“Why are you laughing?” Kell demanded angrily, as he pulled his face out of Jakob’s chest slowly.
“Look,” Jakob said pointing about three feet away from where they were standing.
Sitting in front of them, wagging its tail, was a small white pup. She was looking at them with soft, brown eyes, her tongue hanging out to the side. It almost looked as though she was smiling at them and Kell heard himself whispering, “Awwwwww.” The pup was sitting politely, looking back and forth at them, almost as though she was waiting. Her long, floppy ears were fuzzy and relaxed, and all Kell could think about was petting them. The brothers forgot about their trouble for a moment, mesmerized by the floppy eared little mongrel sitting in front of them.
“Jakob, is he friendly?” Kell asked, hoping he would say yes.
“I think it’s a girl, Kell. And I guess, but …” before he could finish his sentence, Kell ran up to her and held his hand out so that she could sniff him.
“Kell!” Jakob was too late, and he watched cautiously as the dog sniffed Kell’s hand and then gave it a good, sloppy lick. She jumped up on her hind legs and tried to lick his face, but it was out of her reach so she gave up and started rubbing against him like a cat.
“She likes me, Jakob!” Kell exclaimed happily. “She’s a good dog! Can we keep her, please?”
Jakob was hesitant. He didn’t know where they would to need to go and if they could keep a dog with them, but he knew there was no way they could leave her behind. She had been the only other living Creature beside themselves they had seen. “I suppose she can stay with us, for now.”
The dog looked at Jakob as if satisfied with the answer. Kell and the dog sat close by the fire and Jakob watched them closely while he rolled their dilemma around in his head. Kell yawned and lay down on the hard ground, resting his head on his arm. The dog snuggled tight against him, and Kell automatically buried his hands in her long soft fur, carefully pulling her close. Kell started to fall asleep and Jakob watched curiously as the dog didn’t move from his side, almost as though she were watching over him.
How odd! Jakob thought to himself. I wonder where this dog came from? There has to be a village or some houses nearby. We will have to explore more and look in the morning. Why is she looking at me as though she knows something that I don’t know?
The dog was staring at Jakob, her head resting on the ground close to Kell’s, her mouth closed and her snout pointed toward him. She was lying as close to Kell as she could. Kell slept deeply, using his one arm as a pillow while the other draped across her white furry back.
“You like him, do you, girl?” Jakob asked, immediately feeling silly for talking to the dog. He had never been much of an animal person, though Kell was usually drawn to every animal he ever saw.
Jakob felt even sillier when it seemed as though she nodded to him, then put her head back down with a sigh. He stoked the fire and added another log. He didn’t want the fire to go out and Kell to freeze. He went over and sat close by his brother keeping one hand on his scabbard.
Jakob didn’t want to admit that he was afraid. The forest around them was dark and ominous with shadows that seemed more menacing than usual. He felt as though they were being watched as the hair on his neck stood up. Jakob was oddly glad for the company of the dog, at least for Kell’s sake.
Tomorrow we will leave here and try to find some People who can tell us what has happened. He had a curious feeling of emptiness as he tried desperately to remember where he came from, but the only thing that he knew for certain was Kell, and he remembered nothing else. Jakob wanted to cry, but he held it in.
Young men my age don’t cry, ever! He thought stubbornly.
Jakob tried to distract himself by looking up to the sky hoping to see something familiar; a cloud, a constellation, something. But as he looked up he was confused. Where the stars usually hung there was nothing. There were no clouds, no moon, and no stars. The sky was a blank canvas of nothing but darkness for as far as the eye could see.
Jakob suddenly felt a pit deep in the bottom of his stomach as the thought occurred to him that he and Kell might be completely alone.
12
ANABEL
Anabel woke up dazed. She was lying in the middle of a field, alone, surrounded by a dense fog. For a moment she allowed herself to be disoriented, and then she sat up far too quickly, the dizziness hitting her and almost knocking her back to the ground. She was strangely aware that her mind was moving much faster than her body seemed to be. Saiya!
