Sweat trickled from Axel’s temple, down his cheeks, and disappeared down his shirtfront. He looked about as hot as I felt. The desire to wear my helmet for luck had worn off, but I still wasn’t sure I could bury it beneath a tree inside someone else’s heaven, a place we might never return to. So after a bit of fiddling around, I managed to slip a strap from my backpack through the eye and mouth holes of the helmet and tie a knot, securing it to my backpack. It was going to make my back hurt, but it was the best I could do.
The green grass beneath my feet hadn’t changed one bit. It was the exact shade of lush green we’d been walking on for three hours, according to Reuben’s digital watch.
Most of us had lost our mobile phones with our luggage. Only a couple were lucky enough to have slipped theirs into their pockets when we’d disembarked the plane. That was Claire and Kyle, who were now scrolling through images of family and friends. There was no signal here, obviously, but at least they had their pics and past conversations to look at. I envied them that. My phone, with all my precious pictures, was now at the bottom of the ocean.
“I don’t really know much about her. Leirza.”
The sound of Axel’s voice jolted me from my thoughts.
“All we know, from the man who’d returned and what he’d written—which was only three pages from his book—is that she lives on a mountain of fire, so possibly a volcano. The woman who’d survived didn’t record anything about Leirza.”
Reuben, who’d been listening in, stopped, threw his bag down on the green grass, and spun around, a hand shielding the sinking afternoon sun from his eyes while he surveyed the three hundred and sixty degree horizon.
“Great. No volcano in sight. This is going to take forever. How in the hell do we know if the king is just insane, or a liar, huh? How do we even know that this man returned with his loved one for real?”
Axel ignored Reuben and threw his backpack down. He took a swig from the canteen swinging from his neck, no more than three gulps, then screwed the lid back on. He looked murderous. For some reason his set jaw and the glow in his icy blue eyes made my stomach flip.
I took a quick sip of my own water, wanting to drink more, but resisting.
“Because his wife had been blown up during the first World War. Blown to bits. And yet he strolled back into the kingdom with her on his arm, as alive and as complete as can be. Many documentations support this.” Axel adjusted the bag on his shoulder and kept walking towards the trees.
After twenty or so minutes passed, I started to notice cows when I hadn’t noticed them before.
A herd beside us mooed and I noticed that some of them were beginning to group together and lay down beside some of the thicker shrubs.
The sky above us was a brilliant afternoon blue, but I knew from a lifetime of farming what was coming.
Jacob caught my eye and raised his brows to the sky and I nodded.
“Axel,” I said, coming up behind him, breathless again because he was moving so fast and with such determination. It seemed he wanted to get as far away from the group as possible. The way everyone was behaving, I couldn’t blame him.
“Yeah,” he said between puffs of breath. So he was getting tired too.
“Rain might be coming.”
He looked up at the sky and a tweeting bird flew overhead.
“I know it looks fine now, but when cows huddle and sit down like that, it usually means rain’s coming.”
He continued walking but slowed down a little. “We have rain jackets in our bags. But if we find some shelter before dark we’ll stay there. He stared out at vast green land in front of us. “I don’t like our chances of finding anything, though. We may have to camp beneath the trees, if you’re right.”
“Did the man who brought his wife back say anything about meeting people or towns or houses in his writings?”
Axel was silent for a long time before he shook his head. “No. He wrote about the Choosing Ceremony. He wrote sparingly of some of the dangers he encountered in the afterlives, but not in detail. He wrote more about the return to the castle from the Land of Resting Souls, saying that the journey home was more difficult and dangerous than the journey to it.”
“Oh. Okay. For some reason I thought the journey home would be easy, after surviving the first half.”
“Screams so frightening they turn your entire body cold,” said Axel, shaking his head. “That’s an actual quote from the last page of his journal.”
A chill ran down my back and I wondered about the blood on my helmet. Who, or what, did the blood belong to?
