by Aleena Haimor
300 Years Ago:
My throat burns.
It burns like fire.
Slender tendrils of ruthless black smoke curl around my neck, slowly, softly, yet so powerful all the same. Surely they are taking my life. The tendrils grasp like long fingers, tighter and tighter still, until I can barely take a breath.
I try to scream, but cannot. I cannot move, cannot breathe. It seems I can do nothing but wait and hope for the sweet relief of death.
But one thought tortures my mind. My daughter. Who shall watch over her? I hope that my child, my newborn daughter, will live to bore young of her own, who in turn will bear children. I know that they shall all suffer the same fate as me, but there must be a way. And I remember the spell. So long ago I heard it, yet it is fresh in my mind. I chant the spell to remove the curse from one girl, who will destroy the wretched one who cursed us, hundreds of years from now.
“Save my blood from the curse of death. Save her life, oh holy one, let her live.”
I feel peace. I have always been the one who was afraid of everything.
Yet death does not scare me as the world becomes dark.
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Present Day:
I run, run, run, as fast as my legs will carry me. My chest cramps and the air is getting thinner the higher up I go, yet still, I run. Away from my would-be grave, the only home I’ve ever known. A blood curse, in my family and village for generations, a slow but inevident poison spreading through my people. They died quietly, one after another, like dominoes falling over. I am the only one in my village who wasn’t affected, who didn’t have the curse, the only one left alive, but I need to get away. I don’t want to be alone in the remains of my village, among all the graves. But I know that the images of my family on their deathbeds will forever haunt my memories.
I have always been the girl who fended for herself. My father was crippled and my mother died when I was an infant, so I had to learn to cope.
My vision blurs from the tears that came from the memories of my family. Our kind does not cry, we refuse to, and I dash around the trees, chanting a spell as I do.
“Be gone, dreadful sorrow, do not block my sight, be gone, not forgotten, let me see light,” I whisper. The words are almost second nature to me, as I have always had trouble with my emotions and couldn’t let anyone see me cry. My vision clears as the tears evaporate into thin air. I feel a bit happier as the spell seeps into my skin, touching my heart, bones, brain, making me stronger. Sadness and anger are—or were—seen as weaknesses to my people. But now I don’t know if I can fight my feelings for any longer. I’m more troubled than ever before.
I slow to a stop, my legs burning, and take a moment to look at the scenery surrounding me at the top of the hill. I breathe in the fresh air, crisp and sweet with the scent of jasmine flowers and salt water from the ocean on the other side of the mountain. I look behind me and see a vast blue mirror, calm, smooth, beautiful, stretching ahead of me. It is breathtaking.
I am the first in my family to see this ocean.
Again, the tears fall. But this time, I do not bother to wipe them away or clear them with a spell; it isn’t worth it where no one can see me.
I call to the great spirits of air, fire, water and earth, to help me with my grief. But the wind moans and the trees creak, the waves crash and the fire stays dormant. I seem to not possess the gift of voice, the ability to call the elements to my will. My father did. My mother did. My brother did. I seem to be the only one in my family who does not, other than my sister, who passed as a baby. Maybe it is because I am the one who was saved from death. I know that my mother left much too early, being only twenty when she died.
My mother. I do not know much about her, other than the fact that she was kind, selfless and beautiful. Father told me so many stories about her, how she always held me with care, singing lullabies even though the curse was slowly draining her life away. How she would always be the one to calm the crying of me and my twin sister, Alana. How the last words she spoke were our names, even though Alana had been taken a month before, as the curse had spread through my mother’s womb when she was pregnant with us, narrowly avoiding me. But Alana absorbed all of it, leading to her death. Mother seemed wonderful. I wish I remembered her.
Suddenly, a violent breeze rips through my hair, whipping it around my face. I am startled for a moment before I realize that I did it. I called the wind. And once I feel it touch my skin, I am filled with power. But a moment later, it feels like a tornado swirls in my mind, stripping all my happy memories away. I scream.
And then I feel nothing.
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I wake up in a ring of fire and slowly lift my weary head. I see a dark figure standing before me, her features barely visible. A hood conceals most of her face, and she takes a step towards me.
“Hello, young one,” she whispers, her voice a deadly purring drawl.
She lifts her hood to reveal a beautiful woman underneath, with eyes black as coal and skin unnaturally pale and smooth, not even the slightest hint of wrinkles, although she is thousands of years old. I know this because this woman is the woman from our village legend, the woman who cursed us. My hands ball into fists of hatred.
“You!” I screech, jumping to my feet, suddenly feeling…alive again. “You murderer!”
“Now child, we must not throw around assumptions, should we?” she smiles at me, a malicious glint in her eye. She reaches her right hand into the fire and seems to take out a ball of flame. She twines the flames around her fingers and all of a sudden hurls the ball at me. I duck just before it hits a tree, making it explode.
“Tricky one, yes? I seem to remember very well, taking your mother’s life with my bare hands. She tasted so delicious, so sweet, I could not resist,” she says softly, reaching a skeletal hand out to me. As I back away, the woman transforms into a hideous demon, with horns of smoke and teeth sharp as daggers. She lets out a guttural roar that sends me flying back.
“Your village was insignificant, your people were animals that needed to be slaughtered. Your ancestor saved you in the hope that you would save your village. It is too late now.” The monster growls deeply, making me shiver. I get up again and close my eyes. I feel four different currents pulling me in different directions and realize that I did it. The elements have come to help me. Finally. I can feel myself rising, my hair flying, droplets of water touching my skin.
I open my eyes and use my newfound powers to attack the demon. Her body crackles with the illusion of fire. I wrap strands of water around her, constricting her. She growls, roars as I wrap them tighter and hurl boulders at her.
She stares at me with hate before she explodes.
I have one moment to rejoice before I realize that all that is left is fire. It seems that the demon will get what it wished: my death.
I don’t have the energy to put out the flames, so I let the world burn.
The Lighthouse 