Frozen with fear, she continued to search the trees surrounding her for any signs of life. And once again that nagging feeling she was being watched returned and every hair on her body stood on end. Everything about this situation reeked of danger. Knowing better than to continue to ignore the warnings her body was sending her, Citera resumed her journey down the path, struggling to pick up the pace.
To her back, the sounds continued, only now they were moving at a much more rapid pace to keep up with her quicker gait. Panicking, she tried to move even faster, but with every step she took, the pain in her hip worsened until it radiated down the entire length of her leg. Ahead in the distance she could see the light that signaled the end of the trail. Whatever was following her must have spotted it as well for suddenly the sounds sped up, attempting to reach her before she could make it to safety. “Help!” she screamed, tears running down her cheeks. “Someone help me!”
A stray limb across the trail sent Citera tumbling to the ground. Her pursuer, sensing its opportunity, approached now in a full run. Within moments it would be on top of her. Desperation and fear pushed her forward as she scrabbled to her hands and knees, frantically crawling toward the light and screaming as loud as she could, “Please, someone help me!”
“Citera!” a voice called back to her, one she was as familiar with as her own.
“Dirik, help please!”
The light was so close, only a few feet away, when something grabbed her shoulder from behind. Screaming she rolled onto her back, blindly swinging at whatever had ahold of her. Her right fist connected with something hard and was swiftly answered by a string of cursing. “Damn it. Citera, stop, please stop.”
Surprised by the sound of her name, Citera opened her eyes and focused on her attacker. “Dirik?”
“Yes!” Rubbing his jaw, Dirik sat back on his feet looking as surprised to see her as she was to see him.
“You scared me! Why were you sneaking around in the woods?” she snapped. “And why didn’t you answer me when I called you?”
Ignoring her questions completely, Dirik grabbed ahold of her and locked her in a firm embrace. “By the stars, Citera, where have you been? We have all been so worried.”
“Where have I been?!” Angrily she pushed him flat onto his butt. “I have been asleep by the river where you and K left me!”
She was furious. How dare he ask where she was after they left her alone in the woods? Crawling slowly to her feet, she dusted off her clothes and worked to pull the leaves from her hair. However, Dirik remained seated, studying her carefully, confusion marring his features. It was then she noticed just how pale he was, as if he was in a state of shock. It was only after a few long moments, he inquired, “Citera, when did you see K?”
Of course, that was why he was so surprised, he hadn’t seen her. Citera took a deep breath as she tried to relax her jittery nerves. K must have left before they both awoke. “Today by the river, after you went into the forest to ‘handle your business’ she came and talked to me.”
Dirik stared at her as if she had lost her mind.
“Don’t look at me like that, I am not crazy. I really did see her.”
“I believe you,” Dirik replied quietly. Though he said the words, Citera could sense a level of doubt in his tone. He moved slowly toward her as if he was going to place a hand on her shoulder, but paused with it mid-air before returning it to his side and walking away. “Come on, let’s get you to the medical tent.”
“Dirik, wait, we can’t go to the medical tent. We need to go to home,” she called. He paused, giving her a moment to catch up. “My dad is probably worried sick. We were supposed to be home hours ago.”
Once again Dirik stared at her as if she had lost her mind. If she didn’t know better she would have thought he had no idea who she was or what she was talking about. But as she limped closer to him, his confusion turned to concern.
“What is wrong with your leg? Did you hurt it when you fell?”
“No, it’s been aching since I woke up, though it does seem to be getting worse.” Standing beside him, Citera put one hand on his shoulder and smiled. “Mind if I lean on you the rest of the way home? I promise I won’t tell Shena.”
She was purposefully making a jab at him to try to relieve some of the tension between them, hoping he would smart back at her with one of his conceited witty responses. But instead he gently laid her arm across his shoulder. Then, much to her utter shock, he wrapped his arm gently around her waist, tucking her body close against his. A slight gasp escaped her lips and her heart pounded in her chest. Well wasn’t this awkward? But she had known Dirik for years, so why was this making her so uncomfortable?
If he noticed her unease, Dirik thankfully chose to ignore it, and together they made their way down the path. Once they stepped beyond the edge of the forest Citera could feel her disposition calm slightly, knowing they were out of danger. Taking their time, they continued down the path toward the housing area. There things became very strange.
All along the path whispers and stares surrounded them. Many stopped in the middle of what they were doing to watch them walk by. Even the donors seemed to be surprised to see the two of them; not that their faces would express it, but she did see a couple stumble after catching sight of them holding on to each other. A few good Samaritans offered their assistance, but Dirik only waved them off. He did, however, send one little boy to go and fetch Jaron.
“Why is everyone staring at us, Dirik?” Citera asked when she could take the silence and stares no more. “And why do you need Jaron?”
“They are just surprised to see us together,” he answered flatly.
Surprised to see us together? We are together all the time. If his answer was meant to merely appease her, he hadn’t done a very good job. Plus, he had been tip toeing around half her questions since they had run into each other. “Then why do you need Jaron?”
“I don’t.”
