Water and Wind

Chapter 5

 She returned every year. Time had no essence to her, she could never measure it anyway. Her brain was befuddled. How many years had it been? One? Two? Ten? One hundred? She couldn't tell.

Every year the cottage yielded nothing. People, but nothing to her. She just wanted her children. Just her children. But these people kept invading her home. And if they kept it up, her children would never return. Each passing year felt like a day. She might as well not be living at all.

Living.

That was the price, wasn't it? Grief and agony made her dead. But it also kept her alive. She was a spirit, wasn't she, floating somewhere between the boundaries? She didn't even know who she was anymore. All she knew was the house. And the river. And despite not knowing where she was, somehow, she found her way back every year, as if the map was ingrained and imprinted in her.

A boy with straw colored hair and his fuzzy, ragged dog. Not hers.

A young couple, one with strawberry blonde hair and the other with curly brown. Not hers.

An old woman, with wrinkles and tangled, dark gray hair. Definitely not hers.

A middle-aged man and his eight children, all with fiery red hair and freckles. Not hers.

Two young men with an untamed pet cat and luggage that contained only books and cat food. Not hers.

She knocked only twice in her many years. Any other time, she'd gone straight in. She wasn't sure what happened after that, but when she left the cabin, having no memory of ever going in, there were always bodies on the floor. She puzzled over that. Empty bodies, empty eyes. Their soul had been sucked out. But she wasn't sure how.

The twice she'd knocked, she'd thought she'd found them.

A boy with dark hair and chubby, rosy cheeks wearing blue and white striped pajamas and barefoot, with a stuffed lion tucked under his arm. He has a scar over his left eyebrow. She doesn't remember that, but she knows they did it.

A girl with long dark hair and pale skin in a white dress with a bow at the top and somewhat short sleeves. There are some old, dried bloodstains on it.

They did it. They did it all. She's ready to break down the door, drag them out and get revenge on anyone who took part in that.

But they wouldn't let her in, wouldn't let their own mother inside. Her heart broke. Those were the only times she'd ever tried to force her way in. Every other time, the door just opened without her touching it. But something, something, had kept her out. She rebounded every time she went within a few inches of the door. Why was that?

Magic, it had to be. Powerful, maybe even dark magic. She can't give up. She refuses to give up. Prophecy has it that one cannot, but two can take her down. She doesn't want to be taken down. She needs only to find her children. Why won't they let her in? She is their mother!

Again, it is them. No doubt they altered their memories. She hates them. They will pay.

But the moon rises too fast for that, and just as she came, she is sucked away. She has no memory until the next one.