They are coming: The cautionary tales of Anna Wara

When the next morning came around, Hunter was still nowhere to be found. He hadn’t returned the previous night, and Lumia had no idea where he was, what he might be doing, or whether or not he was okay.

She found the little girl in her room and took her down to eat breakfast. The child was looking around for Hunter in the crowd as well. The girl hadn’t seen him since yesterday afternoon, when he brought her and her water lizard back from their little trek toward the forest line. The child was worried about him, Lumia could see that.

“Don’t worry,” Lumia said, trying to comfort her. “He will be back soon.” The little girl turned to face Lumia with concern in her eyes, but quickly nodded and tried to put on a brave smile. Meanwhile, her water lizard was busy nibbling away at her breakfast without her even knowing.

“E!” she scolded the little critter as soon as she saw him, lifting her plate of food over her head so he couldn’t eat more. Beside her, Lumia fought to stifle her laughter.

***

Lumia left the temple just as it was approaching midafternoon. The little girl didn’t seem like playing with her friends today, so Lumia brought her along.

As they navigated their way through market streets, corners, and safe alleyways, Lumia could see the preparations for the onslaught against the Widowmakers already underway. Blacksmiths were busy sharpening weapons and tools the army would be using in the coming fight, and out in the training yards, Lumia could also see drills being organized for the recruits.

The mayor was also standing outside, watching the preparations. Head Priestess Mary was standing alongside him. Although they weren’t directly facing each other, Lumia could tell they were having an argument. The head priestess was probably still trying to convince him to consider her evacuation idea, even though the man had already made up his mind.

However, those weren’t any of Lumia’s concerns at that very moment. She was making her way toward the town’s library, secretly hoping materials existed that could tell her more about Anna Wara and her exploits.

If the woman had been some kind of influential figure like a king, queen, or scholar, then Lumia was certain she would find books written about her. But from the stories she’d heard, Anna Wara was primarily seen as a social outcast with mental issues. She doubted people went out of their way to write books about her. Regardless, Lumia needed to try.

When she finally arrived at the library, she first took the little girl to the children’s section, where Lumia picked out a magic picture book for the girl to keep herself entertained.

The book depicted creatures like unicorns, baby dragons, and colorful birds all moving around the pages as if they were real. Lumia remembered having lots of fun with those types of books as a kid. She couldn’t actually read back then, but that wasn’t really a problem since the books required little to no reading skills. Just watching the colorful creatures moving around the paper was enough to keep any child entertained.

When Lumia noticed the girl was settled and enjoying herself, she left the children’s section to go find her reason for coming to the library in the first place.

She searched, and searched, and searched, but unfortunately, she was unable to find any text talking about Anna Wara. It was ridiculous. There was not even a single mention of her in any of the materials: her life, her past, her family, or her village. Absolutely nothing.

After looking for almost an hour, she eventually gave up and let her forehead fall on the table from exhaustion. She wasn’t even sure what she was doing anymore. Why was she searching for answers all of a sudden? Why was she looking into the life of a person history only ever saw as a madwoman? Was it because it might be connected to Hunter somehow? Or was it because she was simply curious and wanted to know?

With her head still resting on the table, she let out a sigh and a groan. She was already getting tired. And hungry. Wait… A sudden realization crossed her mind, causing her to sit up straight from the table, eyes widened in shock. She hadn’t come alone. The little girl might be getting hungry as well.

She took off sprinting toward the children’s section of the library. She was such an idiot. How could she forget she had come with the girl?

She didn’t stop running until she rounded the corner and found the little girl doing just… fine? Lumia suddenly felt silly. The child was still deeply enthralled with the books, watching the moving pictures drawn in them.

Lumia took a seat beside the girl. She would wait a few minutes, then leave as soon as the child started to get hungry. She hadn’t personally found what she was looking for, but she was glad at least one of them was having fun. The girl was laughing at the particular book she was holding, while her water lizard was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he had gone hunting for flies or other small insects within the library, Lumia thought.

She turned her attention back to the black-haired kid. The girl was still wearing her magical sealing bracelets, disguised as regular blue rubber bangles, and Lumia briefly wondered if anyone in town had figured out what they really were.

She noticed the child had already read through so many picture books in the time they had spent at the library. There were at least six of them on the table the girl had finished. Lumia reached down for one of them.

“What do you say I join you in reading too?” Lumia said to the little girl. She turned the book over to read the title, and suddenly froze in disbelief, her eyes widening in shock once more. Lumia couldn’t believe what she was looking at.

The Cautionary Tale of Anna Wara, Volume 1. That was the title.

Lumia quickly got to her feet in search of the other volumes in the series. Yes, it was a children’s book with mostly pictures, and yes, a huge part of the story must have been altered and modified for its target audience in order to deliver a particular message or lesson by the end.

But maybe not everything was changed. Maybe she could still understand, even a little, the true story of Anna Wara and her nightmare-like prophecies.

After meticulously combing the bookshelves, Lumia finally found the complete Cautionary Tales of Anna Wara, children’s edition—all six volumes.

She went back and sat beside the little girl at the table. “Hey,” she said, nudging the girl with her elbow to get her attention. “When you get hungry, or when you want to leave, you tell me, alright?” Lumia told her, and the child nodded in response. Then, selecting the first volume from the bunch, Lumia began reading.

