Falling Out of Focus Read online

  A thunderous roar echoed from the heavens and ripped through the air. Something was overhead and it was massive by the sound of it. In a blinding flash, the sky lit up and we were no longer bathed in darkness. Instead, the horizon was suffused with ombre shades of purple and green. At first glance it almost looked like an overexposed image of the aurora borealis. There, in the sky, was a black and grey wolf the size of a dragon. This is it. The final smidgen of my mind has cracked. A wolf with wings, snarling and growling? I’VE LOST MY DAMN MIND!

  Lithia hissed and the warden unsheathed a bulky dagger from his hip, readying himself for battle.

  “What is that?” I mumbled under my breath.

  “Do not move,” Lithia fumed as she gripped my wrist.

  “Why is she here?” the warden snapped.

  As the wolf flew overhead, I saw the faint wisp of someone riding it––flashes of white and bits of pink. The queens? No, there was only one. Who could this be? The divide between The White and Hortus had become visible in the illuminated sky as the wolf shifted and looked for a clearing. The frozen tundra and the bright cheer of spring clashed as they were juxtaposed to one another. Finally, the great beast found a spot and landed with a thud in the snow. He bowed to let the person riding dismount and growled one last time, turning his head towards the three of us. It was like a warning, but I doubted the person standing next to him needed the backup, since Lithia and the warden seemed on edge with their arrival.

  When the person stepped into the snow, I knew it was a woman, but I still was clueless as to who it could be. She walked slowly towards the three of us with no fear in her eyes or her walk. She held a tall stick in her right hand, and it made a sharp tinking sound with each step she took. The closer she got, I was able to see what was making the noise. The staff was covered in keys of all shapes and sizes. They were ornate and frozen, which I assumed was part of the unnerving sound it made as the metals clanged against one another.

  The woman stood before us now, only a few feet away, and I was taken aback. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. Even more beautiful than the twin queens when I met them. Her face was stark white, like Lithia’s, but her cheeks and hair were tinted pink. The woman was wearing a dress made of frosted pink roses. Was she frozen? Partially thawed? I’m losing it.

  When Lithia went to speak, the half frozen woman, thrust her staff into the air and slammed it into the ground. Shattering the ice and melting it instantly. The warmth began to spread outwards from her as she glared at Lithia. “If you are going to address me, you will do it properly, and if you do not call off your dog,” she said with a side glance to the warden, “I will remind you of exactly who I am and what I can do.”

  The warden snarled and moved in a way that startled me. I dropped to my knees, hoping to avoid the bloodshed I was certain would follow. Lithia and the warden called out for the Lunatishee to attack and all hell broke loose.

  Out of the trees came two Lunatishee who appeared to have doubled in size from the ones I saw back in The White. They were enormous and hurling their poisonous spikes at the dragon sized wolf, but they were no match for him. He whipped one with this tail, flinging it back into the trees and the other one he ripped apart with his teeth. When he was done, he licked his massive paws as if nothing had just happened. I was dumbstruck. The beautiful woman never flinched, instead she glared at the two before her as if pondering her next move.

  The warden lunged at the woman but was gone in a flash. The woman simply snapped her fingers and he was obliterated. Ashes dissipated, leaving nothing but that putrid yellow smoke lingering in the air.

  “Nooooo,” Lithia screamed.

  “I warned you, Lithia. As I have warned you most of your life. Your ambition exceeds your ability.”

  “You always say that, Mother, and you are always wrong!”

  Mother?

  “I’m never wrong.”

  “I want her,” Lithia whined as she pointed to me.

  “She is not yours to have.”

  “But she is. She came to me.”

  “No I didn’t!” I took a chance and screamed.

  “Yes. You. Did,” she raged. “You came to Sacrife with your pain and anger. My sisters may have tried to cover your angst with pastel colors and promises of peace, but what you really want is to be swallowed by your darkness. I tasted it. Your blood is sweet with pain and misery. You want to wallow in the loss of all the things you should have, could have, would have done. You are a weak fool who needs me. I’m the best part of you, Novaleigh,” she said as she spat my name in disgust.

