Chapter four:

Ashes of the past

 “You should be good to go, come again,” Nancy said, smiling in the doorway.

    “Thank you again,” I said, and Ella and I waved goodbye as she walked back inside her house. 

    “Uh, where are we supposed to go now?” I asked. 

    “Let’s check the marketplace, maybe they have stuff,” Ella suggested. 

    “But, we don't have money,” I pointed out. 

    “Let’s go anyway,” Ella prompted. 

    “Okay,” I sighed. Ella grabbed my wrist and pulled me through town, until we eventually reached the marketplace. When we got there, we heard a familiar voice. 

    “Wait, Is that…?” Ella and I turned around the corner. 

    “It is!” I exclaimed. 

    “Fredrick! This bottle you sold me has a crack in it!” somebody yelled.

    “It didn’t when I sold it to you, what did you do!” Fredrick yelled back. 

    “Nothing! It already had it when I got home earlier!” the person responded angrily. 

    “Well, My other bottles don’t have any cracks in them, why would that one be any different?” 

    “I want a refund!” 

    “Well you're not getting any,” Fredrick crossed his arms. 

    “Look, it has a crack, right here!” the person replied, taking something and brought it up to Fredrick’s face.

    “I don’t care. The other bottles that I have don’t have any cracks in them! I store them all the exact same way!” Fredrick took a crate, put it on a fold up table he was using, and took a bottle out. 

    “See? No cracks.” he said stubbornly. 

    “Well give me that one then.”

    “Want to pay for it?” 

    “No! Just give me that one! I just paid for a bottle, I’ll trade you.”

    “You already broke that one, it’s useless! Why would I want it!?” As Fredrick and the customer were talking, me and Ella were walking closer to them on our way down the street.

    “It’s not entirely useless,” the customer said.

    “Then keep it!”

    “But I want to trade it for that one!”

    “No way! Buy a new bottle and keep that one, or just keep that one and leave. Or throw it away for all I care, it’s your bottle.”

    “Fine!” we saw the customer throw money on the counter, and took a new bottle and walked away. Ella and I walked past him, he seemed not to notice. 

    “Fredrick’s here!” Ella said in a whisper. 

    “Wouldn’t that mean he’ll be going to our town, next?” I asked.

    “I guess, should we tell him that it’s gone?” 

    “No, he’ll find out. And besides, he never really liked that town much anyways, we’ll save him the surprise that he gets to just drive by it later,” I replied. Suddenly I got the idea.

    “Ella, if we don't have any money how are we supposed to live?'' I asked.

    “I don't know, we’ll figure something out.”

    “You think we could stow away in Fredrick’s cart and get some of our stuff back?”

    “Orchid! Are you crazy! Where would we go after that! And who knows how long we’ll be in there! What if he finds us!?”

    “It wouldn't be that long because the people brought us here overnight. And once we know the way, we can come back.” Ella looked as if she was pondering.

    “People stow away in wagons all the time! They only get caught if they make too much noise, hide in a bad place, or move around too much and the merchants notice! So if we stay still and quiet all we need is a good spot!”

    “Hmm, I'm not sure…What if we get caught? Then again, maybe he won't notice us…”

    “We also need money to get food, we don't know this town or who to

trust so we need as much supplies as we can get or we might starve!” 

    I could tell she didn’t like the idea of stowing away but eventually she gave in.

    “Okay, let's do it." Ella said with a nod of her head.

    “Okay, see any place to hide?”

    "Um, how about there?" Ella pointed in one of the corners on the wagon.

    Looking closely trying not to seem suspicious I saw a gap in between some of the crates in the wagon that we could fit into. 

    “Good idea” I replied.

    "Well, let's go quickly." she and I snuck into the back of Fredrick’s wagon, unseen. We walked towards the crates quietly and sat down.

    “Do you have any idea on how long we have to wait here?” I asked in a whisper. 

    “I don’t know,” Ella responded, looking around the cart. 

    “Well, let’s see. All we know is that Fredrick stops at our town and sells his goods, right? And then he leaves.” I explained, trying to think. 

    “And then we’ll jump out when he gets there.” I crossed my legs, and straightened my back. I looked around the wagon. I saw bottles, some with ships in them. Cloths, spices, and some other things. I looked over to Ella, and saw her looking out of the cart, she seemed zoned out with concentration. 

