The Skye Trilogy: Isle of Skye, Isle of Night, and Isle of Dawn. * Bonus: Scrumptious Skye Confections Cookbook* (92 page)

The mountains were spread out all around me as far as the eye could see, and they looked like they were bathed in starlit splendor. I truly felt like I was on top of the world. Since I was so high up in altitude I thought I would be freezing but the air around was calm and warm. That was when I started to feel fear. The element of Earth had tried to ease me into absorbing her power, and I knew that was what the Air was doing as well. I appreciated the almost motherly attempt to be gentle, but it only made me more apprehensive.

When the first light stirrings of the air caressed my face, I breathed in and forced myself to relax. I tried to enjoy the soft whisper of the clean, crisp breeze. The second I heard that I had to be up here all night I knew it was not going to be a pleasant walk in the woods. All of a sudden the air stopped moving and I looked around confused.

Suddenly a gust of wind came howling across the valley below me. I braced myself as it came closer to where I stood. The second it came swirling towards me I was knocked on my ass. I let out a grunt as my back hit against a large rock, but I was grateful for its support. Without the rock, I was pretty sure I would have gone flying across the top of the mountain.

The wind started whipping around me like a tornado, and that’s when I heard the most peculiar sound. At first I thought I was imagining things, after all, my mother was nowhere near me. I knew though it was the sound of her weeping, and I looked around frantically. Had she found a way to find me? I asked myself. I tried to stand up, but I again fell back down on the ground.

More sounds of cries and pain filled the air. My father’s voice had joined my mothers, and I looked around in absolute horror. They sounded like they were standing right next to me. It was then I recalled a short conversation from long ago. The night we had left Yuma to come to the Isle of Skye my mother had whispered a small chant to let down the protective barriers around our house so that we could open a portal.

I had asked her laughingly why she had whispered the spell. Was she worried that someone might hear her, I asked. She told me that there were many Casters and Fae that used the wind to eavesdrop and that there were certain things you should never say out loud. It wasn’t until this very second that I understood.

Air is what we need to breath. Air is what we use to say a spell or to say hello. It was not just about gentle breezes on a summer day or what fuels weather patterns. It surrounds us and keeps us alive. I started trembling when I realized that absorbing the element of the Air was not about manipulating the wind but having the ability to control and hear every person’s energy.

I thought briefly about what Jeremiah had said and wished that I had left with just the power of the Earth and Fire. I knew that there was no turning back now. I couldn’t leave even if I wanted too. The sounds of my parent’s cries were joined by my grandmother. I could hear the desperation in her voice as she called out my grandfather’s name, and I knew that I was hearing her from long ago when she thought the Rau had murdered Archie.

I tried to ignore it all. I tried to push it out of my brain and focus on something else but when a roar went whipping around me I froze. It was Mathias’s voice, and he was in so much pain. I could almost see him standing in a wood paneled foyer as he yelled with all his might. I knew this was the moment he had found his sister that he loved like a daughter murdered. I never in my life wanted to hear him like that. I always tried to ignore the suffering he must have endured at the hands of his father because anything that could hurt Mathias so much killed me.

Millions of other voices and cries filled the air as I sat there frozen in shock. I knew that I was hearing the sounds of people’s heartache because more often than not those are the ones that people scream with the most emotion. It was completely overwhelming. In one ear, I felt like someone was whispering frantically and in the other I almost felt the vibrations from their wailing.

My eyes were darting around frantically, and I could feel my breathing become shallower. I briefly considered hurling myself off the side of the mountain when more whispers and shrieks reached my ears. I could still hear my parents and Mathias. It was like someone had them on a CD and was pressing repeat.

I drew my knees up to my chest and laid my head down. I wrapped my arms around me and started rocking back and forth as more cries of people that I knew came streaming across the valley towards where I sat. I tried to cover my ears but when I did that everything just became louder. I then tried to call upon the earth and fire to calm me, but my flames kept getting blown out almost instantly. The ground that had tried to envelope my body was pulled apart by the air. I saw the flecks of dirt drift away from me, and I let out a cry of frustration.

I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to hear this and I didn’t want this awesome power. I was not capable of having this inside of me, and I knew it but there was nothing I could do now. The storm had started, and I had no choice but to sit here and listen. When the cries turned to screams, my voice joined in the chorus. I’m not sure how long I sat there but once my voice finally cracked from the shrieking I starting banging my head against the rock.

I wasn’t conscience of trying to kill myself, but I thought maybe if I could knock myself out the voices would stop. I felt a trickle of blood pour down my face, and I hit my head again. The only thing that resulted in was seeing stars before my eyes and an even more pounding head. The cries and screams stopped for a second, but I knew it wasn’t over. The Air was mad at me now. It knew that I had been trying to escape its power and it was going to make me pay for my disobedience.

I didn’t understand at first what the soft sounds meant but when I heard a baby cry I realized I was starting to hear the sound of life coming into this world. It was so unexpected that I wasn’t sure how to process what was happening. I almost let out a cry of joy myself until I heard another sound that stopped me dead. It was the gasping sound of a dying man. I had no idea who he was, but I heard his struggle as he tried to cling to life and tears started pouring down my face.

I could almost see the life of the next newborn as it took its first breath. I could even hear the sound of joy that emanated from the baby’s proud parents. When those cries drifted away, I tensed automatically for what was next. The sound of a woman trying desperately to take in oxygen before finally giving in to deaths endless darkness was the most heart wrenching thing I had ever heard.

I wanted to shout that I got it, I understood what the Air was doing but still she would not let up on her assault. I also felt a twinge of sadness from the Air. She didn’t want to subject me to this, but she had no choice. I had to experience this because she had to make sure I could handle every aspect of what the Air could do with its awesome power.