“But didn’t someone from the kingdom speak to him and document his findings later as well?” I bypassed a pile of cow poo and kept up the pace. “There must be more information on him. On his wife, and what she said of the afterlife, of her version of heaven. Did the man mention what happened to the eight with him?”
Axel stared at the ground and then ahead. “All I know is that he refused to speak of it and many said he never got over what he’d witnessed while out here. All I ever focused on was the fact that he survived and that he brought his wife back to life.”
Axel’s cheeks flushed pink and he watched me from out the corner of his eye, a small, tight smile on his lips. “And the dragon of course.”
I found myself smiling back.
The others started to whoop and cheer as we neared the trees. They were acting like we’d already reached the Land of Resting Souls.
“Did his wife live long after she was…reborn?”
“Nothing much is written about her. Except that her husband kept her away from the kingdom, from the other villagers. Some say he kept her in a dungeon at night, to keep her safe so that she wouldn’t die again.”
Daisies crunched beneath my feet.
“Wow. That’s so sad.”
Axel met my eyes and nodded. “But others say that he kept her in a dungeon at night because that was when she’d become unstable. Some say she’s still locked away somewhere in the castle, where nobody will ever find her.”
Axel laughed when he saw my face. “Ha! Don’t worry. It’s just an old story my mother, and every mother in the kingdom, used to tell me and the other naughty children to scare them into good behaviour.” A soft smile clung to his lips. “My mother used to warn me to be good or else she’d send me to the screaming lady.”
Goosebumps prickled my arms and legs.
“Do you believe it? About her being unstable? Do you ever worry that if your little brother returned that there’d be something wrong with him? That it was his time when he passed…and that he perhaps should be allowed to rest in peace?”
Because that is what I’m concerned about with my own brother.
Axel’s steps slowed and when I looked up I realised that we’d finally reached the tree. Bruce had already set his bag and bedroll down and was doing some yoga stretches.
“This is so much more difficult with the chainmail on,” said Bruce.
“I just want him back in my mother’s arms. He died because of my failings, not his own, so no,” Axel’s eyes turned frosty. “It wasn’t his time. He deserves to be alive.”
“I love you, tree!” said Reece as he pretended to make out with it. Claire slapped him on the arm, frowning as though she was jealous of the tree, but then giggled when Reece picked her up in one arm and swung her around before kissing her with an open mouth and setting her lightly on her feet.
Reuben and Kyle tipped their bags out and we all followed suit, except I didn’t exactly tip mine, neither did Jacob. We took our time, carefully sorting our things into piles.
“Food!” Reuben tore into a bread roll and my stomach grumbled.
“You should slow down,” said Axel. “You all should. This might be the only food we have for weeks or months, not just days.”
Reece shrugged and stuffed an entire roll in his mouth. “Plenty of cows and sheep.” He sniffed the air. “And if I’m correct, I smell bacon!”
Jacob shook his head a
nd continued sorting through his gear.
Noah frowned but then sniffed the air. “I think he’s right. I think I smell bacon too.”
I sniffed the air and my stomach growled at the scent of fried bacon.
Axel stood up and turned slowly, his hand shielding his eyes from the setting sun. There didn’t appear to be signs of life other than the cows and now sheep dotted here and there over the land.
“Nothing. But there might be someone setting up camp for the night who is frying bacon. Who knows?” He nodded to where the blazing sun had started to set over the hills. “Could be a settlement, a village over those hills.” He shrugged. “It’s someone’s version of heaven, so there’s no way to know for sure whether the individuals we run into will be good citizens or dangerous people. All we know for certain is that hardly anybody who leaves the castle ever returns.”
“Such positivity!”
Axel glared at Reece. I could see the two butting heads and perhaps killing each other before we ever reached Leirza.
“It could be a murderer frying bacon,” said Bruce. “Or it could be a farmer’s wife cooking for her husband.”
“Or it could be the farmer husband cooking for his wife,” said Claire with raised brows. Reece rolled his eyes and Reuben punched him, punishing him for being part of the feminism movement.