     We waited and waited until it was midday, then Fredrick started to pack up his things. 

    “Hide!” Ella whispered urgently to me.

    We went into our little cubby hole and Ella pulled a box of fabrics in front of the entryway. The box was just a few centimeters short of covering our hiding spot completely, letting in a small ray of light. we tried to get as far back as we could so as not to be seen. I was behind Ella feeling a bit cramped when we heard him come in, he started to put boxes of things down in the wagon moving them from outside. Once he was done, the wagon started to move, and it felt bumpy. Ella leaned forward to peer out the hole so she could see where we were going. After an hour the wagon had stopped. 

    “He must have gotten to the town,” I observed quietly, still feeling cramped. Ella nodded in agreement peeking through the small gap to see the outside. 

    “I see the wall, let's go, quick!” she whispered and moved the box aside just enough so we could slide out of our hiding place. 

    We quickly got out of the wagon as fast and quietly as we could, and just a few seconds later Fredrick continued going past the town

    I was both worried, and glad to be back in my hometown. We were walking down the ruined streets littered with ash, the houses I walked by so many times now stood burned black and creaking as they swayed slightly in the breeze. With Ella by my side I couldn't help but think of Eagle and his shadow standing by me. 

    I looked around the burnt village, and a moment later, I found my house. It was burnt to a crisp, beams collapsed to the ground. Ella seemed to notice where I was looking. I walked over to my house. When I reached the house, I stared at it, stuck in my head and thoughts. I felt Ella set her hand on my right shoulder. I looked at her for a moment.

    "Could we please look through here? I-I need to see if they're actually gone," I asked her, my voice shaking a little, as I held on to the urge not to cry. Ella looked at me, and she nodded instead of giving an answer. She and I went and started to move the pieces of the house, some were too big for one person, so we had to help each other. Come on! They've got to be in here! I thought. We kept searching, until we were all done. We didn't find them. 

    "I can't believe it, they're really gone," I whispered hoarsely to Ella, as tiny tears slipped down my face and fell onto the rocky ground. Just then, I heard voices speaking, just beyond the house. 

    "So, where are we going to put the bodies?" one voice was saying. I peeked over the low and broken wall, and I saw two guards in a suit of armor. Ella joined me, like she heard them talking too. 

    "We could bury them, or hide them in bushes!" the other one said. They both nodded in agreement, and they started to head our way. Ella and I looked at each other in alarm. 

    "How are we going to escape?" I asked worriedly, as anxiety started to

 creep into my chest, so much that I couldn’t really think right. Ella thought for a moment. 

    “We could sneak past,” she suggested quietly. I nodded after a moment. We then left the empty frame of the house, and tried to sneak past the guards. 

    I tried to keep as quiet as possible, trying to keep my feet light on the ground. We were almost close to the forest. Just a little bit father…A moment later, the people in armor had passed us, not noticing us as we hid in bushes. When they passed, Ella and I made a break for it, and ran towards the cover of trees. 

    After a bit of wandering around inside the woods, I helped Ella make a fire, we then laid down to go to sleep. My mind felt like it was misty from the inside. 

    I kept smoothing my silver locket to help me calm down. When I finally did calm down, I closed my eyes, and slowly fell asleep.

Chapter five: 

The stowaways

I woke up to the sound of bushes rustling, opening my eyes as I looked around. 

    “Over there, see there's smoke!”

    “I see it!” 

People!? Why were they out here? Then I realized, they saw the smoke!

    “Ella! Wake up! We have to go!”

Ella woke up with a worried expression and looked around as I grabbed her arm pulling her up.

    “There! I see them!” a guard shouted. 

Ella grabbed my arm and we started running. Branches caught my hair as we ran but thankfully the branch was too small to keep its grasp. The guards were better trained for this terrain than us. Someone shouted a curse behind us and I heard the sound of metal hitting metal. Looking back I saw someone fighting the people who were chasing us, no there

were two people! Just as I realized my feet had stopped moving I looked to where Ella was and she had stopped to watch the two people too. 

    Thud, the sound of the last soldier's body hitting the floor after one of the people hit him on the back of the head with the hilt of his sword concluded the battle. One of the new people looked at us and started to walk towards me and Ella. Ella pulled my arm back, making me take a few steps back. I suddenly got nervous realizing we did not fully know if they were friendly or not. As the figure got closer it said,

    “You're welcome.” I was confused at the sudden words. 

