Year 1008 D.E.

  Falling out of bed woke Keshiema from her nightmare. She bumped her nightstand as she crashed to the floor. Her small flower vase hit her head right between her small gray horns. She winced, squinting her pupil-less gray eyes. The commotion woke her roommates. Tobias and Mia got up and checked on her. Mia picked up the silver lily and blue dahlia while Tobias helped Keshiema sit up. "Hey, you okay?" he whispered as he took her hand.

  A stray bit of silver hair fell over Keshiema's pale face, partially obscuring the blue eight-pointed star in the center of her forehead. Mia brushed the hair away. "Do we need to get you some safety rails?" she asked with a sly smile. Keshiema covered her mouth, giggling quietly. Her hair and eyes changed from misty morning gray to vibrant electric blue.

  "May!" A man hollered from somewhere else in the house. The children looked at the door in horror, frozen in place. The color instantly drained from Keshiema’s hair and eyes once more as knots formed in the pit of her stomach. "Get your ass in here and help me, Woman!" A woman yelled back an intoxicated slurry of insults.

  A screaming match ensued between the adults in the next room. The shouting grew closer. A loud crash roused Tobias from his petrified state. He ordered Keshiema to hide under her bed. Grabbing his sister's hand, he ran towards his bed, but the door swung open before they managed to make it. The woman stomped into the room. "What are you doing up?" Dropping a thick glass bottle, she grabbed them by their hair. A pungent odor filled the small room as the liquid spilled out. Evil intent filled her voice as she shouted, "Chu! Bring a couple chairs!" She smiled wickedly.

  "What've we got, May?" Chu dragged in two old chairs and a few pieces of rope. He held Tobias still as May tied Mia to one of the chairs. The two adults worked together to bind the boy to the other chair.

  Silent tears overflowed Keshiema's large silver eyes as she peered out from beneath her small, broken bed. She watched in horror as Chu and May soullessly tortured Tobias and Mia. The star on her forehead glowed dimly in the darkness as she stifled back sobs of fear. The acrid scent of the spilled moonshine had her head spinning, making it harder to keep quiet. Still, she managed.

  An eerie silence filled the room between the harsh sounds of slaps and dull thuds of punches. Chu and May Leo loved to belittle and scream at the children they looked after. The lack of this common trauma left a sickening knot of fear in Keshiema's stomach. She silently prayed to her lucky stars for the beating to end.

  May grabbed something from the closet just above Keshiema's line of sight. As the tip of it slammed against the floor with a loud ringing, she immediately recognized it as an old aluminum bat. The knots in her stomach tightened as the woman dragged the bat across the wooden floor and handed it to her husband.

  Without a word, Chu slammed the bat into Mia's head, knocking her unconscious. Tobias screamed, cursing the adults for hurting his little sister. "I'll kill you both! You fat pieces of-" Chu smiled when the bat connected with Tobias' skull.

  After untying the young ones, the caretakers tucked them into their beds. Each kissed one child on the forehead, whispering in sickly-sweet tones, "Goodnight, little one. No one will ever love you more than we do." They left the room, quietly closing the door behind them.

  Keshiema waited under the bed for several minutes, listening carefully to the sounds outside her room. Old floorboards creaked under heavy footsteps. Unbalanced bodies bumping into the walls. The distant thud of the heavy kitchen door slamming closed. Chu and May would go for another bottle and pass out after only a few more sips.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Crawling out, she quietly tiptoed to her roommates' sides. Looking over their wounds, she doubted her ability to care for them. Tobias stirred and reached out for her. "Keshiema?" his dry, raspy voice worried her further.

  "Yes, Tobi." Her soft words barely reached his ears. Tobias tried to sit up, but Keshiema set her hand on his chest and shook her head. "Please don't make yourself worse." Her voice was thick, and her silver eyes sparkled, filled to the brim with tears she refused to let fall.

  Tobias complied but gave her a sour look. "Wait, heal Mia first. I think Fat Chu hit her harder with that bat." His heart raced, and his skin crawled. The sensations were all too familiar. He worried that if Keshiema helped him first, she might run out of magic before helping his sister. He tried to calm his nerves by reminding himself she had never failed before.

  “Well, she is harder to knock out than you.” Giving him a kind, reassuring smile, Keshiema turned around and faced Mia's bed. His injuries looked worse, and the lie tasted bitter on her tongue, but she knew Tobias too well to argue. And given Mia had yet to wake up, it was most likely a good idea to help her as quickly as possible.

  Taking slow, deep breaths, Keshiema placed her hands over her racing heart and closed her eyes. Her hair regained the metallic electric blue that marked her neutral, grounded state. A calmness overcame her as her heart rate slowed, and a gentle warmth filled her stomach where moments before existed a tangled mess of fear and anxiety.

  She placed her left hand over Mia's heart. The wind rose symbol on Keshiema's forehead glowed faintly, and a purple aura formed around her hands. Mia squirmed and winced in pain as her injuries started healing rapidly. Relieved, Tobias carefully lowered himself back into his pillow.

  The gash on Mia's head stopped bleeding and scabbed over while deep purple bruises formed on her face and arms before lightening to pale yellow. Opening her eyes, Keshiema moved her right hand to Mia's forehead. "Miskia altoa co mar, Mia Davis." Taking her hand away from Mia's forehead, Keshiema sighed with relief when she saw a star identical to her own, faintly visible there. A few seconds later, the star faded away.

  "What is it you say?" Tobias whispered. "Miskia something, what does it mean?"

  The question caught her by surprise. No one had asked her what the demon phrase meant in the two years since her healing magic manifested. "Miskia altoa co mar. It means rest free of pain," Keshiema answered, although not exactly sure how she knew. "You know you need to sit still, or it won't work, Tobi." Tobias closed his eyes, letting himself pass out without another word.

  Keshiema's healing abilities appeared suddenly two years before, when she was only six years old. She had no formal lessons but spent years in an abusive orphanage; what she lacked in training, she made up for with experience. It also helped that over the years, Tobias had helped her acquire spell books and medical texts.

  After healing Tobias, Keshiema crawled into her own bed, knowing only nightmares awaited her. She had hardly slept over the last few days, and after using her healing magic, she desperately needed rest. She feared her dreams, but sleep came quickly.

  ***

  Five-year-old Keshiema stared down the dark hallway from the laundry room. Pressing her back against the large wooden door that led to the garage, she shrank to the floor. With a loud thump, the washer beside her shut off, ending its spin cycle. Disappointed, Keshiema listened to the silence, previously drowned out by the old machine. Clutching her small white bear tightly to her chest, she stifled back tears. Only the cold, quiet air kept her company now. She shivered, too afraid to run down the hallway and turn the heater on. Bravery escaped her often since her grandmother's death. "I know, Glacier." She closed her eyes, tightening her grip on the fluffy white bear." I miss her too."

  "Why didn't I turn the light on?"' She stared into the dark hallway, angry with herself. She thought about taking the power crystal from the washing machine’s control panel. "Mom would be mad..."

  A loud shriek came from the other side of the house.

  ***

  "No!" Keshiema screamed, reaching out into the darkness. With wide eyes, she looked around the room. The details of the nightmare faded as her eyes adjusted. Looking over at Tobias and Mia, she let out a heavy sigh. "Relax. It was three years ago. It's not coming back for me." Praying only the dreamless void of darkness awaited her this time, she curled up on her side, repeating the words quietly until sleep finally returned to her.

  Translations

  Miskia altoa co mar = Rest free of pain