wish could stay around me forever.  But I know that it would be selfish for me to ask you to come with me.  You have your own life and I don’t want you to waste your life following me around.  I don’t even know what I will do with my own life.  I might even go up to some mountains and life out the rest of my life alone.  Who knows.  And you might even want to come with me.  But I will not allow it.  You have your own life to lead.  I will leave you my spellbook.  I will not be needing it.  It has only brought me suffering and with it, I have brought suffering upon others.  Do what you want with the spellbook, it is yours now.  If you do continue to learn magic, I hope that you do so with more wisdom than I did.

I think that is all I wish to say.  I intend to see you one last time, but please forgive me for what I will do.  Please believe me when I say I do it believing it is in your best interest.

 

Love,

Maruska

 

 

Maruska folded the letter in half and put it in her pocket.  She took her rucksack and the big spellbook. And finally, she grabbed the velvet pouch, and held it gently in her hand.  Then she left her room, and made her way through the dark corridors.  Eventually, she came upon a wooden door.  She knocked firmly three times.

It took a while, but finally someone came to the door.  It was a teenage girl with black hair.  She currently looked how people looked when they were woken in the middle of the night; tired looking eyes and face and messed up hair.

“Master,” said Fog, “What’s up?”

Maruska looked at her apprentice warmly.  It wasn’t hard.  She loved this little girl.  She put down the big spellbook and then untied the little velvet pouch she had been carrying.  She sprinkled out the contents onto the palm of her hand.  It was a glittering pinkish powder.  It smelled nice, like apricots.

“What’s that?” said Fog.

Maruska blew the powder gently from her hand and it went all over Fog in a sparkling dust cloud.

Fog froze.  She didn’t move, and she didn’t speak.

“Please forgive me, Fog,” said Maruska, “You will be okay.  The spell I’ve cast on you is harmless, except that you won’t be able to move for six or seven hours.  I am leaving.  I have explained it all in this letter.  The spellbook is yours.”

Maruska hugged Fog tenderly.  Then moved Fog’s paralysed body into the room and placed the spellbook and her folded letter on Fog’s table.

“Farewell, my student,” said Maruska, “May your life be full of joy and happiness.”

And with that, she left the room and closed the door behind her.

Fog stood motionless.  A tear trickled down her cheek.