I woke up with a feeling of calm. A whole different kind of calm I had ever (in the last four days) felt before. It was the kind of calm you feel when you don't feel lost or confused or simply have no idea who you are. The kind of calm you feel when a huge mess starts to be a little less messy.
I could still feel the shattered hollow inside me, but I could also feel many pieces had taken their correct places inside me. Some of them were pieces I had gotten from my brother last night, but some were new, that hadn't been there before but that were a part of me now, a part of a me I had never been before. I thought I quite liked the new me that all the pieces were building. There was still a lot to do before I could be entirely comfortable, but it felt good nevertheless. I was beginning to get glimpses of a me and a world that wasn't a complete mess.
My brother made a grunt next to me and I turned to look at him. He smiled at me.
"I thought it was a dream," he mumbled sleepily, "But you're still here."
"I'm still here," I said. He still looked tired, like he has yesterday when we first met him, but it seemed a different kind of tiredness. Like my emptiness, his tiredness seemed less today. He looked less weary. More bright. Like it would take time, but eventually he would be himself again, after the years of guilt. Not the same himself he had been before, but still himself.
"We should go see if the girls are awake," I said after a moment of silence.
"Yeah," he said, "And then we need to go over the river." He looked like he didn't quite know whether he wanted to make it a joke or not. I guessed he wasn't ready. I thought I wouldn't be.
We got up, dressed and met the girls for breakfast in the main room of the inn. At first everyone was relaxed, and happy, but the air started to become more tense as everyone realised as soon as we had eaten we had to go and cross the river and got increasingly nervous. We didn't know what we were facing. The only thing we did know is that there was someone there who trained pipers and wouldn't let anyone leave, and that first Meera and then I had ran away. We didn't know who they were. We didn't know why we had ran away. But my thinking was we hadn't liked it there, for a reason or another, and even though we must have known we weren't supposed to leave, we went anyway.
Eventually everyone had eaten and we took off, looking for the boat the men sent after us had told us about. Their instructions had been surprisingly good. We found the boat easily. It wasn't much, only an old rowboat that looked like it would barely stay afloat, so at first we were suspicious. Maybe the men had lied to us, tricked us into going back and taking our friends with us. Maybe we'd forget everything the moment we reached the other side.
"Do we have a choice?" Rosa asked. I shook my head.
"Not if we want to go over," I said.
"Do we want to go over?" Avani asked, his face pained, "We could forget all about them and go on with our lives."
This time it was Meera who shook her head.
"No," she said, "We have to go over. We have to find out what happened to us. We both need to know. And I'm guessing you need to too. And if there are people there, people who have no idea who they are and haven't really had any other choice than to stay, either because they're not allowed to leave or because they simply don't know any other way, we have to at least try to help them."
I knew she was right, and so did Avani. I could see it on his face. He was just scared. I was scared too. I had only barely gotten a glimpse of who I was, and I didn't want to loose it all again. We all looked at each other for a moment, and then, one at a time, stepped into the boat and sat down. I was the last one. I pushed the boat off the shore, and the girls grabbed the oars. It was silent. There was no sound in the wintry forest, and the river was big and calm enough that it didn't make a sound. The only sound was the oars dipping into the cold water, and up again, dripping.
It wasn't a long way. It wasn't a wide river. We stepped onto the opposite shore and tied the boat to a tree. We stood there for a moment, looking at each other.
"Does everyone remember who they are?" Rosa finally asked. We nodded. All of us. Relief was in all our faces. I'm not sure if any of us had believed we'd loose our memories, but at least I couldn't rule it out. It had been possible if not likely that all this had been a trick. But it didn't seem like it. Though I felt it was possible the spell didn't hit right at the shore. It might be we had to cross deep enough into the woods for us to lose our memories.
"Ok," I sighed, "Let's go."
We began heading deeper into the forest. We walked for some time. Every step made everyone both relax a little more, because it seemed like we really wouldn't lose our memories, but also get more nervous. We didn't know who or what we were looking for, after all.
"Does anybody know what we are looking for or where we're going?" we all turned to look at Rosa, who had stopped walking.
"No," I said. I felt like I should add something, but I couldn't figure out what. We didn't know where we were going. Truthfully there wasn't much point wandering a strange forest, trying to find something when we didn't know what it was or where it was, not that we had known where the place was even if we had known where it was.
