by J. J. Faulks
With the geese contented, Orleigh retreated to the library. The bookshelves were overflowing into piles on the floor, yet she could not find a book that she had not read. Unable to leave the estate, reading was the only way for her to explore the world beyond. If only she could experience a little adventure, like the girl in her story.
The girl did not look back. She did not stop to rest or to catch her breath. She just kept running until finally she broke free from the Great Forest.
In the distance the girl could see a large stone wall that curved around the Realm of the Sanctuary. Beyond the Outer Wall, she could see the top of the bell tower that sat at the edge of the Sanctuary itself. The girl slowed to a steady jog. If she kept up her pace, it would not be long until she reached the Guardians.
As she neared the Outer Wall, the girl could see the damage that the Hunters had already inflicted. It was true that the Guardians and the defences of the Sanctuary had been weakened. The Outer Wall, famed for its absence of a gate, now possessed huge gaps where the stonework had been blown apart. Perhaps with one last effort the Hunters truly could overwhelm the Guardians.
“Halt!” the Guardian on duty shouted at the girl as she approached. His hand found the sword at his hip. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
The girl stopped. She leant forward, resting her hands against her thighs. “I’ve come from the Great Forest,” she said, and took a deep breath. “The Hunters are on their way. I overheard them talking. They plan to attack tonight.”
The Guardian’s eyes narrowed. He stared at her as if by studying her closely enough he might be able to ascertain her motives and if she was telling the truth.
“Please. You have to believe me,” the girl said. “The Hunters are coming.”
The Guardian paused, and then he limped towards the wall, calling for his comrades. From the way he shied away from his right foot, the girl could tell that he had been badly injured.
When the other Guardians emerged, the girl saw that they too were bearing their own battle wounds. The Hunters had done a lot of damage. The girl did not like to see her heroes this way, and when they thanked her for her help and insisted that she return home, she refused. She would not abandon them now, not when they needed her support. She would fight with them.
As they had planned, the Hunters came at nightfall. But the Guardians were waiting. One by one, they tore down the Hunters, with the girl leading their battle cry. The girl proved that she was as strong and courageous as people said.
When the following day dawned, and the soft sunlight illuminated the aftermath of the battle, the girl was welcomed into the Realm of the Sanctuary. Beneath the foot of the bell tower, the Guardians bestowed her with the title of Honorary Guardian for her role in protecting the Key of Life from the Hunters. There were celebrations across the Land of Mortals and the Land of Gods in honour of the girl and her bravery.
The Guardians escorted the girl home to the safety of her family. Her parents hugged her and told her how worried they had been. They said that she was never to run away like that again. But they also told her how proud they were to have her as their daughter.
Orleigh dreamed about going on adventures like the girl in her story, but would it be as much fun as she imagined without a family to return to? With no one waiting for her at home, there was no happy ending. Teymos had always been kind to her and he looked after her, but the Land of Gods was not her home.
The most adventure that she could hope for was vicarious adventure. As she read—and reread—her books, she cast herself as ‘the hero’. It was better than no adventure at all.
She ran her fingers across the spines of the books stacked on the shelf next to where she sat. “Boring, boring, boring,” she droned.
The closed door of Teymos’s study watched her from across the hallway. She peered back, pursing her lips. The study’s siren song drifted through the silence, calling out to her. Apart from the geese pottering around on the lawn outside, she was alone.
Light footsteps carried her across the carpeted hallway. A furtive glance up and down the corridor confirmed that there would be no witnesses. She laid her hand on the doorknob and twisted. The door opened.
She pushed the door open with her fingertips and teetered at the cusp of the room. The desk—whose wooden top she had witnessed catching Teymos’s private tears—stood centrally at the far side, and behind it sat a bookcase that stretched up to meet the ceiling. Books were crammed into every slot, many jutting out as if vying to be read first.
A bold step thrust her across the threshold. A timid voice reminded her that she did not have Teymos’s permission to enter his private study, but she quashed it and strode across the room.
Having selected a couple of the anthologies, Orleigh settled herself into one of the armchairs. What harm could come from reading a few stories? It wasn’t until she returned the tomes to the shelf that she found the pieces of parchment on the floor.
At first it looked as though they were just leaves of paper that had fallen from one of the books, but the rushed scrawl of handwriting was very different to the ornate calligraphy used for the texts. She smoothed out the two pieces of parchment on the desk, leaning over them to take a closer look.
1.
Teymos,
I received your message. Clearly I am not as well hidden as I had thought. Though I am pleased to hear from you, I am saddened by your news. Of course I will help in any way that I can. I am travelling to the village now, so that I will arrive in time for the birth. If it has been written into the Script, there is not much that I can do, but I promise I will try my hardest to change her fate. I will write to you soon.
2.
Teymos,
I did what I could. I’m sorry that it wasn’t enough. The girl is strong; she is a fighter. The naming ceremony will be held tomorrow. She is to be called ‘Orleigh’.
Now it is my turn to ask for your help. Please can we meet in person?
