The Atreus Amulet

"Rewind the sands of time

Let us see into the past

Turn back the clock

Take us to A time before

We call upon the memories of A previous shore

We call to the time of this objects creation

Show us your history

Show us your past

Rewind the sands of time ,let us see your past

Turn back the clock, take us to the time of your before

We call to your memories of a previous shore

Rewind the sands of time, let us see your past

Turn back the clock, take us to the time of your before

We call to your memories of a previous shore"

Tatianas coven chanted melodically in Romani Greek around their large stone basin, it was their form of a cauldron.

Ian, Harper, Dad, and Angela had all decided to accompany Matthew, Rosie and I to Prague for the revealing of the Atreus Amulet's origins.

We would finally know what the Atreus Amulet was and how to destroy it.

Tatiana was Harper's witch friend from a century or 2 past, she didn’t look a day over 35...I guess witchy pursuits had their perks. She had warned first Harper and then me that we might not want to know what the amulet truly was. After much debate, it came down to 13-year-old Matthew Brambleson. Matthew and I had met while I was solving his missing persons case along with his dead grandmother Rosie Brambleson.

In the end, it had been Matthew's decision, it was a Brambleson family heirloom created by his ancestor in collusion with a nasty witch, it was his by right and he had bonded with the thing as was instructed before the seventh full moon of his 13th year.

To the naked eye, the amulet looked like an overly large chunk of raw sapphire that was a touch too glittery for its natural state. If one used their second sight, the golden alchemical transformation circles could be seen encircling and twisting through the gem. It was beautiful and terrifying.

It had absolute dominion over the dead, but it was also capable of pulling the soul out of a person leaving only a fleshy husk. I discovered that most unpleasantly, it could also exchange souls from one body to the next. It was an absolute horror show.

My question was, why have something like this specifically commissioned?

The body- hopping was so as the Brambleson forefather could live on in each new male heir and therefore never lose his power or wealth. The man was rotten to the core. He had switched to the child that was the most compassionate of their generation by playing on their sympathies and their noble streak only to mock them for it in the end.

Five heirs had been switched and their souls locked away within the amulet, including Matthews own father Thomas Brambleson. He was the only child to get his body back, and we weren’t sure if death wouldn’t have been a better option for him. Matthew’s father had endured his fate and had stayed strong, but everyone had their breaking point. Matthew's constant violent abuse at the hands of the ancestor who stole Thomas's body was that point.

My heart broke for them both. I shook myself, I needed to focus as it would be up to Me to end the amulet's existence. We all stood in a semi-circle about twelve feet from the coven. Any other day it would have been a gorgeous forest outing. It was so green here, and the rock facing and mountains beyond practically glittered with life. They looked more silver than gray.

Where the coven stood was a marvel in and of itself as it looked as though the forest had grown this spot just for them, rough stone pillars rose up around us and if you observed their pattern, they grew in a spiral moving out from the large basin area where the witches now worked their mojo.

Smoke rose from the gray basin and grew opaque as the coven chanted, raising the pitch higher with each word until we could see an image from long ago.

The image wavered and solidified, and we were staring into a mud and straw hut, it looked to be somewhere on the African continent.

As we watched a short, hunched, and sagging woman chanted and mixed herbs and potions while an aristocratic sandy-haired gentleman watched and sweated profusely while twisting his mustache. The man fidgeted and fanned himself, he grew more restless as the image played on.

“Is it ready?” A note of imperious entitlement oiled its way through his voice.

The woman didn’t look up, replying with, "One last thing." She called sweetly and loudly "Mohhendai" and a tiny boy with bright sapphire eyes popped his head into the hut. He was covered in mud and looked at the woman with an innocence that only a little child would show to their mother.

A cold feeling grew in my gut. I prayed that I was wrong about what I was guessing.

"Moh Moh, table!" She gestured for the child to get on her work bench which was covered with sigils and various ritual items. He couldn’t have been more than four years old.

"Yes, mama." He climbed up to the table and sat.

"Lay down Moh Moh."

"Yes mama" he laid down within the circle, what I now observed to be an alchemical transformation circle. I wanted to stop watching this, but I needed to push on.

"Moh Moh, you’re 3 years old now and your power is big. Are you a good boy? Do you love Mama?"

He looked at her with all the love and trust in the world “Yes mama, I love you"

"Good boy!" She patted his head. "Now if you want to be good and help mama, then please repeat my words Moh Moh."

"Okay, mama." I could see in his eyes that he meant every word.

I was trying so hard not to cry; I didn’t realize I was shaking until Matthew put his hand in mine. I realized how difficult this had to be for him as well considering his past.

The witch continued "Now repeat after me, I Mohendai surrender my form to do Kuresakis will."

Without missing a beat, the boy repeated " I Mohendai surrender my form to do Kuresakis will."

