The Mark of Ilman

Chapter 5 - Deceiver

I couldn’t sleep the rest of that night. I layed in bed, wide awake and wondering if I had been dreaming. I closed my eyes, hoping that sleep would just encase me but it never came. I thought about everything that the stranger had said. Was his name? Aran?

He’d said that my mother wasn’t really my mother. That she was an enchantress. If so, then where was my mother? Why did he tell me this?

He was trying to get me to go to his realm. Lageria. It sounded alright but what made him think I’d go with him? Even if my mother wasn’t really my mother, what made him think I’d suddenly turn against her and leave with him?

This whole thing could just be a dream. A lie. But so could my life.

I stared up at the ceiling. I brought my arm up above my head, slid off my glove and gazed at the black markings that crossed my skin like wisps of smoke. I traced the pattern with my eyes. If I really wasn’t from Earth and I believed in that lunatics claims, it would make sense as to why these markings were here.

Suddenly, I realized I couldn’t remember the last time my mom and I talked about them. I couldn’t even remember first talking to her about them. Hadn’t I tried to ask her about them?

Even earlier I had troubles remembering the creatures that attacked me. They were real but then how did I never see them before?

My head started to ache terribly as I tried to remember. I got a hazy image in my head but the pain over powered me. I grimized and placed a cool hand on my forehead. My tattoos glowed their white light and I started to think that Aran might just be right. If my mom was an enchantress then that’d explain my difficulties with my memory...

This was crazy!

My own mom made me have memory problems? Why would she even do that?

But magic was real. That I believed. It was the one thing that didn’t make me crazy or a freak. Maybe a freak who could use magic?

I sat up in bed. I looked around my room, noticing that it had started to get light out but then looked at a pencil sitting on my desk. If I could make a lighter explode then why not make a pencil float?

Okay Amarie, focus, and... up!

I stared at the pencil and willed it to lift. The light on my arm had lessened. but I kept trying. Up! I demanded. The pencil hadn't moved. Frustrated I tossed my glove across the room and suddenly it stopped in midair and just floated there! My eyes opened wide.

Slowly I approached my hovering glove. I looked over at my closed door and back to the glove. Thinking this may just be a trick I waved my hands around the glove, feeling for any sign of wires. When I found none I just stared at it for a moment. I slowly motioned with my hand towards my desk. Just as slowly as I’d moved, the glove went and placed itself on my desk.

I was still for a moment. I couldn’t believe I just did that! I just made my glove move! I was freaking out.

But if I could move a glove and Aran could move water, didn’t that mean my mom could do some form of magic too?

I gazed back at my door.

Silence was the only thing I heard.

If my mother really wasn’t my mother, what was I suppose to do? And how would I even get rid of the illusion that Aran mentioned?

My feet moved of their own accord. I opened my door and walked slowly and silently to my mothers room. My heart pounded and though the fear was strong I continued. She may not be my mother, but I knew she still cared about me. She had been worried about me when I had that nightmare. She couldn’t be a complete fraud.