The Orphanage of Miracles (The Kingdom Wars Book 1)

by Amy Neftzger

  “Next!” Mr. Portnoy called from behind his notebook as Nicholas sat down on the bench next to Jovan. As Maggie approached the tailor, he finished writing and put down his writing tablet.

  “Hold very still,” he instructed her as he began measuring and taking down notes. “It’s important to get everything perfect because we all know that clothes make the woman.”

  Maggie looked up and smiled with satisfaction at Jovan. He pretended not to notice.

  “Will these be ready in the morning?” Taro asked. “They must be able to begin working in the lab by 7:30 a.m.”

  Mr. Portnoy sighed before replying. “I’ve got two other orders to get done today, and I have to cut the cloth before I can begin sewing. If they want pockets, it will take longer.”

  “I should think that pockets would be essential. A lab coat is useless without any pockets,” Taro replied seriously, figuring that pockets in a lab coat were a life-and-death matter.

  “I’m not sure there are enough hours in the day for all this,” Mr. Portnoy said hesitantly.

  “Luckily for you tomorrow is Tuesday,” Taro exclaimed happily, “and miracles can happen on Tuesdays!” Mr. Portnoy watched them leave the room and then looked around at the pile of garments waiting to be sewn together.

  “Just because miracles can happen doesn’t mean that they will,” he said quietly to himself. Then he went immediately to work.

  Chapter Two

  A Quest Begins

  in Which We Meet Silence

  Quests are a huge inconvenience. Don’t let anyone tell you differently, even if that person has experience. The problem is that people forget the pain and aggravation as soon as the quest ends successfully, and then they remember only the glorious parts. In this way quests are a bit like childbirth, even to the point of saying that quests often give birth to glory. Maybe.

  Kelsey wasn’t at the end of her quest, so there was no way to tell if it would be successful yet. She was deep into the “huge inconvenience” stage of her opinion about the experience. In fact, it was making her grumpy. Every day when she became tired of walking and felt like quitting, she took a moment to remind herself that quests have the potential to be very rewarding. It’s the whole reason people attempt them in the first place. It was certainly why Kelsey had set out on her own. She knew her family needed a miracle, so no matter how often she felt like quitting, it just wasn’t an option.

  No matter how bad things seemed on her journey, Kelsey knew things were worse at home. She was certain the war was having a negative impact on everyone, but almost no one in her town believed in the war because they hadn’t seen it. There were several conspiracy theories on why the war was made up, including one about how the king was using it as an excuse to collect more taxes. However, Kelsey was certain the war was real and causing a lot of the food shortages and other problems the town was experiencing. Besides, Kelsey knew a lot of people outside her town didn’t even believe it existed because, to them, the town of Nayware sounded too much like nowhere. Most people don’t believe in nowhere, either, until they’ve been there. It’s part of human nature.

  Kelsey had already been on the road for several weeks, and she knew she still had a long way to go. “Walk into the rising sun” was the only advice the monk had given her before she left home. He had no other advice, except that “miracles are found in the place of new beginnings, so you should walk towards the rising sun which is the beginning of each new day.” It didn’t sound promising to Kelsey, but it was all she had at the moment, and she decided to continue this way until some better method for finding a miracle presented itself. She just needed that perfect plan to appear before her parents starved with the rest of the town.

  The beginning of the journey had been easy because hope was involved, and all quests start with hope. The trick would be to make that hope last. So far, there were no difficult roads or other obstacles. In fact, she had encountered nothing but level fields and small forested areas where she was able to catch fat rabbits that with very little effort. She was never hungry during those first few weeks, but now the landscape was changing. After walking through some rolling hills, Kelsey came to the base of a high cliff with a city carved into the face of the rock along the path. It was something new and interesting, and Kelsey thought the people there might know where to find miracles.

