Voltarrens had set out for a walk by the stream after she had finished her chores around the house for her mother. It was a pleasant afternoon and from time to time she had the feeling that something was watching, but could never quite catch sight of what it was just like the hint of distant rain on the breeze. At first she just dismissed it, as it seemed to disappear as she walked further along the path.
     By mid afternoon she had found herself sitting on the grassy bank by the reeds in the shade of a willow tree. She stared across the stream and thought she saw a hazy shape darting amongst the shadows trying to hide. She looked at the many birds fluttering in the leaves hoping it was one of them, but couldn’t shake off her feelings of uneasiness. Finally she convince herself that it was tiredness that was playing tricks on her eyes. Even the trees had stopped their whispering and seemed to be at rest in the atmosphere of peace.
     Stubbornly, something nagged at the back of her mind, like the questions she had of life, wondering if that was all there was to experience in the world.  When she asked her father he had said not to worry about what lay beyond, that this village held everything that she would ever need. Her mother had not said much either and just reassured her that questioning was natural at her age and just a phase she was going through. Still it bothered her with a hint of something she just didn’t have the right questions for. It scared her a little and she didn’t know why.
     It was some time later that she found herself drifting, the babbling of the stream over rocks and the warmth of the day was lulling her toward sleep. Still she tried to watch the birds and wildlife on the other side, hoping and not hoping to see if she could glimpse the shadowy shape again.
     In her vivid dream she saw the apparition again, a lot darker in its form as it raced toward her. It had an almost human shape, its long thin hands reaching out, tendrils flying out from the side of its head like snakes. It felt like frost and fire, repulsion and desire. The featureless face imposed its non-existent stare intensely, convoluting to take on form. Suddenly a grinning face that pushed through the dream demon confronted her.
     Her eyes opened.  There was a middle-aged man sitting beside her, his clothes seemed to blend with the trees. The dark shadow from her nightmare still persisted in her vision. There was the overpowering feeling to leap up and run, but an invisible force was holding her down.
     "Why the hurry?" he asked with a grin and unmoving lips. "You’ve never had cause to hurry this much before."  His telepathic voice had a hint of mirth within it.
     She stared, frozen, still half in her dream and finding her mouth would not respond.   Fright was now holding her to the spot as the invisible force began to dissipate.
     "Interesting," he continued slowly, turning away to look beyond the stream, "just because you’re confronted with something you can’t fathom, is that any reason to inspire flight? That shadow couldn’t have been that terrifying to you, or is it me who instills fear in you?" he asked turning back to her. She perceived him laughing softly as a background echo.
     His looked back at her. Her mouth was still agape. Tilting his head slightly he reached over and lifted her chin into place. “Not the best of expressions, my dear. Maybe I should speak with my lips...useless as it is to myself.”  Slowly his mouth caught up with his words.  “I was under the impression you wouldn’t find this too bizarre, considering how you are able to understand the language of trees.”
     “Wha...??”she was finally able to gurgle from the depths of her throat.
     “You know what I’m talking about, don’t be coy with this knowledge in front of me.  I know you have to hide your magical abilities from just about everyone in the village except your mother. And the answer is no.  I have not been watching you like a peeping tom.  That nebulous shape you have been spotting from time to time was not I.  I actually stepped in to stop it from getting to you.”  He paused and tilted his head the other way. “Hmmm. Perhaps if you now started using your lips, it wouldn’t be so rude of you as I’m using mine now.” He made a very elaborate magical flourish to calm her a little.
     “What did you do just then?” she asked, the words tumbling from her lips.
     “Oh,” he said innocently, “that....” He looked directly at her. “You’re still a bit slow at catching on, aren’t you?  All of this...” The world seemed to stutter for a moment. “All this is done for a purpose, intricate and startling as it may seem to you at the moment.
     “You are still young and have much to learn, Voltarrens.  Yes, I know many things about you, who you are and some of the things you are to do in the Six Realms of the world.  Even though your mother has taught you many things, she can only teach you what she knows, and they are very basic things.  She prefers to be a doer, showing you the practicalities of daily life and survival, but she is not a teacher of higher things.  You will find she will support you in your quest as to what you are to do next in the world but cannot help you walk the path.”
     “Which is what, may I ask?”
     “Who you are.”
     “Who I am?  I’m not sure I understand...” she started.
     He waved a hand for her to stop. “It is question without being one.  Something few question within themselves unless cornered, and even fewer understand through their life times.  But you, young lady, are going to question more than most on this one.”
     “Does this have to do with the questions I have been asking myself? The ones no one can answer for me?”
