‘Like you, I took part in Spin-the-Bottle, and 7-Minutes in Heaven – but no, no girlfriends to speak of’ he replied, almost as quickly as I had.
I sighed, feeling drained of energy, and leant my head against Harry’s shoulder, hearing him chuckle above me in return.
‘Are you sleepy?’
I nodded and pulled away from him, getting up to pull out the bed beneath my own.
‘Give me a hand please, Harry? I can never do this on my own.’
‘You could never do things like this on your own when we were kids, either. Remember that one time I was round your house over in Saffron Walden? We were playing in the garden, and I had to help you lift the seesaw away, so you could do cartwheels?’ he chuckled as we pulled out the bed.
I let out a light chuckle myself, ‘do you remember when you had to help me lift a bag of soil over to Dad when he was redoing a flowerbed when were eight and nine?’
Having grabbed the extra bedding from the top shelf of my closet - which I use more so for general storage rather than clothes as I have a chest of drawers and a clothing rail – I was pulling the mattress cover onto the bed when Harry lay his hand, large and startlingly warm, over mine.
‘Let me do that.’
I lifted my eyes to his, and felt my heart began to race as he gazed down at me from above, his beautiful eyes shimmering in the light of my floor lamp.
‘I-I can do it, really – besides you’re my guest, you shouldn’t have to make your own bed’ I stammered, attempting to pull my hand from his firm yet gentle grip - but he wouldn’t let me go.
‘Ellie, let go. I can do this.’
The unexpected softness in his voice caused my cheeks to redden, and I let go of the cover before my heart rate could rise any further.
What’s wrong with me?
‘If you’re okay doing that, I’m going to brush my teeth’ I told him and fled into my en suite bathroom, so he wouldn’t notice my reddened cheeks. If he hadn’t already.
Back Then
When I emerged a few minutes later, Harry was lying back against the pillows on the now made up pull-out-bed, in a grey t-shirt and baby blue shorts, with his nose in a book.
‘The bathroom’s free’ I told him as I sat myself down on the end of my own bed.
‘Okay, thanks.’
He got up and stretched as he replied, the muscles in his well-toned arms bulging a little as he did so, and then went over to his backpack to retrieve his bath bag before heading into the en suite.
I quickly changed into my Minnie Mouse pyjamas – don’t judge me, okay? I’ve loved her since I was little – while I had the chance, before pulling my journal from its hiding place.
Flicking through several filled pages, I found a blank one and began to write with my special fountain pen:
Dear Journal,
I don’t have a clue what is going on with me! I’ve never blushed at Harry’s touch before, and –
Upon hearing the bathroom door open, I quickly re-hid the journal and pen under my pillow as Harry came over to the bed and flopped, face-down, onto his own, groaning against the pillow.
‘What’s up with you?’ I asked, turning over onto my stomach as he did the opposite.
‘Tired. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I’ve known you as Ellie my whole life, and then find out – along with yourself – that you’re actually a princess from a whole other world sent here for your own protection, and that your real name is Oraelia Teranis’ he replied, folding his arms behind his head as I slowly pulled myself up and hopped lightly onto the other bed.
Lying down beside him I rolled onto my side, and rested my head on my forearm as I gazed over at him.
‘Harry I’m still me. It’s just that my identity has changed’
He turned his head, returning my gaze, a smile on his face, ‘I know.’
Turning over so that he was mirroring me, Harry reached out and ever so gently brushed my cheek with the back of his fingers..
‘I don’t want to lose you, I only just found you again’ he told me softly.
I smiled at him, ‘you’re not going to.’
‘How can you be sure?’ he answered, eyes quivering as he did.
‘Because when I am reunited with my biological parents, I’m going to tell them that I won’t be staying a second longer, if they don’t allow you to stay with me.’
I closed the short distance between us and buried my face in his warm chest: curling my fingers into his soft t-shirt, and told him that I didn’t want to lose him either. That I wouldn’t.
‘Ellie…’
Not long after he softly uttered my name, I felt his free arm wrap around me and pull me closer so our legs were touching. When I tried to pull away, he only held me tighter.
‘Do you remember when we were kids, and we’d have sleepovers every other weekend, or during the holidays that spanned the year, and would both sleep in the same bed?’
‘Mhm.’
I felt my cheeks begin to burn.
‘Can we do that now?’
‘We were kids, it didn’t matter back then, but we’re older now…at a certain age, you know? And I -’
‘Ellie, we might be older than we were the last time we had a sleepover, but we’re still the same people - and I’m not going to try anything.’
I opened my mouth to argue more; that I wasn’t worried about him trying anything, because I trusted him, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the reason I was opposed to the idea - it would be way too embarrassing.
‘All right, I acquiesce to your request’ I relented, voice slightly muffled by his chest, and closed my eyes as he – completely ignoring the duvet folded at the end of the bed - wrapped his arm tighter around me so I wouldn’t be cold during the night. In no time at all I fell asleep to the sound of his steady breathing.