  As Kelsey climbed the old stone path that had been worn smooth by previous travelers, she became aware of something behind her. She couldn’t quite tell what it was, but she thought she heard a noise. It might have been footsteps, but the farther she climbed, the more the sound changed. At times Kelsey thought it sounded like a crowd at a sporting event. Then it sounded like whispers in an art gallery or library. Moments later she thought she heard a few grinding or scraping noises. Suddenly the voices and sounds were gone, and all she heard was a faint tapping, a rocking chair in motion hitting against a wall. Then it was quiet. Whenever the sounds became louder, she stopped to listen for footsteps, but when she looked back, she never saw anyone. The path curved like a piece of ribbon candy up the side of the mountain, and the fir trees blocked her view of where she had been. Anyone who might be following her would be difficult to spot since she could never see more than about 40 yards behind her at any time.

  Occasionally, Kelsey reached into her pocket to feel the sheath around her hunting knife. In a way, the security of a weapon she could use to defend herself helped her relax. She liked the cool feeling of the metal blade and the way the handle rested in her grip. She had always been skilled with knives. Even as a child, she was drawn to sharp objects. Her mother was constantly taking them away until she discovered that Kelsey was faster at chopping vegetables for soup than anyone in the household and could skin any game animal without losing a bit of meat. Kelsey used a knife like a painter used a brush. It was practically an art.

  The noise had stopped again. Kelsey stood still for a moment, wondering if she had imagined it all. When she was younger, her father told her a story about a sorcerer who was so hungry for power that he cast a spell upon an entire kingdom. The spell not only made people see and hear things that weren’t there, but also blinded them from seeing things that were. Amid these distorted perceptions, the sorcerer began to take over the kingdom because almost no one understood what was happening, everyone argued and no one trusted anyone else. Kelsey wondered if something like that was happening to her on the path. A sorcerer could be playing with her mind to convince her she was being followed. But why? Finally, though, she dismissed the thought as a relic of old childhood tales surfacing during a feeling of fatigue that came from weeks of traveling combined with her climb toward the city.She inhaled deeply again and noticed a strong smell of pine along the path. After listening for a few more moments and hearing nothing other than the wind in the trees, she turned back toward the city and resumed her climb. The sounds could easily be just another person or a group of people heading toward the city. After all, the city in the rocks looked like a popular center of trade. She was getting close enough to see crowds of people hurrying around with packages and vendors with all sorts of goods for sale. She had convinced herself that the feeling she was being followed was in her imagination, but then the noises started up again, and there was something odd about the way the pace of the steps slowed behind her whenever she slowed her own pace. Kelsey had too much hunting experience to believe this was coincidence. She had stalked her share of prey and now had the feeling the roles were reversed.

  Her legs were beginning to ache from the climb, but toward the end she sprinted to put distance between herself and anyone who might be behind her. While she could defend herself well with her knife, she preferred to avoid doing so as it might sap her energy in the completion of her quest. Fearlessness can be foolishness if a confrontation happens at the wrong place or time, and it’s always the wrong time for confrontation when one is fatigued.

  As she reached the top of the path, Kelsey quickly blended into the crowd and felt more a
t ease knowing that if someone was following her, she would be difficult to locate among the large group of people. She looked around as a cool wind danced through her hair. Up this high, the temperature was colder than she had experienced in days and the biting air actually felt refreshing. Occasionally, small bits of clouds tumbled in and around the people like a gauze scarf being whipped by the wind. The effect was playful and lifted her spirit as she looked around.

  The city was made of brown and gray stone with a line of shops carved directly into the face of the rock. There were brightly colored orange and gold banners shimmering in the sunlight, a vibrant contrast with the stone. Similarly, the storefronts all had vividly painted doors and shutters. Blue, green, or red bits of painted architecture stood out like a person shouting in the street. Similarly, colorful signs identified the contents for sale within each store. Across the street were vendors with carts, many of them shaded by canopies to protect people from the intense sunlight. Behind the vendors was a low stone wall providing small protection from the drop off the face of the cliff.

