Chapter seven: 

Moving on

    It was midday and me and Ella weren't sure what to do. We walked around the streets looking around. Bits of food and other various things were scattered on the sides of the street as the remains of the day before. There were many buildings with a view of shop owners sweeping around their shops. 

    “I'm getting hungry, what about you?” I asked Ella

    “Yea.. we have no money though,” she responded.

    “Oh yea. What are we going to do? We don't have a place to stay either.”

    “ I don't know. Hmm…” 

We walked around the streets until a cheerful voice from behind said,

    “Oh, hello again, dears!”

We turned around and saw the old lady from before who was selling pictures of dragons at the festival. 

“Oh hi!” I said walking up to her. 

    “Hello,” Ella said. 

    “You two are still in town? How long are you staying for?”

    “Probably a while,” Ella responded.

    “We don't really have anywhere else to go,” I chipped in. 

    “Oh, I see. Would you like to come over to my shop to have a bite?”

    “We don't have any money.”

    “Oh that's alright, I don't mind.”

    “Thank you,” Ella said.

We sat around a small table with an empty tea set at its center.

    “I’ll be right back, make yourselves comfortable.”

    “Ok, thank you ma’am,” Ella said. 

    “Your welcome, dear.” she said smiling. 

I looked around the shop. It seemed to be some sort of small restaurant that sold cooking supplies. More tea pots and small fancy tea cups could be seen littered around the store on shelves and placed around as decoration. 

    “Hey Ella, she seems nice right?”

    “Yea…” she responded. 

    “Do you think, maybe if she needs some help we could ask if, you know…”

The grandma walked back in the room carrying a tray with bread and two bowls of soup. 

    “All right dears, here you go,” she said, putting them in front of me and Ella. 

    “Thank you,” I said politely. The old lady just nodded and smiled. 

    “You here with your folks?” she asked.

    “Um, no,” Ella said. 

    “I see, well, do you have any plans for work?”

    “No, not really…'' I said in between spoons of soup.

She looked at Ella, then me and said,

    “How would you girls like to work for me? I can teach you the ropes, you would be paid, and I can even offer a place to stay.”

    “Really!?” I asked. I had been hoping to ask that, but if she asked us to

work that was even better. 

    “What would we do?” Ella asked. 

    “This is a restaurant and small shop, so you would help me cook food, help customers, take orders, and clean up after.”

    “We don't know how to cook,” I said.

    “That's why I would teach you.”

    “I would like to, I mean, you seem nice and we don't have much else we can do.”

    “Okay,” Ella said. 

    “It's settled then?” the lady asked. 

    “Yea, we'll work for you,” I said as Ella nodded. 

After we finished eating our meal the old lady, who I found out is called Yana, showed us around the shop and restaurant. 

    “And this is where you two can stay.” Yana said, opening a door. 

    “Thank you,” Ella said.

    “Yeah, thanks a lot Yana.” I said gratefully. 

    “Not a problem, dear. If you two want, feel free to just call me Nana.

Most younger folk do,” said Yana. 

After that she left us to look around the room. It wasn’t very big but it wasn't too small. There were two beds, one on either side of the room. Two desks were also on a different side of the room, and a window was set in the center of the wall between the two sides of the room. I sat on a bed to the left of the room as Ella moved to the right. 

    “How long do you think we're going to stay here?” I asked. 

    “I don't know. Let’s figure it out when we need to, for now let's just settle down a bit,” she said.

I walked out of the room to go find Nana. 

    “Hi Nana,” I said. Nana was dusting a teapot on a shelf.

    “Hi dear, how's the room?”

    “It's good, I like it. I had a question,” I said.

    “Yes?”

    “When do me and Ella start working?”

    “Well we're closed today because of the festival from yesterday. We had a lot of customers so I needed to buy some more ingredients. We're

usually open every day from noon until night.”

    “Oh, okay.” 

    “Here, go get some new clothes and some other things you may want,” she said, handing me a small pouch of money. 

    “I have another one for your friend too.” 

    “Thank you!”

I walked around the streets with Ella and looked for a clothes shop. 

We walked into a few shops before we found some for cheap that looked nice. 

    “This should do, right?” Ella asked. 

    “Yea, this should do,” I said.

We walked into Nana's shop again and showed her what we got. 

    “Very nice dears, here” she handed me and Ella each a comb. 

    “Thank you,” Ella said.

    “Yea, thanks a lot Nana.” I said. 

We went back to our rooms, changed clothes and brushed our hair. 

Nana showed us how to prepare some of the ingredients for dishes the restaurant makes. When it grew dark, Nana told me and Ella to wash and go to sleep. 

    It was night time as I opened my eyes, I was standing in a dark forest, the branches too thick I could not tell if it was night or day. I stretched out a hand and felt something cold and tall like a tree but it was different somehow. How did I get here? 

    I walked in the darkness, trees all around me, hoping I wouldn't trip. As I walked the forest was getting brighter and the trees were farther apart. Soon it was bright enough to be midday. 

    I looked up to see the sun. The sky was red like a sunset with bright yellow clouds drifting across its surface flickering in and out of existence. The sound of crackling could be heard faintly around me. I looked at the trees and saw them on fire. 

    A piece of the sky fell and landed at my feet but all I could see was a branch that burst into flames making me stumble back and fall into a pile of ash. Bright orange, yellow, and the black of charcoal blurred together

as my throat burned. 

    The sealing fell, my hands flung up into the air in a futile attempt to protect myself as my eyes shut. Opening them again I was in front of my burning house, its roof collapsed, the doorway still standing. 

    Embers in the wooden planks shone angry red eating away at the house, a single charred hand was sticking out from under them. 

    The hand started moving and I knew it was Eagle. He's still alive! I started crying and ran towards the hand but I found myself sinking. 