Ahead of them the path to their tent was coming into view. She was fed up with Dirik’s half answers and strange behavior. So when he started to walk past the trail she became furious. “Where are you going? We need to get home and I need to see my father!” she demanded, removing her arm from his shoulder.
Pausing, he turned to face her. “We need to take you to the medical tent.”
“No, I want to see my father,” she snapped, heading up the path by herself. However, standing once again without his assistance, she suddenly realized just how much she had been using him for support. One step away from him was all she took before she felt a pop in her hip, followed immediately by a wave of excruciating pain that sent her collapsing to the ground.
Dirik was instantly at her side. “Are you all right? What happened?”
“Something popped inside,” she responded through gritted teeth. Though her entire leg throbbed; it was the pain in her hip that brought tears streaming down her face. “I don’t think I can walk on it anymore.”
“You don’t have to.” Jaron appeared, pushing his way through the crowd that had gathered around them. He slowly knelt beside her, but his attention was focused on Dirik. “Where did you find her?”
“In the forest.”
The pair exchanged a glance, as if each one was wishing the other to remain silent. Satisfied nothing else would be discussed until they were in a more private setting, Jaron returned his attention to Citera. “Let’s go see your father, shall we?”
“That’s where we were going, but Dirik kept insisting on going to the medical tent.”
Jaron carefully ran his hands under her legs and behind her back, gently lifting her off the ground. Though he was trying his best not to hurt her, the movement sent another wave coursing through her body. Suppressing a scream, Citera clutched Jaron’s shirt in her hands and buried her face into his chest.
“Well, given your current condition, it’s a good thing your father is at the medical tent.”
“He is? Why? He should have been home already. He
was supposed to have left when Janil arrived. Did something happen?”
Puzzled, Jaron peered down at her, then over at Dirik. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a slight shake of his head, which only strengthened her suspicions. Something had happened and they were keeping it from her for some reason. However, at the moment, her pain distracted her from investigating their strange behavior any further.
“We will talk about it when we get to the medical tent,” was the only response Jaron offered.
Together the three of them headed down the cut-off trail toward the medical tent. It took only a few minutes to arrive, but by the time they did, the pain in Citera’s hip had become unbearable and her grip on Jaron’s shirt unbreakable.
Without hesitating, Jaron pushed his way inside, yelling for her father, “Mikel!”
A gasp came from one side that Citera immediately recognized as Janil’s. “Where did you find her?” she inquired, approaching one side of the bed as Jaron set her down. She waited a moment to allow the pain of the movement to pass before looking up from the bed onto the motherly face of Janil. Seeing the concern and love in those eyes as they gazed down on her, upset Citera even more.
“I’m so sorry,” she cried, unable to control her sobbing. “I didn’t mean to cause so much trouble; I just felt so good for the first time in days and couldn’t stand the thought of wasting it inside the tent. It’s not Dirik’s fault, it was my idea.”
Once again her words were met with a look of total confusion. She was growing more and more upset by the fact that everyone kept staring at her as if she were crazy, and offering no explanation as to why. Desperate to see the one person she was sure who would offer her some kind of answer as to what was going on, she called out for her father, “Dad! Dad!”
“He’s not here, I convinced him to go get something to eat,” Janil offered. She retreated to the corner of the room where a stove held a pot of heated water. Filling a basin with the warm water and gathering some wash clothes, Janil returned to the side of the bed and offered Citera a wet cloth. “He will be back in a moment, so let’s get you looking more presentable.”
Citera gladly took the cloth. She wiped it over her face and was shocked at the amount of dirt it removed. Figuring it must have happened when she fell, she continued to wipe and clean her face and arms until she felt she had removed the worst of it. That was when Jaron approached the bed.
“May I?” he asked, gesturing to her injured leg.
She nodded slightly. He looked her over, but he didn’t move. He actually appeared almost nervous, as nervous as Jaron could possibly look anyway. “I will need you to take off your pants.”
Unable to mask the surprised look on her face, Citera gaped at him as he continued to explain, “I need to be able to make contact with skin to know what is happening in there.”
“Oh,” was all the answer she could muster. Looking to Janil for assistance, Citera laid back and allowed her to pull off her boots and pants while Dirik and Jaron turned and faced the back of the tent. Janil then pulled a sheet over her bare legs and called for Jaron to turn back around.
As he approached, she sat back up in the bed.
“All right, are you ready?”
Once again she only managed a nod. Gently, Jaron raised the side of the sheet, exposing only the injured extremity, and Citera gasped at the sight. Her entire left hip and half her leg were one massive bruise. “What the …”
But Jaron ignored her. Slowly and carefully he placed one hand on her hip and the other on her thigh, then closed his eyes. His touch was cold, frigid even compared to the warmth she had felt when he had given her the block. He remained silent, focused on whatever it was he was doing, then without a word, he let her go.
“It is mostly a superficial bruise. However, there is a slight fracture in your pelvis. Nothing serious, you will just need to stay off it as much as possible for a while.” He straightened up and studied her closely. “How did this happen?”
“I don’t know.” she answered honestly. “When I first woke up it was achy, but I just assumed it was because I had slept on it so long. But the more I walked on it the worse it became.”
