"Diary" by Sharon Kelly Adams

The evening dew had just fallen and the colors were fading from the sky, the birds had gone to bed and the crickets chirped. There was an upscale inn in the middle of the glade the lights from in side were glowing brightly in the dusk. In a large room at a wooden desk table sat a figure working over a piece of parchment. She was a small thin woman with wavy brown hair that fell in to her deep gray eyes. She looked up for a moment and whipped it away from her shimmering eyes. She panned over to the open balcony and stood up. After writing since midday she decided to stretch. She walked over to the balcony and looked down. She was on one of the top floors of the inn and the dirt street seems so far away. She looked up sky word and the first starts of night were starting to come up the moon was starting to peak up from behind the hill. She stretched her body and the tiny bells on her anklets jingled. She reached in to a small pouch on her side and pulled out a small piece of parchment. De’tras me cha ma amoure was all it said. She sighed wondering what that meant. She had wondered that same questions for many years.  She put the slip of parchment away and walked back over to her table the nighttime air seemed to cool on her skin to stay out long. She wonders why she did not pack any heavier clothing. But she didn’t not pack much at all.  She sat back down at the table rereading what she had written before…

  “I am one of the last people of my kind. We were a very powerful form of mage that formed a bond with goddess Mnemonic. The villagers killed all of the others off; they hated us because we were different. We possessed power beyond there imagination, and for the most part we showed them. I am rather ashamed of what some of the things my people did. We torched them and used them for slaves, and we too all they had. We killed them just for fun. Then one day when I was very young they revolted, they took back what we had taken and now I am the only survivor. My nursemaid saved me, though she was of a village breed I found favor in her eyes. She hid me during the riots. My parents were the king and queen.  There was no hope of there survival.  Dara, my nursemaid, made a doll to resemble me and she killed the doll and told the others it was I. she took me and raised me as her own. When I was old enough to understand she told me what had happened for I was too young to remember a lot of it. She also told me of my powers and I developed them, but not as well as I would have with my own kind. The town’s people eventually grew suspicious and so I was sent away to live on my own. Dara sent me to her brother’s house were I worked like a slave for years. When I was 11 he came to my room late one night and he did with me as he pleased. I let him for I was too young to know what was happening. It hurt at first, when I found out how wrong he was to do such things to me. I thought “ how could anyone do this to a mere child?”  Then I realized the world was not perfect and people are not either.  I wanted to run from that place so badly but I know he would never permit it so one night at dinner I slipped some hemlock in to his wine. It took three days for that lowly old carcass to die, and then I ran as far away as I could.  I was taken in by a group of gypsies, they were so kind but they did have the suspicions about me. I found out I could heal peoples wounds, when the children got hurt I would heal them. One day not long after I joined the eldest gypsy told me something no one had ever told me before except Darma. She told me there was a danger to my gifts and that one day I would have to choose between to use them and not. I did not heed this warning.

She put the pieces of parchment down and stood up she walked over to the balcony the night had fallen long ago, and she knew it was time. She shut the door and took a small box from off of the desk. She places the contents in a circle around her and began to reshape and move the stones with her mind. Melting them and forming them. After what seemed like hours she took the stones and put them back on the box. She looked at the desk. She sighed and sat down to write again.

I was with the gypsies for a very long time, performing my miraculous healings to the people in the villages we went to. Then when we were in the village of Eldorant I felt a presence there one I had never felt before. It was to hard to explain at the time then I saw were the presence was coming from, a young man. I went about on my usually things then that afternoon he came to me smiling as if he knew something I did not. He said to me “I know what you are. The powers you possess, you are not alone in this world there is one other. I am the other.” I looked at him as if he were mad “what do you mean?” I asked him. Then he went on that he was Erik and his father was one of my people and his mother was human. He was forced to go and live with his mother when he was very young and she told him about what had happened. I stayed there in that village with him. The first person that truly understood me, my first true friend. I helped him develop his powers and he told me more about our race fore he had the books about them.

…She stopped and looked up startled by a noise. She waited a few moments and the continued to write….

 I was learning more about where I had came from. And Erik was there to help and teach me. On night as we were watching to sun set. He asked me something that on one had asked me before “ Are you truly happy here with me?” he said and I replied “for the first time on my entire life I am.” And then there he kissed me and slipped a ring on my finger. I continue to heal as many people as possible and Erik worked with his books in the catacombs. In secret we were marred for every girl in the village want him and I was not left alone by all the men who though because I was a former gypsy I was a harlot. One night this man came to me with a child. He asked me to heal him. But the child was too far-gone so I refused. He called me a witch and struck me. I just stood there the rage burning inside me. Then Erik stepped in. he said, “You dare disgrace the honor of this lady who as tried for all of her life to make the village a better place. She is no witch but a saint. And I challenge your accusations.” The man looked at Erik, who was an expert swordsmen and walk off. Questions about me arose though the town and rumors spread like wild fire. I could not take all the whispering. I could not take any of it at all. So I decide I would leave. I asked Erik to come with me but he declined. “My work is here my love.” He said to me with a tear in his eye. “Go and I will find you once my work is complete.” I kissed him and he slipped a piece of paper in my hands with “De’tras me cha ma amoure” written on it. I pondered about it for many years afterwards. I hold no regrets any grudges, Nothing agents anyone. Well only one regrets that I never saw Erik again. I have moved from place to place and I never found out what that stupid phrase meant either. Now that I think about I might have been able to heal that child. I could have at least tried. If I did then Erik and I would be together today.   

…She put her pen down and put the paper away in her bag. She stood up and went not the balcony and walk out looking over the landscape. s “You know you are a very hard woman to ketch up to. But your well worth the chase.” Said a voice from behind. She turned around to see Erik sitting on the railing behind her. He continued, “ I was wondering when you would come out. I though I made enough noise.”  The moonbeams hit his blonde hair and made it look like it was glowing.  She stood there in disbelief. “Lover, you knew I would always come for you.” He said with a smile. Erik handed her a rose and took her up in his arms. She smiled and said “I have dreamed of this moment for years now.” She gazed in his still youthful face and smiled as a crystal tear ran down her cheek. Erik kissed her and her bag feel out of her hand. The wind took the papers and blew them away. Old memories forgotten and new ones made.