“Saiya!” she yelled out, not thinking that she should assess her surroundings before she started making too much noise. “Saiya!”
There was nothing but silence echoing back at her. Anabel wasn’t sure if she should walk and look for Saiya, or stay. What if she just went off somewhere and is coming right back? If I leave here right now, she won’t find me!
“Saiya!” Anabel was trying to ignore the pounding in her head and the fear that was starting to take over. “Saiya! Come out, little bug! Where are you?”
Anabel was trying not to sound terrified. She felt so alone, like a part of her was missing without her sister. In fact, Saiya was the only thing that she could remember. It was almost as though the rest of her brain was turned off and Saiya was the only thing remaining. What if I can’t find her and she is hurt somewhere and needs me? What if I can’t ever find her and she’s lost forever?
Anabel stood up, steadying herself as she did so. She willed her legs to move, though they felt like lead beneath her. She wanted to walk, but all she could see were fields for miles and miles in every direction. Off in a distance she saw a forest, but Anabel doubted that Saiya would leave her side to go to a forest that was miles away. She laughed at herself for even thinking it. Saiya wouldn’t leave her, she knew it.
She worried for the little bug and shivered.
It was starting to get cold. What if Saiya is cold, and hungry and all alone? Or worse yet, what if she isn’t alone, and what if something horrible has taken her?
Anabel tried not to cry but she could feel the tears sliding down her cheeks despite her best effort to quell them. Terror was starting to strangle her neck with its long, ice-cold fingers and she felt as though she couldn’t breathe. Suddenly, she heard a sound like crying, and the suffocating feeling stopped instantly. She listened carefully, willing the sound to come again. Saiya? Is Saiya calling me?
She heard the sound again, faint, and high pitched, sad. She strained to figure out which direction it was coming from, turning in circles. All she could see was grass for miles and miles. She turned in the direction that she thought the crying was coming from and started to walk toward it slowly. Cautiously. Oh Saiya! Where are you? She wouldn’t allow herself to think the horrible thoughts that kept threatening to come inside her head.
“Anabel.” She heard it faint and far off in the distance, but she swore she heard her name. “Save me Anabel! Save me.” It was definitely a voice, she heard it!
“SAIYA! Where are you? SAIYA!!!” Anabel screamed until her voice started to feel hoarse.
The voice stopped calling and Anabel was alone.
13
THE DREAM
He awoke slowly, his head fuzzy and full of cobwebs, sleep holding onto him with her soft, billowy arms and refusing to let go. He had the strangest dream about the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She had the largest, deepest gray eyes with lashes that curled up, nearly touching her eyebrows. She was small but muscular, and he could smell her long, brown hair that felt like spun silk in his fingers.
Her voice was like velvet when she said his name, which she kept saying over and over with love as he stroked her hair. They were connected, and he desperately fought the urge to wake up and open his eyes. He felt something pulling him away from her. As he kept reaching toward her she seemed to float farther and farther away, but he didn’t want her to go.
“Darling, it’s time to wake up. Even the Governor cannot spend every morning, leisu
rely, in bed.” The voice that called to him was different than the voice in his dreams! He kept his eyes closed hoping that when he opened them he would see his dark-haired beauty standing in front of him. The voice kept calling out to him, calling him, until he was no longer able to sink back into the mistiness of his dream.
When he finally opened his eyes her back was to him, but he saw immediately that the woman before him had light hair the color of golden wheat. When she turned around he saw someone that he didn’t recognize. She wasn’t the woman from his dream, or any other woman that he had ever seen.
“Who are you?” he said, his deep voice edgy but strong. He rubbed his deep green eyes over and over trying to adjust the picture in front of him, willing her to morph into the dream woman.
The woman looked at him with a curious look on her face and laughed a strange twinkly laugh. He thought it sounded almost musical, bordering on hysteria.