Before Dublin
When I woke up the next day, I found myself with the same view I’d fallen asleep to; Harry’s chest…and I could still feel his arm wrapped around me. He must not have moved the entire night.
Pulling back a little, I looked up…and straight into Harry’s eyes.
He smiled at me. ‘Good morning, Hazel.’
This affectionate nickname goes all the way back to when we were children, and my fascination with hazelnut trees. I used to wonder how it was that they could be turned into chocolate spread though later, when we were older and I’d grown out of the fascination, Harry started calling me by it because of the colour of my eyes.
I blinked at him in surprise and then let a grin spread across my face.
‘No-one’s called me that since I left Norfolk – not even my parents.’
He blushed, ‘my memory doesn’t falter when it comes to you, even after so long apart.’
I swallowed, holding his unusually misty gaze with some difficulty, as I felt my own cheeks warm up in embarrassment. Just as he opened his mouth to say something else, my Dad’s voice boomed from downstairs.
‘Harry, Ellie breakfast in ten minutes!’
I bit down softly on my lip and pulled away from Harry, getting up and grabbing some clothes before going into my bathroom to change.
***
A couple of weeks later our exams were over, and we were booking our flights to Dublin to find the next trinket and buying euros for the trip. Once the tickets were booked for five days’ time, we set about completing our to-do list and then discussed our plans for searching for the second portal part.
‘Okay, so we spend our first day there searching for the next piece of jewellery and then spend the rest of the time relaxing and sightseeing? There’s not likely to be a clear night while we’re there, so we’ll have to wait until we return home before we can use the next piece of jewellery to find the third’ Harry suggested.
‘Sounds like a plan’ I replied, grinning and inwardly chuckling at the fact that, because it was Dublin and it can often be cold, rainy and dreary a lot of the time, Harry didn’t expect there t
o be a clear night during our stay.
‘What do you think will happen once we’ve found all the trinkets?’ he asked, fiddling absentmindedly with the hem of his shirt.
‘Maybe it says something in the journal?’ I wondered, pulling it out from its secret place beneath my bed and opened it, flicking through its many pages until I found the last page titled Portal Pieces at the top.
Scanning the page, I soon found what I was looking for, and read out the message.
‘When you’ve found all six pieces of the portal, travel to the island of myth and legend, and to where Poseidon’s Cave lies on the shores of Karpathos.
Once you have located the cave, put the stones of each piece of jewellery together and place the completed mechanism before the back wall, and wait for the last rays of daylight to reach the cave, at which point a portal to our world will be opened to you. Once you’ve stepped into Elandrea the mechanism will disappear with you.’
‘Land of myth and legend, Karpathos and Poseidon’s Cave...they’re all to do with Greece. Greece is where the first part of our adventure will end’ I murmured, looking up as he returned to my side.
Harry was silent for some time as he read the message himself until, finally, he closed the journal and passed it back to me.
‘We have quite the task ahead of us, don’t we Hazel’ he uttered softly, more as a fact than a question.
‘Well it’s more my task than yours, but yes.’
Harry sucked his bottom lip nervously, and then gently wrapped his hand around mine.
‘I’ll be there the whole time. I won’t leave you, even if you ask me to’ he promised, voice gentle but firm, his tone leaving no room for argument.
I squeezed his hand back. ‘You have always kept your promises Harry, and I know you always will.’
I leant forward and pressed a light kiss to his left cheek before pulling back and meeting his gaze.
‘I won’t leave you either. You mean the world to me’ I told him, my voice barely audible.
He swallowed audibly and his eyes trembled.
I took a deep breath and answered the unanswered question in his eyes, my heart pounding in my ears.
‘I don’t think I ever told you this before my parents and I moved here Harry, but I love you.’
Hope
A look of surprise washed over Harry’s face as he absorbed what I had just told him, but it soon disappeared and was replaced by a smile.
‘I love you too.’
‘You do?’
He chuckled, ‘we’ve been best friends since we were children; I grew very fond, and protective of you. You’ve become someone I love like a sibling.’
‘I could say the same about you, though I’d guess you already knew that’ I responded, smiling knowingly.
He grinned back, ‘that I did.’
‘So…there’s just five days until we leave.’ I turned in a slow circle, gazing out of the window.
‘You sound nervous.’
I turned back to him. ‘I’m not nervous. Just...a little apprehensive; you know I’m not great with planes.’
Returning to my bed, I picked up one of my cushions as I sat beside him, and hugged it to my chest for comfort.
‘It’ll be okay’ he replied, wrapping his arm around my shoulder and pulling me into him.
‘You really think so?’
‘I know so. You’ll find the next portal piece in no time, and we’ll be back home before you know it’ he assured me, and I relaxed into him leaning my head against his shoulder under his chin feeling considerably less anxious about travelling to Dublin.
***
Standing on the balcony of our room at the hotel Harry and I were staying at, I looked out across the city and its lights as the day ended, sighing contentedly as Harry joined me outside.
‘Enjoying the view?’ he asked, handing me one of the cans of Sprite that had been left for us in the mini-fridge between our beds.
‘Thank you. Yes, it’s beautiful isn’t it?’