God, help me, but I almost related to Lord Fonn. Anyone that went through this would never be fully sane. I realized that when he took this power he was already slightly angry and filled with hate. I’m sure that this only magnified his already fragile state of mind, and I could see why he would covet the power of the other elements because having just this was honestly too much for one person. I’m sure he sought relief through extreme ways, and I didn’t blame him.

I was aware that my empathy for Lord Fonn, however small, was part of the lesson she was trying to teach me but after a while I didn’t care about anything. I wasn’t sure if I would ever be capable of walking again much less moving forward with any normal existence.

The next few hours were the most agonizing hell I could ever imagine. I went from one extreme to the next. Happiness and grief came over me so often that I started not to recognize the difference as I heard the sounds of life being born and taken away. I tried to yell stop, but my voice had been gone for a while now. Instead, I whispered the word softly. I begged for it to end. I even begged and pleaded that someone would come along and kill me. I had no desire or wish to be alive any longer.

Unlike the time before when I had absorbed the earth’s power, I knew who I was, and I wanted my life to end right here and now. There was no way I would ever be the same person again.  After hearing the sound of a person’s last breath, I had no desire to kill anyone, even the Rau. All I wanted was to leave this world. I would never be able to look at another human being again the same way. I knew their secrets and their sorrow. I heard their joy and their grief.

I just wanted it gone. I wanted this whole thing to be a nightmare that I woke up from and could dismiss from my mind. I wished with all my heart that I could forget, but I knew I would never be able too. I didn’t realize at first that the wind and voices had died down. I could still hear them in my head so the fact that the wind was no longer carrying them to me was of no consequence. They would never truly leave me.

I sat staring at the sky that was becoming brighter every minute and knew that I should get up and leave, but I couldn’t move. I didn’t want to leave my seat on top of this mountain. How could I ever be around people again? Would I hear their thoughts or their words every time the wind blew? I unfurled my legs from my chest and looked down on the ground.

In front of me was a long dagger. I picked it up with shaking hands and touched the sharp tip. A pool of blood from the prick it had made in my finger came dripping down the blade, and I stared at it in fascination. All I would have to do was slit my wrists and lay here watching the sun rise as I drifted away in peace. I wouldn’t have to fight or try to pretend to be normal ever again. I could just disappear and all the madness that had entered my brain would vanish.

It was so tempting, and I knew as I placed the dagger to my wrist that it would be over soon. I was just about to make the first cut when suddenly a voice whispered in my head.

Willa, get up

I jerked up with a start. Mathias, I thought. Why is Mathias talking to me?

Willa, get up

“No,” I said. “I don’t want too. I’m sorry, but I have to do this. I can’t go on anymore. This experience has all been too much for me. I’m so sorry Mathias for what I am about to do to myself.”

Willa, please

I screamed in anger. “Why?” I shouted to the heavens, “Why me? I don’t want this power. I can’t handle it by myself. I’m nothing, I’m
a nobody.”

Fight this Willa

“I don’t want to fight anymore,” I yelled. “I want to die Goddammit.”

You’re better than this and you’re stronger than this

“I am not,” I said weakly. “I’m a total wimp. I’m sick of people telling me how strong and brave I am. They know NOTHING about what I am going through right now. They know nothing about what I am being put thru, just so what? That I can save some people’s lives. I don’t even want to save my own.”

It’s more than that, and you know. Now get the fuck up.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Is this you or is this me projecting what I think you would say to me?”

Silence greeted my question, and I knew what the answer was. I had reached out into my mind for Mathias and didn’t even understand what I had done at the time. It wasn’t him talking to me. It was me trying to talk myself out of taking my life.

I felt so ashamed by what I almost had done. I had never in my life thought about suicide. I always thought people who took their own lives were selfish cowards. I knew now that most of them were probably just trying to escape the pain, and I now had a much deeper understanding of the absolute despair one must face when they contemplate this course of action. I wasn’t proud of that fact, and honestly it’s not something I ever wanted to talk about again but I realized that this was another lesson and one I would never forget as long as I lived.

I stood up and groaned as the pain of sitting on the hard ground against a rock all night emanated through my body. I had been so caught up in the agony of my mind that I had not been aware of how my body was feeling. My head felt like it was going to split in two. My fingers touched my forehead, and I could feel the dried blood that had crusted on my skin.

I closed my eyes for a minute and tried to find the energy to walk but my feet were stuck firmly to the ground. Finally, I took a step forward and looked around. The sun was just starting to rise in the east, and the wind was nothing more than a light caress. I felt empty inside. I had been through so much physical and emotional pain that there was nothing left for me to feel any longer.

I looked at the dagger that was still in my hand, and I watched it drop to the ground as I released it. A warm breeze surrounded me, and I knew that I had passed the test. I felt no joy or elation when I realized that this was the Air’s approval of me. I would never be the same person ever again. I wasn’t sure if I would ever be able to find myself lurking in the depths of my soul because it now had so many cracks.

I walked down the sharp incline and went up and over the rocks. All I could think about was just trying to put one foot in front of the other. The only thing that was keeping me going was the fact that I was worried about Jeremiah. I prayed that he was safe. In my fragile state of mind, I wasn’t sure what I was capable of doing if I found out he was hurt or worse killed. King Kasius had been so kind that I would hate to break that trust with my actions.

I scrambled down in such a daze that I didn’t realize I was nearing the end of the path until I stepped on the balcony. The French doors opened, and I sighed with relief at the sight of Jeremiah, who took one look at me and froze in his tracks.