Misplaced Existence

Misplaced Existence

By: Stephanie R. M. East



I spent half of my life wondering who I was and the other half wondering who everyone else was. In short, my life has been an existence that was misplaced the moment I entered this universe.

         

I awoke in a jump, cold sweat leaking down my forehead and pooling in the concave that my head had made in the pillow. The morning sun was not yet awake, though the evening moon had escaped from the sky behind the pillars of clouds that appeared whenever I dreamt.

My mom came rushing in to me, her flowing flowery robe fluttering behind her.

“Nyssa, are you all right? What happened, darling? What did you see this time?”

I couldn’t remember. I squinted my eyes and clenched my teeth, as usual, but I could not remember what had happened in my dream.

“Well then, try to rest some more. You have a math test when the sun rises.”

Math, the devil’s art, or is the work of the devil just school in general?



As a child, I never excelled in any subjects, even though I was fond of many of them. My favorite class, by far, was an elective that my mom allowed me to take when I was fifteen called Jewels of the Elements: An Intense Look at Their Design.



I grew up in a small town just north of Lakare, the birthplace of the wooly cretins called Imps that fed on your pain. Lakare, it is said, was also the birthplace of all of the magical creatures, from the maliciously seductive Elves to the malevolent and forceful Warlocks. My town, Mesa-Shaul, consisted of all of these creatures and then, of course, the conventional humans like mom, dad … and me?



Alyssa Rae and Camden Thomas, my mom and dad, adopted me when I was four months old. In truth, my caretaker lied to them, stating that I was born to a teenage girl whose boyfriend left her and who had decided after my birth that she could not take care of me. In fact, my caretaker had wrenched me from the arms of a reluctant woman, who stood on her doorstep, masked and robed in black, tears flowing down her cheeks and mixing with the raindrops that had fallen from her dripping hair. All that I will ever know about my true mother, the caretaker tells me, is that which she has already told to me.



When I was six years of age, I began to differ in appearance from any other conventional human in Mesa-Shaul. My eyes transformed like a mood ring, discoloring their natural brown into an icy blue, like the seductive Elves that lurk about. My cropped blonde hair escaped my grasps, growing from two inches to twelve in one day. The blonde disappeared as though I had washed it in dye, turning a severe shade of black like those of the damned Warlocks that shift about. Then, one morning, I woke up, stumbled to the mirror, yawned, and slit my eyes against the morning sun that was peering through the drawn window shade. My shriek echoed across the expansive house and both my mom and my dad came running, panting as they entered my room from their sprint across the courtyard that separated their room and mine.

“What’s … the … matter?” Mom huffed out.

I turned to look at them and both my mom and dad let out a gasp. Blood ran down my face in creek beds of torn skin. Jewels of dried blood dotted where the crimson rivers did not run like enormous pimples. Scrapes ran up and down my bare arms, stopping at a scar just above where my heart would be. While my parents still gaped at all of my new wounds, I gawked at my newly clawed ring finger on my left hand. A diamond ring encircled my finger, with dark jewels surrounding the diamond. I would later learn in the elective class mentioned earlier that the jewels surrounding the diamond symbolized one of the four elements and that the diamond actually symbolized another.

(For the four elements, the jewels would be xecia (a brownish color) for earth, a natural blue sapphire called niacha for water, the diamond (ascate) for air, and lastly, my unknown stone, the onyx or dusemei for fire. [When I began the Jewels class and found out that dusemei symbolized fire, I wondered why a black stone would be the emblem for something red and orange. At the end of the class, I found out that the reason for this is because fire is registered as evil, as only the meticulous and malevolent Warlocks have the ability to call upon this element.])

After my discovery of the nature of ascate and dusemei, I requested from the Professor of the Jewels class why this ring suddenly appeared on my finger. Madame Regina Alistair grabbed my arm, pulled me to her office, and then sat me down on a hard stool in her office, turned around and locked the door behind her. She slumped down in her relaxing leather chair and looked across at me for a minute or so before speaking.

“All right, Nyssa, what happened?”

I showed her my ring, and she gripped it like the world was falling apart.

“Where did you get this?”

“I told you, when I was six it suddenly appeared on my finger one morning.”

“Let me see your arms.”

I showed her both of my arms, and then brushed my hair out of my face, displaying … no scars whatsoever. In the moment that I grazed my skin that morning when I woke up and I was bleeding so profusely, the blood vanished and there were no scars evident at all of my transformation except for my hair, eyes, and my newfound ring.

“Did you bleed?”

“Yeah, but it didn’t hurt at all. I screamed, but only out of fright. What’s going on, Madame Alistair?”

My professor suddenly ripped at her ponytail, allowing her fake brown hair to dart from her skull and her true black hair to cascade down her shoulders. She threw her shaded glasses off of her face and tore at her eyes, peeling colored contacts off of the icy blue irises. She yanked a chain out of her blouse, which had a small silver key dangling from it. Madame Alistair reached under her desk and I heard something unlatch, and then she was drawing a small white box out. Into this box, she obviously inserted the key, flipped it open, and pulled a thin ring out of it, exactly identical to the ring I was wearing at the time.

“You are like me, I suppose.”

“What am I, Madame? What are we?”

“We are those that they call Chamacre, cross-breeds. As dusemei emblazons the power of fire, so too does ascate symbolize air. Chamacre are cross-breeds with Warlocks or Witches and Elves of Light. As I have taught in my “Magick Creatures: Benign and Malignant” class, Warlocks and Witches are contemporary humans that have a telepathic or empathic communication with the elements, yet mainly in their evil counterpart such as fire. Elves of Light are those elves that do not worship the seductive maiden Paradina, but instead worship the gracious maiden Isa, who takes care of the earth and the air encasing it instead of desecrating it.