...

Anna Wara was an only child to Frances and Malisa Wara. Her father was a genius inventor working as a brilliant mechanic in the capital of Leafgrey, within the Elven kingdom. Her mother was a seamstress, who had the God-given gift of turning whatever piece of cloth into a beautiful dress.

Their daughter, however, Anna, possessed a unique skill of her own, unlike her mother’s sewing or her father’s ingenuity. She was a seer—a person capable of glimpsing into the future, visions that sometimes may or may not come true.

One day, after Anna Wara and her family began living in the forest, she woke up during the night claiming she had seen a vision of the future, and it wasn’t looking good.

She said a day was coming, a day very close, when monsters and creatures from a black void would enter our world through portals in the sky.

These monsters would rule over humanity for many years, slowly destroying everything and everyone in their path.

Entire towns would try to resist, kingdoms would attempt fighting back, but it would all be futile. The monsters would be too strong to defeat, and the whole world would eventually fall to their mercy.

...

The first thing Lumia thought after she finished reading the first volume was: how was this story ever made for children? To be fair, there were parts she skipped over—probably the parts that had all of the lessons, values, and morals—but at its core, the prophecy was the bigger attention grabber, at least to her.

They left the library soon after. Lumia wished she could take the books back with her, but aside from the looks she’d probably get from the librarian seeing her leaving with children’s stories, once she got to the temple she wouldn’t have much time to sit around and read anyway.

When they arrived, Lumia took the girl straight to the kitchen to serve her lunch. The water lizard had come back at some point while they were still at the library, and he was now riding on top of the girl’s head.

Hunter was still not back, and when night came, Lumia was starting to consider the possibility that he might have simply left. It wasn’t like the little girl was his family—he said so himself. He didn’t have to stick around if he didn’t want to.

Yet, although Lumia considered the thought, she didn’t believe it. She had only known Hunter for a very short time—literally a single day—but he didn’t strike her as the kind of person who would do something like that.

He went out of his way to save a bunch of farmers the other day, putting his life on the line for their safety. So, no. If he was fine and nothing had happened to him, then he was definitely going to come back.

The next day, preparations to launch an attack on the Widowmakers continued as normal. Hunter was still not back yet, and Lumia made up another excuse to keep the little girl from worrying.

Finishing her chores for the morning, Lumia headed back to the library to continue her research, with the girl and her water lizard tagging along once more.

Lumia learned more about Anna Wara: how, when she turned into a young woman capable of traveling on her own, she set off on a journey to various kingdoms, towns, and libraries, all in search of information that could help her devise a solution to save the world from the coming apocalypse.

There were rumors that, at some point during her travels, she adopted transporter magic: a type of high-level skill able to transport the user to an entirely different world if they wished. However, it came with a cost.

A person could only perform a single trip using this skill. Once they arrived in the new location, they could never return to their old world.

That particular bit of information piqued Lumia’s interest. Because, at some point, it was said Anna Wara was no longer seen again. It was almost as if she had simply vanished from existence.

Could she have somehow mastered this skill and transported herself to a different world? Lumia thought. Her body was never found, and people who had regular contact with her said she suddenly stopped communicating out of the blue. Could this be what happened to her?

After she finished reading the second volume, she left the library with the little girl and the water lizard. So, the “cautionary tale” in the title of the books was mainly referring to the fact that Anna Wara had taught herself forbidden magic, and not so much her prophecies and visions.

On the third day, Hunter was still not back, and the mayor’s plan to attack the Widowmakers’ nest had finally begun. Armed soldiers moved out in droves toward the outskirts of town, some riding on horses while others marched out on foot.

There was tension in the air. It was almost suffocating. Nobody knew if the plan would work, and a lot of people hoped it would—Lumia included.

After she finished her work that morning at the temple, she headed back over to the library to do some more reading. She invited the little girl to come along again. For some reason she couldn’t explain, Lumia had the sense something bad was about to happen, and she wanted the girl close so she could keep an eye on her just in case.

She was twenty minutes into Volume Three of Anna Wara’s children’s storybook when it suddenly happened. She heard a commotion coming from outside, and she instantly dropped the book on the table before quickly getting up to investigate.

“Come on,” she said softly to the little girl, who was also busy reading. “We’ll be back. Let’s just go see what’s happening outside really quick, okay?”

The girl nodded in agreement, then set her book down before getting up to follow. Lumia gently grabbed her hand and led them both out of the library.

The noise she had heard was a bunch of townsfolk gathered around something. Lumia got closer, and discovered it was actually a soldier.

Her breath caught in her throat at the state he was in. He was bleeding down the left side of his head, but luckily, a junior healer girl from the temple was already tending to his injuries.

The noise was from people bombarding him with questions and updates from the battlefield. They wanted to know what was going on, whether the soldiers were losing, and why he had returned.

The single trooper appeared to be in shock, unable to answer any of their questions. He was just mumbling to himself, over and over again.

Lumia briefly let go of the little girl’s hand so she could get closer and hear what the injured man was saying. And as soon as she did, her blood ran cold.

“We lost,” the man said. “We should have listened to the head priestess and not attacked. We are losing,” he repeated. “so leave. Now. All of you. Cause they are coming. The Widowmakers… they are coming.”