He smiled at her, giving in to her effort to change the subject.
"I will. I find I am quite excited to be learning something new, to be honest. I have never learned about such things in my lifetime, so it is good for me." He was silent for a moment before continuing. "Shall we get up and go have some breakfast? Although I do like the thought of lying here with you all day…"
Isabella laughed at him and tenderly pushed him away.
"No! Gardening awaits for you, and I am sure the cook will wish for me to fetch ingredients for them, so let us go and have our morning meal."
~~~~~
As they sat down in the dining area, Adrian appeared and sat down beside Isabella, who turned to him and smiled.
"Adrian! Is all well?" she asked him, not being specific to the question she was asking, but he knew her well enough to decipher the meaning, and he laughed in response.
"Yes, Isabella, everything is well. I will tell you all about…" he started to say before another voice appeared and spoke over him.
"You will tell her all about what?" the voice said and it startled Isabella as she realised it was so similar to the voice she had heard the night before, and in her last vision in the night.
The sharpness of the tone startled Adrian and Trent also, but Adrian smiled at her before he spoke.
"Oh I tell Isabella all sorts of things, Kat. She is my confidant. She knows far too many secrets for me to let her slip away from me," Adrian said with a light hearted teasing in his voice but Isabella could see that Kat not only was not happy with that explanation, but also extremely unhappy.
"Well that will change soon. You won't need her anymore once we are paired," Kat went on to say, now surprising everyone within listening distance. It was so unlike the people of the village - there was something in her tone that Trent in particular noticed, having become so used to such tones in his world. His world of jealousy and greed.
Adrian found himself extremely uneasy, sitting between his closest friend of all of these years, and the woman he had only the night before talked about pairing with. Kat had always been easy going and … nice. But what he was hearing coming from her lips now was not nice at all.
Isabella, however, being the straightforward person that she was, immediately determined to bring any issue out into the open.
"Kat, why do you say such a thing?" she asked, the question having been on the minds of Adrian and Trent both, even though both were too polite to have voiced it.
"He will be mine then, Isabella. You will not be needed anymore. You have Trent. You do not need to talk to Adrian anymore. When he needs to talk, he shall talk to me."
Isabella went to say something more but suddenly felt Trent's hand move over hers and squeeze it, bringing her attention back to him instead. She saw the look he gave her - the look that said 'let it go'. She knew it was only a suggestion but conceded that perhaps it was not the way to go, and the person who would most suffer from any such conversation would be Adrian.
She kept her focus on Trent as Adrian begun a new conversation with him, keeping his attention from Kat.
"How was the garden yesterday, Trent? Do you think you will keep learning about food growth?" Adrian asked to cover up an unidentifiable feeling in his gut. Trent instantly reacted in the way he knew Adrian wished for him to.
"I very much enjoyed what little I learned yesterday so I am eager to get back there today and start learning and doing more," he said and moved his eyes from Adrian back to Isabella, seeing that she had eaten all that had been on her plate. "Speaking of which, I shall go there now. Are you finished, Isabella?" he asked her and she nodded. "I can wait while you talk to the cook, and perhaps if you need something from the garden, we can walk down there together."
Isabella nodded and turned back to Adrian, seeing a different look on his face - one she had never seen before, even though they had been friends for so many years. She put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed it as she stood up.
"Have a good day, Adrian," she said to him, smiling, and then moved her vision over to the woman sitting next to him. "Kat," she said, giving her a slight nod before turning and moving away with Trent.
As Trent and Isabella washed, dried and put away their dishes, they both remained silent, each in their own thoughts.
"Cook Mary, do you wish for me to get anything for you?" Isabella called out to the cheerful woman in the kitchen area.
"Yes please, Isabella!" the woman called back as she moved forward. "Mushrooms today, please. Oh, and some thyme, if you please. It is time to make some more lovely mushroom spread, I think," she said and Isabella turned to look at Trent, both of them remembering the mushroom spread and the way she'd had to feed it to him. It wasn't long ago, but it seemed an age ago.
"Mushrooms and thyme. Yes, I shall go and get that for you now. Do you have a basket I can use?"
The cook handed her a basket and soon Trent and Isabella were both walking out of the kitchen and heading for the garden. Partway down the path Trent stopped and turned to her. He moved forward and put his arms around her.
"I hope you won't be distressed by Kat's words, Isabella."
Isabella put the basket down on the ground and pulled him close to her, wrapping him in her arms also, before kissing him.
"I was surprised by them, Trent, but I shall move on with my day as if I did not hear them, I think. But…"
"But what?"
"Her voice … her voice was so similar to the one I heard. But it cannot be so. Kat does not have any powers, I do not think. And if she was the one I dreamed of, she would have also had the dream, but I do not think she looked like she had shared the dream."
Trent looked at her and considered what she was saying.
"Perhaps it would be best to stay away from her for the moment. Until we are sure she is no threat to you."
