Chapter 23 Rachel

Chapter 23 Rachel

I’m tired of this nightmare by now. I wonder if somewhere I still haven’t gotten over almost drowning… twice. I certainly feel over it. I almost don’t recognize the dream at first. Talith, Aanya, and I stand at the edge of the river.

“It’s a river,” I muse.

“I know, but how are we going to cross it?”

“That is an excellent question,” I confirm, “Guess we have to swim.”

“We can’t” Talith emphasizes.

“Why not?” I fume.

“It’s too deep,” he explains.

“No it’s not.”

I dunk the tip of my toe in the water. It sends a chill through me. They both give me an odd look. I sit down and hang both my legs in.

“See? It’s not so bad,” I resolve.

I sink the rest of the way in and try to float. I manage for a few seconds. Suddenly, I am yanked to the bottom, as if gravity had just increased ten-fold.

“Rachel!” I hear them yell from above.

I struggle upward. It slowly becomes easier to maneuver. I am about to break the surface, but instead, I hit ice. Hard ice. I feel around it a little, but know that it is encasing the whole river. I try making the ice passable. I get the tips of my fingers through before it freezes around them again, freezing my fingers as well. All of the sudden, a giant area of the ice gives way and crashes into the water, leaving the surface exposed. My fingers fall away from the ice they are entrapped in. Two hands appear and I grab them. I’m pulled to the shore. Aanya and Talith. Two people who broke me out of the ice…

 

“Get up!”

I see a flurry of motion. Aanya, freaking out and thrashing. Talith, kicking and screaming as he is dragged away. I get pulled to my feet. Someone binds my hands as another one tries covering my face. Talith suddenly breaks free and runs off into the woods. More shouting.

A voice breaks out through the rest, “Quiet! Half after the boy.”

The man fastening my blindfold clears out, and it droops a little, uncovering one of my eyes slightly. The one binding my wrist is still nearby. I pull at my wrists until the rope hurts me. I try making it passable but it won’t go. I get shoved forward. I see a wooden cage on wheels, bound with ropes at the corners to hold it together. Aanya is thrown in. One man pulls out a whip, another a sword, and she backs into a corner. I recognize the one with the whip as the one that seems to be in charge and had been yelling at the rest. He has a scruffy black beard and short black hair. He looks tall, tan, and strong, but holds a little more weight than he should. His clothes look a little outdated. Well… a lot outdated. He wears brown worn pants and a weird shirt from older times. His companions are similarly dressed. They continue to shove me and I tumble in after Aanya.

They fasten the back shut. There are three men left of the group. The rest went after Talith, and haven’t been back. The men climb into the front of the contraption that now holds us, and start pulling away, further into the trees. I lurch against the back, but it holds firm. I try to pass through the cage, but I don’t feel the strength behind it. I try to turn invisible. I get a flicker, but it subsides. I peer through the gaps between two pieces of wood. I don’t see anything left back at our small camp. The fire is out and the nearby foliage trampled. I wonder where Talith is and what luck he’s had with running away. I listen for a moment, and I think I hear the clopping of hooves that means we’re being pulled by horses.

“Rachel?” Aanya says, blinded and sitting far away from the back.

“Aanya!” I respond, scooting over to her as best I can with my tied hands and the low roof.

“Rachel. You’re here. Talith?”

“You didn’t see? He ran, into the woods.”

I see struggle on her face as she tries to decide what to make of it. Finally, she says, “Well, at least he got away.” After a pause she adds, “Who are these people?”

I listen around for a few seconds, and decide the men probably couldn’t hear us over the shake of the whole… vehicle, or their shouts for that matter.

            After a moment, I speak. “I don’t know, but don’t worry. This doesn’t exactly seem like the typical kidnap. Anything could happen. Talith could still come.”

            “Yeah… hey! Couldn’t you make it so we could pass through this thing?”

            “I just tried. It didn’t work. I don’t know… I feel like I just don’t have the power to.”

            She furrows her brow. “What? Ugh. I just wish I could see something. Anything.”

            “Ooh, that I might be able to help with. I might be able to move your blindfold off using the top of my head.”

            She looks at me hesitantly, “Even if you could do that, how are you going to see me?”

            “Part of my blindfold is off. I might be able to get it more…” I throw my head from side to side until it comes off of my face, hanging around my neck instead. “There, it’s off.”

            “Great…” she mumbles, a little skeptically.

            I move closer to Aanya. I tilt my head to the side.

            “Ouch!” she exclaims as I feel my head hit her in the face.

            I feel her nose and move up. I try to move it off her face.

            “Ow, ow, ow! That’s my hair!”

            “Wait! I’ve got a better idea,” I tell her.

            I move forward a little in the small compartment and extend my hands up as far as I can behind my back.

            “You can’t even see what you’re doing!”

            “True, but I will be able to feel the blindfold better this way,” I reply, a bit more hushed.

            I feel the fabric and rip it down off her eyes.

            “I see you!”

            “Shhhh.”

            “Hey!” calls one of the men from the front. “Keep it down back there.”

            “In this place, near the ruins, near the stones,” one of them mumbles.

            “Don’t speak of it,” the other one whispers harshly.

            We hit a large bump, which jolts our container, and suddenly stop. I get thrown into Aanya. Her head hits the wall. A few seconds later men run out from the cover of the trees. It’s only then that I realize we’d been moving at a walking pace. They had had no problem with catching back up to us, even though they’d just been moving away from us. One of them is short with brown hair, and a long beard and bushy mustache. The other has long blonde hair, with no facial hair. Their leader gets out of the front of the carriage contraption type thing.