     “Yes,” he said nodding knowingly.  “The question begs a response, and that response is myself.”  He gave a small bow. “The reason for my being here now. I am Traveller and I am yours.”  His alert eyes glinted and a cheeky smile passed across his lips.
     “Mine??”  She wasn’t sure how to take this little man in the traveler’s apparel with the show of magic, offering himself up to her.
     “Yes. I appear because of your question, summoned you might say in a round about way.  Your mother arranged this long ago, not long after you were born actually.” His grin gleamed with more light than was possible.  “And by the way, your father isn’t your real father, but he doesn’t know that; only your mother does, and your sister is a Mundane, or rather chooses to be one. ”
     Voltarrens sat silently stunned.



     Traveller had her think differently about events as they talked. He seemed to know quite a lot about her, even though she had never met him before, and had the feeling that there was something mysteriously familiar about him. He induced her to reflect back on memory about her sister, father and mother. Her father was rather tall, brawny and rough in his features, cool and somewhat practical and predicable in his temperament.  Her sister being a number of years younger and less inclined toward the magical seemed more in tune with him and did not have the same bond as Voltarrens had with her mother. The traits she had always thought of as coming from her father, she now realized were something she had learned in her childhood through imitation.
     It was mother who had always been there for her, with her graying hair tied back and comforting eyes and loving heart. She constantly wore a well-used apron over her long full-skirted dresses and black lace up vest as a large amount of her time was spend in the kitchen and garden. Although she did not always seem patient with Voltarrens, she was the one who had encouraged her to take the first few steps in her magical abilities and allowed her to develop on her own.
     The land of nightly dreams had been used as the teaching ground.  It was the only way to keep it hidden from the rest of the small village.  The people who lived there were entirely from the Mundane Realm, those who sort to live away from the other Realms.  Very few travelers or merchants passed through, and the village folk wanted to keep it that way.  They had come to settle in this place to return to a simpler way of life without the aid of magic or the fast pace of city life around them, because of their beliefs.
     While Voltarrens and her mother slept, they would both arrive on another plane, which looked similar to the edges of the Great Forest in the valley. When she had been there on walks during the day she found it wasn’t quite the same, the dream forest had a quality of being more alive. Her mother had taught her all that she could there.  Some small chants, the properties of herbs and flowers for medicinal and culinary purposes, the language of trees, how to hunt and catch small game, as well as where best to find or make shelter.  Up until now, it had all seemed like a game without a purpose to keep her occupied.  Now it was gathering connections and making a whole, giving it a more cohesive meaning.  This was something that was spurring the questions she was now asking.
     Her mother had made pledges to a deity to have her first-born child elevated beyond her own position in life. Something her mother could not do for herself because of the sudden and immutable circumstance of her husband’s death, which could have meant a different path in life.  Because of the love she had for him, she continued in the village and upheld the pretence for own her daughter’s sake.
     The initial pledge was nine drops of blood from her new born child to represent her completed soul, left in a vessel at the alter of a ruined and long forgotten temple.  A temple so ancient that most of the Magical People no longer knew its name and purpose.  There the vessel would remain, guarded by its mysterious surroundings until the day Voltarrens was to seek and retrieve it.
     Over the years, her mother had completed the nine stages of the pledge through the use of gateways at times of solar and lunar eclipses.  On those days she had hidden away in her bedroom and locked everyone out. No one objected under the magical influence. She put herself into lengthy trance-like states, returning brighter and more vital after each experience, as an indication of everything going well. Voltarrens had never been sure what she did in those times, and her mother had not revealed anything when asked, no matter how persistent she had been.
     “So what were those other pledges?” she asked.
     “The details are not really important,” said Traveller grinning. “ But to sate some of your curiosity, they involved tests of endurance, long meditations and chants.  She did well for you, just respect that for now. The Green Goddess will need to teach you a few things first before you can understand the workings.”
     “Who?”
     “You’ll find out when you meet her. She’s a very nice lady who lives in the Great Forest and will be one of your mentors.  For now, this is for you.”  With a slight of hand Traveller produced a small leather bound book with an ornately carved cover.  “This is your book.  Look after it well.”  The sunlight caught his grin with a rainbow of light.  “It’s very important that you treasure it with your own life.  Never let it leave your possession, and never ever let anyone else touch it.  They can look but never touch.”
     She accepted the book innocently. “Why?”
     “Because it is you.  Would you trust someone else to hold your life essence while you take a leap into the unknown? It is the mirror of your very soul. Having others touch it can either taint it with their life essence or alter it’s purity and because this can also be used against you at critical times in your life.”