  “How could you be the best part of me? You’re miserable. You want others to hurt and be as pitiful as you. I want nothing to do with you.”

  She smirked. “That’s the beauty of me. I live in the shadows waiting for my moment. You visit, whisper your deepest secrets and I wait. ‘I don’t want to live anymore like this. I can’t continue to feel this empty inside. I want to fall into a dream and never come back. Here I feel nothing but pain, maybe if I was gone I could be free.’ Do you remember those words, Novaleigh? Do you remember your wretched dream?”

  I stood there, silent. Those had been my thoughts. My darkest thoughts. The moments I keep to myself for fear others would judge me. I was in a dark place after my grandparents died. I lost them––lost everyone that mattered to me. I lost Gavin but most importantly, I lost myself. Gavin was the one I wanted to turn to when my heart was breaking, but I’d left him––dismissed him for something more. Who could I turn to? Ethan was vapid. He only cared for himself, and I didn’t want to burden my parents with my problems. After their divorce, I was left reeling. Why, I don’t know. They’re problems had nothing to do with me. I was not the reason their marriage failed. They still loved me. I knew that with every fiber of my being. They just didn’t love each other.

  Gavin loved me, and I was scared, scared I’d be lost in him and forget me, so I ran as far away as I could. I had no idea when I made that choice that I’d only hurt myself. And now, with Nanna and Pappa gone, hope for the fairytale seemed like a dream, so I made it one. I went there as often as I could to feel what I was incapable of feeling in the real world. In my dream, I could be whomever I wanted to be, do magical things and say the words I should’ve said when I had the chance. My dream was my solace.

  “There she goes again,” Lithia sang out. “See I told you, Mother. Lost in her thoughts until she drowns in them. Like I said, you came to me, Novaleigh, not the other way around.”

  I shook my head. “No,” I repeated over and over again, hoping it wasn’t true, but Lithia was right. I did get lost in my dark thoughts until they were all I could think about.

  “Tell Mother how you got here. Tell her about how you fell.”

  “I don’t want to,” I cried. “I am not proud of letting those thoughts rule my mind. I don’t want anything to do with you, Lithia. I never meant for any of it to come true.”

  “But your thoughts have power, and that power shifted into focus until you fell,” Lithia laughed. “You’re mine now,” she said as she reached for me.

  “Not so fast, Lithia,” the woman said in warning. “She may have fallen into Sacrife by choice initially, but now she has a chance to make a different one. What is your desire now, Novaleigh?"

  My hands shook, but I wasn’t sure what was causing it. Anger at my secrets being exposed, fear of the truth, or the fact that I was indeed weak? I wanted to look at the woman and ask her how this was all possible and why did it matter what I desired now, but instead I just looked at the ground. I may have dreamed this dream a thousand times, but now that I was here, I wanted to go home. I wanted something more. The conversation with Gavin. The talking otters, the fairies, and the elven village––all of it was apparently just me fabricating stories in my mind. I wasn’t dreaming. Based on what Lithia said, I was dying––but by choice at that. I was weak. I didn’t deserve another chance.

  “Novaleigh?” the woman asked. “Whatever you
are telling yourself, don’t listen. Your mind can play tricks on you, or in this case my daughter can. She is the part of you that you wish to hide, and when you give her a voice with your thoughts, she can drown you with them.” Lithia began to laugh, but quickly fell silent. I looked up and saw her mouth stitched with black threads. She looked like something out of a horror movie. “Her voice is now silenced. What do you want? What is your heart telling you, not your mind?”

  “I want to live. I want to make better choices, follow my heart and do things that are spontaneous and adventurous,” I blurted. “I want to tell Gavin I love him and that we were meant to be together in spite of everything between us. I want to live.”

