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..QUATERVOIS..

(noun) A critical decision or turning point in one's life.
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Okay, sleep isn't my realm today!

Eir declared to her fragmented conscience that kept her neurons too full with anxiety. The gentle cold yet lulling winds of conditioner nor the enchanted rose sniffs from the lighted candles could hush her shambles. Those terrific eyes and the deceptive delusion she saw were enough to deny the sleep she craved.

She kept flinging her silk smooth quilts to the sides, tossing her torso between her gaping and snoring friends. Her countless tosses and restless turns made them pin her flat to her place with their crossed limbs to keep her static.

After an endeavoured attempt, she pulled her hands out of her caged quilt and relieved her of the excess weights that burdened her. Collecting her skirt that was spread rugged around, she slid her quilt aside. Without changing the inertia of the bed, she sneaked out and pushed herself comfortable over the couch.

She released her tied locks and let out a tiring sigh that she held for long. Taking the ivory carved jorum, she guzzled the last sips of pepo tea in an attempt to quiet her rambling senses. She looked at her friends who were greeting the heaven of revival. In a reflex, her eyes fell on her sermons trinket. There was no glinting or any intuition, just a despondent chagrin made her purse the lips.

She backed her head on the thread embossed rest to ease out her clouding thoughts. Using her state of imbalance, her mind played its gimmick.

She could see silhouettes of two familiar people. One was her and the other a person she would adore and admire forever. The new sniffs of cinnamon unfolding in the air paused the pointless blethers, letting her seek solace from the treasured moments that remain untold.

"What are you hiding behind you?" a six-year-old Eir asked with a glorifying grin reddening her tender cheeks.

"Ohho! Here is my 'can't wait' princess that I love the most in the whole world! Don't be in a hurry for a gift," he said teasing her delicate sharp nose with his thick pointers.

Wiping her tips to rest the tingle that he evoked, she looked at him creasing her little amethyst eyes. Her demanding glares mandated him to give it to her right away. When he stood unchanged, she thinned her lips in a faux scowl while her irises cornered to glimpse what he was holding behind him.

Reading her moves, he shifted his palms to the opposite direction and twisted his trunk. "Not that easily my princess bee. Win the gift than receiving it!" He winked at her.

"Pappa! Gift first and then we play hoodie-boodie! I promise I will win this time," she said with her innocent tone only to see him shake his head to the sides. She pouted her thin pink lips and twisted her head to the sides, but this time more cautiously.

Laughing at her infantile dabbles, he took out his hidden hand to the front. He placed a lotus carved, brass metal box on her hand. She opened hastily with gleaming joy that endowed her amethyst a swift shine. A flat anchor patterned rose gold link with an empty hook, indicating the missing pendant was placed on a purple velvet cloth.

She took the chain in her cushy palms and examined it in glee. She hugged him expressing her joy, and his strong cinnamon whiffs made her sneeze twice. He hugged her back to cover up the little irk. After comforting her for some fractions, he whispered, "Now, it's your turn to find the pendant. You will win in this hoodie-boodie."

She broke the embrace and glared at him. "So you began it without telling me? But, I never win in hoodie-boodie," she said while her face fell fixed to the marble floors.

"Don't worry princess, you will surely find it," he assured her while floating his palm on her hair. Neither his words nor his caressing strokes could ease her.

"Okay, I will give a hint. It's in your room and nowhere else. If you couldn't find it, I will help you get that. Either way, it belongs to you." Hearing that she placed the box in his hands and hugged him quick.

Breaking the little moment of love, she ran through the steps and turned towards the left. She twisted the baton knob of the door and entered her music themed room.

"Our little princess is in," a mellifluous voice announced and played a melodic symphony. It was a custom that she felt proud of, but the task in her hand urged her to act otherwise.

'Stopiere Noew.'
'Stop now.'

She ordered looking at the golden violin that was hung connected to the baton doorknob. The soft, dulcet symphony halted suddenly, tugging a formal silence in the air. Ignoring that, she glanced at everything, from the lilac floral ceiling to the cream birds perching in the purple walls, checking if anything was off from its actual axis. To her unluck, everything was exact and steady.

