This is a story I am currently working on. I came up with it in October and have only just started tying it up. So far, I have two chapters done and am a little stuck on the third because some serious stuff is about to go down. I'm really excited! Anyway, I thought I would post what I have on here to get some unbiased opinions. I plan on updating this whenever I finish a chapter. Not sure excatly how long that will take but we'll see. Please, post a comment or private message me, whichever you like, I honesly don't care. As long as I get feedback, I am happy. So, without farther ado, here are chapters 1 and 2. (hehe that ryhmed)
Chapter One
I was running through the forest, my heart pounding against my chest, adrenaline coursing through my veins. I was being chased. By what, I didn’t know. Whatever it was, I couldn’t let it catch me or I would surely die. I chanced a glance over my shoulder, but the trees were too thick to see anything. I could hear it though; cracking twigs and crunching leaves, making its presence known.
My pace quickened to a sprint, hoping I would outrun the beast, only to be stopped by a cliff that had appeared out of nowhere. I checked myself for weapons that I could use against the oncoming terror that was sure to be upon me at any moment and found I had none. I was completely defenseless. No, wait. Not completely. I realized I did have a weapon, two in fact; my mind and my body. If I could not overpower the thing with my strength, perhaps I could outsmart it.
I turned and faced the dense trees. As the noise of its approach grew louder and the trees began to shake, I braced myself to face the unknown creature. I never got to though. For at that very moment, my eyes popped open, ending the nightmare, and I was back in my bedroom. Apparently, I had not been prepared to face the mystery terror.
Rising to a sitting position in my bed, I found myself covered in cold sweat and still breathing heavily, as though I had actually been running through the forest. I buried my head in my hands, disappointed in myself. Why had I been unable to face the beast? My father had taught me to always confront my fears, so what prevented me from doing so in a dream?
My thoughts were disturbed by a soft whimper that came from my younger sister, Teagan. She started to toss and turn, entangling herself in her bed sheets. It seemed that I wasn’t the only one being plagued with nightmares. As Teagan’s whimpers became louder, I rose from my bed and hurried to her side. I was just about to rouse her from sleep when she woke with a start, her green eyes wide with fear. She caught sight of me in the dark.
“Kelly,” she breathed.
Something was definitely wrong. Kelly was her nickname for me that she only used when absolutely terrified or very upset. I sat on the edge of her bed and gestured for the little five-year-old to sit on my lap. She crawled over to me, positioned herself on my lap and wrapped her arms around my neck, resting her head on my shoulder. I held her close as she began to cry into the sleeve of my nightgown.
“Shh,” I whispered, glancing over at Rosaleen, my other sister who slept in a bed on the other side of the room. Much to my relief, she was still fast asleep. “Shh. It was only a dream, Teagan. Just a dream and nothing more.”
“It was about you.” she said, looking up at me. “You said that you were leaving and weren’t sure if you were going to come b-b-back.”
Fresh tears spilled from her eyes and she nuzzled her head back into my shoulder. I began to slowly rock her back and forth like a baby, hoping it would soothe her.
“That will never happen.” I reassured her. “I will never leave Emery. I promise.”
Though she now had my word that her nightmare would never become a reality, she continued to cry. At times like this, when a baby or child would not stop crying, a mother would sing a lullaby to calm them. My mother was asleep in the room across the hall and I didn’t want to disturb her, so I took the responsibility. There was only one lullaby that I knew of. It was as old as the mountains themselves, according to my mother, passed down from mother to daughter for generations. I remember my own mother singing it to me when I was little and had overheard her sing it to Rosaleen and Teagan before. It seemed now was the perfect time to use it. I ran my fingers through Teagan’s hair as an added comfort and started to sing.
Calm my baby,
Close those eyes.
Find a place
To run and hide.
Wipe away
The tears you weep.
Rest your head,
Go to sleep.
When you wake,
I will be there
To kiss your cheek
And stroke your hair.
There you’ll lay,
In my arms.
There you’ll stay,
Away from harm.
Close those eyes.
Find a place
To run and hide.
Wipe away
The tears you weep.
Rest your head,
Go to sleep.
When you wake,
I will be there
To kiss your cheek
And stroke your hair.
There you’ll lay,
In my arms.
There you’ll stay,
Away from harm.
The singing had the desired effect. Teagan had stopped crying and was sucking contently on her thumb, as was a habit of hers. I repeated the verse, it being the only one that I knew. There had been more that went with the song, but they had disappeared over time; lost, forgotten. It must have been the fifth time I repeated the lullaby before I realized that Teagan had fallen asleep in my arms. I set her head gently back on her pillow and pulled the covers up to her chin. Before returning to my own bed, I kissed her softly on the forehead and whispered good night. Back under my covers, I stared at the ceiling, contemplating my dream once again. However, I didn’t get far before I too fell back to sleep.
I woke a few hours later just as the sun was beginning to rise over the horizon. Rays of golden sun were creeping in through the window, stretching across the floor of the room. My old, wooden bed creaked as I got up to get dressed. My eyes darted to my sisters to make sure the noise didn’t wake them. They were still fast asleep and would be for another hour or so. It seemed that Teagan’s nightmares had stopped because she was curled up peacefully in her bed, snuggling with her old teddy bear that my mother had made for me when I was little.