  The woman smiled. “Good choice. One Una and Uphren knew you’d choose in the end. Oliver has guided you well, and I am pleased.”

  “This is all real?”

  She nodded. “Once you come to the place where you can silence your inner demons. You can make the right choices. You can be free to live. You just have to choose it. You have to want it more than you want the sorrow.”

  “You mean Lithia is the embodiment of my pain?”

  “In a way, yes.”

  “But I thought white meant purity and peacefulness. There is nothing about her that is peaceful,” I replied as I looked at Lithia who was ripping at the stitches that bound her mouth shut.

  “You’re right in a way. White represents both a positive and negative aspect of all the colors. Just as you are light and dark, so is she. Her darkness, however, is ingrained into who she is. She chooses to express herself as someone innocent when she is far from it. Say the word and you can seal her fate.”

  “I don’t want to kill her.”

  “I don’t want you to kill her either. I do, however, want you to silence her.”

  “Haven’t you already done that?” I said as I looked back over at Lithia.

  “Close your eyes and decide to let her go, Novaleigh. Only you can quiet her. The darkness inside of you will never die, but with enough light you can keep her and your demons where they belong––buried.” She smiled. “The trick will be to find the place where they can’t bury you.”

  I looked at her skeptically. “Who are you? How do I know that you aren’t another trick in my mind? I am a little unsure of people these days. Things in my mind have been really off lately.”

  “I am the Great Mother and you don’t have to doubt me. I am no trick.”

  “But…”

  “Lithia told you she brought you here, but that was a lie. I brought you here so you could grow and change. You said you wanted to live. Was that true?”

  “Well, yes,” I stammered.

  “Then send her away and choose to live.”

  Tears streamed down my face. I had no idea how to truly silence her, or them, or whatever this was, but I did want to start again. I clenched my fists and closed my eyes. I thought about all the things that had happened here in Sacrife and wished it all was just a really bad dream and that when I woke up, I would be home, safe and sound. I also wished that when I woke, I’d find Gavin and we’d talk and I could explain to him as I had explained to Gavin here all the things I wish I’d done differently. I would make this right. I opened my eyes and watched as Lithia dissipated just as the warden had, into a haze of dust. The only difference was that hers exploded into shades of grey. A perfect blend of the dark and light.

  “Is she gone?” I asked.

  “Most of her but not in the way you’re assuming. Her essence is what dissipated, but she is still alive. It will take some time for her to pull herself together, but once she does, she’ll be back to her old tricks,” the Great Mother explained. “I’m curious though, what did you do to make her leave?”

  “I asked for this all to be a dream.”

  “I see.”

  “Was that not enough?”

  “No, there is another part to the puzzle you have to figure out before you can go home,” she said as she took my hand in hers, “and Novaleigh, this is not a dream.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The sky was clear and The White seemed far off in the distance as I looked out at the great beast. He was sitting very still, so much so, he almost looked like a statue. The Great Mother waved her staff and the large wolf tucked his wings and moved in our direction. He was growing smaller with each step he took and would stop every little bit to shake off the snow from his fur. By the time he reached her side, he was the size of large puppy. He looked up at her with affection, and she bent down to dust off the last clump of snow that rested on the top of his head.

  “This is Rafe.”

  “Hello?” I replied in a shaky voice. “How…how did he just…”

  The Great Mother smiled. “Rafe is a chimera. He’s my baby and my protector,” she said as she picked him up to pet him. “You’re safe with him as long as you are in my favor.”

  “Then I promise to stay in your good graces. I’ve seen his other side,” I blurted.

  “Are you ready to go?”

  “Um, pardon my rudeness, but can we go back to the part where I should be waking up and moving on and this is not a dream.”

  “Sure,” she said as she stroked Rafe’s fur, “Can we walk and talk though? We need to meet up with Oliver and Gavin a bit up the road.”

  “They’re alive?”

  “Of course. Why would you think otherwise?”

  “The blood in the stream. There was so much of it.”

