Daniel walked quickly to the edge of the woods and peered into the darkness. Although he knew he needn’t be afraid of the animals still lingering in the area, his heart pounded in his chest as he snuck farther into the shadows. He soon found a girl bound in chains as Aidan had described. She was filthy and appeared to be exhausted from the forced march. She stood trembling, hugging herself tightly and barely stifling the weeping that seemed to be inevitable. Her head was down and her hair fell in a curtain around her face. Daniel approached her slowly, trying to whisper reassurances as he went.
“Hello?” he breathed. “Are you okay? I’m not here to harm you.” She didn’t look up at him and only seemed to stiffen further. “Were you taken by Argyle’s men? Is that why you’re here? You’re being taken to the castle?” Daniel kept his voice low and made sure to stay where she could see him. The last thing he wanted was for her to get hurt running through a dark forest with her wrists and feet bound in chains. If he used his gifts, he’d get to her before she’d even realized he’d moved, but he didn’t want to scare her anymore than she already obviously was. While certainly not an imposing figure to an adult, Daniel still stood almost a full head above the girl and had begun to fill out his frame, especially throughout his chest and arms. Trying to stoop a little to lessen the difference in size, Daniel asked quietly, “Did you see what happened to his men?”
At last she looked up at him, her hair parting just a little so he could see her eyes. She blinked a few times and looked around before answering. “I did, but I can’t believe it. This must be some horrible nightmare, and I wanna wake up. I don’t like this dream. I wanna go home,” she whispered in a high quivering voice. Her lip trembled and her legs became wobbly. Daniel rushed to her side and caught her just as she collapsed. He carried her gently out of the forest and into the clearing.
“You’re going to be fine,” Daniel assured her. “Aidan and I will take care of you. Why don’t you come inside, and I’ll get those chains off of you? Are you hungry or thirsty?” Daniel asked as he stepped through the front door and set her tenderly into a chair near the fire.
The girl nodded. “Water, please.”
Daniel strode to the kitchen and returned with a glass of water and a large chunk of bread. He set them on the table next to her. “You look hungry,” he explained when he saw the quizzical expression on her face. “Now, about these chains.” He moved quickly across the room and began rummaging in a box on the floor. Crossing back to the girl, he placed a hammer and chisel on the end table before he walked out the front door. It seemed to her that Daniel had just left when he reentered the room carrying a small block of wood. This he set on the floor between her feet. “Would you like to take a drink or would you prefer I remove the chains first?”
“The chains, please.”
Setting the block of wood below the chain binding her right ankle, Daniel set the chisel in place and struck swiftly with the hammer, freeing her right foot. The sound echoed through the house and the girl shrieked at the sudden noise. Daniel heard a muffled cry from behind the closed door leading to Aidan’s room. With less than perfect grace, the door was torn open and Aidan came stumbling from the room.
“What on earth was that?” Aidan bellowed, eyes darting to the various windows while shoving his shirt into his trousers. They were big on him, but he wore his clothes large to reduce the tearing when he forgot and changed forms while still dressed. He’d also given up on shoes and switched to moccasins as they were much easier to mend. His mother had long ago drawn the line and refused to stitch his ragged clothing, telling him that if he was going to ruin it, he’d be the one to fix it. As a result, most of Aidan’s clothes were overly large and crisscrossed with the jagged stitching of a child’s hand.
“Relax,” Daniel replied. “Just a little jailbreak.” He looked up and smiled at the girl. She smiled back and Daniel felt his breath catch. Her large brown eyes seemed to look directly into his soul before she blushed and dropped her head. It had been quite some time since anyone other than Aidan and Daniel had been in the house, much less a beautiful girl. Feeling his face begin to flush, Daniel refocused his attention on the chains. With another crash of the hammer, her other ankle was free. Two more released her hands.
“Thank you…” she paused and smiled again. “I’m sorry. I don’t even know your name.”
“I’m Daniel, and this is my brother, Aidan.”
“Thank you, Daniel,” she said quietly, giving him a small nod with her head. Daniel flushed again when she spoke his name. “And Aidan,” she murmured, “thank you, as well. Thank you both for saving me. My name is Olivia.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Aidan replied as he finished getting dressed.
Olivia held the water glass in both her trembling hands and took a long drink. She placed the glass back on the table and then tore into the food. She ate swiftly and finished off the hunk of bread, her appetite satiated for the time being. A small burp escaped her lips and she giggled.
