In this land where you exist

There was an eerie silence, but through that noiseless plethora came a seemingly high-pitched ringing, that which could barely be heard. Jennifer heard a scuffling noise which she didn’t ignore.

Could you free me from this horrid place?

It was as if Alice had heard her.

“No, you have to suffer this in silence,” Alice said harshly.

Tears streamed from Jennifer's eyes.

“No, don’t leave me here!” Jennifer said out loud. Her words echoed back to her…”Leave me here…”

The silence was uncanny.

And it loomed over her.

When she closed her eyes, she could remember his face.

A bright, jubilant face he had, riding atop a brick-coloured horse, hearty and healthy.

But now at night, there was darkness everywhere. Not a sound to be heard. Not a chink of light to be seen. And she was going to be there for seven more days.

Jennifer nibbled at her food.

She had no appetite.

With a sigh, she closed her eyes. If she spoke, they would keep her here for more than the seven days she was supposed to be there.

***

Her heart beat faster when he brought his head closer to her and looked at her lips and said, “May I?”

She touched his lips to hers in an answer and sunk into the kiss. Their first, she thought.

The Father of the Church loudly objected seeing her, from afar.

Shoot. She hadn’t seen the Father, lounging there.

The kiss. Her first. Perhaps her last, as well.

Victor didn’t pay heed.

He softly ended the kiss, his fingers tilted her chin upward and he whispered, “So long.”

But it was too late.

Victor wasn’t bound to the Church’s laws.

But she was.

No. She was not a nun.

She was greater than that.

She was the seer.

And everyone knew that the seer serving the Church had to be a virgin, in thought and in reality. Being a virgin was not enough, she also had to be free of romantic ties.

Victor’s blue eyes gazed at her in admiration.

“Soon,” he said. “Soon, I will make you my bride and take you from this accursed place!” he said, and he rode away.

So she wanted it to be, too.

But the Father faced her and with a grim tone, he said a single word, “Guards,” and pointed toward her.

She was, even then, recalling Victor’s voice saying “Jennifer” – caressing the word like it was a prize.

Maybe it was.

But she had underestimated her importance to the Church. She had underestimated the Church, as well.

Now she doubted if she would ever see him again.

***

The terrain there was rough. The roads that angled into the village and into the Church lands made for a rickety journey in the van.

Victor had come to the Father, hoping for an answer he did not know he was not going to get.

“You must atone for the sin of besmirching her maidenhood,” he was told.

Victor found everything frustrating and troublesome.

“She is the light in my life,” he told the Father, and that too pretty courageously, truth be told.

“She provides light to the ton in our lives,” the Father solemnly said.

“She is to bear her punishment, for the Maiden of the Light is a seer who cannot dally with a man!” the Father stated.

“I wish to see her,” Victor said.

“Then you must wait for seven days. And in the time that you do, I will be present, to preserve the honour and the Light that she bears!” the Father declared.

***

When the Light first touched her, she was but ten years old.

The Light would show her the bigger picture in the future.

For the next three years, all the massive occurrences that happened – Jennifer had seen them first and warned the others of it.

At 11 years of age, the Light showed her the drought that would ravage the village.

When she told the villagers and the Father of this, they prepared themselves successfully for facing the calamity.

When she saw earthquakes happening 2 years later which shook the Church into a rubble, the Church was strengthened and did not collapse.

The robbers who came to the village found a terribly well prepared villagers fighting them and rounding them off.

So the Light showed Jennifer. Things, secrets, the possibilities.

The Father was intent on teaching Jennifer.

For she was the seer.

***

Jennifer moaned in her sleep.

Then suddenly she was awake.

It was dark.

Victor had come. The darkness engulfed everything in its way.

But it was only a figure who looked like Victor.

The real Victor was tied to the chains. He groaned as someone whipped him.

The Other Victor signaled her to come with him.

Something was wrong, sensed Jennifer.

The eyes of the Other Victor glowed red.

Jennifer woke up.

“What does this mean?” she said aloud.

She shivered.

***

“The Maiden of Light must be saved!” the Father cried out, amidst all the villagers who circled around the Church, much like the French local surrounded the guillotine or the Roman people surrounded the arena in which the gladiators fought.

“YES!” shouted the villagers, edging forwards toward the pole where Jennifer’s hands were tied, but were stopped by the boundaries drawn by the local police.

“The seer had almost been desecrated,” the Father said.

“But she has been purged and punished!” he continued.

