The weekend
Charlotte had promised to give them answers had finally arrived, but the two
Marquel girls had a small problem to solve before they could meet with the
ghost.
“She’s never
going to let us go,” Chantia stated moodily. Mia hummed in agreement, not even
bothering to grace her sister with a response.
“I mean,”
Chantia continued, “it’s like she thinks the moment we set foot outside the
house, something terrible will happen to us. She’s never even allowed me to
visit any of my friends’ houses!”
Mia hummed
again, tilting her head slightly. “That’s your own fault,” she pointed out. “If
you didn’t have the habit to disappear at odd times – like, during the Full
Moon – she would most likely have been more lenient,” Mia stated before giving
Chantia a pointed glare. “With both of us.”
Chantia sighed
heavily and pulled her leg closer to her chest with a scowl on her face.
“That was
Charlotte’s fault,” Chantia argued. “She said she wanted to show me something
and the next moment we were standing in front of her house.”
Mia stared
levelly at Chantia, her eyebrow lifted almost imperceptibly, causing the older
girl to fidget slightly.
“What? It’s
true!” Chantia insisted, uncomfortable at the stare. “She really did that!”
“Of course,” Mia
murmured, agreeing patronizingly with her sister.
Chantia scowled
at Mia.
“Fine, don’t
believe me,” Chantia dared the young genius, whose only response was to lift
her other eyebrow as well.
“I don’t
disbelieve you,” Mia disagreed. “I just don’t see how knowing that will get Mom
to let us go. When it was just an afternoon she didn’t mind, but she won’t let
us be gone the entire day. Not without adult supervision, in any case.”
Chantia pouted
slightly, knowing the younger girl was right.
“We could just
tell her we’re going to visit a friend,” she suggested. “There will be adults present, just not…living
ones.”
“She’ll want
names and numbers,” Mia pointed out.
“So we’ll give
her some,” Chantia replied. “We can tell her we’re going to…say, Joy’s house.”
Mia shook her
head. “Not going to work,” she disagreed. “She’ll most likely call Joy’s mother
to confirm that we’re really there,” she pointed out. The girls fell into
silence as they both thought about the problem.
“I’ve got an
idea,” Chantia said slowly after a minute or two. “We can tell her we’re going
to visit Joy. I’ll call Joy and ask her to cover us, so that if Mom calls them,
Joy can tell her that we went to the park or something,” Chantia suggested.
“Joy is already in high school, so I’m pretty sure Mom won’t have a problem
with that.”
Mia hummed
contemplatively, considering the idea. “It can work,” she agreed before
climbing off the bed and straightening her PJ’s. “Call Joy; I’ll talk to Mom.”
Chantia flashed
her sister a grin and watched the younger girl leave the room before she called
her best friend.
“Hey Joy, it’s
me, Chantia. Listen, I have a huge
favour to ask…”
Downstairs, Mia
found Evelyn in the kitchen, busy with her weekly cleaning routine. Evelyn gave
Mia a warm smile and turned her full attention to the girl, leaving the counter
she was cleaning alone.
“Good morning, Mia,” Evelyn greeted her charge
warmly. “Did you sleep well?” Mia assured Evelyn that she had, thank you, but
that there was actually something else she wanted to talk about.
“Oh,” Evelyn
replied, slightly amused by Mia’s tone. “Well then, what is it?”
“Can Chantia and
I go with Joy to the park? I’ve never officially met her, and Chantia’s
complaining that they haven’t seen each other in forever and…” Mia shrugged slightly,” we’d really like to get out of
here,” the girl confessed petulantly.
Evelyn bit her
lip softly in thought. Joy was
Teresa’s daughter and the girl was already in high school, so she couldn’t
really see any harm in letting the girls go with the teen.
“Okay,” she
consented. “Just make sure you’re back before dark and keep out of trouble. And don’t give Joy too much grief,” she
ordered sternly. Mia gave Evelyn one of her rare moments of emotion, smiling
and hugging the woman.
“Thank you!”