Quickly and quietly, I got dressed, checking on my sisters every time I made the slightest bit of sound. After pulling on some clothes and fish-tailing my long, brown hair, I slipped out the door. I walked down the hall into the kitchen/living room, the wooden floor groaning beneath my feet every now and then. Upon entering the living room, I headed straight for the fireplace which was filled with ash from the night before. Being the first one up, it was my job to clean out the fireplace and get another one started to warm up the house. Once that chore was done, I made my way to the wooden chest where my family kept some prized possessions; my father’s old military uniform, his sword in its sheath, my mother’s beautiful silver hairbrush, given to her when she was young by her grandfather, a small box of animal toys carved from wood that had belonged to my grandmother, my bow and a quiver of arrows.
I took out my hickory bow and examined it, like always, running my fingers over the intricate vine carvings. The bow had been made for me by my grandfather. He had been a bowyer for the army and later became quite famous for it. When I was born, he decided I should have a bow and made one of hickory. On my tenth birthday, he took me out into the woods to practice. At first, my mother wasn’t too happy about me learning to use a weapon, but after a dinner that included my first squirrel, she didn’t mind as much.
After making sure my bow was completely intact, I took out the quiver of arrows. They had also been made by my grandfather from the same hickory tree as my bow. I stood, slinging the quiver of arrows on my back, and made my way to the kitchen in search of a quick breakfast. From the basket on our kitchen table, I took a piece of bread my mother had baked the day before in our oven. We usually bought bread from the baker, but sometimes Mother liked to make her own bread.
Holding the bread between my teeth, I pulled on my leather hunting boots that sat by our front door. I opened the door and, with bow in hand and bread in mouth, walked out onto the street. I took a deep breath, filling my nostrils with the cool morning air. My eyes rose to the cloudless, pale blue sky and caught sight of the moon, proof that it was far too early for anyone to be up but me and the baker. Readjusting my bow and quiver, I made my way down the cobblestone street, passed dormant houses, heading for the woods.
My small village was and is still called Emery and the forest surrounding it is the Forest of Emero. There’s a dirt path in the forest that leads into the village center, giving us access to the other villages so we aren’t completely cut off, but we might as well have been. Emery had always been a quiet, almost boring, village. Not much ever happened so it was nice to escape every once in a while to the forest which was always teaming with life.
The trip from my house to the forest was a very short one and I was able to reach the woods in a matter of minutes. As I walked through the trees, I tried to make as little noise possible so as not to disturb any nearby creatures. The farther I went, the thicker the trees became. Soon, little light was able to make it through the leaves of the close growing trees. I stopped by a large rock near an old oak tree and looked around.
“You’re late.”
I heard him before I saw him. Leaning against a nearby tree was a teenage boy. He smiled at me and took a few steps forward. The boy was my age; seventeen. His brown hair fell in messy waves just past his ears and bangs that had a tendency to get in his striking blue eyes. He was a few inches taller than me and well built. He was also my best friend.
“Good morning, Kell.” he said. He touched his forehead with the tips of his middle and index finger, then extended them towards me.
“Good morning, Archer.” I said, returning the gesture. It was called the Amarian Greeting. It is supposed to be used when you see an old friend after a long period of being apart, but Archer and I always used it to greet each other in the morning.
From one of the nearby trees, we heard the chirp of a bird. The two of us looked up into the branches, searching for the source. I chirped my own imitation of birdsong and got a reply from a tree a few feet in front of me.
“The birds are especially chatty today.” Archer said with a smile.
I smiled too. He knew as well as I did who was really chirping. I played along.
“Oh yes, very chatty and rather annoying.” I replied with a smirk. “Perhaps we should silence it.”
As I pulled an arrow from my quiver, there was a disturbance in the tree. The newly thawed branches shook, causing some of the dead maple leaves, killed by the hand of a recent winter, to flutter down to the forest floor. With a soft thud, Kade landed at the foot of the trunk, a cocky smile on his lips.
“Fooled you, didn’t I.”
“Hardly.” I said rolling my eyes and putting my arrow back in the quiver. “We knew it was you the whole time.”
“Yeah, I bet.” he said sarcastically.
Kade was three years older than me and Archer, though it was rare he ever acted like it. He spent the first sixteen years of his life in a village called Arethusa, located off the coast of the Chelan Ocean. There, he had been a fisherman with his father. But when a hurricane hit, wiping out most of the village and killing many, Kade’s mother included, they were forced to move. They chose to move to Emery because they had family here. Archer was Kade’s cousin, though you’d never be able to tell. They were the same height and had the same build, but the similarities stopped there. Kade had sandy blonde hair that was curlier than Archer’s and tanned skin spotted with freckles from his many hours in the sun. Instead of blue, his eyes were the same sea-green as the waters he had once sailed on.
“You’re late, you know.” Kade said, picking up his bow and quiver from behind a large rock where he had apparently hidden them.