The witch touched his forehead and said a few unintelligible words and gold lightning encircled his body then melded his small form into a chunk of stone the size of the witch’s fist and the exact color of the boy’s eyes. His small body was gone, in its place sat what was now the Atreus amulet. Its golden light pulsed like the heartbeat of the small innocent child who had just been robbed of everything by the person they trusted the most.

The man’s face was painted with shock and disgust "You would use your own kin...your own son?"

The witch smiled seductively "He was nothing to me. Now, my payment?” she held out her hand palm up. The man dropped a rose-colored vial with iridescent swirls in her hands, which she uncorked and drained in one gulp. Within seconds the witch became young and healthy once more.

This time when she smiled, the man couldn’t help but be attracted as she was ravishingly beautiful.

"And now your item." She plucked the blue stone that had been her son from the table and began to hand it to him with a satisfied smile.

I felt so much emotion well up in me, I hoped the boy couldn’t hear his mother or sense her feelings and acted without thinking "NO!" I heard myself scream. The coven, Dad, Ian, Matthew, Harper and even Rosie all whipped their heads in my direction. As did the man and the witch in the image.

The witch hissed at me, Tatiana and her coven chorused "Oh No", and before I could stop myself, I was at the basin reaching through the image and grabbing the stone from the witch. It felt like I was only halfway in my body as I spoke to the witch in the past, through Tatiana’s covens spell.

Neither the man nor the witch was prepared for what came next.

She fought my grip, but it was no use, my hand might as well have been made of stone.

"You would trade your CHILD for YOUR youth. You don’t deserve either, WITCH!" My left hand wrapped itself around the stone further and I dug the fingers of my right hand into the edges of the basin "MOHENDAI!" The voice that came out of my throat was one that I had never heard before.

It was deep, old, and forceful and I felt it flow through my body and burst forth from my chest along with a deep pink glow. The fuchsia glow pushed forward from my chest, out through my arms and hands to wrap itself around the blue pulsing stone. The glow stayed that way, gently synchronizing pulses with the stone until I could feel the stones pulse...its energy….its pain…...its...humanity.

I felt that little boy, his fear, his hurt, his sense of loss, and to my surprise he felt me right back.

The gold and blue glow bled into the pink energy surrounding it and like an octopus, wound its way back through my hands and up my arms to settle itself in my chest, where it expanded and pulsed with my own heartbeat.

Within seconds the amulet was no more than a chunk of black sooty rock, the soul that had once lived there now resided within my heart. I didn't know how I knew; I just did. I dimly wondered what would come of this, but it was no more than a curious whisper at the back of my mind. I didn't care, I knew this was the right course of action to take, I just KNEW.

The witch’s eyes went wide as dinner plates and then she cackled at me, "What do you think you have done, you stupid girl? Hmm? That boy is nothing. He is only worth his trade value which you have taken away. You think you did good? Hmm? Those meddling necromancers along with your pet albino spider and Were beast! You have cursed yourself!” I could feel Ian’s emotions distantly, he really hated people who abused kids “That’s Werewolf! You dried up old hag!”

Harper’s upper-crust accented voice came from behind me “Albino Spider? I haven't heard that term in a very long time. It’s Vampire now, Withered Crone!” Dad tossed in his 2 cents as well, he had been oddly quiet during all of this “I will see you when you die.” The amount of icy threat that my dad could pour into an inane sentence was just scary. The witch actually flinched from him. She rebounded quickly though ”Remember you stupid, stupid girl, no good deed goes unpunished. You have cursed yourself with that boy and his strange soul!! I have what I want, and you have a cursed creature that will be your end" she cackled again.

With a resolve I didn't know I had I said "It doesn’t matter. He doesn't deserve to be miserable. He doesn’t deserve pain. Just like you don't deserve youth or beauty or health." I looked at her and cocked my head "But I know exactly what you do deserve, since you wanted to be eternally beautiful so badly. That was what the Aphrodite potion that you sold your child for was for,after all. You will serve as the conduit!"

With those words, a bolt of radioactive green energy shot from my hands to the witch. A look of pure terror contorted her features and she tried to put her arms up in a counter hex but was too slow. The beautiful form that she had paid so much for disintegrated before our eyes as she was pulled wholly into the amulet, which glowed blue and gold as it was once again lit by a soul. I had just changed history, but I felt no concern…I felt completely at ease. An absolute confident contentment I had never once felt in my life.

I felt myself smile maliciously as I bounced the stone from one hand to the other, I could feel the witches fear and it felt good. "There we go, eternally beautiful and coveted by many. Careful what you desire witch!" I then sat the amulet on the table and turned to the horrified man who had remained stock still during the interchange, it killed me to do so but history had to play out as it was intended, "You are a cockroach, but I cannot rip time apart so instead I will say that you will get yours in time and forget this ever happened...cockroach!" I waved a hand in front of his eyes and watched as his memory faded away, his eyes turned to the amulet on the table, and he quickly forgot my existence as he snatched it up and pocketed it. He left the hut smiling and whistling.