            “Hey boss!” the bearded man says.

            “Did you take care of that boy?” their leader screams back at him.

            “Oh,” the other one says. “Trust me, he’s taken care of.”

            “Phil stayed behind to clean up,” the first informs him.

            “Please tell me you took the,” he pauses for a moment and glances at us. I try to keep my unblocked eyes hidden. “Harsher route,” he finishes.

            “Oh yes,” the blonde one says, “he won’t be coming back.” He looks at Aanya and I. “Well, well, figure out how to get out of those little blindfolds did you?”

            I turn my head towards him. He leans over us, grasping the wooden bars of the cage.

            “What?!” the boss says from the front. “Sodo, go take care of it. You two are dismissed for now. Just tell me, were there any…” again he looks over at us, “interference points?”

            The blonde one motions him over and they begin speaking in low voices. Meanwhile, one of the other men from the front gets out. I glance over at Aanya. I can tell by her positioning that she plans to run as soon as they open the back to fix our blindfolds. That’s okay. I plan on running with her. The way it sounds, if we stick with these guys, there’ll be no more life for us. They’ll “take care” of us just like they did Talith. My mind lingers on the thought of Talith, actually being… dead. I push it out of my head. It’s time to escape. It’s what Talith would want. However, when Sodo reaches the back, he simply sticks his hands between the wooden bars and ties the blindfolds that way. He ties it so tightly I feel as though my brains are about to explode. Through the darkness I strain to hear their conversation.

            “He was fast, boss, if he hadn’t stopped when he saw the… well you know, then we might not’ve been able to get ‘im,” brown beard says.

            “Did he see the stones or the ruins?”

            “Do you think he’s really dead?” Aanya interrupts my eavesdropping.

            “They could have meant anything by that,” I say hopefully. I can’t help feeling a little glad she can’t see my face, because I doubt that I look hopeful.

            The men soon disappear back into the forest and the others hop into the front of our… carriage. It’s tough to find a word to describe the contraption, since I’m not really sure what it is. I’ve only really seen it from the back. I just know there are horses pulling it, room in the front for at least three people, and a cage in the back. The cage is about the size of a truck bed, maybe a little smaller, with walls and a roof. It’s made out of wooden rods and held together with ropes. I picture my surroundings in my head with no problem.

            After a lot of traveling at a snail’s pace, all day, and trying to break out of the cage or scream for help, we finally come to another stop. I’m unsure about whether it’s a bad thing or a good thing. Of course, they’re probably pretty fed up with us. I feel my blindfold fall off my face and see Sodo go around to the other side and untie Aanya’s as well. The leader comes around back with a scowl on his face.

He holds a bottle with blue liquid in the bottom. It’s shaped like you’d expect a potion to be. I can’t help but feel entranced by it and stare at it curiously. He holds it up and begins to swirl it, moving the bottom in a circular motion. My mind slows down. I’m tired. I keep looking at the swirling and tilt my head around just like it. Around and around. Around and around. I giggle at the motion. Sodo opens up the back. Sodo, what a funny name. Sodo, Sodo, Soda, Sodo. I want some soda. Why is the room spinning like that? I feel something pour down my throat. It tastes sweet…

 

I wake up sitting on sand. It appears to be just a large beach area. I even see water lapping far away. There are large boulders sticking out of the sand in some areas, and smaller stones right by the water. For a moment I panic, remembering Tailith gone and the men and… I stand up suddenly, and whip my head from side to side, looking for Aanya. I don’t see her, but then I notice, just a few feet away from me, a different girl. I jump back a few feet, looking at her suspiciously. She wears black shorts and a sky blue T-shirt, an outfit I’d expect to see back on Earth. She looks to be about eleven or twelve, and holds a large, colorful lollipop.

“Hey there,” she greets me sweetly.

“Hi. Who are you?” I ask her.

“My name’s Lael.”

I soften a little, “That’s a pretty name. Have you seen another girl around here, about my age?”

“Oh, you won’t see her around here. No one comes out of the Forest of Unknowns at the same spot.”

I look at her curiously as she licks her lollipop. “The Forest of Unknowns?”

“Yeah, they kind of prefer to keep it that way. Spread people out. Give them something to keep them distracted. Some need it extra strong.”

“I lost a friend in there,” I say solemnly.

The girl frowns at me. “They usually don’t take extreme measures. They just drop people off randomly, secretly. For instance,” she motions to me, “you are here. Your buddy isn’t.”

“So why are you here? Wait, where is here?”

She smiles. “So anxious. We’re at the beach. Obviously. Do you like my outfit?” She motions down at herself. “No? How about this?”

She swings her lollipop down and instantly she is wearing jean capris and a light green shirt, exactly what I’d been wearing moments before. I look down at myself and see that I’m wearing what she’d been wearing. I stare in shock.

“I’m a little younger than you,” she observes. She flicks her wrist and her lollipop turns into a skinny black cylinder. Another moment and she looks fifteen. “Well, enjoy the beach. I shall be seeing more of you, Rachel Holly.”

Just as she fades away I see a small orange surfboard with a yellow stripe running the length hanging on a necklace around her neck. I then realize I’m still wearing her clothes: the black shorts and sky blue shirt. After the strange encounter, one thought suddenly comes through the rest.

Tailith is alive……. probably.