“Yeah, I know.” I said, stifling a yawn. “I didn’t sleep well last night and neither did Teagan so if she seems cranky, you’ll know why.”
“Wait,” Archer said, seeming concerned about something. “You didn’t sleep well? Was it that dream again?” When I nodded in reply, he said, “Kell, that’s five nights in a row!”
“It’s nothing.” I said with a dismissive wave of the hand.
“I don’t think so and neither would my mother. She believes that all dreams have meanings. You should talk to her about this one.”
“Alright, alright, I will talk to her tonight.” I said impatiently. “Now, are we going to hunt or what?”
Though Archer did not seem very satisfied with me, the discussion of my dream ended and Kade suggested we set some snares before hunting. We all agreed so he pulled out a bundle of rope from his game-bag attached to his belt and started untangling it. He wasn’t the best shot with a bow and arrow, but his experience with rope made him an expert at snares and traps. He had spent many of his fishing years making knots and nets, leading to rough and blistered fingers. Mine and Archer’s were in similar state after so many years of archery.
After the rope was untangled and a few snares were set, we made our way quietly through the forest. Our bows were held at the ready; prepared to shoot at any moment. It was not long before a rabbit crossed our path. The curious creature stopped to look at us. As it was about to continue on its way, my arrow lodged itself in the rabbit’s skull.
“Good shot, Kell.” Kade said, giving me a congratulatory pat on the back. His favorite meal was rabbit stew so he was always happy when we managed to catch a few.
I walked over to the animal and gently picked it up. It was a male, which was good because I hated killing females at this time of year. He was nice and plump too, an added bonus. I pulled the arrow out of the poor creature’s head, and then stuffed it into my game-bag. We continued on our usual path through the forest. After a couple hours of hunting, we were fairly satisfied with the contents of our bags and made our way back to the village. Over the course of our hunting trip, we had managed to shoot a total of three squirrels, two rabbits, and a wild fowl. Kade’s snares, which we checked on our way back, had trapped another rabbit and two more squirrels.
As we reached the outskirt of the forest where it met the edge of our village, Kade said, “I think that Mr. Brandy will be very happy with us today.”
“Yeah, just yesterday he was telling me how afraid he was that he might not have enough meat for the feast but he should have plenty once we drop all of this off.” I said, hoisting my game-bag over my shoulder.
The village market, our next destination, was located in the center of the village. Most of the shopping was done there. It was also the place Archer, Kade, and I traded our game. We usually were able to get very good deals for our meat when it came to Mr. Brandy, the butcher. He raised his own pigs and cows but he always liked to buy our rabbits and whatever else we managed to catch. I knew, however, that today we would get nothing. Just like the day before, we would give him our meat for free. We did it one weekend every year, the reason being the Spring Celebration: a party our village has on the first day of spring to celebrate the season of rebirth. It was a day to eat, dance, and be merry as my father always liked to say.
“Wonderful! Wonderful! Good job kids!” Mr. Brandy said with a boisterous laugh after we showed him our game for the day. For someone that spent their whole day chopping up animals, he was a very happy man. “There should be plenty of rabbit stew tonight!”
With that, we left the man to his work, which would have to start immediately if the meat was to be ready for the feast. There were few people on the streets. Most of the villagers were washing up in preparation for the night’s festivities. The small amount that was out and about was helping set up the decorations. Several poles had been hammered into the ground. Soon, colorful strings and fabrics would be tied around them, connecting them, and from these strings would hang lanterns to provide light once the sun has set.
Archer, Kade, and I continued down the marketplace road, passing shops, most of which were closed because of the celebration. A girl around my age stepped out of one of the opened shops as we passed and I recognized her immediately.
“Kella!” she said brightly, walking over to our little group with a straw basket of herbs on her arm. “Archer, Kade, what are you all up to on this fine morning?”
“We just dropped off our game at Mr. Brandy’s,” Archer said, indicating the empty bag in his hand. “What are you up to, Cayleen?”
“Oh, Father has sent me on an errand to deliver these herbs to Mr. Brandy.” She replied. Cayleen’s family owned an herb shop, which they lived above. I knew them and Cayleen to be very kind people who even bought some of the plants Rosaleen grew in her own little garden. Cayleen continued to say, “He said that he wanted some ingredients to go with the meat. I can’t wait for the party tonight. Will you be dancing tonight, Kella?”
“Yes,” I answered with a smile. “And so will Archer.”
“Really?” Cayleen said in surprise and looked at Archer for confirmation, which he gave her.
“Yes,” he sighed. “I will be dancing tonight, but only because Kell promised to be my partner. She’s the only person I can trust not to get mad at me if I constantly step on her feet.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I wouldn’t get mad, Archer.” Someone said from behind.
We all turned around to find Maibell, a village girl that was our age, standing there, flirtatiously batting her eyelashes at Archer. It was rare to see her alone as she was. She usually had her three ‘best friends’ following her everywhere she went. But this morning she was by herself and I was not pleased at all to see her.
“I should go before my father starts wondering what happened to me.” Cayleen said. Not even she could stand being around Maibell. As she passed me she stopped for a moment and whispered so that only I could hear, “Careful, she’s trying to steal your partner.”