“Oh darling, you must have hit your head harder than we thought,” she started to step toward him but backed quickly away when she saw the expression on his face. “I’ll go get Aldo and Milo.” She disappeared from the room quickly and returned a few moments later with Aldo, one of his most trusted advisors and the Captain of the Guard.
“Will! You’re awake!” Aldo said with more enthusiasm than he usually showed, his face deeply creased with tension and worry as he attempted to appear jovial for Will’s sake. “It’s about time you decided to join us again.”
“Aldo. Who is this woman?” the Governor asked, nodding in her direction. The woman stood small and quiet in the corner, her light hair tight in a complicated series of braids on top of her head. Her head was bowed slightly and she was fighting back big tears that were threatening to fall from her bright blue eyes. She was quite pretty, but Will felt lost, as though he were looking at a complete stranger.
Aldo, his childhood friend, looked at him in surprise as he ran his hand through his short salt and pepper hair while trying to come up with a response. “You can’t be serious? It’s your wife, Will, the Governess. It’s Kyla! Don’t you remember her?”
The room fell uncomfortably silent.
Will felt no connection to her at all. He shook his head back and forth trying to clear the confusion from his mind and make sense of it all. “I don’t understand. Why don’t I know her?”
“Will, you were attacked. You were hit on the head pretty hard. You’ve been out for several days!” Aldo glanced anxiously at the Governess who looked like she was going to faint. She was a weak little thing and he was worried for Kyla.
Several days? Will was confused, his head still groggy from what he initially thought was just a long night’s sleep. “What happened to me? How would this have happened? Do we have any idea who attacked me or how?”
Aldo cringed at the security breach. He had been furious with his men for being so sloppy, dismissing two of them who had been responsible for the safety of the Governor that night. He allowed no excuses for such unacceptable behavior, and was embarrassed by such sloppiness in the security of the Governor. After all, Will was more than the Governor to Aldo, he was like a brother to him, and Aldo would not accept such poor performance from his men.
“We have the attacker locked in the prison, Governor! We don’t know where she came from or even how she got in, but I have doubled your Guard and we have our men on the highest of alerts.” Milo stepped forward from behind Aldo, startling Will. He cast a sidelong glance at Aldo that made Aldo step back, allowing Milo the floor.
Will hadn’t noticed that Milo had walked into the room, but that was typical of Milo to enter a room completely unseen. He was Will’s secondary advisor and the Head of the Governor’s Guard, Aldo’s superior. He had personally helped to detain the Prisoner, insistent upon remaining in the field as often as he could. He looked Will directly in the eye whenever he spoke and he was straightforward, rarely mincing his words, no matter who was in the room. Will liked how straight to the point Milo was, and he knew that he could always count on him to be truthful.
Will had known both men since childhood and trusted both of them implicitly. They had been boyhood friends, though the relationship between Milo and Aldo was strained at times by the difference in rank. Much to Aldo’s frustration, Milo often liked to remind him that Will had chosen Milo to be the Head of the Guard, while Aldo was only the Captain.
“She? What do you mean by she? Are you saying that I was attacked by a woman?” Will was suddenly very awake, and curious, and a little embarrassed to have been taken down by a female though he tried hard not to show it. Someone sent a woman to kill him? What kind of woman would do something like this? “What were you able to find out about her? Who is she and where did she come from? Did you find out who sent her?”
“We don’t know anything, Will. All we know is that we came into your bedroom and she was standing over you ready to bludgeon you to death. Kyla saw her and called for the Governor’s Guards. By the time they got her, Kyla had knocked her out and she’s been in the prison ever since. We have been unable to ask her any questions because she has not been awake until today.”
Aldo was still uncertain how Kyla had knocked the woman out. After all Kyla was very slight and the Prisoner looked like she could certainly handle herself. But when he questioned Kyla, the look she gave him chilled him to the bone. After all, who was he to question the Governess?