Tatiana's coven disbursed the image suddenly and it was as though I was slapped awake from a fog. I looked around me to find all eyes watching me, standing there at the basin with my chest glowing green while the last remnants of the coven’s spell faded on the wind.

"Uhhhhhhh..." Angela and Harper both looked worried as hell as they said it in unison.

Tatiana came around the basin and over to me and looked deep into my eyes "What you did was very dangerous, brave and understandable, but so dangerous! Dt. Azreala Rutgers." She sighed and shook her head, tight black curls tossing to and fro. "The child’s soul resides within you, however, he is dormant. He sleeps & heals himself; my sisters and I will give him good dreams while he heals. You must know, there will be consequences for you Dt. Rutgers. Ones which you cannot possibly prepare for. Contact the coven when these issues arise. Reginald will know how to get ahold of us." She inclined her head towards Harper, who nodded.

With that, she turned towards Matthew, who immediately held the amulet out to her. "Take it, please! I don't want it!" He seemed sickened by its touch. He dropped it into the glass box that one of the witches handed to Tatiana.

"We will keep it safe for you Matthew. You will need it one day. All the children’s souls which it kept prisoner have been released and they have moved on to the light. The souls which remain are exactly where they should be." She closed the box around the amulet, I could swear I heard a high-pitched wail as the lid shut and left with her sisters through a break in the surrounding rocks.

"That’s our cue to depart" Harper hooked my arm in his and walked me towards the forest entrance. Everyone else, though clearly shaken, drifted off in pairs to meet us at the waiting helicopter that Harper had been nice enough to loan us. He shortened the trip from a week to a few hours, bless his vampire behind!

Precisely nine months later, after my ONLY one-night stand, I would discover I was three months pregnant. I would give birth to Alistair, seven months later, and I would know love as I had never understood it. Alistair was absolutely attached to me, and his separation anxiety rivaled my own, so I quit field work, leaving it to my father and Ian while I did paperwork.

After a while, Harper insisted on paying me for the freebie side jobs I had been doing for him. He decided that I needed more money to help with Alistair. It helped me get a house for Alistair and I away from the city.

Lil Bear lacked a father, but he had Uncle Ian, Uncle Harper, Uncle Eddie, and Auntie Angie, though Grandpa Geoff was lukewarm about the grandparent thing he still tried to be supportive.

Honestly, though, Lil Bear and I didn't really need anyone else. The deep dark well of emptiness that had been my constant companion had been erased slowly as Alistair grew in my belly, to be wiped out completely once he was born.

Alistair also demonstrated an odd bent toward necromancy at a very early age, I already had suspicions about his conception.

Which was why when I overheard my two & a half year old speaking plain English to Harper, it only confirmed those suspicions. I eavesdropped on my supposedly nonverbal expressive responsive disorder-diagnosed child who was having a fluent conversation with Harper. Harper had insisted on staying close to the boy, and I had a feeling he had as many supicions as I did.

Harper visited us every other week without fail. As did my friend Angela, who was one hell of a witch in her own right and had plenty of guesses as to Alistair's origins. They both watched Alistair very closely.

No matter what or who Alistair was, to me he was my son...my baby, and that was all that I cared to know. However, I was very curious to hear what my son was up to.

“Look Albino Spider, I love my mama. She is the most wonderful thing in the world. She is also incredibly beautiful. Yes, I’ve noticed you looking at her much longer than I’m happy with. I’m giving you fair warning because she considers you a friend. Try ANYTHING on her and I will melt you like a crayon!” Little Alistair was making direct eye contact with Harper. The kid was ridiculously brave, one time he had moved to stand between me and a poltergeist. He hadn't even been two.

He raised his little eyebrow and continued “I said the same thing to Aunt Angie. You guys keep away from my mama!” Harper looked at my son soberly “ So, Mohhendai. I presume?” Harper's pale blue eyes took on a calculating note.

Alistair got a far-off look in his eyes ”Yes, that was my name at one point. a long time ago. My name is Alistair now, and Mama has proven that I can trust her. Although I will see what happens when I turn three.” He frowned.

“Because?” Harper asked.

He sighed” Because my powers will get much stronger. She will be afraid of me. I will become valuable to more people, something to be traded for something better. We will see what she does then.”

Harper laughed “Boy, you don't know your mother!”

“Yes, I do!” with a petulant tone.

“No, you don’t. Your mother will coddle you, baby you, love you, and never let you go. She has already given up so much for you. She couldnt fathom trading you for anything." Harper shook his head and eyed Alistair "How can you still doubt her?”

He looked down “Experience.”

“I see." Harper nodded and folded his hands one over the other on our coffee table "She is nothing like Kusekai. You are her whole world, child. She would end her own life if anything happened to you. I hope you can appreciate that. Just because one person does you a greivious wrong, That does not mean that ALL people will do you wrong automatically. You are her everything.”

“She is my everything.” Then, his eyes filled with love and trust that only a small child could have for his mother, and my heart was finally full.