     “Then why give it? I really don’t want it,” she said handing it back to the Traveller.
He made no move to take it and backing away. “It’s yours, I can’t take something that is already yours, my dear.  Understand that it is an integral part of yourself, it will show others who respect you highly who you are without the need for any words.  In time it may even answer the questions that you have no hope of forming about yourself.  Now, put it away in your pocket and keep it safely hidden.  Show it to your mother when she asks.  As for myself, I will catch up with you later.”
     With that, he was gone.
     Voltarrens looked around in all directions. There was no sign that he had ever been, except for the book she firmly clutched in her hand. She gained the strange impression of it being a living entity as she examined the cover with some curiosity, but was too afraid to open it. She hid it in one of her pockets and it fell asleep peacefully as if like an innocent child.
     It was like waking slowly from a dream. She stood up and took a few steps forward and found that pins and needles were creeping up her legs.  Ignoring them, she stood on the path for a moment. Everything was quiet.  The conversation now felt like a half lucid memory as she slowly moved toward home.



     There were only a few people along the way, rushing home for an early evening meal after a day in the fields. They looked very dusty in their clothes as they hauled their work carts behind them tiredly. Her father and sister were not among them, but it wasn’t uncommon for them to stay in the fields until the sun went down.
     Mother always took a lot of pride in her garden. Rows of wild flowers and herbs covered the whole of the ground and filled the air with their gentle sent as she walked up the narrow path. The front door lay open in welcome as usual. She entered the house and went into the kitchen where her mother was sitting at the table, deep in thought.  Dinner hadn’t been started yet and it seemed quieter than usual.  Mother turned toward her daughter when she heard her footsteps on the slate floor.
     “Voltarrens, did you meet it by the willow tree?” she asked.  “Did the Traveller give you something important?”
     “Yes.  He told me something strange and gave me this book.” She reached into her pocket. “I don’t know if I should believe what he was saying.” 
     Her mother looked at the book. The glimpse of the cover showed beautiful craftsmanship, which distracted her for a moment. It was smaller than she had imagined it would be. Then she asked, ”He?  It was a he?”
     “Yes...” said Voltarrens suddenly curling her hand around the book’s cover instead of letting it go.  “He called himself Traveller, but gave me no other name.  I didn’t catch everything he was saying, and he seemed a bit strange, but I’m not sure how.”
     “Travellers don’t usually appear as the opposite gender to the initiate...”
     “Mum, initiate of what?” she asked sitting down in a chair opposite her mother. “He also told me that father isn’t my real father, is that true? It’s not...is it?”
     “Oh, I should have told you about this a lot earlier, dear. Traveller was being truthful; your father isn’t your natural father.  I’m so sorry it had to come out this way.  It’s still such a painful subject for me, even after all this time passing and one of the main reasons I have avoided telling you.”  She turned her head away and sighed, regretting her own procrastination on matters she had arranged long ago, but she was hoped the inevitable would never arrive.  “I made an agreement with the Green Goddess to send you to her once you were old enough and started asking questions about the world and your part in it.  That means you are to become an initiate into the Magical Arts, and it has to do with the pledges that I assume Traveller has already told you about.  He’s part of it too.”
     “Mother, what did happen to my real father?  And what is Traveller anyway?”
     “Patience. For now you’ll just have to put up with a few things you don’t understand. I haven’t the time to explain right now, your real father being one of them.  You probably have something very special to offer since your Traveller is male, and they are always a bit odd at first.  For now just trust him when he appears.” She stopped suddenly, taken away.
     Voltarrens could sense it. “Mum, is something else wrong?  Is something happening elsewhere?” For a moment Voltarrens thought she could see her mother’s lips chanting something very quietly under her breath.
     It took a while for her to reply. “I am sorry, dear daughter, but things have changed over the past couple on weeks.  Things that were planned for have now had to be altered and . . . and I am having trouble with your father, sister and the village at the moment too.  This is something I don’t understand. I’m not sure yet if there are other outside forces at work here. I can’t see.”  She paused again.
     “Father and sister? I always thought you had control over what they both see of us in the outside world.”
     “Not always.  At first it was easy.  I was much younger then and more vital...”
     “You still are energetic, mum...”
     “...it’s not that.  Over the years there have been times when I have...slipped.”
     “Mum!?”
     “I’m not perfect.  It’s an illusion. From my side it’s because of the way I am now, that I do not want you to be like me when you’re older.  I have given up so many things over the years to be here in this village.  Yes, I could have left at any stage, but it was also part of one of the pledges to stay, because the first of the nine cycles I failed.”
