The Beginning

by Jenna Elizabeth Johnson

  Jahrra’s stomach sank. She knew her exams were now only a few weeks away, but she’d momentarily forgotten about them.

  “If I even survive them,” she murmured grouchily to her guardian.

  He smiled warmly, no sign of his teeth this time, and said, “Perhaps you should go to bed, you’ve had a busy weekend.”

  Jahrra simply nodded and dragged herself up from the thick quilt she’d been resting on. She limped off to her room, trying to stretch out her complaining arms and legs along the way.

  “Good night,” Hroombra called.

  Jahrra grunted a reply and then fell into bed, falling asleep almost instantly.

  The exams came and went, and to her great relief, Jahrra passed all of them. On the first day of Solsticetide break, she, Gieaun and Scede headed to Lake Ossar. Although they weren’t quite finished with their beast, the only thing left to do was to add the teeth and some minor details to the head.

  “We’ll be done by the end of this week for sure, even with Jahrra going to defense lessons,” Scede said, casting his friend a forgiving glance.

  Jahrra frowned as a small gust of icy wind shifted the reeds and tossed her hair into her face. She was practicing with Yaraa and Viornen four days a week during the winter break. Fortunately, her practices were early in the morning, and by early afternoon she was free. Not so fortunately, the multiple bruises and aches she received during practice hindered her ability to be of any real help to her friends.

  “Well come on! It’s freezing out here and we still have so much to do!” Gieaun cried, pulling her jacket tightly around her.

  Jahrra and Scede took the hint and soon the three were scurrying about, draping icy, dripping seaweed over the creature’s massive neck or fastening jagged, rough rib bones to its jaws.

  “A few more days and it will be finished,” Jahrra breathed as she stood back staring at the nearly completed monster in awe. “I can hardly believe it.”

  Three days later they added the final layer of kelp skin to their creature, and after many months of hard, dedicated work, their lake monster was complete. In its finished form, their creation was unbelievably realistic. The long, towering neck looked strong and powerful, and the gaping mouth, filled with grimy, foot-long teeth would terrify even the bravest of men. The eyes they left hollow, which looked more frightening than if they’d been filled in. Great tangled masses of horse hair ran down the beast’s neck, giving it an even more ghastly appearance, and Scede had even attached some hair to the creature’s chin, making it look like a very old monster of legend.

  “Wait a minute! Is it just going to rise out of the water and gape at them? We can’t have a genuine lake monster without it roaring or growling as it is about to eat its prey!” Jahrra stated, delightedly imagining Eydeth’s face as their creature loomed over him.

  “I already thought of that,” Scede said rather smugly, holding up what looked like a horn made out of old leather stretched over a funnel-shaped frame.

  He held it up to his mouth and blew forcefully into it, causing a low bellowing sound that seemed to reverberate deep within their bones.

  Jahrra shivered with goose bumps and Gieaun said, “It’s perfect!”

  That weekend the three of them went out to the lake one last time. They paddled out to their island where their monster’s neck and head lay waiting just beneath the surface. They brought with them extra rope and more rocks to help make a counter weight in the final step in their building process. They ran two ropes from the base of its neck, one over the small wood pilings in the middle of the lake, and the other back to their island. Scede tested it out and found that the pulley system worked perfectly.

  “Just think!” Scede said excitedly. “If this goes as planned, we may be rid of those meddlesome twins for good!”

  Jahrra merely smiled, not holding out too much hope for such a wonderful possibility.

  A few days after the Solstice, the three of them took a special trip down to Lake Ossar to celebrate the completion of their masterpiece.

  “Now, we just have to convince Eydeth and Ellysian to come out here at just the right moment,” Gieaun said, lazing back as she watched a flock of birds migrating overhead.

  “We have a whole week before school even starts again,” Scede insisted. “Why don’t we just enjoy ourselves until then?”

  Jahrra nodded contentedly, yawning out her words. “I agree. We’ve been working so hard for so long. Time for a break!”

  The next week came to a close and the remainder of the winter months passed as slowly as they ever did in Oescienne. The days gradually grew longer and warmer, and as the weeks passed, the wildflowers of the great open fields started to bloom and smile up at any who might pass by. Jahrra’s garden had been green for weeks now from the winter’s rains, but the blossoms and bulbs were finally awakening to the longer days.