  Kelsey nimbly wove through the horde of people and began looking at the street merchants’ goods. But as she picked up an orange and sniffed the sweetness, the feeling that something or someone was watching her again had returned. It made her uncomfortable. She cautiously placed the orange back on the stack and discretely looked over her shoulder in the direction from which she had just come. She saw nothing out of the ordinary and went back to sniffing another orange, though she maintained her vigilance. Her eyes darted, surveying the area, just as she did when she was hunting. But with still nothing to alarm her, she began to feel silly because she had been sniffing oranges for so long that the vendor was giving her a strange look. Kelsey felt so awkward about it that she bought two of them. Just as she was putting the change back in her wallet, she spotted a small boy in the crowd. She caught his pale, golden eyes for only a moment, and then he was gone. Even so, she felt certain that he was the one who had been following her.

  He’s not much of a threat, Kelsey thought to herself. He had to be at least two or three years younger than she, and he appeared not only small, but also defenseless and innocent. But then she thought: What if he wasn’t alone? Thieves often work in pairs with one of them being a helpless looking thing to lure potential victims into a false sense of security. Kelsey swiftly moved away from the fruit stand and walked into the nearest shop to get off the street before the boy spotted her. The sign above the door read “The Memory Shoppe.” It was quiet inside, like a library, Kelsey thought. In fact, it wasn’t until the door closed and she was out of the wind that Kelsey realized she had become accustomed to its blowing since she had arrived in the city.

  “Are you buying or selling?” the older woman behind the counter asked in a very businesslike manner. The woman’s obviously dyed and bluntly cut lemon-yellow hair bobbed side to side as she moved her head with her speech. The fluorescent red lipstick didn’t seem to know where the edges of her mouth should have been. It slid around the general area like jelly on a hot surface.

  “What?” Kelsey responded quietly in her disorientation. She glanced around at the shelves lined with jars and bottles of all sizes. Most were clear glass, but a few were colored green or brown. It looked to Kelsey as if this store was selling sodas and pickles, but the contents inside the jars didn’t look like food. Then she suddenly remembered the sign. “Is this The Memory Shoppe?”

  “Yes. By the looks of you, I should think you’d be buying,” the woman said. “You’re not yet old enough to have anything worth selling.”

  “What do you have here?” Kelsey inquired as she moved toward the shopkeeper.

  “We have all kinds of things,” the woman said. “We have good, bad and interesting. No dreams, though. You’ll have to go to the dream shop if you want those. We only sell memories here.”

  Kelsey nodded, although she was still confused. She walked up to a shelf and noticed that each bottle had a distinctive fragrance to it. One bottle smelled like freshly cut grass, while others had the scents of vanilla ice cream and potato chips. She picked up a jar that smelled like honeysuckle and noticed that she could hear faint squeals of children coming from within it. She glanced at the label on the shelf, which read “Fond and Simple Summertime.” The jar in her hand reminded her of young children at a playground. Kelsey gently put it back on the shelf.

  “You buy memories?” Kelsey asked, still confused.

  “Buy and sell. But as I said, I’m not interested in memories from someone so inexperienced. Memories aren’t valuable until they’ve had time to cure. They need to sweeten. You’re too young to have any memories of value.”

  “But who would want to sell memories?”

  “Lots of people. The ones who need money, mostly,” the shopkeeper explained as her yellow hair bounced in agreement with her words. “Good memories pay the best because that’s what most people want. Supply and demand and all that. The more people want something, the more money I can charge for it. After all, that’s why I’m here.” She smiled and Kelsey thought she saw the lipstick slide into position as the woman’s lips parted.

  Just then the shop door opened slowly and a heavy-set woman shuffled up to the counter. By the shopkeeper’s attentiveness, Kelsey could see this was a loyal and probably frequent customer.

  “Miss Littleton! How nice to see you!” the woman exclaimed in a pleasant voice. “How did you enjoy the Galapagos Island Memories?”