  “Nothing but a trick of the mind Lithia’s pet used to scare his prey.”

  “Effective trick,” I quipped. “Did you kill the warden?”

  “Yes,” she said flatly. “He did more harm than good, and there is no room in my world for people who want to torture others for their own pleasure. Pain and heartache are natural byproducts of life, Novaleigh, but they shouldn’t be a staple. We’re all better off here without him. Have you ever had someone like that in your life?”

  I sniggered. “Yeah, a few actually.”

  “So then you know letting go of things that don’t suit you or move you forward is freeing, yes?”

  I smiled. “Absolutely.”

  “Can you think of other things you should let go of?” she probed.

  I gave her an incredulous look. “But I did. I opened my heart to Gavin and told him everything. He forgave me and we were in a good place before the fever set in.”

  “Ah yes, the healing herbs Oliver used worked well. You are much improved.”

  I stopped mid-step. “Why am I still here though? I thought if…”

  “You and Gavin worked things out and you wished away Lithia and the darkness, but you have yet to complete the most important part.”

  “Which is?”

  “You have to forgive yourself. Until you can do that, you will remain here with us.”

  I shook my head and moved to follow. I wanted to be done with this, but I guess I was nowhere close to the end of this insanity. As we walked, the Great Mother’s dress changed. She went from being the icy white queen, with keys jingling and partially frozen flowers covering her dress, to a warm and cheerful persona. Her dress was now shades of green and muted yellows. She looked like a vision of spring––a tree in bloom after months of hibernation––her hair now a vibrant auburn and her eyes the most beautiful shade of hazel.

  “Can you change into anything?”

  “Yes.” She smiled. “So can you.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “It’s true. Your thoughts carry energy and power. Try it.” I looked at her like she was mad. “Change my look simply by thinking it? Sure.”

  “Are you always this skeptical?” she asked.

  I nodded my head.

  “Trust and faith, Novaleigh. I’d advise you learn how to accept these things more freely, or I will be telling Oliver to build you a treehouse because you’ll be staying awhile.”

  My eyes went wide. “Fine. How do I start?”

  “Close your eyes and think about what you’d like to
change. Focus your thoughts on it and breathe.”

  I closed my eyes and slowed my breathing, but I couldn’t focus my thoughts. What would I change? My hair was still pink from when the twin queens changed it and while it was cool, it wasn’t me. Maybe purple? I loved the color purple. I could go back to blonde, or I could go dark. I never had the guts to dye my hair black. I was always afraid of what people would think. I opened one eye to look at the Great Mother.

  “Anything change?”

  She laughed. “Are you going to pick one of those or stick with all three?”

  “What?”

  She pointed to the stream and I ran to look. I stared at my reflection. The top was a soft lavender that blended into a golden blonde and ended with tips of black. It was awful. I looked like a bizarre version of Neapolitan ice cream. I closed my eyes again and picked my favorite. When I opened my eyes, there it was, exactly as I wanted it. Soft curls fell at my shoulder and the black hue shimmered with hints of blue. My hair looked like a raven’s feather.

  “Beautiful choice,” she complimented.

  I beamed. “You don’t think it’s too dark?”

  “I think if it’s what your heart desires then it is perfect.”

  I twirled the end of one of the locks. “Thank you.”

  “Now are you ready to go?” she asked as she set Rafe back down on the ground.

  “Yes.”

  Rafe looked up at us briefly, waited for an acknowledgement, and then ran off ahead of us, barking and scampering along as he played with the small woodland creatures he encountered along the way.

  “Are we going to Hortus?”

  “Yes, it’ll be the place where you come to terms with all you’ve been struggling with. I think you’ll really like it there.”

  I nodded. I’d liked every place I’d visited except for The White, but honestly, at this point, I couldn’t see how another village was going to change my thoughts and bring me any closer to going home, but I had to try. Besides, I was enjoying spending time with the Great Mother, there was something very calming about being in her presence.