  For several weeks Jahrra, Gieaun and Scede had wracked their brains to the point of frustration trying to devise a way in which they could trick Eydeth and Ellysian into stepping into their trap. Every single idea that one of them brought up was quickly dashed away because of some flaw or problem. Jahrra’s plan to right out dare them to face a rumored lake monster wouldn’t work because, as Scede pointed out, she was a known “liar”. Gieaun’s plan to coax them out to the lake by less obvious means and then terrify them with the monster wouldn’t work either because, despite how realistic it was, it wasn’t that convincing when seen during the day.

  “We need to convince them to come out to the lake at night, preferably when the moon is bright,” Jahrra huffed, her brow furrowed in aggravation.

  “We’ll have to trick them into it, Jahrra, like how Eydeth tricked you into going into the Black Swamp!” Scede hissed at Gieaun and Jahrra as they stood under their favorite oak tree in the corner of the schoolyard.

  Jahrra shot him a perturbed look, and Scede just shrugged apologetically. “Well, he did trick you.”

  “Alright, I think I’ve finally got it!” Gieaun whispered harshly. “During our mid-day break, I’ll pretend that someone told me about the lake monster, and you two will back me up. You know Eydeth and Ellysian won’t believe us, so we’ll convince everyone else that there really is a creature living in Lake Ossar. That way, when we do dare them to prove us wrong, they can’t back down!”

  “Brilliant!” Jahrra chirped. “If they insist we’re lying and then they refuse to take our dare, it’ll prove they’re afraid. Eydeth wouldn’t risk that.”

  Now all they had to do was hope that the rest of their plan went smoothly. When they were dismissed for their lunch hour, Jahrra, Gieaun and Scede headed for the shady corner of the yard and climbed atop the huge slab of granite they always perched on.

  They waited until all of their classmates were out in the main yard, and then Gieaun said, just loud enough for the closest group to hear, “Did you hear about the Nesnan man who went missing on Lake Ossar last week?”

  Jahrra tried to look as intrigued as possible as she answered in mock surprise, “No, what happened?”

  “Well,” said Gieaun, taking on a dramatic air, “I wasn’t supposed to hear, but father was telling mother, and I was just in the other room. Apparently some strange creature pulled a man from his boat. He was out in the middle of the lake at night hunting for deer.”

  “That’s crazy!” exclaimed Jahrra. “No one hunts deer from the middle of a lake at night!”

  “No, it’s true!” Scede joined in. “Father took me out a couple of times last summer, but we were hunting wild boar instead. They come up to the edge of the lake at night, and when the moon is full, you can see them very easily.”

  Jahrra looked over at Gieaun as if asking her to verify Scede’s story. Her eyes grew wide and she nodded her head somberly. By this time, many of their classmates had started listening and were slowly gathering around.

  “Alright, so it isn’t all that strange to hunt during the night on the lake, so what? What about the man who went missing? What got him?�
�� Jahrra pressed, giving a fake shiver.

  Scede, doing his best to look frightened, continued on for Gieaun, “No one knows for sure, but he didn’t show up at his home the next morning. His family went looking for him and found his boat ripped in half!”

  Jahrra gave out a fake gasp and a few of the eavesdropping classmates began to murmur uneasily.

  “What do you think did it?” Jahrra continued, trying to sound horrified and not gleeful.

  “You know how father always told us those stories about a lake monster?” Gieaun muttered. “I’m beginning to wonder if they’re true after all.”

  “No way!” Jahrra said, throwing her hands down and acting as if the idea were ridiculous. “There is no such thing as lake monsters! Those kinds of creatures don’t live in Oescienne! Maybe there are some in Felldreim or the giant lakes in Rhiim, but not here!”

  The crowd of children had begun talking freely now, arguing the existence or non-existence of lake and sea monsters. Jahrra, Gieaun and Scede exchanged glances of delight as the web of their trap began to knit together. Now all they had to do was wait for Eydeth and Ellysian to get entangled in it.