With that, Mia broke the hug and bounded up the stairs again to the room she
shared with Chantia. Evelyn just smiled after her, ignoring the part of her
mind that provided all kinds of horrible situations the girls could get caught
up in. Sunset Valley was safe. Her kids would be safe.
Minutes later,
the girls were dressed and ready for their big adventure. They both hugged
their mother goodbye before leaving the house all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
Of course, the
girls had no intention of actually going to the park, so after some time of
cycling, they finally arrived at the ghosts’ house. The house on the hill was
just as creepily ominous as it had always been, but something felt different to
Mia than the last time she had visited the house with Chantia.
A golden figure
sitting demurely by the tree caught Mia’s eye, causing her to smile slightly.
The girl humming so peacefully by the tree was golden and transparent, so she
had to be a ghost. That meant that Mia’s theories had been correct. Her potion would allow her to interact with ghosts.
The ghost looked
up at their approach, her eyes widening slightly.
“You’re here,”
she stated with a slight hint of hesitation in her voice. Her voice was just as
beautiful as Mia remembered.
“Yep,” Chantia
agreed cheerfully. “You asked us to come today, remember?”
The ghost smiled
at Chantia’s cheerful tone and relaxed slightly.
“I did, yes,”
Charlotte agreed with a soft smile. “I promised to answer your questions. But,
are you really sure you want to know? It’s a very long tale, and it might
change the way you view the world forever.”
Charlotte
fidgeted slightly with her hands, clearly uncomfortable with the topic. Mia
smiled slightly, trying to comfort the ghost.
“You don’t have to tell us, you know,” she assured
the ghost calmly. “We’d like answers, but if it makes you uncomfortable, you
really don’t have to force yourself.”
The ghost looked
at Mia in surprise, her eyes wide open in shock. “You can see me? How?” Charlotte asked incredulously. Mia
smiled reassuringly at the ghost before she described the potion she had
invented and the additional effects she believed the potion had. To her
greatest surprise and joy, Charlotte was able to follow her without problem and
even offered her own theories and suggestions.
“You’re really
clever, you know,” Mia told the ghost. “You’re the only one who has managed to
follow me without any problems.”
Charlotte smiled
knowingly at the young genius. “I know and understand your frustration,” the
ghost admitted. “When I was still alive, I was considered a genius as well. My
family expected many great things from me, but, well, I didn’t quite get the
chance to prove them right or wrong.”
A slightly
uncomfortable silence fell around them as the conversation took a morbid turn.
Charlotte shook
her head and smiled at the two living girls. “But that is in the past,” she
declared. “You came here with questions, and I promised I’d provide answers. So
come with me,” the ghost ordered and started walking towards the lake beside
the ghosts’ house, the two girls following obediently. “It’s a very, very long story, so we might as well
make ourselves comfortable.”
“So, what do you
want to know?” Charlotte asked once they had arrived at the lake and settled
down on the grass surrounding the lake.
Mia wasted no
time to ask her questions. “What happens when a person dies?” Mia asked
curiously. “Some of the theories I’ve read about state that people just cease
to exist after they die. I know this is a lie, because you’re dead, but you
still clearly exist. Other theories state that some kind of monster comes at
the time of death to reap a person’s soul and send them off to an afterlife. So
what is the truth?”
Charlotte hummed
thoughtfully and picked at the grass in front of her. “That’s actually a very complex
question,” she admitted. “Death and the afterlife aren’t quite as clear-cut as
they are in the stories,” the ghost said and leaned back in thought, supporting
her weight with her arms. “To really understand what happens, you have to know
more about the way the entire universe works,” she explained.
Mia perked up at
the admission. “You’re saying there’s a specific way the universe works? How is that possible? And why isn’t there more
information available on it?”
Charlotte
laughed, genuinely amused by Mia’s question. “Again, the answer is fairly
complex,” she said with a smile. “But yes, there is a specific way the universe works. You won’t be able to
understand any of my answers if I don’t explain the mechanics of the universe,
so I think I’ll start with that,” the ghost decided and started with her story.
