Remember

It was a warm afternoon in October just before Halloween. Of course, at the time, the townspeople didn’t call it that way, but they were very fearful of the witches gathering, the fire they were burning, and the languages the witches were speaking. They couldn’t understand nor even imagine what the topic could be about, but nevertheless, the fear was very present in this town, tucked away between the steep mountains.

It was one hour before the sunset and a light warm breeze was softly unravelling leaves of all colours from the treetops, orange, red and yellow leaves were whirling around elegantly and if one were to watch them closely, the time stood still at that time. While the townspeople were scheming at the town square how to finally cast out the witches and the witches were planning a major gathering tonight, with no evil plans whatsoever, just for the sake of connecting with Mother Nature and Spirit, there was one girl, who belonged to neither group, who was traversing the town like a ghost, knowing she had forgot something but couldn’t really make out what it was. A long time ago, Hazel was always smiling, always brightening the day of everyone around her, she had a golden touch, you could say, and her aim was to soften the ones surrounding her, but somehow all of that got lost. Now she was the saddest girl you could find, not only sad but also empty and fearful for her life, completely without purpose.

The sky was slowly turning a light blue and it was just her with her thoughts alone, the town was empty and without all of the chatter and fuss started to become almost surreal. In that moment once it became dark, regret started to wash over her.

“Why am I even alive?”, she thought to herself, “What is my point? Just to cook and please others around me? To be a doormat? Never to remember what I truly want out of this life… Wasn’t there something else I should be doing?”

And while the darkness started to surround her, she was thinking about ending it all, maybe she would then wake up where she wanted to be, or at least, she would end her suffering, which never had a beginning or an ending… So she started walking towards the edge of the town and into the mountains as if an invisible hand was guiding her.

Her eyes started to get used to the darkness as she was walking the narrow road, thinking about if her life could have been different hadn’t she been abandoned by her parents, left with caretakers, who could not even take care of themselves, much less of a bright child… and all of a sudden a red fox crossed her path.

The red fox reflected in her green eyes and it stood still and started watching her, her freckles, her hair already started to turn grey at such a young age, and it watched her for a while, almost with pity, she thought, when all of a sudden, she said to the fox:

“Who are you? What do you want with me? Can’t you see a dead woman walking?”

The fox hissed at her, it almost seemed like it was smiling, and ran away.

“Right, as if a fox would reply to me, stupid!”, she thought with bitterness, as if betrayed by life. The funny thing was that she did really feel betrayed by life because she had no memory whatsoever of what happened five years ago nor that she once was filled with joy and happiness, the only thing that was left was fear, regret and suffering.

So she continued her walk into the dark forest, knowing no one would even notice her gone, and she did not care for the townspeople very much, no matter how long she lived with them, she always felt alienated, with no one to talk to about anything meaningful. Hazel didn’t know where she was headed, so she decided just to follow her intuition, “ending it” was a very tempting thought but she couldn’t do it just yet and her head started to feel very heavy as if in a daze, her burden became too arduous at this point… She lit a small candle she brought with her and sat on a log, feeling neither thirst nor hunger nor any desire whatsoever.

“Maybe I should go to sleep? But how could I sleep in the middle of the forest? Are there wild beasts here?

…

Well, since it doesn’t matter anyway, I could just try to sleep.”

While she was lying there beside her little candle, on the other side of the town, the witches started to gather and walk towards the forest as well, intending to hold their ceremony in honour of Mother Nature and the Creator, just like every year. Aurora, the head of the coven, with her long silver hair and young face, was graciously leading the way with her sisters following her. The “normals” were always afraid of her, since they could not even imagine what kind of power she could possess and what she would do with it if they risked making her angry, so they decided to give up on their plans this year, they were not ready to risk their lives, but they had no clue about the reality of her, in truth, she was just deeply connected with Spirit and never would she use her power against anyone but pure evil…

As they approached the forest, the red fox came to Aurora, it was indeed her familiar.