He nodded his agreement, ‘yes, and it is more so - I have to say - at night than it is during the day.’
Now he turned towards me and held up his can, ‘to you and Elandrea.’
I smiled and held up my own, knocking it against his before turning back to the darkening city as the lights of various stores lit up wondering which of the remaining five pieces awaited me in the area surrounding the Four Courts.
The next day the two of us followed the map we had bought at the airport carefully from the hotel until we found the Four Courts, which sat snugly above the banks of the River Liffey.
It was as we neared the Courts that the soft melodic notes soon reached my ears, becoming louder until they faded out as I neared the third of several trees that lined the wall overlooking the river, until I spotted something within a small hole set into the tree’s long trunk.
‘It’s Hope’ I announced, pulling the anklet from its hidey-hole, handing it over to Harry as I took the notepad out of my little shoulder bag; crossing it off the list of Pieces we still had to find.
‘That leaves Friendship, Kindness, Strength, and Happiness’ he replied, handing me back the anklet so I could slip it into my bag behind the notebook.
‘So, how do you propose we spend the rest of our time here?’ Harry asked as I zipped up my bag.
‘Well, I’ve never been here before and you have; why not take me to all of your favourite places tomorrow, and then we’ll spend our final day relaxing in our hotel room?’
He grinned ‘you took the words right out of my mouth. Let’s go, there are many things I’m dying to show you.’
By the end of our second day in Dublin, Harry had taken me to several of his favourite places both on foot and by taxi, from our hotel, and by the time we returned to our room, I was completely exhausted.
‘I’m so relieved we’re staying here tomorrow’ I sighed, falling backwards onto my bed.
‘Why is that?’ he asked, grinning as he sat on the edge of his own.
I glowered at him from under my eyelashes, ‘it means I won’t get exhausted thanks to my best friend a second time.’
He chuckled, ‘you’re the one who asked me to take you to all my favourite places.’
I pulled myself up and slid off my bed as I muttered, ‘shut up. I’m having a shower and then going to bed.’
‘All right’ he answered, and that was the last conversation of the evening.
The Bracelet Hidden Beneath A Shell
A day and a half later we were back home in England, and I was staying over at Harry’s while my parents were away at a conference. The weather had been perfect so far, and there’d been nothing in the forecast to suggest that would change as the day came to a close, so we’d be able to see the location of the next adornment with no problem. As Harry had predicted, there hadn’t been a clear night while we were in Dublin apart from our first night there, and that hadn’t been useful since we’d not yet found the anklet, so we’d had to wait until we get home. I didn’t openly concede to the fact he’d been right, as he can be insufferable when he knows he’s been right about something, but I love him all the same.
Standing under the Moon’s rays now, the same evening we arrived home, I tried to keep a straight face as Harry attempted to figure out what and where the outlined landmark was.
‘It’s that scallop sculpture in Aldeburgh, Harry’ I told him a few minutes later, somehow managing to keep my face composed as I spoke.
‘I can’t believe I couldn’t figure that out,’ Harry chuckled, before adding ‘anyway, it’s less than two hours away. We should call your parents and ask them if they’d be able to take us there in the morning.’
Unable to restrain myself, I let out a giggle.
A small, lopsided grin spread slowly across his face. ‘What?’
‘I was just thinking the same thing.’
Now it was his turn to laugh, ‘I guess that sort of thing comes with knowing someone your entire life.’
As we trudged across the pebbled beach of Aldeburgh the following day, Harry asked ‘can you hear anything yet?’
‘Not yet, no’ I replied, keeping my ears pricked up for the familiar melodic notes.
I called to my parents, who were stood down by the water’s edge skimming pebbles across its surface.
‘Mum, Dad we’re going further on.’
‘Okay honey. Once you’ve found it we’ll get some fish and chips, and maybe an ice cream if the weather stays nice’ Dad called back.
‘Sounds good’ I replied, waving at them as Harry and I made our way towards The Scallop.
As I drew nearer, the familiar melody began to play in my ears; guiding me until it faded away where the sculpture dipped into the pebbles and created a gap that children often hide in when playing hide-and-seek (at least, Harry and I did when we were kids).
‘Which one is it?’ Harry asked, appearing behind me as I ducked under to retrieve what was blinking at me out of the light-speckled darkness.
‘It’s the bracelet, Friendship’ I answered, showing it to him as I re-emerged and taking out my notebook and pencil to cross it off the list.
With the bracelet retrieved Harry, my parents, and I went shopping and ate fish and chips in front of the beach, and an ice cream on the way back to the car, before heading home.
Greece
After finding Friendship we were sent to three other locations, including Belfast. Now, we were preparing to leave for Greece and Mum and Dad - along with Harry’s parents - were throwing us a family farewell party the night before we were due to leave.
‘I don’t think either of us ever imagined our little ones going travelling together after finishing their A-Levels’ Harry’s mother Hannah, admitted as the six of us sat on the sofas in our living room eating slices of Mum’s delicious Battenberg Cake with hot and cold drinks.
Descendants of Erodis Page 3