Enchanting You

3- The Red Eyed Trickster

Just as my gaze collided with hers into the mirror, my child let out a screech.

I instantly stilled. The memories, only bad memories that I had gone through in my life flashed through my mind. Like a scene out of the movies. Like the scientific documentaries where they say that a dying person's mind plays a trick and makes them see a seven minutes of rewind where they watch all the moments spent in their lifetime flash in front their eyes like a video.

It felt like that. The only difference was, I did not see all of my life. I only saw the bad remembrances.

I saw the death of my mother. I saw the torture my father and I had gone through. I saw the misery and I saw the world of pain. I relived the moments that I had buried deep down inside a corner of my heart so that they never surface back.

And in my lifespan of eighty two human years, there was only one person whom I never wanted to remember ever again because he was the only one who made me feel miserable. But then, he was the only one who ever made me truly happy.

I tried to take control of my mind again. I tried to push back the veil of evil that my child had cast upon me. But right now I had become too vulnerable.

My eyes rolled back in my head, my mouth fell open, my body became paralyzed and the memories started crashing in...

*****

"Pandora!" My friend, Lilith screamed after me.

I was running. My breaths were shallow. I had just passed my early young years. I was officially going to become an adult today after a long wait of eighty human years, making my aging slow down. A twenty years old girl in our magical realm, Criptire.

And I wanted a gift.

"Pandora, please don't leave me here with them!" She screamed again.

I giggled. I wanted to see what would happen.

"They brought him." Oniee came running inside while shouting at the top of his lungs.

His barely five feet, round and heavy build came to stand beside me.

"The one who had caused a ruckus and gotten your father's informer killed." He continued as he bent down to his waist and heaved heavily, "He.. he is in a box though. I think they do not want to give him a chance to play any tricks to get out."

"Mmhmm.." I murmured while flipping my waist length braid behind my back and pinching the side of my flowery, green skirt to hold it up from the soil filled ground.

The main gates, made with heavy silver opened with a screech. Four men, who were naked from the waist up and wearing nothing but loose trousers were holding a wooden box up on their shoulders.

The box had carvings embedded in. I could read those carvings. They were made by strong enchantresses and sorcerers to keep the powerful criminal creatures, like ghouls, werewolves, fairies, vampires and Valkyries hostage.

The spells rendered most of them powerless unless they were extremely powerful. But as far as it had been, I had never seen anyone breaking out of the box and setting themselves free.

It was... well, very disappointing.

The square box had two logs of wood tied at the bottom which helped the men carrying it lift it up on their shoulders from each corner.

How can someone be this heavy?, I thought.

The box was now being carried from in front of me towards the cellars that were built to hold the prisoners in. Father must have arranged for him to be held hostage in advance, disabling the magic of the jail for him.

Although the box was big enough to fit someone only if they were sitting down. There was also a tiny window in the box. An extremely small window which would not allow even a hand to peak out. Barely four inches in width and two inches in height. It was most probably there to let him breathe.

Just as the thought passed by my head, two red eyes flashed to me from the window inside the box. It was so sudden that I stumbled back a step in bewilderment.

But he did not move his eyes away from mine. My blue eyes stared into his red ones. A current ran down in my spine that traveled through my whole body. Surprisingly, making me hyper aware of his presence. It felt like he was challenging me to move my gaze away first.

I did not. I was never the one to back out of a challenge.

"Also," Oniee murmured while straightening up, "I need to run back now. My Aunt is going to punish me if I did not reach home before the sun goes down."

The box had now disappeared from my sight. The men had carried the box inside the cellar hall but I kept staring in that direction.

As Oniee finished his words, my eyes came back to look at him.

"Oh," I said, "Do you want me to kill her?"

Oniee started looking like I had just asked him to give me his eyeballs.

"Why would you kill my Aunt?" He spluttered out the words, flabbergasted.

I looked down at him like he was stupid. Although, sometimes I actually thought he was. He said something then he did something else, I didn't understand these kinds of things.

Heaving out a sigh in exasperation I questioned while shaking my head at him in confusion., 

"I asked if YOU want me to kill her? You just said that she was going to punish you." 

I could do that. I was the highest ranked royalty after my father. I could either order someone to kill her or I could go there myself and see how many magic tricks I can make work on her. It would be fun.

"That does not mean I want you to kill my Aunt!" Oniee spat.

"Alright. Shoo now." I dismissed him absentmindedly and started walking towards the cellars. I wanted to see the red eyed trickster.

"Pandoraaaa!"

Suddenly Lilith's horrified screech shook the whole building.

I rolled my eyes and started walking towards the cellar that I had locked her into. Scaredy cat could not endure even a few minutes with the criminals.