DEAREST

PART 4: DENSE WATERS, Ch. 4

4

I'm a mess of fuzzy and incomplete thoughts when I regain consciousness. I'm lying on my bed, I'm wearing clean and dry clothes, and a maid remains sitting by the bed, waiting for me to wake up. But, when I open my eyes, she's asleep, and so I have time to think about those incomplete thoughts until I finish them, and I order them.

I close my eyes, concentrating on my thoughts. I tend to leave complicated ideas that I hate for later, but this time I press my eyelids tightly, as if trying to imprison that idea that wants to escape and that needs to be thought of.

First, I'm surprised of my confidence when I dove on the lake. The water was freezing, and I came across a chaining spell, a water nymph that seemed to be protecting the Lightning Scepter's opal. Even so, and although it could have been fatal if Luciana hadn't taken me just in time, I managed to take the crystal without even having to break the spell.

Second, I need to know who invoked that water nymph. Luciana's mother? It's possible, but that possibility is tiny, because only someone advanced in invocations can execute a spell like that, and, in addition, any spell, of whatever branch, requires a sacrifice. We use crystals, herbs, and our own magic circuits for it, but Luciana's mother didn't do any of that. Or did she? Unless she had dedicated, for unusual reasons, an absurd amount of time to learn to invoke this unique spell for a particular reason. Even so, she must have studied some basic aspects. It's possible that, although she didn't have magical circuits, or a specialization in some occult branch such as Cristalomancy or astral travel, she could have given something in return, in order to protect this opal: her own life. But the question I ask myself is, how did the opal come to her? And how did she understand that this stone was so special that it needed to be protected by such a method? And, finally... Why Luciana's mother and not an Atavist like us? This woman of miserable youth that I found by chance in a tower... having a dream so revealing that it took us to the opal... I can't explain it to myself. Maybe Luciana is right. Maybe destiny has brought us together.

But, whether that's true or not, I don't care. I really don't want to understand everything.

And it is thus, in this state of ridiculous confusion and disbelief, that I release a miserable laugh that awakens my maid. She babbles apologetically and asks me how I feel and if there is anything I want at that moment.

"Where is Luciana?" I want to know, however.

"She was called by Lady Irene, my lady."

There are two things that I notice at this precise moment. I'm in Bachassau, this is my room, in the same state in which I left it a few years ago, with the murals of angels and animals on the walls, the dollhouse on the corner table and the tea table with the shape of a heart with its matching chairs. This tone of light that I know very well invades my room at this time with its mid-afternoon faded greyish blue, a light I hated when I was little and still recognize with anguish, years later.

The second thing I notice, or rather remember, is the opal. And here I straighten my back violently on the mattress, feeling my soul abandoning my body and then returning.

"How long ago?" I demand, while I throw the sheets to the side and look for the shoes around the bed, but there is nothing.

"Not a long time ago..."

The maid looks worried as she makes the mental calculation of the exact time elapsed, but I ignore her and jump out of the bed. I leave her behind and start running, terrified, barefoot towards the north wing, where my mother's study is located.

I cross the castle in the most impossible time, hearing the maid's shoe soles in the distance, trying to reach me.

Ah. I don't remember when it was the last time I ran with this energy. I run and run, with only one thing in mind: the opal is Luciana's. Nobody can take it away from her. Somehow, running with a purpose makes the hassle of getting tired this way worthwhile.