Her scanning tender, amethyst orbs landed on her black oak piano cot clad with a black and white key sheeted mattress. She crawled in and pulled out three caskets from the notes ledge of the piano. Without missing even a short piece of finesse that she possessed, her eyes skimmed the possessions, one after the other, just to recognise her old pearls and lately brought gems but nothing fresh.

She got up from the bed and went to the black accordion bookshelf, her second dubious area. Even there, her yellow-tinted, slightly puffed classic scriptures of fairy tales and enchantments were arranged in the order she preferred them. She then searched the three-legged wooden saxophone seats that were kept around her brown-black marimba table. Unlocking the racks one after the other, to her amazement, she couldn't find anything.

In this processes of treasure hunt, she distorted her room from a squeaky-clean cabin into an untidy coop. When she was done searching everywhere that her three feet five could let her to, she then fell on her bed and placed her head unnoticed upon her xylophone toy. The sudden sharp outcry gave her a panic attack. Mumbling some curses for the hapless hardships, she lifted her head and took her toy in utter hatred.

The moment she tried to push it to the sides, she noticed something above her head glimmering at her. It was fixed at the base of the notes frame, which she could notice easily if she kept her head on the cushion. Why would father keep this here? she tried to reason out. Before she could begin plodding her thoughts, her eyes fell keen at it again in an attempt to invoke its every detail in depth. The very glance made her shiver and shudder at the same time.

Realising the play of odds and awes that it created in her, she straightened her thoughts with a deep sigh. Without any delay, she took the pendant and ran towards her father who was awaiting her arrival.

"Why on the eight worlds did you keep it under there?" She asked while pinching his arms.

"Ouch! That hurts. Calm down, princess. Usually, you lay on the bed whenever you enter your room. So I thought keeping it there would make it easy for you." He said while rubbing his recently pinched spot to prevent new bruises.

"Don't pick me. Anyways, I found it. But, why does this pendant feel strange and similar at the same time?" Her question made him amazed.

"Take a look again, Eir. What does it make you feel?" he asked.

She validated the pendant in every aspect and then asserted, "This thickly laced rhombus that has creepers with flowers and leaves winding it looks exquisitely beautiful. This vertical eye in the middle with half black and half spectral stone along wide open lids is... scary. Above that, these intertwined serpents that are meandering horizontally are adding a spooky thrill!" She said while gulping down the fear and joy that stung her together.

"Haahaa! It was what I felt when I received it from my master. Eir, this is no game. My growing princess, this is the sermons eye. It can speak the near future to you if you wish to know." He stroked her hair gently.

"Does it? Can I predict the near future?" she asked with overwhelming delight that was concealing her early frights.

"Yes! You can but only if you become a proficient bearer." His words brought back her worries.

"Worry not, Eir. You have the gene to befriend it. I have known that for a while ever since you were born. Wear it always and promise me that you will learn to use it well. Worship it as I do. Promise me that you will learn necromancy to explore this gift of yours and never use it before exploring it right."

His eyes spoke of the concern and worries that his lips failed. She could comprehend that it wasn't a mere gift but a commitment. But she couldn't neglect anything her dad asked her for. She immediately nodded her head and hugged her father tight. It was the last conversation of love and happiness she cherished within her.

She couldn't bear to accept that this very gift that she treasured was the very reason she lost her dear father. With the loss of her father and the truth of his turmoil that he faced due to this so-called sermon eye she chose to wear it always but she failed the promise of knowing to use it as a proficient bearer.

Yet, it had made her see a vision that she didn't ask for, which was enough to bother her. When she was detesting her for being so ludicrous, she could hear a familiar voice calling out for her.

She opened her sealed eyes and cleared the crystal tears with her thumbs. For a moment what she saw before her, seized her constant breaths. A heavy lump of fear and daze clogged her throat. The sweet cinnamon scent faded and the brutal chills took its turn and latched her words.

"Eir, I know you are seeing me now. Won't you listen to my last wish?" A frail woman of her thirties stared at her with the sunken sockets, which were once full of life and compassion.

"What are you speaking about Mrs..."

"You heard me right. I'm not alive now, I couldn't fight anymore. Alas! I'm dead," she said while collecting her tears in the thumb which frosted the moment it landed on her pale, frigid skin.