“Mistress Aurora, I think I spotted one of ours, but she completely forgot who she was.”, spoke the fox with a cute boyish voice.

“Oh, you don’t say? And where is she now?”

“She went into the forest, I wanted to talk to her but I thought I would scare her away. Since she spent so much time with the normals, she wouldn’t expect a fox to talk back to her… What shall we do? She seemed so desperate, her hair started to already turn grey, her field weak as if she was at the end of her life…”, replied the fox with great concern for the girl.

“Don’t worry, fate is resourceful as they say. Let’s bring her back to life.”, replied Aurora with grace, “But first she will have to clear that damp cloud of darkness, in order to join us.”

“I have an idea.”, her sister Mirta replied, “Let’s give her the potion of remembrance.”

Hazel was already asleep, her candle burned out, as another familiar, a pearl white cat, approached her, meowing and cuddling next to her. This warm presence woke her up.

“Hey, who are you? What are you doing here?”, she spoke inadvertently, with no hopes of getting a reply.

“I’m here to bring you this.”, replied the cat, pointing to the bottle she was wearing on a neckband around her neck.

Hazel was a little startled, but in her sleepy state, she couldn’t make out if she was still dreaming or not.

“Drink this, it will help you remember.”

So she drank the potion and fell back to sleep in this reality, but woke up in another:

Here, she was much stronger physically, her hair bright brown, and her body was filled with electricity, aliveness and eagerness. She remembered herself five years from now, but still didn’t know what happened that weakened her that much. Hazel was indeed on her way to expel the evil warlock from this town and her magic was at its peak.

“I remember now, I AM powerful!”

As she was riding her horse, her familiar, that same white cat, was by her side, ready to help her.

“It is you! My familiar! How could I have forgotten… I missed you so much, Luna!”

“I missed you too.”, replied Luna purring and cuddling next to her.

“I will not allow his evil deeds to go on any longer, not on my watch!”

And soon they arrived at the foot of his castle, of her archenemy, the warlock Bellamy, which was entirely made of darkness, pitch black bricks and an ominous cloud surrounding it… Entering inside with Luna, she had a horrible feeling about this, but her determination was stronger than any fear at the time, but there was no chance she could win, after all, the warlock gathered darkness for thousands of years and played chess with the normals, feeding off of their fear, hatred and misery - it was perfect for him that they couldn’t defend themselves and even those that wanted to defend them, they labelled as evil witches.

The moment she entered, a dark fog surrounded her, she lost Luna out of sight, and that black magic took all her powers away, cursed her to think she was one of the normals and to spend five years not knowing who she was, in the depths of suffering.

…

Now she woke up five years later with a shock.

“Luna!!! How could you allow me to forget everything?”

“I’m so sorry, I couldn’t talk to you… I tried but you didn’t understand me at all, all you heard was me meowing like a regular cat, you completely forgot me and yourself...”, replied Luna with deep sadness.

“I’m so sorry too, that he overpowered me… Do you know where he is now? And how did the others not wake me up?”

“They couldn’t since he erased their memories of you, the spell was so dense, it overpowered the whole coven… And I don’t know where he is and I am really scared to go down that road again.”

“Alright then, let’s go meet my family again.”

And Luna happily took her to the bonfire the witches were gathering around in the middle of the forest. The whole point of the fire was to serve as a reminder of light on this darkest night.

Hazel remembered Aurora and all her sisters, the spell was broken, so they could recognise her too.

“Hazel!!! It was you who we sent Luna to with the potion… Oh my God, oh my God, did he manage to make me forget about you? He will pay for it this time… All this time I was wondering whom Luna belongs to and why she is alone...”

“Aurora, I’m so glad to see you…”, cried Hazel and hugged her strongly.

Hazel’s powers were still very weak, but as the days went by and she was nurtured by her family, she started to become stronger, with the hopes of one day facing him again and this time, winning. And by the time the Summer Solstice arrived next year, she was smiling again, having faith again and knowing that she does have a purpose on this planet, not to fit in with the normals, but to be a guardian of the Light.