The Wax Pools

Chapter One: The Wax Pools

I am a nobody. I am not important, I do not have any power or meaning to anyone. My life is ordinary but not in an unpleasant way. 

So I don't know why I am bothering to receive my trinket, I will likely never meet my soulmate since I never plan on leaving this town save for when I go foraging in the surrounding woods. Though I don't consider my life unpleasant, it is suffocatingly lonely. This feeling of persistent and deep-set loneliness sinks in just a little deeper as I hike my skirt up slightly and begin to slowly walk up the temple steps. I have been putting this off for weeks since I reached twenty-one years of age. The temple looms in front of me and I shiver, they really did build these to make you feel small and insignificant. I take a deep breath as I open the temple doors and walk into the main hall. 

I am not the only one here today, people travel from far away to get their trinkets here as there isn't another temple unless you want to travel for weeks in the wastes. People around my age chatter excitedly as they wait for their turns in line, most probably turned 21 today or only a few days ago. The temple and the preisstesses preach to all what a great honour it is to receive your trinket, to seek your soulmate. I fall in behind the rest and look around the familiar room with its creamy walls and high arched ceilings. Colourful glass windows depicting scenes from the great book cast enchanting shadows as the sun rises to the east of us. I was raised here in the temple, I owe all my knowledge and talents to the preisstesses, but I do not have the same ideas about soulmates. I will get my trinket because it is the normal thing to do, and to give me some piece of mind that the other single people around me are not the one, but I don't feel the same as the excited mass around me.

Not many people come in after me, and I allow myself to get lost in my thoughts as I wait for my turn in a line leading to the alter. I watch as people exit the temple, eyeing their new trinkets with curiosity and excitement. 

"ah, Lillian good to finally see you here", A calming voice startles me out of my thoughts and I realize I have reached the front of the line. 

"Hello Mother Hycinth", I respond with a small smile, although I know almost everyone in town I wouldn't consider any of them more than acquaintances, I did have a few friends once but I have always found it hard to meet people let alone actually bond or maintain a bond. Mother Hycinth raised me and the other children without parents, but I was never very close to her, I only called her mother as it is her title at the temple. 

"follow me, hun, you know how it works," Mother Hycinth says with a tight-lipped smile, and waves her hand for me to follow her as she turns around and starts to head down a hallway. With another deep breath, I follow behind her, to the wax pool. Our steps echo loudly on the ancient stone tiled floors and arches. Mother Hycinth opens an old wooden door at the end of the hall and lets me in ahead of her. 

The warmth of the wax pool washes over me as I enter, the room lit only by the gentle glow coming from the pool. I used to help Hycinth guide people through the ceremony so I already knew what to do. I kneel on the ground before the pool, my heart pounding with nerves even with my head assuring myself it wasn't such a big deal. Not giving myself any more time to stress over it I plunged both my hands into the pool, slowly leaning forwards to reach deeper into the pool until I was elbow deep. 

I would feel the wax swirling around me and I prayed to the gods one by one in my head as the wax started to harden into my trinket in my cupped hands. I could feel hard edges and smooth surfaces, what would it look like? Most trinkets reflected an aspect of your soulmate or something you would have in common. 

As soon as the wax stopped moving I lifted my hands out of the pool, wax dripping off my hands and new trinket. It was beautiful, my eyes widened as I wiped the rest of the wax off and inspected the new trinket in my hands. It was a glass octagon with shiny gold metal plating the edges. I frowned as I saw the eight notches, one on each side of the octagon. I wonder what my soulmate's trinket would look like, perhaps a glass loop, surrounding mine. A symbol of protection perhaps? Or of control. I frowned a little at that thought. The glass wasn't quite clear, but rather had the texture of the stained glass windows I had seen in the main room of the temple earlier.

Mother Hycinth cleared her throat behind me and I was awakened from my daydreams as I realized I was taking too long. 

"Sorry Mother Hycinth" I bleated out as I rushed to my feet, she still had people to take to the pools today, people who would need longer than me as they would excitedly show it off to their family and friends present, the whole group celebrating at this new hope for a life long love. I didn't get that.

"It's okay dear, good luck finding your soulmate" she smiled as she started to lead me back to the entrance hall. I tucked my trinket into my foraging bag. Most people wear theirs in some fashion in hopes of finding their soulmate easier but that didn't hold much interest for me. The sun was already almost in the center of the sky, too late in the day to forage for me. I headed instead to my apothecary, ready to tend the shop for the day. 

I had worked for all my adolescent years doing odd jobs to save up enough coin for what used to be a rundown abandoned building, and I worked for months to turn it into my shop and home. I learned how to make various concoctions and basic healing skills at the temple, and I taught myself a great deal from old texts and my own experimentation. Healing and herbs were my passions. 

I walked into my shop, inhaling deeply at the smell of various herbs, incense, and old books. I'm convinced I could survive solely off this smell if it came down to it. I put up my open sign in the front window and started to tidy up. I didn't have many customers but I made enough to afford food at the market and to replace my tools when I needed them. After sweeping and organizing some shelves I opened my bag to sort that out and my eyes fell again on my trinket. I picked it up and turned it over in my hands, rubbing the glass and tracing my fingers over the edges. A sudden pang of loneliness made me put it back down, but not wanting anyone to see it I stashed it with more clutter on a windowsill behind my front counter. I guess that's what it would be unless I saw someone with a matching trinket, just more clutter, one of a thousand little objects lining my shelves. A constand reminder of a truth I've long since accepted, I'll be alone the rest of my days.

A few people trickled in during the day, I traded a burn cream for more glass bottles with the glassblower, Essex. He was handsome, with walnut brown hair and a carefully trimmed beard, His gruff voice made me daydream about him holding me close, protecting me, maybe....a gentle kiss being placed on my lips....maybe going further. But he wore his trinket clipped to his cloak, a wooden pendant missing a center emblem. Not even close to mine. Not all people held out for their soulmates, but the utter romance of it all consumed me, I don't want to settle for someone who isn't utterly perfect for me, my other half chosen by the Gods themselves.

Maybe... I did want a soul mate I thought to myself as I lay in bed that night, as the feeling of loneliness gently crept over me until my chest felt hollow. The blankets and pillows around me felt empty, cold, missing something or someone. The silence from the sleeping town enveloped me. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to look. Or at least keep an eye out. I let out a sigh to myself as I rolled over, it's only when I can't sleep at night that I think like this. Maybe I just need a pet.