     Voltarrens eyes widened, mother couldn’t have failed.
     “To this day I don’t even know why.  All I can do is regret it.  You could have been out there much earlier than this, and I could have been there with you.” She sighed, was silent for a moment, then took a deep breath.  “Let’s have a look at your book, dear. No more of this delving into the past.”
     All this time she had been holding the book firmly in her left hand. Now she passed it to her mother, but she did not reach out for it.
     “No, only you can open it, no one else can touch it.”
     Voltarrens nodded, remembering Traveller’s distant words. The book woke up in her outstretched hand and shared itself with her mother as she laid it down on the table. “Don’t tell me you haven’t even looked into your book. And I always thought you such a curious child...” She stopped in mid sentence as something else caught her attention.
     Outside, it was getting late.  The evening birds were starting to roost in the trees and singing at the arrival of dusk.  A strange breeze was blowing past the window, leaving trails in the tall wild flowers in the garden outside.  There was a sudden air of something of an eerie quality.  Mother rushed over to the window and through it open and to look out.  She mouthed a silent chant onto the wind.  Something crept away, back to wherever it had come from, while she watched wide eyed, scanning the garden for further signs.
     She turned and glared at her daughter. “Just the wind.”
     Voltarrens pulled back and sat back down.
     The mood shifted again to something lighter as her mother slowly moved back to the kitchen table and sat down next to her daughter.  “Open the book.”
     There were no locks to hold the cover closed, but Voltarrens found it really hard to pry the cover open to the first page.  Mother looked surprised and delighted at the symbol decorating the paper, a spiral encircled by a star held at the inner corners.  Voltarrens just looked puzzled, the symbol seemed meaningless to her mind. She had not been taught to read symbols.  “What is it, mum?”
     “That is you.  Such wonderful possibilities.”  Somehow she felt that she had seen them before, long ago in her own past. “I’m so proud of you, I wish I could tell you more, but I’m forbidden to do so.  However it does explain some of why I feel I failed you on the first cycle.”
“No more riddles, mum. What does it mean?”
     “Riddles? It is you, dear.” She looked up at her daughter lovingly.  “Haven’t you noticed, the book is alive.  The inscription on the page is a symbol, you must learn to read it and know what it means yourself.  The Green Goddess will help teach you.  It is the most important thing you will do in your life, learning to look at the meaning behind things.”
     Voltarrens looked closely at the symbol, but it still looked the same and turning the page made no difference, it was blank on the next one.  Running her fingers over it made no difference either.
     “Mmm...the language of symbols.  I don’t have the time to teach you, and time is getting very short.”  Her expression fell suddenly into despair.  The book closed suddenly. 
     Her mother looked toward the window, biting her lowers lip, and fell into a trance-like state.  Voltarrens had seen this before and tried to rouse her mother to no avail.  She sat by herself for a moment, head in her hand as she put the book back into her pocket and it fell asleep again. All she could do was follow her mother, and she didn’t know if she could do it. It had never worked in the past, like trying to levitate.  The chant seemed to fall from her lips clumsily, the words formed misshapen, until suddenly a barrier broke.
     The world stopped.

     Suddenly, everything was brighter, more alive, the same as in her dreams in the forest.  Finally she had been able to do it without the aid of having to go to sleep at night.  As if under water, her mother waited for her to catch up.  Everything was very peaceful here. Words took on more than their daily meanings becoming song, which could be forgotten quite easily in the outside world.  Here they planted themselves into the psyche like seeds to be used later when the essences flowered.
     Something was wrong with the scene.  There seemed to be a dark and shadowy shape looming outside the window, its unformed eyes staring in.  Was this the entity that she had glimpsed in the trees much earlier in the day?  It felt somehow familiar in a creepy way, like those creatures that hide in closets late at night and slither like shadows across the walls where the moonlight falls when everything is still.  It wavered, boiling in upon itself.
     Mother jumped up from where she was sitting with lightning speed and leaped over to a container on the kitchen bench.  She reached in and grabbed a handful of pumpkinseeds, cradling them before she threw them at the open window with the grace of a ballerina.  The seeds whistled through the air.  They transformed into a swarm of tiny metal arrowheads, catching the late afternoon sunlight as they flew. Angrily they dived after the shadowy mass as it tried to escape.  Voltarrens stood up to watch from the windowsill beside her mother.  She had never seen her do anything like this before, and it seemed in a little scary.