“We’ll see,” said Axel, who spotted Jacob and me sorting through our gear. I’d decided, with regret, to leave my helmet behind. I’d keep my chainmail. And my sword, even though I didn’t really know how to use it. I’d be better off with a knife or a gun. I’d used them back at the farm plenty of times.
Rain started to patter against the leaves above us.
“Rain?”
“But there are no clouds,” said Bruce, frowning. He unscrewed the lid of his canteen and drew one of the branches down so that the rain could trickle into his bottle.
“Good idea,” said Axel, who followed suit. We all did. Once all our canteens were filled, everyone turned back to their gear.
“Let’s get this done quickly, people.” Axel’s eyes scanned the sky, which had darkened already with the setting sun.
Jacob sat back on his heels and measured the sunset with his fingers and nodded. “We’ve got twenty minutes before the sun is completely set.” He sighed, staring down at his gear, and finally tore into a roll.
I followed suit. The scent of bacon had ruined my efforts to save my bread roll for tomorrow’s breakfast. But seeing as we could smell bacon cooking, perhaps we’d get a meal by tomorrow. If there was a village, then we might even be able to stock up on supplies. My belly grumbled despite the bread roll being in there. I wished I’d eaten more for lunch in the ballroom.
The rain had stopped and the scent of bacon was gone, replaced instead with that earthy smell of damp ground.
I grabbed a flat, sharp stone from beneath the tree and started to dig into the dark dirt at the base of the tree trunk. Jacob and Noah followed suit and Axel went around checking to see if everyone had kept the essentials.
“Do you really need this thing?” he asked Claire, holding up her pink phone.
She lunged for it as though he’d snatched up her heart or brain.
“Of course I do.”
Reece, his hands dirty from digging his own hole, stood up and pointed a dirty index finger into Axel’s chain-mailed chest, right on the eye of the unicorn. “Listen knob-head, that’s the last time you touch my girlfriend’s stuff. You’ll be on the ground the next time you do.”
Jacob stopped digging and stared, his muscles flinching. He looked about as sweaty as I felt. I stopped too and sat back on the heels of my boots. Axel was a head taller than Reece and was covered in more wiry muscle, but Reece was stocky and built like a wrestler. I wasn’t sure who’d win in a fight between the two. But something in Axel’s eyes, a coolness in them, told me he’d win. Again, my stomach flipped as I watched him stare Reece down.
“Come on, we’ve only got twenty minutes,” Kyle said, and we all got on with our digging.
I didn’t bury much. My backpack wasn’t too hard to carry so I decided to keep it. The only thing that actually bothered me was the helmet. With part reluctance and part relief, I put it in the hole I’d dug and covered it over with the dark, cool dirt.
The rest buried their helmets too. Noah, Kyle, and Claire buried their chainmail too.
Just as we all stood up, the sun disappeared behind the horizon, revealing several slopes and a tiny, thin strip of smoke snaking up from between two hills.
There were more trees in that direction, a small forest in the distance, blocking our view of what was behind there, but at least we knew that the smoke signalled signs of life.
“We head in the direction of those woods,” said Axel. “No one goes beyond them unless I say so. We’ll check the woods first, make sure it’s safe. And nobody follows the smoke until we’ve searched the woods. We don’t know who or what is over there yet. No matter how harmless these farming fields look, we have to remain aware. It’s our lives that will pay if we don’t. Maybe all of our lives.”
“I’m betting they’re friendly farmers,” said Reuben, running ahead, his excitement contagious to the others, who followed. “With some sexy daughters who wear tiny chequered shirts and cut off denims.”
Axel actually laughed and so did Jacob, but I felt tense for some reason. Nothing about this cosy farmland felt right. It was too easy. Too safe. Plus, the hairs on the back of my neck kept prickling.