“Sorry.”
“Quite all right,” Daniel answered. “You’re looking better already.”
Looking at the two boys, Olivia sat up a little straighter in her chair and tried to compose herself. She brushed her long dark hair out of her face and hooked it around her ears. She smoothed her wrinkled and dirty pants and blouse. “Now, I don’t want to sound ungrateful or pushy, but would you mind telling me what happened out there? I still don’t know if I’m dreaming or not, but I was wondering if you saw the same thing I did.”
“Well, what exactly did you see?” Aidan asked while taking a seat next to her.
“Not much at first. It was dark, and they left me a little ways back into the forest. I could kind of see them at the edge of the clearing and I heard them grumbling and yelling something, but couldn’t make out the words. Then the...the...” She trailed off, turning from the two boys. She fidgeted and stared into the fireplace though it wasn’t the flames she saw as she looked back at the night’s events.
“Then what?” Daniel asked, sitting down in front of her chair. She shifted and looked up at him. The intensity of her brown eyes startled him before she turned crimson and again dropped her gaze to her lap. Hiding behind her wavy brown hair seemed to give her confidence, and she continued.
“Then the forest came alive. It took them. I heard their screams. I saw the shadows of the animals that dragged them away. What happened?” Her lip began to tremble again, and she clasped her hands together to keep them from shaking. She lifted her head and looked to Daniel, her face full of fear and confusion. Their eyes locked.
It seemed an eternity before Daniel could break eye contact and try to organize his thoughts. His mouth seemed far too dry to form words. Finally he was able to pull himself together enough to reply. “You’ll have to ask Aidan about that. I was inside for most of the fight, asleep in the chair you’re sitting in now. I didn’t see or do much of anything.” Daniel frowned and looked over at his brother. “Why don’t you tell her what you saw?”
Aidan glanced from Daniel to Olivia and back at Daniel. He felt that something was bothering his older brother, but couldn’t figure out what it was. Setting the issue aside for the moment, he looked back to the girl. “It happened exactly like you said. I saw the same things you did. I’ll tell you more later.” He shifted his gaze back to Daniel. “Right now I think we might want to talk about something I thought of while I was getting dressed. I meant to say something earlier, but I forgot about it when you broke her chain.”
“What’s that?” Daniel asked.
“He’ll send more.” Aidan saw both Daniel’s and Olivia’s heads jerk in reaction to his statement. “He won’t let us get away with this. I don’t know how long it will take him to figure out what we’ve done, but you know he’ll find out. I think it might be a good idea to be gone when they show up.”
“My sister,” Olivia whispered.
“What?” Daniel and Aidan responded in unison.
“My sister. She�
�s all alone. They’ll go to my house first and find her there alone. We’ve got to go and get her. If they know that something happened to the gathering party, they might hurt her. Please, we’ve got to get to her before they do!” She jumped to her feet, reached out, and grabbed both of the boys’ hands and started pulling. “Please, she’s the only family I have left. One of Argyle’s men escaped. He ran away when the fight started. He’ll go back and tell Argyle. We’ve got to go!”
The boys exchanged a glance. “Of course,” Daniel answered quickly. “But hold on just a moment.” He reached out and took Olivia’s hand in both of his and she stopped tugging. “First we need to get things settled here. Once we leave, there’s no coming back. Why don’t you two go get some sleep, and I’ll start putting things together. Olivia, you can sleep in my room, and when I finish out here I’ll sleep in Aidan’s room with him.”
“But my sister,” Olivia began.
“It’ll take Argyle’s man a while to get back to the castle. We’ve got some time,” Daniel explained, trying to soothe Olivia’s frazzled nerves. “Really, think about how long it took you to get here. It’ll take him about that long to get back.” Seeing the logic in his statement, she sat back down in the chair with relief. “Do you think you can sleep?” Daniel asked. Olivia thought for a moment and gave a small nod of her head as she tried to stifle a yawn. The long march had obviously taken a lot out of her. “Let me grab some stuff from my room, and then you two should go to bed.”
Daniel disappeared into his bedroom. Olivia heard him moving about. Her gaze fell on Aidan. “Can you tell me more about what happened tonight?”
Aidan shifted in his seat. “It’s hard to explain, and I don’t usually tell people about my gift. I guess we’re going to be friends though, so I should probably tell you about it.” He paused. “We’re friends now, right?” Olivia nodded and Aidan’s eyes narrowed. His forehead creased as he concentrated trying to find the words to most accurately describe his abilities. “First, I can...change an animal’s behavior.”