“But those who made this happen must also be punished!” he said, and revealed Victor.

Victor was bound to a pole by his hands and feet.

Jennifer’s hands turned cold, her face pale.

“Wait!” Jennifer screamed.

“Please! I have to tell you something of relevance!”

Then she told him what she had seen. What the Light had shown her…

“Alas! Despite of whatever you have seen, you are a traitor! I will not resign you to a fate where you are desecrated by a virile male! You will spend 7 days more in the hellhole till we decide what is to be done with you!” the Father said.

Jennifer heaved a sigh of relief.

Victor was freed.

Jennifer kept looking at him for a long while.

His eyes looked like a poor thirsty camel, the way he looked at her.

She gave him a small smile.

He bowed.

He mouthed, “I am coming for you,” as the guards took him away.

***

Was the darkness now making its home in her? She had seen Victor’s eyes turn red. But what did that thing mean? How would she know whatever it meant?

She knew it was only another 7 days.

She had decided that she didn’t want to be the seer of the village anymore.

She would break free of the RULES and spend the rest of the days of her life with Victor.

He was the only reason she was now keeping her head low, polite and respectful. Meek.

Suddenly, she felt a hand snake past her waist and another hand press against her face.

She couldn’t feel anything as she blacked out.

***

When she woke up, everything was in chaos.

The villagers screamed.

She could hear the Father sobbing.

Her eyes turned to the man she was so intent upon.

And when she did, she turned cold.

Victor.

Her Victor.

Was it him?

Yes, it was him – shackled onto a women’s neck.

Victor turned to Jennifer and their eyes met.

His eyes were blood red.

***

“Stop! Please, Victor, no!” Jennifer cried.

Victor hesitated.

Then he brushed aside the woman, who was screaming and running away. She looked as if she had seen a ghost.

Victor smiled at her, a slow smile.

“No, no, no…” Jennifer whispered as she ran towards him.

Victor’s smile did not disappear. Instead he took her hand as she cupped it against his cheek

“It’s okay,” gurgled Victor.

“No, no, no,” moaned Jennifer as she looked down and said, “What’s happened to you?”

“The day I met you was the brightest day of my life. They wanted to take you away from everything, have you killed…that is when I realized that maybe, just maybe, it’s okay if I returned the favour. They told me you were already dead, you see.”

“If you had let them whip at me that day,” he continued, “this wouldn’t have happened,” Victor said, with wry humour.

Jennifer was now crying.

“I can’t let them go on like this!” Jennifer heard a voice.

Before the Father or the villagers could do anything, she felt a force blow them away to a far, far away place.

When she opened her eyes after a blink, she saw a beautiful woman and a handsome man beside her.

“In this land where you exist, it is like the floo powder they use in Harry Potter,” Poppy said wryly.

“Don’t worry,” chimed Wyatt.

Jennifer’s eyes turned wide.

“We’ll teach him the ropes,” Poppy said out loud. “The ropes to how to be a responsible vampire,” she said.

“I got angry, when I saw what they were doing to him,” Poppy implored, like she was saying sorry.

“They wouldn’t give him food or drink, and he was simply thinking of you, and you alone. When that stupid man told him you were killed, it made him go nuts.”

“And everybody knows that angering a vampire with those that he or she loves is the last thing to do, if you want to leave alive…” Wyatt said reverently.

“I’m sorry Jennifer,” Victor said.

“We have saved you too. We require witches who can see the future too,” Wyatt said.

“Don’t be,” Jennifer said, ignoring Wyatt.

She hugged him and Poppy breathed a sigh of relief.

“Look at them,” Poppy whispered.

Jay said, “You could have been killed,” he admonished her.

“You don’t know the risk of turning one into a vampire!” Jay said.

“They could have killed him –”

“-And that is why I am not going to turn you to the Boss, Popsicles,” he said.

“Is it true they would have killed him?” said Jennifer.

“Yes,” said Victor.

“Then I am not sorry for what you did. Thank you. I would appreciate it if you taught him to control his thirst. And me to understand who I am,” said Jennifer.

“That would be my job,” Wyatt said.

“You are a seer, that much is true. But the extent of your powers remain to be seen. Let me take you to Myra…” Wyatt said.

“Later on,” Jennifer said, as she held Victor’s hand and leaned her head on his shoulders.

“I love you,” she said, through the words that were left so long unsaid.

“I love you too, my dear.”

“We can do this, together,” she smiled.

*** ***