Both letters were left unsigned. Orleigh turned the pages over, looking for a signature or seal or mark of any kind, but there was nothing. The person who had written them, the person who had been present for her birth, remained anonymous. Teymos must have been familiar enough with the author to recognise him or her by handwriting alone.
Who was this person and why were they hiding? What help had Teymos asked for and what sad news had he shared? What had been written in the Script and whose fate were they trying to change? What did any of this have to do with her and her birth?
Orleigh read the letters over and over again, and with each reading a new question leapt from the page. The questions flocked around her, circling her head like vultures.
She grabbed one of the anthologies, stashing the letters inside the front cover and shoving it back onto the shelf. Heart pounding, she fled from the room, slamming the door behind her. In the hallway, she leant back against the wall.
With her eyes closed, a voice drifted out from the depths of her memory, like a boat rolling through the fog. He was watching us, Piprin had said, he was watching us again. Someone had been watching her after all, someone had seen her birth, had witnessed her mother’s passing and had reported it all back to Teymos. Teymos, who had rescued her from the ashes of the fire, who had given her a new life in the Land of Gods. Teymos, whom she had always trusted.
Her stomach turned, twisting itself into a knot of doubt.
Orleigh picked at her food, stealing occasional glances at Teymos from across the table. His meal held his full attention, and not once did he look up from his plate. She pushed her own plate away, still laden with food, and clasped her hands together in her lap, her skin blanching under the pressure of her fingertips.
“Teymos?” she said, her mouth dry. “Please will you tell me my story again?” She reached for her glass of water, but could only manage small sips.
“Your story?
” Teymos tore off another chunk of bread, his brow pinched.
“The story of how I came to live here, in the Land of Gods,” she said.
Teymos shook his head, still not looking up at her. He took a long time chewing and then swallowing a mouthful of food before he said, “Why don’t I tell you a different story? One that hasn’t been recorded in the myths.”
“No,” she insisted, her grip on the glass tightening. “I want to hear my story.”
A thicket of thorns, black and sharp, rose up in Teymos’s eyes. But it fell as quickly as it had arisen, hewed down to reveal unblemished skies of blue. He nodded, though his jaw remained tensed, his fist clenched atop the table.
“One night, in the village where you grew up, there was a fire,” Teymos said, his voice flat, as if nothing could be more mundane. “The flames spread quickly and it was not long before the whole village was engulfed. By the time the news reached the Land of Gods, there was nothing that could be done. The whole village had been destroyed, and everyone living there had died. Everyone except you. You were found in the wreckage. You were in need of a home and in need of treatment, so you came to live here.”
“How did the fire start?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“How did it spread so quickly?” she asked, her voice rising.
He shook his head again, his eyes darkening. “I don’t know.”
“How come no one else survived? How come I was the only one?” she asked, and she slapped her palms against the table, hard enough that they tingled and stung, pushing herself up to standing. The chair scraped across the floor behind her.
Teymos mirrored the action, his own chair clattering to the floor. He towered over her, glowering down as if she were mud beneath his feet. “I don’t know, Orleigh,” he snapped. “I’ve told you everything that there is to know. Accidents happen, tragedies happen. You were alone at the far side of the village, maybe that’s why you survived.”
“But—” she clamped her lips shut, the words stifled in her mouth and dying on her tongue. She hadn’t been alone. Piprin had been there with her. Everything that Teymos had just said was a lie. Remembering the letters, she asked, “Did you know me before the fire?”
Teymos looked away. He busied himself with clearing up the table. “No,” he said. His voice had softened. “I’d never been to your village before.”
She frowned, staring after him with a hard gaze as he retreated from the table. Gods were like men, and they were just as fallible.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Vague, dreamlike memories of flames came to Orleigh throughout the night, winding their way in and out of her consciousness. The same images had plagued her as a child. There was something about them, some quality that she couldn’t quite describe, that made them different to real memories, different to other dreams.
There had once been a gap between her falling asleep in the Land of Mortals and awaking in the Land of Gods, but somehow it had been filled by the flames. The dreams are your mind’s response to trauma, Teymos had said, just like a cut or graze can get worse before it gets better, so can wounds of the mind. He promised her that with time the dreams would fade, and they did.
Orleigh stared out of the window. The early morning sunlight fell upon the estate in hazy beams, grazing the tops of the trees. Teymos strode across the grass and into the Great Forest. Her eyes narrowed on him, watching him long after he had disappeared. Perhaps there was something else, something other than trauma, that could explain such surreal memories. If there was an answer, a truth to be uncovered about the fire, her birth and Teymos’s involvement in it all, surely she would find it somewhere on the estate.
Orleigh scurried along the corridor to Teymos’s study, glancing out of each window that she passed to check that Teymos had not returned. He had not mentioned taking another trip, and she could not tell how long she would have to explore the house undisturbed.
Like the day before, the door to the study was closed but it opened without hindrance. The air inside was stuffy and smokey, but otherwise the room appeared just as it had before.
