"untitled" by Joanna Curran

Anna felt her body go into spasm and lurched forward to the ground, she threw her head back and screamed. The entire wood came to life as the creatures that watched from the shadows scattered and the birds took flight in fear. Never one to miss an opportunity, Caleb  took aim and shot down a healthy pheasant. He grinned at Antonia "dinner!" Antonia rolled her eyes and began looking for firewood.

Anna rolled over and lay on her back, "your concern is overwhelming but i"m fine over here."

"Maybe we could do with a little less drama next time" Antonia replied while she reached for a log, "its not like you don"t know its going to happen".

"Because this is so much fun for me"

"How many is that now?" Caleb asked as he retrived his kill.

"four."

"So what can"t you do?"

Anna walked over to the wood that Antonia had stacked and breathed on it, flames shot from her mouth igniting them. Antonia flinched from it and glared at her:

"Funny!"

Antonia stood up and pushed Anna out of her way and stormed off into the wood. The grin that had begun to spread across Anna"s face was cut short when she saw Caleb look at her. He was clearly angry but there was something else there. Anna looked away and sighed:

"You know there"s no love lost between us."

"Anna that"s hardly an excuse. "

"So she can say what she likes."

" You watch your family burn and then find that funny."

"I didn"t burn her family Caleb, I"m tired of tip-toeing round her." Anna turned to the demon they had just slain. "If she had let that thing use its power instead of doing her own thing again. How can i know which power i've lost if i don't know which one it possess?"

"The hoard that killed her family possess the one you've just used Anna."

Anna couldn't argue. She flew into the trees above him in silence.

Caleb sat and began to strip the feathers off the pheasant. He had had enough of emotional females. They would need to sort it out among themselves. The animosity between anna and antonia or Toni as she prefered to be called,  was showing no signs of resolving itself. It had been like this since they met and  Toni's vengence was so consuming they had no allies left.

When they found Anna she was hiding in the truck of an ancestor oak. She was barely aware of where she was. She was tortured by visions that she couldn"t control and when Toniand Caleb approached she wasn"t sure if they were part of her visions. When she flew up to the trees Toni had tried to shoot her down. Anna vanished and the arrow inbedded in the wood behind where she had stood. Toni and Caleb slowly began to realise that she had more powers than had ever resided in a Marlek before. Furthermore she never attacked. It was not in Marlek nature to run. Caleb convinced Toni to stay her hand and approached Anna. While Anna could sense the confusion coming from him she was so overwhelmed by the hatred eminating from Antonia she backed away.

"Please, i won"t hurt you."

"You might not".

"Antonia will not harm you."

"Dont speak for me Caleb."

"Antonia please."

Antonia looked at Caleb"s worn expression and walked away. He went to Anna and sat down a little away from her. Placing himself purposely in a vulnerable position away from his weapons. Anna watched him warily.

"You know our names, what"s your"s?"

"Anna"

"Where are you from?"

"I don"t know."

"You don"t know."

"Are you real?"

"What?"

Tears began to well in Anna"s eyes as she stepped a little closer to Caleb. "Please, help me. i don"t know who i am. My name is here."  She showed him a scar on her ankle where the name  Anna had been carved with a knife, as scar that proved that she wasn"t a Marlek but a human girl. But how could she hold so many  of their powers and survived. Even one of them would have corrupted her within hours but to have so many,

"What do you remember Anna?"