    “Th-thank you.” I managed to stutter. 

    “Why did you light a fire so close to the town? Don't you know they can see the smoke?” the second figure chipped in, now at the first person's side. In the dark it was hard to tell what the people looked like, but one voice seemed to me female while the other was male, they sounded close to me and Ella's age as well. 

    “We… we didn't think about that.” I said starting to feel embarrassed that we overlooked something so obvious. I started feeling tired as I

remembered everything that had happened this week. And now this, I thought. 

    “Well, good luck,” the boy's voice said. 

    “Florence! We can't just leave them!” the girl said. 

    “Zoe, if we take them with us we might be found easier, they don't even know what they're doing!”

    “Exactly! We need to help them! If they get caught they could be killed!”

    “If we get caught we could be killed.”

    “They lasted this long out here, please! If they die and we don't help them, wouldn't it be our fault if they died?”

There was a silence after this statement that meant the boy was thinking. 

    “We won't get in your way, all we need is a safe place to go and we can part ways there,” Ella chipped in. 

More silence followed, then finally.

    “Sigh, fine, but after we take you to a safe place we part ways,” the boy said. 

    “Deal.” Ella said. 

    “Okay, got a place in mind?”

    “There's a village down that road, we don't know exactly where, but it took us a few hours to get here by riding with a man who had a cart,” Ella offered. 

    “There's two towns that way I’m pretty sure… either one should be fine though. Since there are a few days away by foot we’ll take you in the morning, after a while the road goes directly to it, so we'll leave you at that point, sound good?” Florence asked. I wasn't sure why he didn't want to accompany us directly to the town but I guess if it was a straight shot to it after a while it was fine because Ella said,

    “Sounds good.”

    “It's a deal then,” Zoe said, sounding happy. 

We walked through the trees for a bit following the two dark figures deeper into the woods. After a while we approached a hill. It had an oddly shaped shadow on its side. As I wondered about it, the two figures disappeared into the shadows. I was so shocked I stopped walking and

Ella bumped into me. Oh. I realized it must have been a cave opening in the hill and not a shadow. I got closer and realized I was right, it was dark so it was hard to see as we walked but I could still hear the footsteps and shuffling of the other two people so I assumed it wasn’t too big. 

    “You two can sleep in here, anywhere is fine.” Zoe said. 

    “Thank you.” Ella responded. 

I lifted up a hand in the darkness and found a wall, it was hard and cold. A piece of dirt crumbled into my palm. I could hear Ella sitting down beside me as I did the same. I'm not sure how long it took for us to fall asleep but I do remember listening to the sounds of the wind in the bushes for a while before I closed my eyes. 

                        * * *

I woke up early in the morning. I sat up from where I was laying, and looked around, I saw the others sleeping. I quietly got up, and went out

of the cave. I went up to a tree that was closest to the cave, and climbed it. I sat on one of its branches. I then hung from the bough, letting my body fall off but with my legs wrapped around it. I was hanging off until I saw Ella come out of the hollow. 

    “There you are!” she exclaimed, coming up to me. 

    “Did you find her?” Zoe came up beside Ella. 

    “Oh, you did find her!” I dropped from the tree, confused. Then I knew what they meant. 

    “Great, now that you found your friend, we can get going,” 

I looked around, and saw Florence, who was looking ready to leave, and slightly annoyed. We walked following Florence and Zoe through the forest. 

The stitcher bushes kept scratching my legs as we trudged through the bushes trying not to trip on roots. I thought about asking Florence and Zoe to slow down for us but I didn't want to make them more annoyed. The branches of the trees covered the sky in some parts making it hard to tell what time of day it was. It felt like we were walking for a long time,

our guides were so far ahead at times that me and ella had to jog crashing through the forest to keep up. 

    “Could you slow up a bit?” Ella asked as our guides started getting farther away again. 

    “It will take longer to get there if you can't keep up,” Florence said. 

    “Maybe just a bit? They are not used to the woods,” Zoe asked. 

    “They said they wouldn't get in the way.” Florence said. 

I started getting a bit mad at this. 

    “We did say that, but you said you would help us, we can't help getting in the way if you're not helping.”

    “We are helping, we didn't have to show you the way, we didn't have to help you out with those soldiers either.”