The purplish blue of the oncoming night sky seemed to drape itself over the land, tarnishing the greenery with darkness. It felt eerie and lonely without stars. Without them twinkling above me, I felt unprotected. As though I’d lost my connection with Sam. He couldn’t help me while I was in someone else’s afterlife.
An owl hooted from somewhere nearby and a couple minutes later I found it perched on a fence. It fixed its eyes on me for a millisecond before it hooted once more and flew off into the darkness, ready to hunt for afterlife mice.
I kept my eyes on the woods up ahead for as long as I could until the silhouettes of the trees blurred against the dark sky.
Every hair on my head prickled against my scalp and I couldn’t help but rest my hand on my sword. I found the smooth slope of the flamed hilt comforting. Earlier, after I’d buried my helmet and was waiting around for everyone else to finish up, I killed time by swinging my sword at a fence post, trying to nick the same spot twice. On the last swing I’d managed to do it, so now I felt minutely more confident with my swordsmanship than I had when I’d first held it.
Something crunched to my left, where there was only blackness, and I jumped, before unsheathing my sword and pointing it out in front of me.
“Who’s there?”
Hot blood pounded in my ears.
Someone came up behind me and I spun around and cried out.
“Far out, settle down, dragon girl!” It was Reece, but I could only tell by the sound of his voice and the faint silhouette of his body.
“Shit, you scared me.” My heart punched against my chest and the pulse in my ears throbbed.
The sky was now pitch black apart from the faintest pale pink glow outlining the horizon where the sun had set.
“I heard something.”
“Yeah, you heard me,” came Reuben’s voice from where I’d heard the noise. “I was taking a pi—”
“From now on, if anybody wants to leave the group, you’ve got to vocalise it.”
Axel’s hand rested on the small of my back and he leaned in, his hair tickling my cheek.
“You all right?”
“Yeah. Just a little jumpy.” I took a step back and sheathed my sword. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this place.”
“Me too.”
We trudged on, this time in a much tighter group, the night bringing us closer.
“Stop stepping on my ankles!”
“Shut up, Noah, stop getting in my way.”
“You shut up.”
“Who asked you, Jake-knob?”
“Shut up, all of you!” said Bruce.
Everyone settled into a certain silence, but the darkness seemed to emphasise every step and breath we took.
The air turned surprisingly chilly and after someone’s teeth started chattering, we all stopped to put our jackets on. When we’d unpacked our stuff earlier beneath the tree, I’d noticed that everyone’s jacket was different. The fact that we were all different sizes would have had a lot to do with it. But one thing we all had noticed was that the jackets were all huge, larger than our normal sizes. “To fit over the mail,” Axel had said.
Mine was a bomber jacket with torn, repatched sleeves, Claire’s a red raincoat, her favourite colour, and Axel had a knee length, tattered leather coat that probably made him look like a rock star when he wore it.
“Not long to go,” said Axel as we continued walking. Luckily, we could just make out a pale path between the two now dark paddocks on either side of us, and it was leading us directly to the woods up ahead.
An hour or so later, Reuben swore out loud, sending my hand to the hilt of my sword.
“My head just found the fucking woods!” he said, and we all laughed.
Noah screamed and started waving his arms around, accidentally slapping my butt. “I think I just walked into a spider web. Get it off me!”
Jacob jumped and bumped into me, his head butting mine.
“Sorry,” he said, grabbing hold of my arms to steady himself.
“That’s okay.” When he removed his hands, my arms tingled where he’d touched, even with my jacket on, and for a second I wanted his hands back. Weird. There had to be something wrong with me, getting all tingly and emotional every time somebody touched me in the past forty-eight hours.
Maybe it was because for the past six months, I wasn’t really somebody many people touched. Not only did the town blame me for my brother’s death, but most girls and guys at school were intimidated by my height and rarely did I receive the daily, squealy hugs that girls like Claire and Bella got every five minutes in the school corridors. Worst of all, Mum had stopped kissing me before bedtime. That hurt the most.
Alive (The Veiled World Book 1) Page 14