You see, our universe is based on balance. For every
birth there must be a death and for every creation there must be a destruction.
For every good act, there must be a sinister one and for every smile given
there must be a tear shed. The principle of antithesis. But in reality, the
universe is in a constant strive for chaos. That is simply an inherent part of
the universe, since the universe is driven by the creatures inhabiting her, and
they are driven
by emotion.
Therefore, a being with the sole purpose of counteracting
this chaos and keeping the universe in balance exists. The Keeper of Balance
has to keep the world in balance. The only way it could manage to do so at the
beginning was by creating different parallel worlds; each of them a reflection
of another in at least one aspect.
“At least one
aspect? What do you mean by that?” Chantia asked for clarification. Charlotte
inclined her head in acknowledgement of the question before trying to clarify
her statement.
For example, say a world exists where no humans live
on, only animals. This world is also constantly in summer. Now, several
reflection worlds could exist to counteract this world. A world could exist
that only contains humans, and no animals. Or a world could exist that contains
only animals, but is constantly in winter. Then another world could exist that
is its direct reflection, meaning that only humans live on that world and the world is constantly in
winter. So the worlds are all reflections of one another in one aspect – the
type of creatures inhabiting it – or another – the season of the world. This is
the principle all of the worlds work on; or at least, should work on.
In reality though, the
universe hasn’t been in true balance for a very long time. While the principle of the reflected worlds is sound in theory, in
practice it is not so. This is because the reflections caused an infinite
amount of worlds to exist that are all connected and because they are all
connected, exchange between them is possible. Usually this is not such a big
problem, because the exchange that can happen is very limited and can therefore be
prevented by the Keeper. But, on nights of the Full Moon, this exchange can be
quite significant.
“Why?” Mia asked
curiously. “What makes full moon so special? And exactly what is exchanged
between the worlds?”
“I was getting
to that,” Charlotte mildly reprimanded and continued her explanation.
When I’m talking about Full Moon, I don’t mean the
physical celestial event. It is involved yes, but what I’m actually talking about
is the exchange of magic that occurs during the celestial event. You see, in
this universe, there exist magical worlds and their non-magical reflections.
For reasons not truly understood, the magic surrounding magical worlds are
stronger during the celestial event of full moon. On these nights, the magic is
so strong that it creates bridges to their worlds’ non-magical reflections,
causing the magic to enter the non-magical worlds. This event – this crossing
over of magic – is what is known as Full Moon. When these bridges form, the magic is so strong that objects and even people can cross over to the different worlds.
Now, to come back to your question about death and the
afterlife: our own world is a reflection of several others. One of the aspects
of this world is that only the Living can live on it. So, naturally, a world
exists that only the Dead can live on. Once a person has died, his or her soul
will separate from the body and will need to cross over to the world of the Dead. On normal nights, there isn’t enough magic in the air to allow the Dead to cross over, so the Keeper usually collects those souls and send them off to the world of the Dead. On Full Moon nights though, there is enough magic, so the Keeper doesn’t come to collect the Dead, as it doesn’t
have any need to. The Dead are able to cross over on their own.
Mia frowned slightly at Charlotte’s words.
“You make it sound like crossing over is compulsory,”
the younger girl confessed.
Charlotte tipped her head back, staring at the cloudless sky above her.
It is, actually.
We don’t belong in this world anymore, so when we don’t cross over after a certain amount of time, we start to…lose ourselves. We become mere shades of our previous selves, normally driven only by the emotion that caused us
to linger in this world. These shades are what is known as the Damned. We all
know this is a possibility of happening to anyone who doesn’t cross over
immediately, but sometimes…
The long-dead girl shrugged.
…sometimes we just
don’t care. We each have our own reasons for lingering, and to us, these
reasons are more than enough to risk becoming one of the Damned.
Chantia swallowed slightly. Charlotte was one
of her best friends, so the thought that the ghost might disappear was more
than enough to cause a lump to appear in her throat.
“Do the Damned....ever regain themselves?”
Chantia asked hesitantly. “I mean, if one of you guys were to ‘lose yourself’,
would you ever…” She made a vague gesture with her hand, trying to convey what
she was trying to say without actually speaking.
