“My name is Aurora.” She pats my hand gently, as if that is enough for me to know for now.
“Lovely to meet you, Aurora. I’m Faelyn,” I say, though my mind is still trying to come up with what kind of creature she might be, if not a fae, elf, witch, vampir, or lykin. Surely not a siren…I thought they were confined to their seas.
“Faelyn,” she repeats. “A good old name originating from the first tongue of your ancestors. Loved by magic, it means, I believe.”
“Loved by the elves, I was always told.” I am caught off guard by how seemingly normal this interaction is. As if we are just two friends chatting. As though she’s not a magical stranger I found in the woods.
“Elves, magic, synonymous to early humans.” She shrugs.
“Aurora…are you a spirit?” I whisper, fear and fascination fighting, suppressed by the improbability of the question. But my gut keeps pulling me toward that conclusion. However impossible. I can’t let it go.
She brings her eyes back to mine. A slight, tired smile. “I am.”
“How?” I shift to face her better, trying to see her in a new light. Her hair is a silver so pure it’s platinum. Her eyes are darker than pitch. And her skin is nearly unnaturally pale… She is human at a glance, but the longer I inspect her, the more unsettling her appearance becomes. She’s like a too-perfect version of human—an artist’s representation, close, butnot quite real. “All the spirits I’ve ever known keep the forms they represent.” Like Folost in his hearth, or Mary in her pot on the windowsill. And, while they can communicate in their ways, they cannot speak the common tongue.
But the stories of ancient spirits did say they could take humanlike forms… Perhaps she is one of the last of that long-ago time? The mere notion of it has me in awe.
Aurora looks out the window, turning her gaze from everything within. When she speaks, the words are heavy, a little sad, and filled with so much longing it is a wonder that we don’t both drown in it. “I made a request of an old god, long, long ago, for the body of a human…and my wish was granted.”
I know better than to ask more, even though I’m burning with curiosity. It’s not my place and there are things in my past that I would never want anyone to dredge forward again. Whatever history is wrapped up in Aurora’s story, it clearly brings her great pain to even think about. Why a spirit would want to have the body of a human when their natural forms are nothing but power and the raw essence of nature itself is beyond me. But, for now, I leave it be.
“And you were being hunted by the wolf king?”
“He sees me as something to be possessed. I am little more than a token for him to bind himself with to validate his throne. So I fled. I was trying to free myself and, in the process, bound myself to you, instead.” Her words are heavy with guilt, but all I feel is a rush of excitement.
All the spirits in the house were bonded to my grandma. She had told me of the processes involved, and the methods of doing so. But I have never found a spirit with which to bind myself.
Spirit binding is one of the oldest magics. One that Grandma always said was mostly forgotten by the other lingering witches of our age. When they lost their abilities to bind with spirits, they ultimately lost their magic. Which was another reason why shebound Folost and Mary to me just before her death. She’d tell me stories of long ago when our family had dozens of spirits who lived alongside us. But now, there are only two. And they are small and frail compared to the magics of old…not that I’d ever let either hear me say as much.
Binding a spirit allows a mortal to call upon them, trading his or her magic for a favor from the spirit. Like seeing in the dark, or forging a fire. Sometimes, the spirits decide to make their homes alongside the witches, forging a truly symbiotic relationship where power and safety are shared. A single spirit cannot be bound to more than one individual, so it’s little wonder the king of the wolves abandoned his hunt when he laid eyes on us.
I wonder both what magics she will render me capable of and what I will be able to do for her in return.
“It is my honor to be bound with you.” I rest my hand gently on the back of hers. “May I ask what you are the spirit of?”
She levels her gaze with mine. Her stare carries the weight of the coldest winter’s night. My breath catches in my throat.
“No,” she finally whispers.
I give a slight nod. There’s the same sensation as when she mentioned the deal made to give her this human form. I can feel in my bones that it is not my place to ask, nor my need to know. At least…not yet.
So it shall be left at that.
“Aurora, may I ask one more thing?”
“You may certainly ask, but I might not feel inclined to answer,” she says with a tired smile.
“Do you want to be bound to me?” For all my excitement over finally bringing a new spirit under my roof, of my own accord, the binding hardly went as Grandma said they would. And she speaks of being bound to the wolf king with such disdain.
“No.” The word isn’t cruel. A simple fact. “I was trying to find freedom. But fate seemed to have other plans.”
“Then we shall undo this binding between us.”
Her eyes shine with amusement and, dare I say, fondness. She does not appear as young as I first thought her in this light. If anything, she regards me with the same wisdom Grandma always did.
“I fear it might not be so simple as unraveling your binding with the other spirits, little weaver witch. The ring I destroyed held a part of my power. I had hoped to absorb it into myself. But, instead, it went into you.” Aurora rests her hand on the center of my chest. “Separating my power from me was not an act done by mortal hands, but by the old gods far, far from here. I had been trying to call upon them at the foot of the redwood, but it seems I must stand before them once more at their great tree to have them pull it from you and properly return it to me.”
“Then we shall go to them,” I declare, taking her hand in both of mine.