“What does this woman who can take me down so easily look like? Is she as big as a man?” Will asked, smiling weakly.
Kyla looked up, her tears seeming to dry instantly, though she hid her eyes behind her hand. She was still adjusting to the dramatic size difference and was still quite unsteady on her feet. She remained out of the way as she tried to gain her footing and equilibrium. The shift in the earth, the spell from the Ubilez, had taken a hold of her just as quickly as it had everyone else. But Kyla wasn’t prepared for the change in perspective. She was used to fluttering about in a big world that was now a normal size for everyone else except for her. Kyla remained still in the corner, observing, waiting for someone to reply to Will’s questions. She sensed danger in her plan, and she knew that she would need to react quickly if it were in jeopardy.
“She isn’t large at all, in fact she is small with dark hair and dark gray eyes. She’s quite ravishing actually, but containable.” Milo responded matter-of-factly.
Will held his breath. It sounded like the woman from his dream. That doesn’t make sense, Will. How can the woman of your dreams be the woman who attacked you?
“I want you to bring her to me,” Will said, his head spinning. He started to stand up but sat down quickly.
“Will, rest. We can deal with this issue at a later time. The most important thing right now is that you get rested up,” Milo interjected, looked at his friend with worry. “We will send the Healer in to check on you, but for now, you need to sleep.”
“I want to see her. Now!” Will was angry. He didn’t like to be told what he needed to do. He knew that Milo was only trying to help him, but something inside of him needed to see this woman, this mysterious Prisoner.
Milo shrunk away, instinctively, unaccustomed to feeling Will’s anger directed toward him. He had never seen Will react so strongly over a prisoner before and was perplexed at his reaction. He knew that the Governor needed to rest. The world outside needed to be tended to, and Will was the only one who could do it.
“Governor, you will see the Prisoner in time. For now, it is best you rest,” Milo’s tone was unemotional though Will had upset him.
“Why doesn’t anyone ever do what I ask them to do around here?” Will was frustrated, feeling helpless and weak. He stared at his old friends, his strong jaw set angrily.
Aldo watched Will carefully but tried not to make eye contact with him. He needed the Governor to clear his mind and rest for one more day before his old friend looked out of the window to see what the world was becoming. He knew Will would not be at all happy with the state of Tamaryn, but he wasn
’t yet strong enough to face it, which was why Milo was trying to keep Will in bed to rest and regain his strength.
Milo turned to the corner to look to Kyla’s support in keeping the Governor in bed.
But the corner was empty and Kyla had disappeared.
14
BROOKE
Kell slept restlessly, his arm around the soft, fluffy dog that found them the night before. His tender heart had always been drawn to animals of all different sizes and species. This one had found the brothers at a time that Kell needed her most and he was grateful. He was afraid he would be cold all night, but much to his surprise the dog kept him quite warm.
He woke up and the dog immediately sat up right next to him, as though she were standing guard. Kell laughed. “It’s okay girl,” he said in a singsong voice, his tone raising an octave or two. He patted the top of her head and she looked at him adoringly, her tongue hanging out of her mouth.
He stood up and looked around and realized the air was just as misty as it had been the night before, making it difficult for him to see more than a few feet away. The fire was still going but there was no sign of Brother. “Jakob?”
There was nothing but silence.
“Jakob! Are you here?”
He paused, trying to be patient, one of his worst traits according to Jakob.
Kell began to panic. “Jakob! Jakob! Jakob!” He was tired of being patient, waiting for his brother to answer as he began yelling. Kell started to cry, big tears rolling down his face. He still had his baby cheeks that Mama loved to kiss over and over, and he had not yet matured into the full look of a boy like Jakob had. But Mama liked his cheeks, so he decided that he liked them, too.
The dog looked up at Kell with concern and then quickly turned toward a noise coming out of the trees, her stance changing suddenly as though she were preparing for something.
The Forgotten (The Lost Children Series Book 1) Page 5