"Who did this to you? How does it happen?" Eir wailed while she took out her secret trinket only to detect its silver glow. Shit! This shouldn't be true, she prayed behind her sealed lips.

"It is the very same spirit that haunted my daughter's soul moments back," her words perplexed Eir.

"What are you speaking about, Mrs Kayte? Maybe it's a bad nightmare. But, how did you get into this mansion through the latched doors?" Her absurd words proved how lost she was.

"Oh, Eir! As I said, I'm dead. My days are over unexpectedly. It stole my happiness. It made me suffer and stole my life," the weak woman mumbled those words of pain between her sobs. Slowly she raised her indicating finger to something behind Eir.

Swallowing what ever heavied her throat, Eir turned to her back and saw the thick black whisk of smoke starring sharply at her. The more she looked at it the most she heard of its deafening howls. With every moment the sound intensified its frequency.

"No! Not again. Eir, save me please," Kayte pleaded to her while kneeling. She thrust almost all of her ears into the expanding holes of her sore ears.

The very unjust betiding before her made Eir vulnerable and infuriated. "Who are you? What is your purpose? Leave her now!" She yelled while taking out the circle of trident talisman from her purse.

Before she could clutch it in her palms the black fiend snaked around the distressed woman for some fractions and rose to meet her soul-less eyes. The moment it read the fear in her dead eyes, it stabbed its claws inside her chest, filling the air with scaring cries.

"Eir! Help me. Please save my soul." Those cries startled her. Gathering her courage, she took out the talisman of seven sharp carved tridents arranged around a circled rope and started reciting the hymn of resurrection.

To the divine essence of the afterlife,
Keep her soul preserved and protected,
May her pains and fears recede,
Let her pass through the gates of hope,
May the blessings prevail!

Her prayers ignited the first trident of the circle. With a new faith over the abode of mayhem, she kept reciting the lines. But the oozing blood and golden tears of the eroding soul flooded the floors. The more she saw that the most she paused between her hymns. She then closed her eyes tight and kept her prayers flow through her lips. Before she could recite the seventh, the last cycle to awaken the resurrection, a shrilling noise deafened her essence of life.

Yet, she completed the hymn that made the last trident gleam to awaken the coiled rope with a purple shine. Knotting the seven tridents that were surrounding the woman, the straightening rope invaded the wraith of dead woman to hurl out the fiend. The one seizing her purity. The moment the ropes carried the holy glints of tridents into the weak woman, every spill of blood and tears were engulfed back into her.

With a howling pain, it faded into the thin null space after leaving back a smirk of satisfaction to resonate the traces of mysterious dismay in the haze of mayhem.

Brushing through the blocked syndrome of panic attacks, Eir neared the woman who was lying down in a mission to attain eternal peace. She took her head and placed it on her lap as gently as she could. She kept reciting the hymn of resurrection while the violet beams glowed through her limbs relaxing and repairing the psychic traumas to quench her desires and longings, letting her caress a peaceful rest.

The woman who was slowly embracing her last moments of Earthly aura looked deep into the esoteric orbs of Eir.

"Your lilac eyes are so beautiful my child. I could sense tranquil breezes sanctifying my soul. Thanks for helping me in my last moments. Now I may rest in better peace, Eir." A gusty surge of helplessness and dejection pricked her inner self. Her rummaging heart pelted heavily beneath her ribs.

She failed to nurture the gift she was blessed with. She never dreamt her defiance could cost an innocuous life. Tears merged as a thwack of remorse and regret knotted her thoughts. Her insane debates subsided when she heard the woman again.

"Can you keep Arva safe until her father returns from his business?" Her unstable murmurs burdened her repenting soul. Yet, she managed to give a supportive nod.

"I couldn't thank you enough. May you be blessed." With that, the wraith of Kayte started to fade into the purple streams. The last fleck of her details was dusted into the holy streaks. When the silver glints of the sermon retreated, her heavy burning lids retired for an unconscious rest.

Hope this is enjoyable. I loved writing this emotionally loaded chapter and it's indeed special to me. Here are some points to muse.

.Ø. How would Eir disclose her secret to her mates? If she said what she has been through, will they accept her?

.Ø. What theories run on your mind about the smokey villain?

Let me know them all in the comments.

With love,
🦋..Yaris..🦋