“Alyssa and Camden cannot be your parents, Nyssa.”

“We know they’re not. All mom and dad know is that they adopted me from the caretaker’s orphanage. I know a little more than they do; I know that my real mom gave me to the caretaker, crying because she had to give me up. The caretaker said she was masked and wearing a dark robe, but that was all that she saw of my biological mother.

“Why do you keep the truth hidden, Madam? Why do you not let people know you are a Chamacre?”

“You have not experienced the racism yet, darling Nyssa. Chamacre’s are not accepted, especially in Mesa-Shaul, because of their split heritage. As you know, only purebreds are given the righteousness to hold any office, including a teaching position. I was forced to conceal my true persona so I could fulfill my only wish, to teach the things that are not supposed to be taught. When I first met the President of the Academy, he told me that they were actually interested in admitting the Study of Magick into the coursework, but only as an elective. It was that day that I began to wear my contacts and tie up my hair and I never changed back.

“Your mother must have not wanted the caretaker to know who and what she was, as well as whom and what you are. The caretaker, who I suppose was a contemporary, would never have even taken you in if she had known you are a Chamacre.

“You will experience much more racism, darling Nyssa. You must find your mother, though. You must know whether you are a witch or an elf of light maternally, for it does matter. If you are a maternal witch, your evil will be great. Yet, if you are a maternal elf of light, your goodness shall truly prevail. Furthermore, if your mother was in fact a Chamacre, you are doomed.”

“How on earth would I find my mother?”

“She found you, didn’t she?”

My mind was opened with Madame Alistair’s question to me and I recognized the distinctive pillar of clouds that was outside my window on the particular morning of my sixth year of life when the cuts appeared. My dream came to life before my eyes.



How did you come to be on this earth, Nyssa-ya? Why are you here, in this place, at this moment? I demand you answer my question! A voice was bellowing.

Who are you? Questioned a voice that was not my own and was not the previous voice either.

When my voice returned, I finally spoke. Who are the two of you?

I am who you want me to be, now answer my damn question, Nyssa-ya?

And the second voice, who are you? I called out again.

I am your mother, Regina-ya. Nyssa-ya, who are you? I do not know you anymore. I cannot find you.

I asked her first, Regina-ya! Get out of this damned dream!

All right, just tell me why the both of you are here.

Nyssa-ya, you are my baby girl. I need to know you and I surely need to be able to find you. I will bring you to me.

You will not, Regina-ya! Nyssa-ya is free from your people!

She will never be free from the Chamacre, Caretaker.

Caretaker? I questioned aloud. Are you my caretaker from the orphanage?

You are free…

She will never be free from her people, Caretaker. She will never be free! My mother’s icy eyes stared straight into my skull, baring my brain to all of her power. She sliced at my mind, though it tore my skin in the conscious realm. She planted within me – or upon me in the conscious realm – a beacon so that she might find me and take me back to the realm of the Chamacre. I cried out for my caretaker, but she could hear me no longer. In the conscious realm, I cried out to my mom and dad. As the pillar of clouds dissipated outside my window, my true mother called out to me one last time.

Let you know the other, so that you might be brought to me with no fight. I love you, my darling Nyssa-ya.



Madame Alistair was standing over me when the dream dissolved, her Beacon Ring flashing brightly from the sun glaring through the open window.

“You are the other?”

“I am.”

“You know my true mother?”

“I am.”

“What do you mean, do you know my mother or do you not?”

“I am.”

“Why do you say you … are you my … you can’t…”

“I am. The other is my ghostal form, the only form that can breach the dream barrier. This is my corporeal form, and I have always been here, at least since you were six-years-old. Now, my daughter, come with me.”

“I will not. You attacked me. You attacked my caretaker.”

“She was not to allow you to be adopted. Her humanity was sickening. You will come with me.”



I did not go with her. I continued to refuse her entry into my life, and tore the ring from my finger as I stormed out of the glimmering office.

I spent half of my life wondering who I was and the other half wondering who everyone else was.

I was fifteen when mom allowed me to take a class on magick. I would later find that though my dad had no idea, she always knew who and what I was through her own powers, as my lasting caretaker. (My original caretaker knew that Regina would come for me. For this, she gave me away to Alyssa and Camden, Alyssa being another associate within the Council of Caretakers.) My mom wanted me to learn for myself, especially when it came to the Beacon Ring. Her wants and desires came to be facts, as I did find out who I was, a Chamacre who had been attacked by her own mother.

The last half of my life, I wondered who everyone else was. Were they who they seemed to be or were they masked just like my mother? Would they come to attack me in the middle of the night as my mother did?



At thirty, I awoke again with blood running down my face in torrents. This time, I remembered what had happened. My mother came to me again, though she was sickly now with her lengthy hair falling out and her icy-blue stare glazed over with near blindness. Yet, she could still attack me with her powers. It was her final time to attack the daughter that she never wanted – a daughter that was just like she, a Chamacre, a filthy cross-breed. My mother was the racist that she spoke of, the horrible racist that I would have to encounter in the world to understand the Chamacre.

I found that at six, I still possessed the base powers of healing any damage ever done to me. However, as my superfluous powers gained strength, my base powers wilted away. By thirty, my powers of healing were absent from my entire form. My mother could finally hurt me.

My mom and dad, both aged to over seventy years by this time, hobbled into me when I cried out. Yet, they could not heal me.

This shall be my last moment, as the blood-spattered page fades away from my vision.

I have one final request of all who may read this manuscript of my misplaced existence: know yourself before you know anything else or you shall be lost.