     The shadow and the arrows dropped out of sight behind a bush for a moment.  The shape then leapt straight up.  The metal arrows flowed out quickly from the base of the bush in two streams, circling outward and up, high over the shadow, and divided again as they came down to slice into it.  The dark shadow struggled violently, bubbling out as if it had been torn apart and tried to reconstitute itself again.  The arrows came in for a second attack, sensing the thing was now weaker and trying to escape back to where it had come from.
     “What are they?” Voltarrens asked as they flew past the window in pursuit.
     Mother didn’t answer. They were now cutting the shadow into shreds by repeatedly running it over.  It was gone within seconds, leaving nothing behind, not a single piece of it to scurry back to its master.  The arrowheads returned to their pumpkin seed forms when their work was done and fell to the ground innocently.
     “Mum...?”
     Mother moved away from the window and slumped into a chair at the table.  “There are things in the Six Realms of which you are not aware of.” She lifted herself up exhausted, sweat dripping from her brow. “I was hoping something like this wouldn’t happen at this time. I should have sent you to the Green Goddess much sooner.”
     Voltarrens was still shaking as she sat down opposite her mother again.  “What’s happening?  What was that thing?”
     She sighed with regret.  “A scout sent to spy on you from one of the other Realms.  It’s probably been watching you all day.”
     “I thought I sensed something earlier today but I wasn’t sure.”
     “There are many things you don’t know of yet.” She paused.  “Listen, I don’t have much time to tell you all this, but it’s important you do exactly as I say until you meet up with the Green Goddess.”
     Voltarrens was about to say something.
     “Don’t interrupt,” she warned, “this is very important.  You are now in grave danger.”  She grabbed her arm firmly.  “That shadow being was sent here to spy on you.  Not to harm you, just spy.  Be very weary of them, there will be more of them. Destroy them if you can. Traveller can help you out on this.” She let her go.  Voltarrens sank back into her chair, now a little frightened of her mother.  “Now,” she sighed, “there is something that has been plaguing me over the years that I must tell you.”
     Mother drew in a deep breath.  She had always dreaded this moment, and now it was being made worse by outside forces.  “You have lived in this tiny village, secluded from the rest of the world since you were born, for a reason.  This was the only place I could hide you from some of the darkness in the world, this one place where you could grow up a bit before you came of age.  All these years I have been able to uphold a barrier between here and the outside world, it has only been lately that cracks have been occurring. I am getting old and tired and soon I will no longer be able to do it.
     “Why?  Because to me you are special, and because of the pledges I had to endure earlier in life. I did them, not just for myself and not just so you could lead a better life than I could.  The Order of Midwives I belong to had foreseen something different in you, which you will have to find out on your own.  I was only told what I had to do, and reluctantly I might add, but it is very important from now on that you learn things in your own way, even though you will meet teachers along the way from time to time, you will walk your own way.
     “Now, you must leave this village and everyone in it behind.”
     “Even you, mum?” she shaking a little.
     “Not totally.  I can still reach you in your dreams when I have enough energy to do so.  But everyone else in this village will forget you.  I will make it so no one remembers you after you have left, and you will have to leave as soon as possible.  That shadow being was an indication that you can’t stay here any longer.  It’s becoming too dangerous for you to live here.”  A tear rolled down her mother’s cheek and fell into her lap, leaving a wide trail down her saddened face.  She reached out to her daughter and hugged her tightly.
     “Mum?  I...I...really don’t want to go.”  She whimpered, sharing her mother’s impending loss.  “Can’t I do it another way here?”
     Her mother straightened, wiping away another tear. “Regrettably, no. The Green Goddess can’t come here; she lives many leagues into the Great Forest, too far to travel back and forth. It’s too dangerous for you to travel that distance all the time.”  She sucked in a deep breath.  “You have to go.  You have no choice in this matter.  I don’t have a choice anymore either.  I am so sorry it had to be this way.”  She wiped more tears away.  “Come now, let us return to the Mundane world and get you ready to leave for the Green Goddess, she is waiting and time grows short.”
     They were both standing now.  Mother cradled her daughter.  In turn Voltarrens cried on her mother’s shoulder.



     Now she was looking between the upright stones in front of her at the Great Forest beyond.  Mother had cast a temporary chant over Voltarrens to protect her until Traveller joined her, and sent her on her way with her book, a few possessions and a little food for the trip.  It was going to take three days.
     The sun had disappeared below the horizon behind her.  Stars were slowly filling the sky and darkening clouds were tipping the edges the full moon as it rose above the forest. She stood up and looked back one last time.  The village was now silent and empty to her mind.  This was the first time she would really know the meaning of death and change and it felt uneasy in her heart.

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