A hollow mid autumn night

Part 6

A noble mission

On their way reaching the front door, Melanie flicked the lanterns on and Aumi came inside the house before her. She looked back at her mom and saw something weird happening, Melanie put a foot on the threshold without moving a step. She was still standing there, her eyes deadly looking like her soul had left her body, not even yet reconceive to process what just happened a few hours ago.

"Mom, mommy, can you hear me, what's wrong, mommy!" Aumi tugged her mom with extreme worry, she felt like the woman in front of her had been possessed by a ghost. She looked really scary.

"Huh..wha..t..? Sorry, are you calling me?" Aumi's voice snapped her back to presence, she was dazedly stunned for a while before being able to speak in a proper sentence.

"Mom, are you okay? You looked like you've just been possessed, is everything alright?" Aumi said, sounding a little bit like a small jest but still showed a sense of concern for her mother, because what if she's really possessed, she didn't look or sound any sober at all.

"Ah, uhm, I'm okay, I'm fine, there's nothing wrong with me really." She said in a not very convincing tone.

"Oh yes mother, about the other thing I just told you earlier, the half-ghost looking boy, I don't what to call him, I'm still wondering who that is. I remember reading a tons of books about the mysterious creatures that lurk deep in the woods, but I've never seen anything like that before. He looks a lot more peculiar than the centaurs and the Valkries (known as swan maiden, a creature that shapeshifts from human forms to swan forms in Eurasia fork lore, I like to call it a swan with human face underneath). I think I haven't read all of them, have you seen anything like that? I wonder if he's an uncommon creature." She asked in such a deep, insightful way.

Melanie looked at her for a while and said:

"Well, sweetie, what should I begin with? I believe you just saw, or should I say met, a wisp, and I do know that wisp. His name is Jack, he's a...a humanoid wisp which means he can shapeshift to human form, except for the hair and the eyes."

"A wisp?" She asked "What's a wisp mommy? And the shape of a human, what does that mean?" Now she looked even more intrigued.

Melanie sat down casually and slowly, and she started to remember things vividly, she recalled the former potion of her mother and the book gradually showed every letter on the concoction recipe: a wisp's vitality. She started from the part of how her mother created that wisp, she sensed every inch of pain cutting through her flesh by a sharp knife held in her mother's hand, and a drip of blood in her hands fell into the pot; after the potion was completed, a blue, tiny rounded flame swooped out of the pot and completely gone without a trace. She then explained the wisp power as to why her mother wanted it, and how that had affected her badly. Aumi listened to her so contemplatively...

"So, that's how you know the wisp? You can also telepath with him, I didn't you and the wisp are that close" Aumi spoke with amazement

"I wouldn't use the word "close", my dear. Inherently, he begrudgingly exists because of my bloody mother, sorry for my word choice but that's how it really is. But thanks to me, he is able to look like a human, but he still belong to the wisp breed, so he's still hunted by some of those humans, especially at night when he's most easily noticed. But as a matter of fact, my blessing of his ability also makes my life span shorter, meaning I can only live in a certain period of time, but it doesn't matter because my life was no good either, and you're my only exception, Aumi. So tell me, when you see him today, did he say anything to you?"

Then Aumi slowly told her story:

"When I walked a few steps away from a big garden, I saw a very light blue light blinking and I followed it to a swamp, after which it seemed to went behind a huge tree in the forest and suddenly, from that light it turned into a boy. I got a little jump scare when I saw him, but he didn't seem to be doing any harm. On the contrary, he seemed to freak out more than I did. Then I tried to start a word with that boy, but he was very strange, he didn't seem to like me at all."