We all stood still, looking at each other, trying to figure out what it was we were doing and where we were going. And maybe what we'd do once we found what ever it was we were looking for, but not knowing what that was, it was next to impossible to make any kind of a plan about that.
Suddenly a sweet sound reached us through the woods. It wasn't flute music, but it was some kind of a wind instrument. I knew I had its name buried somewhere in my memory, and that I would recognise the instrument as a source if I was it. Who ever was playing it was truly amazing. For a moment I forgot everything else and only listened to the playing. It was a fluid melody, like a tiny stream through a rocky woods. Like a spring after a long, cold winter. Like when you met someone truly amazing for the first time and they completely sweep you off your feet.
Nitya's low growl pierced the bubbling melody and brought me back to reality. Meera blinked and looked at me, surprise plain on her face. Rosa and Avani were not with us. Nitya growled again. We looked around spotted them almost disappearing into the woods. We looked at each other for a very brief moment and then hurried after them, before they were out of sight.
We reached them in a minute. They weren't moving fast. The moment I saw them a shock ran through me. Their eyes were blank. The looks on their faces would have been happy if it wasn't so obvious there wasn't much anything going on behind those eyes, inside that head. They were following the music, and we followed them, Nitya on our heels. We didn't have a choice. It wasn't like we could leave them alone. It might well be a trap, but at least the music would take us where we wanted to go. To the people we wanted to find. I tried to tell myself this was better than wandering blindly through the forest, but the look on Avani and Rosa's faces made me feel slightly sick to my stomach. It wasn't better. But there was nothing I could do about it. At least, nothing I knew I could to about it.
So I clenched my jaws and set my pace to match my friends', now even more determined to find whoever was behind all this. It was a surprisingly long walk. The music was there the whole time, seemingly always coming from the same distance, never sounding to be far or close.
Eventually we saw a big building ahead. A huge building, it seemed. Bigger than I'd ever seen. Well, I guessed I had actually seen this building before, only didn't remember it. The building could surely host dozens of people, if it was in that use. There were a bunch of smaller buildings out in the front. I didn't know how many. I probably couldn't see them all. As we grew closer to the buildings, a couple of guards came to us and began walking us towards the biggest building. They lead us into it through a huge door.
Only as the door thunked shut the music so far completely filling the air disappeared. Avani and Rosa blinked. Their eyes seemed to lost the glassy look, the stare into nothingness. I could see they were confused for a moment, their looks turning to panicked.
"It's ok," I whispered to them as the guards began pushing us through a large hallway. I hoped it was ok. The other two still looked a little frightened, but they clearly realised what had just happened. They realised, where they were. Or at least as much of where we were as I knew. They calmed down. Their eyes began glowing with the same determination I felt inside. That was good. But even so, I was worried of what would happen if or when the music began again. Meera and I were clearly immune to the music, being pipers ourselves, and Avani and Rosa clearly weren't. I was afraid what they could be made to do. I decided I wouldn't let these people, who ever they were, get another shot at controlling them.
We walked along the hallway, turned, walked along another. Another turn, another turn. A few more. I felt like I should've gotten lost a half a dozen turns ago, but somehow I remembered the all. I guessed it was because my head already knew the route, though the memory was already erased. Now that I was walking these halls again, my mind must have recognised them, even if I didn't, so now it remembered the way again.
Finally we stopped near a big door. Not a huge one, but a big one to be going into a normal room. Something important must be behind that door. One of the guards knocked once, and opened the door. The other one behind us pushed us into the room. I had been right. It was a big room, and an important room. Not an enormous hall, like I could imagine castles having, but for a room it was very big and high. There was a man sitting at a desk at the other end of the room. He looked up as we approached. He smiled as he noticed us. There was recognition in his eyes. I wanted to punch him in the face.
"Sir," one of the guards said as we stopped a little ways from the desk. The an behind it stood up, "We found new ones."
"Yes, I can see that. And some old ones too, it seems," the man said, satisfied, "Maya, Nicolas, welcome home."
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Ok, so we clearly can't wrap this up yet tomorrow (why does this keep happening?), and you're distracting me with a movie. So I'm just going to end here. We'll figure out what we'll do with writing the end later. Meaning tomorrow.
Your topic for tomorrow is Wing.
~matu
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