Charlotte shook her head with a sad smile on
her face.
“No,” she confessed. “Once a person has become a
Damned, that person cannot become whole again. Or at least, if there is a method, I do not know what it is.”
“Why do they ‘lose themselves’?” Mia
interjected curiously. “Is there an actual reason?”
Charlotte shrugged again. “There are many
theories,” she admitted, “but nobody really knows. Personally, I think it’s due
to a combination of energies and magicks that aren’t compatible with each
other. The world of the Dead is actually a magical world, so when we die we
ourselves become magical. This world isn’t magical though, so the non-magical
energy from this world tries to eradicate the magic, so…”
“So it’s the energy of this world that causes
the change?” Mia asked and leaned forward eagerly. “But if that’s the case,
won’t…” She launched into a highly technical conversation with Charlotte that
went completely over Chantia’s head.
“Uhm, guys, can we get back on subject please?”
Chantia interrupted the two genius’ conversation after several minutes. “You
might have the answers you wanted, but I still haven’t,” she protested with a
small pout.
Mia gave her a level stare, unimpressed by
being interrupted, while Charlotte smiled apologetically at Chantia.
“Oh, sorry,” the ghost apologized. “What did
you want to know?”
“How does the Song fit into all this?” Chantia
asked, her brows furrowed in confusion. “You told me way back when that I was
exposed to the Song when I was vulnerable, which is why I am able to see you
guys. But I really can’t see how it fits in with the tale you just told us.”
Charlotte smiled at Chantia, clearly slightly
amused.
I told you that
exchange of magic is possible between the worlds, but that the magic is so weak
on normal nights that the Keeper is able to prevent it from leaking over at
all. The truth is though, the Keeper doesn’t prevent it. I don’t know why, but
I guess the magic that leaks over into this world is so insignificant that the
Keeper simply doesn’t see the need to prevent it from crossing over.
Anyway, what the Song
actually is is the magic that crosses over to this world. You
and Mia are denizens of a mundane, non-magical world, so the magic shouldn’t
really affect you, but as we all know this isn’t the case with you two. You
Chantia, was exposed to the magic when it was at its strongest and you at your
most vulnerable, that is when you were born, with the result that the magic
latched onto you and gave you the ability to use it to a very small extent,
while Mia of course used her potion to obtain the same effect. But even though
Mia can see us now, she will never be able to hear the Song like you do. Your brain is able to detect the magic
surrounding you, but it doesn’t know what it is, so it translates the magic
into sound. With Mia though, her brain isn’t able to detect the magic, so
nothing is translated, with the result that she will never be able to hear the
Song.
Chantia frowned slightly. “That’s really a
pity,” she admitted. “The Song is so beautiful.”
“It is
very beautiful,” Charlotte agreed with a smile, “but even I haven’t heard it in
a very long time. So you really have no idea how blessed you are to be able to
hear it. Now, is there anything else you wanted to know?”
The two living girls shook their heads,
satisfied by the answers. Charlotte smiled happily at their silence.
“In that case, let’s do about something else,”
the ghost suggested. “Tell me, what do you think about…”
_~…~_
And cut! That took way too long to write. Sorry
about the load of dialogue and information, but it really is important for the
story to make sense. So, that is basically the way the world in my legacy
works. I hope everything is clear, but if it isn’t, feel free to ask! I rewrote
this a couple of times to have the info make more sense, but I’m not sure if I
succeeded.
I must say though, I am hyped for the next generation to start. That is where this overflow
of information is really going to play a role, so I really want it to start.
But since dearest Chantia still has to finish school and get through puberty, I
guess I’ll just have to wait >_<.
Oh yeah, another thing: you might’ve noticed
that Mia refer to Evelyn as her mother and to Chantia as her sister, while in
reality they’re actually her aunt and cousin. The reason for this is that
Evelyn actually did adopt Mia, so
Evelyn and Chantia are Mia’s mother
and sister – adoptive, but family nonetheless.
