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"Amber," I called into the smoky distance, "Amber where are you?"
The cold
rain was beating down on me from above as I walked to the last embers
of the fire. I
can’t believe this happened. She didn’t deserve this, they distroyed
everything of
hers.
I remember the first time I had come here. Lady, my dog,
and I were playing in
the woods after school one day. We were playing fetch, and we
didn’t seem to notice that we had wandered further into the forest than
we ever had before. I picked up the stick and threw it as hard as
I could, Lady ran as fast as she could after that stick. Then she
suddenly stopped, and peered down between two trees, and started barking.
Down below us there was a little stream, I couldn’t figure out what she
was barking at. At first I thought it had been some animal that she
had scared off, but then I saw something.
Down on a rock next to the stream, there was a harp.
Lady and I walked down to where the harp was to get a closer
look. I couldn’t
imagine what it was doing out here in the middle of nowhere.
I plucked one of the stings
and the most beautiful note followed. Suddenly I herd a voice.
"Who are you?" it asked. It was a soft voice, like a whisper,
and sounded to be
right behind me, but when I turned around no one was there.
"My name is Charlie," I said quietly, almost to terrified to
talk.
"Why are you here?" the voice whispered.
"I…I was just playing with my dog, and I ended up here, I guess."
"What do you want?"
"Nothing, I just ended up here I don’t even know where I am,
or who you are"
"Are you sure?"
"Yes I’m sure," I said getting agitated at the voice, "and who
are you?"
"Turn around" the voice said.
I turned around and found myself to be face to face with a very
tall, beautiful
woman. The site of here startled me, I hadn’t herd he come up
behind me.
"My name is Amber," she said smiling. She was absolutely
beautiful. Her long
blonde hair settled around her face, and she had these penetrating
green eyes. They
seemed to be looking into my heart. It seemed that just by looking
into my eyes, she
knew every secret I had, and every lie I had ever told.
"Why are you out here," I asked, "Do you live here?"
"Yes Charlie, I do, my house is a little further down the stream.
I’m impressed,
your the first person to find me… well since I moved here."
"Where did you live before?"
"Oh… in another forest, nowhere you would have ever been."
"Oh."
She sat down on the rock next to the harp and began to pluck
it’s stings.
Beautiful music began to poor out of the harp as she continued asking
me questions. "So,
why are you out here? Why aren’t you with your friends or something?"
"I don’t have any friends really," I said looking at the rocks
below me. "I spend a
lot of time in the woods with Lady, she’s my best friend, I guess"
"Oh… Well, why don’t you have any friends?"
"Well, my family doesn’t have much money, and I guess I’m just
not good
enough for the people at school."
"That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever herd. I’ll tell you
what Charlie, I’ll be your
friend, as long as you want to be mine. You see Charlie, I don’t have
any friends either."
"Why not?" I asked.
"Because I’m a witch Charlie," she said it so bluntly at first
I thought she was
joking, then I looked into her eyes, and I knew she wasn’t.
"Your a witch?" I said in a state of shock.
"Don’t say it like it’s a bad thing, Charlie. I am not a bad
person, nor do I do bad
things. You don’t have to be my friend if you don’t to."
"So what do you do?" I asked.
"This and that, make things happen. I could teach you…
if you want."
"Really? I’m not going to have to worship Satan or anything,
am I?"
She laughed, "Of course not. I’m not that kind of witch."
Amber and I talked for hours that night, just getting to know
each other. She told
me about when her parents died, and I told her about when my
dad died. She told me
about how she was chased about of her last home by people who feared
her and her
magic, I told her about the time I was chased after school by a bunch
of boys that wanted
to beat me up. Before I left Amber made me promise not to tell
anyone about her. I
promised.
For the next several weeks, I visited Amber almost daily.
She taught me about
magic, and why it works. She had this huge book with all her
spells and rituals in it, she
called it her "Book of Shadows". She said the name came from
the witch trial times, the
witches had to hide there books so that they wouldn’t get caught.
She never let me read
it, she said it wasn’t time yet.
Because I spent most of my time in the woods, my mother began
to worry about
me. She always would ask me where I was going, and what I did
in the woods. She said
it wasn’t normal for a person to spend so much time in the forest.
I told her, I wasn’t
normal. I couldn’t tell her about Amber… I had promised not to.