Isabella looked at him, not even knowing what the word meant.
"Threat? What is that?"
He leaned in and kissed her, remembering that these people did not know much of the language that he was used to, simply because they did not have many of the feelings that his population of humanity had experienced so freely.
"Just do not think about her words. You have far more happy things to think about."
"Oh? And what happy things would they be?" she asked him, teasing him with a suggestive smile on her face.
Trent laughed at her and kissed her again before pulling away from her and resuming their walk.
"You know exactly what I mean," he said quietly and saw her blush softly, making his heart melt and his mind forget Kat and Adrian entirely.
~~~~~
Isabella sat quietly on the grass as Trent went away with Master Martin to the area where the mushrooms were grown, so he could learn how to harvest them. Having reassured the gardener that she was in no hurry at all and the two men could take as long as they wished to, she took a moment to close her eyes and just breathe in the air and enjoy the sunshine on her face.
"I'm coming for you, Isabella. And you won't win," the woman's voice said in her head all of a sudden, and immediately Isabella felt her body tense. This time, however, she felt distress in her belly, and she put a protective hand down onto it and felt the warmth there.
In her head she ignored the voice and spoke through her thoughts to her unborn child.
"All is well. You are safe. Your father and I will not let anyone harm you," she soothed in her thoughts, and felt the warmth lessen and be at peace once more.
But while she was determined to not hear it, the voice did continue.
"Your child will not be born. No child will ever be born from your body. I will not allow it."
Now Isabella felt her protective instinct come alive at a forceful strength, and she contemplated whether to try talking to the voice in response, but for now opted to not try it.
She could finally hear the men coming closer, so she pushed her thoughts and memory of the words from her mind as she stood up and smiled at
them. She saw the smile on Trent's face and vowed to herself to not mention this latest hearing … not yet anyway.
"Here you go, Miss Isabella," the gardener said to her as he handed her the basket that had the thyme and mushrooms in it, and she smiled her thanks before he walked way, leaving Trent with her for the moment.
"Mushrooms! Have you seen where they grow, and how they grow?! I had no idea," he said with a look of incredulity on his face, making her laugh at him. "Do you want me to walk you back?" he asked as he focused on her once more, but she shook her head in response, smiling at him.
"No. You enjoy the garden. I am going to take these back to Cook Mary and then I might go into the pool to bathe," she said and immediately his attention was caught by images of her in the pool previously, making her laugh at him. "Garden!" she said and he refocused with a sheepish look on her face, before kissing her and turning away from her, a large smile remaining.
~~~~~
After walking into the kitchen to deliver the produce, Isabella went to the temple again.
Feeling her belly grow warm as she entered, she soon found she was approached by Elder Scott.
"Isabella, what brings you here?" he asked her, startling her as she had not seen him for many years.
"I… I don't know," she stammered, suddenly shy.
She watched as he moved closer to her but noticed that there was no reaction to him, as there had been to Elder Rhys whenever he moved closer to her since she had become paired with Trent.
Elder Scott walked right up to her, curious about the young woman before him. He had watched her grow up, of course, as he had done with all of the children and young people of the village.
"What is bothering you? You seem very thoughtful."
"I have been hearing a voice and I do not know where it is coming from," she said, as she had said to Elder Rhys previously. "I thought it was only one time, but today I have heard it again."
"Come and sit down," he said to her, even more curious now. "What does the voice say?"
"It … she … keeps saying that she will make sure that I will not give birth to my child - that I will not give birth to any child. That she will make sure of it."
She saw a look of alarm cross the elder's face and she wondered if she should be talking to him. He was an elder, but she did not believe he was an ancient, so his title was given to him because of the number of years he had lived, not because he had any power of foresight or anything else.
"Elder Scott, do you know of any women ancients?" she asked, just wanting to be sure of what Elder Rhys had told her, but the man before her only shook his head.
"I do not, but you do know, Isabella, that I am not an ancient, and they are a people who maintain privacy so even living here, I cannot be certain who all of the ancients are. They keep themselves from everyone else, even those of us elders residing here in the temple structure."
Isabella nodded at him, feeling a sense of helplessness all of a sudden.
"What about women elders?" she asked with a meekness in her voice.
"There are several elders here who are women," he replied, nodding. "But I do not think any of them would have the ability … the power … to talk to you through your mind. That would only be something that an ancient could do, surely."
Now feeling somewhat distraught, Isabella stood up.
"Thank you, Elder Scott. I do not think there are any answers for me to find here today, so I shall leave you. Thank you for your time though."
He watched her stand and start to walk away. Inside of him was a slight frustration that he was not an ancient, and could not offer her any insight into something that was so obviously upsetting to her.
~~~~~
Isabella waded into the pool and lowered her head under the water to massage her scalp and hair before she came up and sat on the ledge of the outer side of the pool. She fondly remembered the two times she had been in here with Trent - and the way it had felt when he had massaged her hair. She took a moment to think about how she had never thought about what it would be like to be paired with someone. She had always known it would be expected of her - as it was of everyone in the village - but even just thinking about him now, she found herself feeling happy and contented.
