Series: Willow Winters
Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 94417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
“Why do you press me about my mother so?” I question her. “It is not like you to be so vocal.”
The smallest pause tells me that Beatrice is choosing her words with great care. She has always spoken carefully but now she weighs every word as if it is the last time we will speak to each other.
“There was something in my cards today,” she begins. “A relationship of sorts that would ease your worries.” Tarot. The divinity that she seeks is not unlike the Fates.
“Perhaps it is you, Beatrice.” I do not need the cards to tell me that. Beatrice has always eased my worries.
She huffs a short laugh as if my interpretation is ridiculous. “I am only human, my lady.”
“Do not discredit the power of magic,” I tell her, though there is a certain irony in it, as I am the one losing my powers. I do not think magic will save me. It will not save me in time to preserve my place here. If anything does come of magic, it will come too late. The Fates have told me such.
Beatrice sighs. “If only I were of cunning descent. But alas.”
“All magic can be learned. I know.” I say this without feeling. My powers are weakening by the day, not growing stronger. If there was a cure to find in magic, certainly I would have found it.
“All magic can be learned,” Beatrice agrees, in a far more hopeful tone than mine. “You could always turn to magic, my lady. The Gods are gifted, but magic is for all of us.”
Again I scoff at her answer. “Allow the possibility of magic working,” she says. “That is all you must do. Simply allow it.”
It hurts to hear her have faith. Hope is the long way of saying goodbye.
“I used to think magic was for children. But then I learned of the Gods. You taught me anything is possible.”
My throat tightens and I’m unable to answer as I pass her candles with care and make my way to the cream silk settee. As I relax on it, attempting to ground myself, Beatrice continues.
“As long as there have been humans, there has been magic.” She asks, “Love spells were the first, weren't they?”
“Mmm.. it’s the first written, but I imagine there were others who did not write their intention,” I tell her with ease.
“I read the book from Egypt, the oldest book of magic in coptic,” she says with delight. I imagine it was offered to Hekate, the mother of witchcraft would have such delight with such things.
“And did you learn any spells?” I ask her, genuinely curious.
“There was one for love, but I do not think I crave to use it.”
I take her statement in and I do not know what possesses me to speak at the moment, but I say my thoughts with hopelessness, “I am not much different from mortals I think.”
Beatrice comes to sit beside me, the settee creaking slightly. “You are the daughter of Zeus, King of the Gods, and Demeter, Goddess of the Harvest. The divine is within you.”
The last of the day’s sunlight fades outside of Olympus as the wary seconds pass. It is no less grand in the dark. Milky shadows and gold lamplight decorate the walls in my rooms. There is endless grandeur outside my windows, the sky and the clouds paying constant tribute to my father. They even honor my mother, who uses her gifts above them and below. They do not honor me. Soon I will be like a flower in a mortal garden, alive only for a short time and offering only a pleasant thing to look at. Beauty is not enough for me to keep my place in Olympus.
“You are not like mortals,” she says so convincingly.
“Yet they pray to me to bring life,” I say, my frustration growing. “And I fail them.”
“They pray because you will bring it.” Beatrice puts a comforting hand on my arm. I wish I could take more comfort from it, but all the signs I have seen point to the forest and loneliness. There will be no other place for me. These rooms will not be mine. This place on Olympus will not be mine. “Magic takes time,” she says as if it is an answer.
“No.” I stare Beatrice in the eyes, and she looks back at me, her mouth set in a line. “They pray because the prophecy foretold my powers. We all know what is foretold does not always come true.”
“If that is so, then today is not set in stone, is it?”
It’s hard to accept her denial when I can feel it in my bones.
“You are able to bring life,” she says, her voice steady.
“Not the life they pray for.”
“Another kind, then. There are many kinds of life among the gods and mortals. Show me what you can do, my lady.”