Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.
Excerpt from “Echo” by Chrstina Rosetti
Timestamp: Spring 80th, 515 AV
Atziri had left bells previous, Keene would be on his own today. It was not an entirely unusual set up she was busy and often he know of his tasks well. After his own choice of morning ministrations, as he exited his cavern-home he would find something changed. It was the beginning of the climax of a long awaited chapter.
In the dusty spring dirt a ragged and smudged straw doll sat propped against a small rock. Beside it in the same water-starved dust an invisible digit drew pictures against the earth. She flickered into life her return after their falling out. Wilhelmina squatted over the corporeal earth. Her ghastly frayed sack-cloth dress was not different for her time away but her eyes seemed wild, like the first time she had appeared to Keene after her death. “Keene.” She cried with dry eyes,” You said maybe you were a good man!” She faded from sight as a strong wind blew although she could not have felt the natural element without manifesting physically.
The doll twitched and the small specter’s wail accompanied it, “I found her. I met Wanda, she said I could find dolly.” In seconds the little girl reappeared only a few feet before the Initiate. “He still had her! In that place!” She screamed and the dust beneath their feet began to swirl, “When he let me go he kept her!” She choked back a sob and flickered again, in the blink of eye she sat beside the doll one more. “What if he hurt her too Keene?”
Rapidly the young girl’s spirit was transforming from confused and scared to malevolent. Her screamed echoed down the mountain and back into the Obsidian Cave. “Be a good man, Keene, stop him!” The dol dragged through the dirt towards Keene’s feet, the little girl’s hands pulling it like it was a great weight and not a straw artifice. “Don’t let him hurt us anymore.” As the doll rested on the toe of his boot, Willy shrunk into nothing once more, but her cries never left wafting in the air around the young Zeltivan. “Please…” the disembodied ghost girl begged.