As if the very thought flowed through her body, she closed her eyes and felt her belly warm, and when she looked down she saw the now familiar glow start to appear.
"Enjoy the happiness while you can, Isabella, because it will not last. And keep away from him. He is not yours. He is mine."
Isabella opened her eyes sharply, the new words now taking on a more personal aspect to them. Who was 'he', she wondered to herself. Trent? No, he hardly knew anyone in the village - what woman would have made herself known enough to him to believe that she was meant to be with him? No, not Trent, she thought to herself, letting her mind cast back to that morning in the dining area. Not Trent - Adrian!
She slowly moved out of the pool and onto one of the large flat rocks nearby to let her body, hair and clothing dry. As she lay there, letting the warmth of the sun and the rocks do their magic, she waited in expectation of the voice to return, but it did not. Her mind was busy, though. All of this had something to do with Kat, she started to let herself believe. But how?
After being completely dry, she walked down to the mill. As soon as she entered the large building, Adrian saw her and walked over to her, a large smile on his face.
"Isabella! Who have you come to see?" he greeted and asked her, feeling his heart full.
"Adrian. I just wanted to see you, and make sure you are alright," she said simply and saw the look of confusion on his face.
"Me? Of course. Why would you think I might not be?"
He looked at her and saw her face, and could only conclude that she was seriously worried for him.
"I don't know. I just had a feeling…"
At that moment, almost as if she had approached with the stealth of a stalker, Kat appeared and her voice was heard from behind Adrian.
"Hello Isabella. What can we help you with?" the younger woman asked and Isabella saw the same new look on Adrian's face that she had noticed earlier that morning.
"I have come to talk to Adrian," Isabella replied and redirected her attention back to her close friend. "Can you come with me for a short time?" she asked him and immediately saw that she should not have, as discomfort fell over him.
"We are too busy today. He will not be able to leave until the evening meal," Kat continued, seeming to make sure that Adrian did not speak for himself.
Isabella watched the two faces before her and truly believed now that it was definitely Kat who had been speaking to her - but not this Kat, she thought to herself. It was almost like the voice was an older version of Kat. And if that were the case, this version of Kat might not even realise that her older self was doing what she was doing to Isabella.
As she watched both of their faces she found herself wondering at Adrian. He was older than Kat, so was senior to her in the mill, and yet he was letting her say what would - or would not - be happening. It was almost as if Kat had some kind of power over him.
"I see. Then I shall not keep you, Adrian. I will talk to you at the evening meal," Isabella said and saw him look at her with a look of regret and sadness, but he said nothing to either woman.
Isabella turned and walked away quietly. Part of her wanted to run back to him and pull him into her arms and remind him of who he was - her good friend and a good person who would give anyone the time they needed from him. But another part of her was worried that he was in a situation that was not good now, and would only get worse as time passed. And that any input she tried to have into that situation, would result in pain for him.
So she walked away. For now, that was all she could do.
~~~~~
After spending the day in the garden, Trent returned to their home and found her lying on their bed, looking extremely contemplative.
"I am going to go and bathe, so
have come home to ask if you would like to join me," he said as she finally seemed to focus on him.
He saw her stand and come to him, before putting her arms around him tightly, saying nothing for the moment, and he remained quiet until she finally spoke.
"I did bathe earlier so will not go in the pool again, but I will walk with you and watch you, if you have no objection," she said to him, smiling up at him and kissing him lightly.
Trent could tell that something was worrying her but he did not raise the subject, hoping that she would tell him in time, when she was ready and needed to talk.
"I would like that greatly. Come - let's go now and then it will still be early enough to go to dinner when I am done."
As they made their way through the paths and down to the pool, Isabella pulled him into easy conversation about his learning in the garden, and listened as he eagerly shared information about what he had been told during the day.
"The food they grow here is incredible, Isabella! The colours, the flavours … I have never seen produce like this ever."
"Do you not have such foods where you come from?" she asked him, her own curiosity piqued now.
"Yes, but nothing is as it is here. And that is exciting for me."
She watched him as he discarded his shoes and his shirt, and waded into the pool and dived under. She laughed as he came up - always he was a joy to watch.
"Do you think you shall want to stay in the garden then? At least for now?" she asked him, enjoying the carefree nature of their present conversation.
"I do," he said as he used his fingertips to massage his scalp in an effort to get the dirt that he could feel, off it. "I think that I shall like to keep learning and doing what I can in the garden. I never felt it before, in my old life, but I think it is where I am meant to be - it is what I am meant to do."
Isabella continued to watch him, loving the sight of his face, his eyes, his chest and arms …
Trent saw her face change and grinned at her.
"I can see your thoughts, Isabella," he teased her and she blushed and smiled sheepishly at him.
The Golden Desires Page 16