    “Well you don't have to be so–”

    “Look we're sorry, it's been a rough couple of days, we just lost our home, a close friend, and families, we're really grateful for your help so far, all we're asking is for you to slow down just a little bit because it's getting hard to keep up.” Ella interrupted, seeming calm and polite. 

Florence stared at her, seeming to be organizing his thoughts. 

    “Fine, we’ll slow up a bit,” he said with a sigh as he turned back around to continue walking. 

    An awkward silence hung in the air as we continued through the bushes. Eventually we spotted a road that cut through the undergrowth and branches of the forest clearly displaying the sky above. We now walked along the side of the road on foot. Ella took out two strips of dried meat from her pockets and handed one to me. 

    “Thanks, when did you get this?” I asked. 

    “The lady who took care of you gave me some,” she answered.

    Ella then looked at our two guides and asked,

    “Want some?” as she took out two more and stretched out her hand. 

    “Thank you.” Zoe said, taking them and handing one to Florence. 

We all walked for a while eating our food provided by Ella. A little while later we heard the sound of hooves coming down the road from behind us. 

    “Quick!” Florence said, pulling us into the bushes, including Zoe.

    “Ok, me and Zoe will distract them, if they say they are headed to Durathia, jump in the back if no one is there, it will make the trip a lot faster, get to the otherside of the road, hurry before they come around the corner!”

    Quickly me and Ella ran to the other bushes and hid while Florence and Zoe stood on the other side of the road.

    “What do you mean you lost the map!?” Florence asked Zoe loudly. 

    “Wh- What are you talking about! You're the one who told me to put it down! I thought you would get it!”

The carriage rounded the corner, it looked like another merchant cart with a man dressed in colorful travel clothes steering two horses. 

    “Well do you at least remember what direction to go? Or have we just been following the road and hoping to stumble across it!?”

    “There's only two ways to go so I figured oh, I don't know, we look at what the signs say when the road splits!”

    “How do you know there are signs! What if we got turned around!”

    “Well I guess we'll just have to find out then!”

    “Excuse me sir!” Florence called to the merchant. 

The man looked hesitant to stop but Florence had stepped into the road blocking his way forward. 

    “Are you going to Durathia?” Zoe asked. The man seemed to hesitate before saying,

    “I am, I'm not taking hitchhiker's though.” he said. 

Me and Ella moved quietly around so we could see into the back of the cart. No one. There were only boxes of things stacked inside. 

    “Well, could you tell us if there is a sign up ahead that says where it leads?”

    “There is…”

    “See I told you!” Zoe shouted to Florence.

Ella slowly got into the carriage trying not to make any noise or move the cart too much. 

    “Could you tell us how to get there? We lost our map, you see..”

I put my foot up onto the floor of the cart, Ella extended her hand helping me get the rest of the way in. 

    “It's a straight path, you can just follow the road and the signs will tell you where to go from there.” he said starting to get annoyed. 

Me and Ella squeezed in between some crates hiding ourselves as quietly as we could. 

    “Ah, thank you!” Florence said with a smile stepping out of the road. 

    “Have a good day! Thank you!” Zoe waved to the merchant as the horses started to pull the wagon again. The wagon ride was smooth except for the occasional rock or bump in the road. I tried not to move too much but the way I wedged myself in between the crates was not the most comfortable. It started to get dark but the wagon didn't stop so I figured that meant we were close to town. The hours passed by and I was about to fall asleep when the cart stopped. The man had stopped the carriage on the side of the road. He jumped down from his box seat and my heart started racing as he walked outside the carriage. I moved farther into my hiding spot hoping he wouldn't see me. The man stepped into the cart and took out a bed roll walking past me and Ella.

Chapter six: 

Mr. Asani

Ella and I made sure that the man was gone, then very quietly we made our way out of the cart. We found a sign close by that read Durathia. When we both walked inside the town, I widened my eyes in amazement, while Ella’s face looked interested. 

    What I was seeing was lights hanging all over, around trees and buildings, making it very bright and pretty. 

    “Hey!” I heard a voice call close by. I looked over, and saw somebody run over to us through a crowd, waving their hand. One girl made their way over to us. 

    “Hi–” the girl stopped abruptly as she noticed us. 

    “Do you need something?” I asked. 

    “Umm…I’m sorry for that, thought you might be my friend,” The girl said, then she dashed off into the crowd. Ella and I looked at each other