She walked straight to the bookshelf, took down the anthology in which she had stashed the letters and cracked it open on the desk. The space between the cover and the first page was empty. Orleigh leafed through the next few pages, but found nothing. She turned the book over, holding it by its cover and giving it a gentle shake. Nothing fell out. The letters were gone.
The closeness of the air with its bonfire scent struck her again. The fireplace! A carpet of silken grey dust lay beneath the grate. Kneeling down, she used the poker to sift through the ashes, but if Teymos had burnt the letters, no evidence of them remained.
She leant back on her hands, frowning at the grate as her teeth clamped down on the inside of her cheek. Her questions must have prompted Teymos to do this. Why else would he have lit a fire when the nights still smouldered with the warmth of summer? Why else would the letters that contradicted his account be missing? Her questions must have frightened him and provoked him into destroying any evidence of whatever it was about her past that he wanted to hide.
One by one, she pulled the other books down from the shelves, standing on Teymos’s chair in order to reach the highest shelf. She flicked through their pages before returning them to their allocated positions. Any clues that they might once have held had been removed too.
With a huff, she jumped down from the chair and stood, hands on hips, at the centre of the room. What other hiding places could he have used? A tug on the desk drawer revealed it to be locked, a gentle sideways push of the paintings exposed only bare wall, and a peek under the rug showed that the floor beneath lacked a trapdoor.
With a heavy sigh, she crashed down onto the rug. As she sat there, frowning to herself, she pulled at the tasselled edge, teasing the strands apart. “What is he hiding?” she muttered.
A loud noise erupted outside. The geese were honking, wild trumpets heralding Teymos’s return. Startled, she jumped to her feet and rushed to the window, nearly knocking the vase from the ledge. The geese remained agitated, a few of them flapping their wings and smoothing down their feathers as if there had been a scuffle, but there was no sign of Teymos.
She let out the breath that she had been holding, and withdrew from the window. As she pulled back, something collided with her elbow. She had knocked the handle of the vase and it was tumbling towards the floor. She dived after it, hands fumbling to break its fall.
“Oh no!” she cried. The vase would shatter and Teymos would know that she had been in the room. But her fingers latched onto the handle just in time.
As she cradled the vase in her hands, steadying herself against the wall below the window ledge, something beneath the base of the vase glinted in the light, like a vein of gold in a rock. A deep groove ran almost the entire length of the base, and wedged into the groove was a key. She dug her fingertips into the groove and freed the key, placing it in the palm of her hand.
“Finally!” she said. This might just be the clue that she was looking for.
The locked drawer of the desk came to mind first, but before she even tried to insert the key into the lock, she could see that it was far too chunky. A key that size was more likely to open a door, but she couldn’t recall ever seeing a door in the house with a lock. Then again, she had never had reason to notice before.
With the key enclosed in her fist, she left the study and began her search for the door that it would unlock. Starting at the top of the house, she worked her way from room to room, examining each door in turn. Only a few had locks, but all of them were open and the key was not a match.
She rattled the key against the final lock, trying to force it inside, but it refused and she gave up with a humph. “If you don’t open a door, what do you do?” she asked the key, but the key kept to its stoical silence.
D
rawers had locks, doors had locks, but what else?
“The trunk!” she cried. An old wooden trunk languished at the back of the shed that stood near the apiary. She flung the kitchen door wide open and ran across the garden towards the shed.
The padlock on the trunk looked nothing like the key. One hard tug was all it took to open it, and the trunk proved to be empty anyway. She kicked the trunk back into the corner. The heroes in the myths were far more successful at finding things, and one clue always led neatly to another.
She emerged from the shed just in time to see the tail end of a goat disappearing through the open door into the kitchen.
“Don’t let the goats into the house!” she scolded herself and ran after the goat.
The goat had snatched a loaf of bread down from the countertop and was tearing into it. It paused for a moment when she entered and, looking up at her accusingly for the disruption, it bleated.
“Out!” she shouted and she flapped at the goat. “Get out!”
When the goat made no effort to move, but instead returned to eating the bread, she stepped towards it. Arms held out wide, she edged forwards. If she could just get round the other side of the goat, she would be able to herd it out of the open door.
The goat startled at her approach. Abandoning the loaf of bread, it trotted out of the kitchen into the hallway and then clambered up the stairs. She chased after it, but the goat was too quick. She followed the stream of bleats to the top of the house, huffing as she went, the key still hidden in her hand. She had to find the lock and return the key to the study before Teymos returned. She didn’t have time to be chasing after goats.
When she reached the top of the stairs, she found the goat at one end of the corridor. It was cornered. Unaware that Orleigh had caught up with it, the goat was nibbling at the edge of a wall hanging. She took slow steps towards the goat, not wanting to spook the creature again. The goat started to tug at the fabric, and her steps quickened a little. A few teeth marks Teymos might not notice, but if the whole wall hanging was torn down that was a different matter. She did not want to be caught lying as she tried to explain how the goat got into the house.
