Part 2
A FATIGUE LIKE I’d never felt before washed over my body, and then my eyes finally opened again.
My body felt stiff and for a split second, everything was peaceful, until the memory of my entire life and everything that I was, jolted through my being. I’d killed Blake, with a kiss.
I wished I could keep my eyes closed and just will myself to die, to make this constant loss, heartache and fighting disappear, but my will to live and to find the silver lining around this devastating cloud in me was stronger.
I was lying on top of a hard bed and when I eventually opened my eyes, the walls and smell that surrounded me reminded me of a barn.
It was dark and I could barely make out the outlines of the objects around me. They appeared to be large piles of hay cubes. Yes, I was sure of it now, I was lying on a manmade hay bed, inside a barn.
Deep down inside of me, I understood I wasn’t going to get away with this. Someone had to have phoned the authorities by now and told them where I was, but then again, if that was true, what was I still doing in a barn? If they knew that I was the princess of Paegeia, then why was my hair covered in hay? I would’ve been in some hotel, even a cheap one, unless they really were going to punish me and this was just the start.
A horse neighed and I jumped slightly.
“Shhhh,” someone said quietly from another stall and the horse calmed down.
I waited in silence.
“Hello,” I finally said, and in a few seconds a boy, more or less my age, appeared in the doorway of my stall.
“Hi.” His posture was quite the opposite of what I expected. It was as if he didn’t want to scare me away, and he didn’t act as hostile as I thought he would’ve been.
He wore an old, dirty patched-up pair of jeans with a flannel shirt. His clothes didn’t quite fit this era. His hair was light, extremely messy and he was sort of dirty, but he had the most beautiful smile. It was a smile that made me long for Lucian all over again.
“Name is August, what’s yours?”
“Like the month?”
He smiled again. “Yes, September and June were taken.”
He had a good sense of humor. “Where am I?”
“You don’t remember?”
I shook my head.
“My granddad found you a couple of miles from the creepers. You have a death wish or something?”
The creepers? I didn’t say it out loud, but I was wondering why I’d gotten so near to them. I mean, I’d seen them once on the TV in Lucille’s living room and they’d scared me to death the way they’d snatched at the scientists and torn them apart.
“How long have I been sleeping?”
“About two days. What’s your name?”
I squinted. He doesn’t know who I am?
“E…” I started.
“Like the letter?”
I smiled and shook my head. Lie. It could be a new start, away from the Council and dragons, away from Sammy and Becky.Arianna had been right, and if I was poisonous, I had to keep my two best friends safe. “Eleanor, but everyone calls me Elle.”
“Elle, a different letter.”
“Yeah, not as glamorous as a month I guess.”
He laughed softly and it fell quiet. “So, what is your story?”
I sighed and thought about lying more but nothing was coming. “I have no story. Believe me, it’s nothing glamorous or anything, it’s just bad.”
“Nothing new about that. We’ve all had bad lives.”
What did he mean by they’ve all had bad lives?
“But if you really don’t want to talk about it, it’s okay.”
“Thanks. I really just want to forget or try to forget.”
“You from Boliva?”
I squinted again. Boliva? What was this strange boy talking about?
I shook my head again. “From nowhere.”
“Nowhere?” He glanced up to the ceiling, if you could call it one. “Nope haven’t heard of that place before,” he joked again. “But if you say you are from nowhere, then I guess the only thing that’s still in order is to say welcome to Alkadeen.”
“Alkadeen.”
He smiled again. “I doubt my father would send you back to wherever you came from. It’s illegal to take someone in, as per our agreement.” He raised his eyes and pulled his face sarcastically with a mimicking tone as he said that last part. “They have broken many of the agreements already, so you are safe and the best form of free.”
I closed my eyes, trying to make sense of anything he’d just said. It was as if I’d stepped into a twilight zone and jumped back in time or something. But if it was freedom he offered then I wasn’t going to argue. I took a deep breath and let it out again.
“Thank you.” I made it sound sincere and as grateful as I could.
My stomach grumbled and he chuckled.
“Come, milk is on in the house.”
He gestured with his hand for me to follow him and I got up from the bed of hay, which was a mission in itself.
My body felt stiff as I got to my feet, and I had to wait a second or two to stretch before I took that first step in his direction.
I found him with a match in his hand and a lantern in front of him. It was something I should’ve been used to but it reminded me of home, the other side of the wall where magic didn’t exist.
The lantern caught light and I saw his face; he smiled again as he picked up the lantern and walked into another stall. I walked faster and found him standing next to a huge cow.
“This is Bessy, she is going to lovingly provide you with something to drink.” He stroked the cow’s head and picked up a brown wooden bowl. Okay, now I was sure I had somehow jumped back into the past. He grabbed ahold of one of her teats and squeezed it a couple of times. Milk squirted out into the bowl and when it was half full, he handed it to me.
I wasn’t skeptical of the milk as I put it to my mouth; I just wasn’t sure how to drink out of a bowl. Herbert, my other father, was a pro at this, but me, made a mess everywhere and it was so not princess like. But I was starving, and the continuous grumbling in my stomach hadn’t subsided.
I lifted the bowl gently to my lips and started to tip it slightly. The milk was warm, rich and delicious. It ran down my mouth as I gulped it all up and when I was done, I wiped my mouth.
“Sorry, that was really good, thanks.”
“Feeling any better?”
I nodded. My stomach wasn’t grumbling so much anymore.
“Want some more?”
I hesitated before I nodded and he repeated his actions from before.
I drank again after he handed it to me and felt full as I gave the empty bowl back to him. “Thanks.”
He put the bowl down and smiled again. He got up and turn his gaze to me. “It’s still early, everyone will probably start waking up in about an hour or so, either you can see if you can get some shut-eye or I can show you around a bit, if you want.”
“I would like that. I don’t think I can sleep again.”
“The grand tour it is!”
He started walking in the opposite direction to the stall in which I’d slept, toward two huge wooden doors, and pulled hard on one.
It opened slightly and he slipped through. I followed him.
There was a low running sound of something mechanical, like a farm tractor in the distance. By the faint light of the barn, I couldn’t make out much, just that I was somewhere on a farm.
It was still dark, and the sun hadn’t even come up yet.
It was weird because I wasn’t cold; in fact it felt stuffy here, like the humidity was off.
“This way, alphabet,” August said and I couldn’t help but like him. He made me forget about the horrible thing I’d done.
When we walked past the barn’s walls, I saw an outline of a huge farmhouse. It was a double story, something spectacular, but he took me in the opposite direction. The lantern he held only lit up a few feet in front of us, and I had to keep his pace otherwise I was going to see my ass.
We walked down a dirt road past trees and more trees. Then the road went downhill. He must’ve known this place like the back of his hand as he just walked. I, on the other hand, bumped into him on so many occasions that after ten minutes I’d said sorry so much, it felt like it was the only word I knew.
He suddenly stopped and lifted the lantern higher above his head toward what seemed like rows and rows of cultivated fields.
“As you may have guessed from the barn, you are on a farm. We grow everything we can to hold up our side of the agreement.”
I wanted to ask what the agreement was but something told me I should already know what it was, as if it was a part of history. It was in his tone, the way he’d said it, so I kept my mouth shut.
What happened here? The scenarios running through my head were starting to scare me to death. I really wanted to know what agreement he was speaking about. He was talking about freedom but by the looks of the dark outline of the fields, it was screaming the opposite. Someone was seriously scaring these people, and freedom was something that wasn’t as strong here as this boy made it out to be.
Now for the million-dollar question, where the hell was I?