The look again, the one that said she had no idea what she was talking about flashed across their faces. “So you don’t remember how you hurt it?”
“I didn’t hurt it!” she snapped despite herself. She didn’t mean to be rude, but the whole ‘keep Citera in the dark and make her feel crazy’ bit was starting to get old. “I told you, it was like this when I woke up!”
“Citera?” The sound of his voice was music to her ears.
“Dad!” she sighed, suddenly relieved.
Janil, Jaron, and Dirik stepped to the side, revealing her father. The look of shock on his face as he dropped his plate on the floor upset her more than the pain itself. He hesitated a moment, looking as if he were unsure he could trust his own eyes. “Is it really you?”
Now it was her turn to be confused. “Dad, of course it’s me. Who else would it be?”
That was all the reassurance he needed. Mikel rushed to her side, studying every inch of her to be sure she was all intact. Once he was satisfied that she was indeed there, and intact, Mikel encompassed her in his arms, sobbing like a newborn child. “By the stars, I thought for sure I had lost you.”
“Lost me?” Citera asked, returning his embrace. “I was only gone for a few hours.”
“A few hours?” Mikel gasped, leaning away from her and gazing into her eyes. Grabbing a small lantern off the table, he held it close to her face, studying each one carefully. “Did you hit your head? What happened out there?”
Dirik tapped Mikel on the shoulder and whispered something into his ear. When he was finished, Mikel seemed more upset than before. Citera, on the other hand, had reached her limit. She was fed up with them all treating her like she was crazy and had to be tiptoed around. Frowning, she shooed her father away from her face. “What is going on with all of you and why do you keep looking at me like I’m nuts?”
The four of them looked over at one another, before Mikel finally spoke again, “Citera, I want to ask you a question and I need you to answer it honestly.”
“Oh-kay.”
“What is the last thing you remember doing before Dirik found you today?”
“Sitting by the river and talking with K.”
Jaron’s attention piqued at the mention of K’s name. “You saw K? When?”
“Today, by the river.” The confused expressions made Citera confident they were not following her, so she decided to elaborate. “Look, after me and Dirik left here we went to the river to go swimming. I know we weren’t supposed to, but after Jaron put the block on me, well I felt too good to go home. Anyway, once we finished swimming, Dirik left me alone by the stream for a moment and that’s when K appeared. At first she was frightening, but then she explained she needed the block Jaron gave me to help her regain control of her emotions. So I let her take it.” Citera paused, studying the faces hanging on each and every word. “When she finished, I became sleepy. K told me to take a nap and when I woke up we would all come back here together. Except when I came to, her and Dirik were both gone.”
When she finished her story, Janil slumped down into a chair, Dirik ran one of his hands through his hair, Jaron stood as stoic as ever, and her father looked as if he were about to cry again.
“What is going on?”
Mikel and Jaron shared a glance, before he turned to face her. “Citera, I need to tell you something. Something you are going to have trouble believing, but try your best to remain calm.”
Citera’s whole body tensed with nervousness. Swallowing a huge gulp, Citera nodded. “I’ll try. But, Dad, you’re kind of scaring me.”
“I know, dear,” he replied softly. “It’s just … Well, I don’t know another way of saying this that will make it any easier.”
They all continued to stare at her, their gazes full of pity.
“Just tell me!” Citera
pleaded, becoming more frightened by the moment.
“Citera … you didn’t just sleep a few hours. I don’t know what happened out there, and apparently you don’t either, but you have been missing for nearly a week.”
She immediately burst into laughter. “A week! What are you trying to tell me? I disappeared for a week and then just reappeared in the same spot by the river? Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds?”
She continued laughing, jolting her already sore body. But when she finally looked up and glanced at the four serious expressions staring back at her, she realized that they weren’t joking. Her laughter halted; the expressions on their faces left no doubt they believed what they were saying. “That’s impossible,” she whispered, then focused on Dirik’s solemn face. “Tell them, Dirik. You were there with me. Tell them I was only asleep for a few hours. Tell them I was just napping by the river!”
“I can’t, Citera. Because I looked for you, I really did, but you weren’t there. Not you, not K, no one. I woke up in the woods alone.” He stopped there, but she could tell he was holding something back, there was something more he didn’t want to say.
“What is it? What aren’t you telling me?” she demanded.
Dirik’s head dropped and she could tell whatever happened had had a severe impact on him. Seeing he was unable to finish, Jaron took over, “After Dirik told us of your disappearance, we combed the area around the river and forest …” He paused, and for a moment she thought he too was going to leave her in suspense, but he finally continued, though it was plain to see he didn’t want to, “We found signs of a struggle near the edge of the forest and a significant amount of blood.”
“After that the entire camp turned the forest upside down searching for you,” Mikel interrupted, “but it was no use. Several people rumored that the creatures of the forest had snatched you, a few thought maybe a group of patrols had wandered into the forest and kidnapped you.” Mikel paused, tears welling in his eyes. “But most of us assumed K had lost control completely and killed you in a fit of rage.”
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