***The following is an excerpt from Raina's Story **** 
Raina’s head began to spin with renewed concern for her
mental status. Putting down her honey
suckle tea, she closed her eyes, and clutched her head once more. She took in a deep breath through her nose,
and held on to it until she felt calm enough to speak again. “Bartle,” she
whispered with her eyes still closed. “Does
that mean we’re not on Earth anymore?”
“I’m not certain.” He
said with concern in his voice. “But I
do know that these are separate realms.
We left yours behind earlier today.”
The room filled with silence. Tears quietly slipped out from under Raina’s
eyelids as she struggled to grasp this information. She didn’t understand any of it. Slowly, Raina opened her eyes. As she tilted her head back up, her
perception slowed once again. She distanced
herself from the experience as she accepted her budding insanity, and with that
the room pulled slightly out of focus. Outside
of herself, Raina watched as she quietly continued to question this strange
man.
“Should I understand any of this?”
“Well, that all depends on how much you know of the
prophecy?”
“The what?”
“Oh dear, you mean you don’t know?”
The image rattled as the girl shook her head.
“Surely your mother must have told you stories of our land?”
With the mention of her mother, Raina returned to her
body. Her image sharpened, and she sat
up straight. “My mom is dead,” she
replied.
Bartle lowered his head, and spoke in a somber tone. “This I know Love, but during her life did
she ever tell you tales of your fate?”
Unable to question his knowledge of her mother, Raina
thought carefully. She rarely allowed
herself to reminisce. Her life had been
a chaotic jumble of experiences. Most of
which were too intense to let resurface.
She buried them deep in the corners of her mind as she tried to make it
through each day. When she thought of
her mother, she remembered her dancing in the kitchen with Mark. She had flashes of soft hands on her
forehead, and she heard the tune of their song as she woke up for school. Unfortunately that wasn’t all she
recalled. Raina remembered her mother
lying in bed and crying for days. She
had images of pleading with her to come to.
And sometimes, if she let her guard down, Raina remembered finding her
mother’s cold body in the back yard.
Her voice caught in her throat, and a tear quietly snuck out
the corner of her right eye. Not wanting
to think about her mother any longer, Raina simply shook her head. The room fell silent. Above her head, Raina could hear the delicate
sound of a wind chime through the window.
“Well, then your father must have shared it with you,” Bartle explained away his confusion.
Startled once again by the mention of her parent, Raina turned
to face Bartle. “My father’s gone too,”
she said with an air of skepticism.
His head tilted to the side as he responded sympathetically,
“I know Love, but before his passing…”
The truth was that Raina couldn’t remember much about her
father. The time following his
unexpected death had been so overwhelming that it clouded her earlier memories
of him. Recognizing her mother’s
crippling grief, Raina had suppressed her own.
She refused to acknowledge his death, and with that she began to deny
his very existence. Eventually she only
had vague recollections of a fatherly presence, and a single term of endearment. She widened her eyes in an attempt to convey
what she didn’t want to say, but it wasn’t enough.
“I don’t remember,”
she whispered.
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