She wouldn’t have
understood Amber anyway.
Amber’s home wasn’t really a house. It was a little shack
that she had built herself, and she hadn’t done the greatest job either.
You could never imagine from
looking at the outside how beautiful the inside was. Amber’s
home was full of
interesting things. She had different kinds of herbs and oils
in bottles all over the one
room house. There were dried flowers and candles everywhere.
In the center of the room
was a table with a crystal ball in the middle.
One day as Amber was playing her harp, we were talking about
how and why
magic works. Suddenly a boy I knew from school fell out of a
bush just a yards up
stream from us. There were two of them still hiding behind the bush.
"Run!" one of them yelled, "before the witch gets us." The three
boys took off
running as fast as they could. Amber had a look of absolute horror
on her face. Her and I
didn’t say much the rest of the night. She told me things
would change now that people
knew, but she didn’t know how.
That night I went home and stayed awake all night fearing what
tomorrow would
bring. I knew that whatever it would be, it wouldn’t be good.
The next day I went to school dreading the sight of the boys
that had discovered
Amber and I yesterday. When I reached the school, I found out,
they weren’t there. My
heart almost stopped when they didn’t come to school. I would
rather know where they
were, than not know where they were. This made me sick to my
stomach, I didn’t know
who they had told, and what they were planning to do.
When I got home from school that day, I got ready to go into
the forest and talk to
Amber. I was on my way out the door when my mom said the thing
I had been fearing I
would hear.
"Did you hear about the witch that lives in the forest?"
"What!" I said trying to hold back the tears I knew where coming,
"Oh God, what
happened?"
"A bunch of people went out into the forest… I herd they burned
her house and
everything to the ground."
I didn’t say anything else, I just ran. I ran out of the
house and strait into the
woods. I could here my mom calling after me as the tears began to stream
down my face.
I didn’t look back. I just ran. It was starting to
rain now, the forest floor what getting
muddy and hard to run in. I fell several times, but I just got
up without thinking and ran
some more.
I didn’t stop until I reached the stream, the exact place that
I had been the first
time I saw this place. I walked to where I had found the harp,
and I found it again, only
now it had been smashed. The frame was broken in several places
and all the strings
where hanging loosely off of what was left. I could see
the smoke from her house
coming up through the rain.
"Amber!" I called again waiting for any response. "Amber
where are you?"
There was no answer, just the sound of rain hitting the remains of
her home. Her crystal
ball had been shattered, and table it sad on was broken and burned.
There were burn
flowers and bottles and furniture everywhere. I sat down in the
mist coming of the
smoldering ashes, and began to cry again.
"Don’t cry Charlie, it’s not that bad."
I looked up and Amber was standing in front of me. She appeared
out of nowhere,
just like the first time I met her. "I’m sorry," I said through my
tears.
"It’s not your fault Charlie, I don’t blame you." she said sitting
down next to me.
"but never the less… I have to leave now."
"You can’t!" I cried, "I need you Amber, don’t you know that.
Your my only
friend, you can’t leave me."
"I have to Charlie. Don’t you see, if I stay here they
will never leave me alone,
they will come back, and do the same thing over and over again.
I can’t deal with this
every day Charlie. I have to go."
"But I need you."
"Here," she said handing me her book of shadows. "This is yours
now. You see
Charlie, your ready for what is in this book now, society isn’t.
That is why I have to
leave. Like this book, I have to hide in the shadows of society,
because I am different.
People don’t understand me, and they fear what they don’t understand.
I looked at the book, and then looked at her again, and looked
into those
penetrating green eyes. "I’ll miss you Amber."
"I’ll miss you to Charlie," I watched a tear roll down her beautiful
cheek.
"Your my best friend, my only friend. Don’t think it isn’t going
to be hard for
me to leave you. Just remember, I will always be with you, in
your heart and in your
dreams. When every you want to talk to me, just dream, and I’ll
be there."
Then we hugged, and cried on each others shoulders. "Your my
best friend," I
told her.
"I know Charlie, I know," she whispered… then she stood up and
told me, "I love
you Charlie… Good bye." Then she was gone, she left just as quickly
as she had
appeared.
I was left alone here, sitting in the rain, in the woods, crying.
"Good bye Amber,"
I whispered, "Good bye."