“What?” Olivia asked, confused by his statement.
Aidan chewed his lip and tried again. “Daniel says I can control their actions, but it’s not really like that. I can get them to do what I want, but it’s not control really. I don’t force them to do anything they don’t want to do. It’s just...I can sort of get inside their minds and show them what I need them to do and why. I don’t like to think that I control them. It’s just a special bond I can make with them, and it makes them open to helping me.”
“That’s incredible!” Olivia said. She still looked a bit skeptical, and Aidan could tell she would require a bit more to convince her of the truth of his claim. Olivia noticed Daniel had finished in his room and now stood in the doorway watching them, his right hand against his cheek, his fingers massaging his earlobe. She didn’t acknowledge him as she still wanted to hear more. “Is that what happened tonight? You convinced the animals to protect you?”
“Well...sort of.” Aidan stared into the fireplace.
“What do you mean?” Olivia asked. She reached out her hand and placed it gently on Aidan’s arm.
“I did it to protect Daniel.” Aidan looked up at Olivia. His eyes started to glisten as the old wounds were pulled open once again. “I couldn’t let them take him. They took our parents, but we were too young back then to do anything to help them.” His head fell forward and Olivia saw a single tear fall into his lap.
She caught Daniel’s movement out of the corner of her eye and turned to him. Their eyes locked. Olivia shook her head slightly and he stopped, obeying her silent request. After a moment Aidan lifted his head. A new emotion now dominated his features: defiance.
“But not this time. This time I knew they were coming. This time I knew what they wanted. This time I knew what I could do. I couldn’t watch them take the last of my family. When Daniel fell asleep, I snuck out. I didn’t travel very far. I didn’t know when they’d arrive, so I went and found every friend I could. Most of them were already here. I’ve been bringing animals closer all week. I brought in every animal I could make contact with and asked them to guard the house.” A smile gently curled his lip. “It must have been scary for you.” He glanced down at his hands twisting in his lap.
“It was,” Olivia agreed quickly. “I didn’t see everything, but from what I heard, and the few things I saw...” She trailed off.
Aidan nodded, still looking at his hands. “There’s something else.”
“Okay.” Olivia turned in her chair and took both of Aidan’s hands in hers, her eyes wide as she leaned closer. “Go ahead.”
Daniel quickly stepped forward. “I think that’s enough for tonight. It’s time to get some sleep. Olivia, I’ll get you a bucket of water to wash off with. If you want to put your clothes outside the bedroom door, I’ll wash them tonight before I go to sleep and hang them near the fire to dry.” Olivia’s eyes burned into his back, frustrated and puzzled by his interruption as he continued across the room to the kitchen. Aidan merely nodded and rose.
“I’ll see you in the morning. If you need anything, we’re right in there,” he said, pointing to his bedroom. “Good night.” Aidan gave her hands a squeeze and left for bed. Olivia gave Daniel a confused look before picking up her water glass and retiring to Daniel’s bedroom to ready herself for the night.
Daniel spent the next few hours preparing and packing for the journey ahead. Although the road before them had not been entirely laid out, he felt they were in for a long trip and tried to plan accordingly. Food, water, and clothing were divided up into three separate piles. Not sure how much Olivia would be able to carry over long distances, Daniel was forced to guess. He decided to overestimate, since they could always rid themselves of supplies if she grew too tired. He gave her a pack that was roughly the same size he’d put together for Aidan, as she was just slightly taller than his younger brother. Daniel then washed and hung Olivia’s clothes as he’d promised.
Last on Daniel’s list was weaponry. He decided to take the bow and arrows his father had left behind. He’d always had an affinity for archery and thought the weapon would be useful if not in the event of being ambushed, at least for hunting. Realistically, there was only one other true weapon in the cabin. Although it had been a long time since the rifle had been fired, it once belonged to Daniel and Aidan’s grandfather, and the boys had meticulously cleaned it once a month. Daniel decided to bring it along and see how Olivia handled a gun. Aidan had his own one-of-a-kind weapon.
After going through the supplies and packs a second time, Daniel was satisfied and sat down heavily in front of the dying fire. Pulling his jacket on to keep warm, he tugged at the cuffs, which seemed to get shorter every day. His mind drifted back to the missed fight earlier in the evening before his eyes closed and he fell asleep.
Chapter 5
Preparations
Scepter Page 4