  All of the commotion was gathering more and more curious spectators, and after awhile, the twins noticed that the crowd usually surrounding them was now surrounding Jahrra and her friends.

  Jahrra, Gieaun and Scede watched hopefully as Eydeth and Ellysian walked towards the web of discussion, and soon an annoyingly conceited voice cut over the din, “What is going on over here, has the Nesnan finally offered to be someone’s slave for the day?”

  Ellysian had a talent for drawing attention to herself and as she and her brother stepped forward, parting the crowd, Jahrra adopted a look of resentment and disgust.

  “Is anyone going to tell us what’s going on?” the nasty girl continued after the silence had lasted much too long for her liking.

  “I was just telling Jahrra about the man that went missing on Lake Ossar,” Gieaun said steadily, crossing her arms and turning up her nose slightly.

  “What man, I didn’t hear anything about that! Besides, unless he was Resai, who cares?”

  Ellysian planted her hands on her hips rather forcefully, stood up as tall as she could, and flared her nostrils. Jahrra seethed with anger. Who is she to decide whose life is worth more than anyone else’s?

  “We think it might have been the lake monster,” Scede said, trying his best to mask the irritation in his voice.

  Ellysian and Eydeth let out a roar of laughter, and some of the other children, not wanting to look bad in front of the twins, joined in. Just as Gieaun was about to cut in and explain that she had heard stories like this before, the job was done for her.

  “It isn’t funny!” someone yelled. “My parents used to tell me stories about a monster in that lake all the time when I was little! Their grandparents were from Felldreim, and there are all kinds of water monsters in that land! It’s possible there’s one here too!”

  It was one of the boys who had recently strayed away from the twins’ crowd but hadn’t made an effort to talk to Jahrra and her friends.

  Ellysian stopped laughing, and glared at the boy. “Those are just silly stories your parents told you to keep you away from the lake. There’s no lake monster!”

  As much as Ellysian tried, however, she couldn’t completely convince the others that such a creature didn’t exist. Many of their classmates started chatting about details they remembered from the stories they were told when they were younger.

  “I heard that it feeds only during the full moon, and only when the moon is directly overhead!” Scede added dramatically over the racket of voices.

  “Yes, and it sleeps the rest of the month on the bottom of the lake, surfacing only to hunt!” squeaked a younger girl, trembling from the sudden recollection of an old fireside story.

  Jahrra, Gieaun and Scede couldn’t have planned it better. They had thought it would take weeks to get the other children to believe them. But the twins, whom they wanted to convince the most, were remaining quiet, their faces free of expression, and Jahrra started to worry. What if this doesn’t work? What if they just let us all talk? she fretted to herself.

  “You’re all a bunch of babies, believing fairy stories!” It was Eydeth who finally spoke up.

  “Really, a lake monster? That’s the best explanation you can come up with?” he snorted a short laugh and shook his head.

  Jahrra, seeing their intricate plan taking a positive turn, blurted out before thinking, “What do you think it was that ripped the boat in half then, Eydeth? A lake trout?”

  The crowd’s murmuring transformed into a healthy chortling. Eydeth looked rather annoyed as his classmates had a good laugh at his expense.

  “You know what I think?” Jahrra said, gaining steam. “I think you’re just scared.”

  Gieaun and Scede looked over at her, surprise written all over their faces. This wasn’t the way the plan was supposed to go; they were supposed to take their time, not jump right into it. Jahrra quickly darted her eyes away from theirs and frantically searched for an escape route. She hadn’t meant to lose her temper and antagonize Eydeth, but she couldn’t stop now.

  “What did you say to me, Nesnan?” Eydeth said with malice.

  “I think you’re afraid of the idea of a lake monster,” Jahrra ploughed on. “I bet you wouldn’t even be brave enough to go out on the lake during the next full moon to prove me wrong.”

  Jahrra crossed her arms and sat upright on the huge rock, a very nervous Gieaun and Scede on either side of her. Eydeth’s ears began to turn red while he glared right back at her.

  “I’m not afraid of some make-believe sea snake!” he spat.