  “A bit too exotic for my taste,” Miss Littleton replied with a deep sigh of weariness. Everything about her was heavy and labored. She was well-dressed but extremely out of shape and gave the impression that the money in her large purse was a burden she needed to release slowly to ease her feeling of boredom. She lifted the purse onto the counter, but only after considerable effort. “For the price of that memory,” she added, “I expected a little more comfort.”

  “Well, with that type of memory you’re paying for the rarity of the experience,” the shopkeeper said, forcing a smile. “It’s quite expensive, because we don’t get many memories of Galapagos Island vacations. In fact, that may be the only one we’ve ever had. Ever.”

  “I remember the hotel being very nice,” Miss Littleton consented, “but there were tiring excursions to see marine life. I could do without those, Although I do remember them serving the best chocolate mousse at the hotel. I don’t ever remember having chocolate mousse that rich. It may have been worth the trip just for that one dessert.”

  “I’m so very glad that you liked it,” the shopkeeper said. “Are you back for more vacation memories?”

  As they discussed the next destination memory, Miss Littleton might buy, Kelsey walked away from the counter to peek out the window. She saw no sign of the boy with the honey-colored eyes, but she decided to stay inside and explore the rest of the shop to make sure he had moved on before she went back onto the street. Besides, the idea of buying memories fascinated her. This was something they didn’t do in her village, and she’d never heard about it before. She also didn’t understand why someone would want the memory of an event without having actually lived through it. Of course, someone too lazy to live life or too fearful to experience something dangerous might want to purchase a memory. It was a great way to know what something was like firsthand without any risk. But there could also be other reasons for buying them.

  Kelsey carefully looked over the different sections in the store. It was divided into good and bad memories with good memories taking up most of the space. Memories were stored by events, specific dates, seasons and holidays. Within each of these sections, there were subheadings on each shelf. Kelsey browsed the holiday section and noticed that the shelf labeled “Pleasant Family Holidays” was nearly empty.

  “We can’t keep those in stock,” the shopkeeper shouted over Miss Littleton’s shoulder toward Kelsey. “Everyone wants to replace their family holiday memories with pleasant ones. I’ll be right back with you in a moment, darling.�
� She wedged her sloppy lipstick into another forced smile and turned back to Miss Littleton.

  Kelsey began looking through the Events section for a shelf labeled “Miracles.” After all, if she could buy a memory of a miracle, perhaps that would be just as good as the miracle itself. At the very least, it might give her some direction on where to look for one. She took her time carefully searching the shelves, but didn’t find anything specifically on miracles. She did find four overflowing shelves labeled “The Time I Met the King” and Kelsey couldn’t resist looking at the bottles. She picked up the largest one and stared through the glass at the shimmering contents. It smelled like peppermints.

  “I think more than half of those are fake,” the shopkeeper laughed.

  “Fake?” Kelsey almost dropped the jar at the thought but recovered and gently placed it back on the shelf.

  “Well, not all of them.” The woman pushed her wandering eye shadow back into place as she squinted to see the shelf more carefully. “They say the king walks among us in disguise. It’s something he learned from one of Shakespeare’s plays. Now whenever a person encounters something unusual, they think it’s the king in disguise. Makes for great memories to share, but we’ll never know if it was the king or not. If you’re looking for a memory that will entertain you, you’re on the right shelf. But I wouldn’t bank on any of these being real.”

  “Why would anyone sell a memory that wasn’t real?” Kelsey wondered aloud.

  “Why would anyone read a book? Or watch a movie? A memory is more exclusive than those things. No one has the exact same memory even if they shared the experience with others. It’s a status thing.” The shopkeeper was suddenly distracted by trying to catch her left eyelashes, which had decided to flutter away. She struggled for a moment to secure them to her eyelid. Almost as soon as she looked up again, a man rushed into the shop demanding a good memory of his mother’s cooking.