  “Then prove it.” Jahrra uncrossed her arms and stuck her nose in the air. “Prove that, for one, you aren’t afraid of it, and two, that it doesn’t exist. Go out onto the lake during the next full moon, and see if it shows up.”

  Everyone in the schoolyard had his or her eyes glued on Eydeth. Ha! Jahrra thought triumphantly, he has to do it, or he’ll look like a coward! Jahrra smiled inwardly, but continued to frown down on her nemesis. She could almost see his mind working furiously behind his angry eyes, and she knew she had him.

  “There is no lake monster, and I’ll prove it.” Eydeth turned to the crowd. “In two weeks’ time, I’ll be going to Lake Ossar to demonstrate what fools that Nesnan and her friends are. When I have gone and shown that there is no lake monster, then those of you who believe her and her friends will see what a mistake you’ve made.”

  He jerked his head aggressively in Gieaun’s, Scede’s and Jahrra’s direction. Jahrra had to admit, it was quite an eloquent speech for Eydeth. He turned and glared at her once more, but she stared right back, barely able to contain the huge smile she held in her heart. As they returned to class, everyone was buzzing about the dare that Eydeth had accepted.

  “He’ll be sitting on that lake all night and nothing will happen, Jahrra is such an idiot!” one girl said.

  “I’m not going! What if the monster does show up and eats him alive!” another said.

  “Wouldn’t that be a treat?” Jahrra whispered to Gieaun and Scede as they slinked in behind the rest of the students. Both Gieaun and Scede were trying very hard to hide their triumphant smiles.

  The next few weeks crawled by as Jahrra both dreaded and anticipated the approaching night of the prank. As the time ticked away and as the moon grew more and more round, the tension slowly climbed with it. The schoolyard became a battle ground between those who were foolish enough to believe the monster existed, and those proud enough to insist it didn’t.

  Jahrra feared that Eydeth would chicken out, and even saw a slight panic in his eyes when he thought no one was watching. As time wore on, however, he became more and more determined to show Jahrra he wasn’t afraid of a “stupid little Nesnan and her imaginary monsters”.

  “You are going to look so foolish Jahrra! You shouldn’t have dared him!” many would say a
s they passed her and Gieaun and Scede on the way to class.

  “Oh, leave her alone!” an auburn-haired girl finally said one day. “Let’s just hope the monster doesn’t show up! I would hate for anyone to get eaten!”

  Jahrra remembered her from the twins’ Solsticetide party so long ago, Rhudedth was her name. She was the same girl that went for help when Jahrra had become entangled in the oak tree.

  Even their teacher Professor Tarnik, normally oblivious to Jahrra and her friends, noticed the battle going on between his students.

  “I do not know what all this nonsense is about a sea serpent, but it needs to stop this instant! If I hear another word about it in this classroom, you’ll be writing lines until summer arrives!”

  This frightening threat from their tyrant of a headmaster forced everyone to keep their opinions contained to the schoolyard. By the end of the final week, one day before the full moon, Eydeth had rallied a large group willing to witness his bravery.

  “We’ll all be camping on the lake shore tomorrow evening, and then I’ll row out into the middle of the lake. I’ll even make a lot of noise so your ‘monster’ can’t miss me.” Eydeth grinned malevolently as he swept past Jahrra and her friends.

  “If you don’t show up, it’ll just prove my point further: that the monster is real and you were just too scared to prove me wrong!” Jahrra threatened back.

  Eydeth turned and gave a quick look of consternation as Jahrra said this. So, he has been thinking about backing down. What a coward! she thought angrily. Eydeth’s look of fear, however, was only a fleeting one, and he gave her one last smug glare before marching on with his sniggering crowd of followers.

  “Please. Even you, Nesnan, aren’t brave enough to go fishing for your own make-believe lake creature,” he spat over his shoulder, refusing to let Jahrra have the last word.

  Jahrra breathed away her moment of irritation and allowed the corner of her mouth to rise just enough to make it look like she was smirking.

  We will see who the brave one is tomorrow night, Eydeth, she thought jeeringly, and then loud enough only for Gieaun and Scede to hear, “And we’ll be there to see it all, you just won’t know it. C’mon, we have a lot to plan before tomorrow night.”