    The ashes around me sank deeper and deeper as I moved. I struggled as much as I could to get to Eagle’s hand which was reaching towards me. 

    The ashes kept sinking and I was nearly swallowed until I saw Eagle’s hand. I reached out and grabbed it. It pulled me up and now on the edge of the pit I saw Eagle’s charred skeleton, the hand had been reduced to black bones. 

    Then a scream tore from the skeleton’s mouth and it burst into flames. I tried running away but I was stuck, it wouldn’t let go. My hand burned, I

was going to die! 

    Suddenly I was back in my room, the moon shining through the window. My heart was racing and I was confused. The room seemed to spin. 

    After a while I calmed down. Then it hit me, I left them again. Eagle was my friend, he would never hurt me, why did I push them away? I started crying.

     Looking over to Ella's side of the room I realized, if I was in trouble, would she die too? 

    Why did Eagle have to die? Why was that man there that day? Why? I started crying again and didn't realize I fell back asleep.

Chapter eight: 

Growing suspicion

    I woke up to the sound of chirping of birds from outside. I opened my eyes to see the light sunshine coming through the window. I sat up in my bed and covers, giving a silent yawn and a stretch of my arms. 

    I then realized that the side of my head was wet. I turned my head towards my pillow, and realized that it was wet with tears. 

    Suddenly, memories of my nightmare from the night before started to painfully flood into my mind. At those thoughts, my hands shook, so much I could barely control them. 

    I shook my head dismissively, trying to ignore them and pushing them into the back of my head.

     I then placed myself so I’ll be sitting on the side of the bed, my legs hanging off the side. 

    I was stuck in my thoughts that I jumped, my heart racing with fright 

when I heard a door give a tiny creak. I looked over and saw that Ella had walked through. When I saw her, I stiffened. 

    “Good morning, Orchid,” Ella greeted happily. I tilted my head to the side slightly. 

    “Morning,” I greeted back, starting to calm down. 

    “Yana wanted me to get you, so we can help her set up the shop before it opens,” Ella informed. Wow, you seem extremely happy, I thought.

    “Okay. Uh–I’ll be there in a moment,” I said. Ella nodded. After a few seconds later I noticed her staring at me for moments, her eyes unmoving. She squinted her eyes, as if to get a better look at something. 

    “Well, okay…see you soon,” she said slowly, still staring at me. She then left the room, shutting the door behind her. 

    I gave a big and slow sigh, as I let myself fall on my bed. I put my hands over my eyes, trying to organize my thoughts. 

    A few moments later I got off the bed, and I grabbed my brand new clothes that I got from yesterday. 

    Once I was dressed, I looked down to see if it looked alright. I decided

it looked good. 

    I was dressed in a comfortable shirt that was the color of green-ish blue, and some pants. I picked up my own comb that Nana gave to me, and I started to brush my ginger hair, and get all of the knots out. 

    Once I was all ready I opened the door and left the room, shutting it quietly behind me. I had appeared in the restaurant and shop. I saw Nana putting things up, and cleaning them, as I saw Ella putting cloths on the tables. 

    I walked up to Ella, and as I did I noticed that she had changed as well, brushed her hair and put it into a ponytail. 

    “Hello. So, what are we doing?” I asked her. 

    “We’re in charge of the restaurant. Yana is doing the shop. Here you go,” she explained while giving me some cloths. 

    I started to help with the table cloths, getting stuff arranged. Helping with sweeping the floor, help put stuff on display with Nana. Once we were all done, Nana said to us both, 

    “Since we are all done, you two can go and do whatever and come back

for the opening,” she said. “But first, are you girls hungry at all?” 

    I thought for a moment. I shook my head, so did Ella. 

    “No, not right now. Oh! Ella! I totally forgot, Mr. Asani wanted us to practice with sword training before we meet him later on!” I exclaimed. 

    “Okay, I’ll get the swords, I’ll be right back,” Ella then left into our room for a couple of moments, then came back with two wooden swords in both hands.

    “Well, dears, I’ll see you in a bit, then,” Nana said. 

    Ella and I had exited the shop. I now had my sword in hand.

    “I do have a question, though,” Ella said, when we closed the door. 

    “Hmm?” 

    “Where are we supposed to practice?” she asked curiously. I thought for a minute. 

    “We could go train where Mr Asani was teaching us…That’ll be okay to train, I’m pretty sure,” I suggested.

    “Okay,” Ella agreed. We both started to walk to the training area. Once we were there, the breeze started to pick up. Ella and I stood in front of

each other, and stared at each other. Ella looked at me, as if she was wondering if I was going to move or not. I just ran up to her, which seemed to catch her by surprise, so I got to hit her in the side a couple times. 

    She tried to block a few of my attacks, but failed to do so. When she had an opening, she tried to hit me, but I dodged, then the sword flew out of her hand by accident. 

    We practiced for a little bit, until we saw a person in the distance. I realized that it was Mr Asani, and he was walking up to us. 

    When he reached us, he stopped, and stood on the side. Ella and I had stopped, and looked at him. 

    “Hello, Mr. Asani,” I greeted him, bowing slightly to show respect, Ella did the same. 

    “Hello, you two. What are you doing?” he asked.

    “Just training…before our lesson,” I answered. 

    “What are those? Are those bows behind you?” Ella asked, staring behind the teacher. I looked too, and indeed they were bows behind him.

    “Yes, they are,” Mr. Asani nodded, “They are for later.”

    “Okay.” 

    Mr. Asani had left, but we could still  see him in the distance. Ella and I started practicing a little bit more, then we took a small break. We sat beside each other, and started to talk. 

    After a while, I heard someone call, “Hello!” 

    Ella and I had stopped talking, and looked up to see who was there. I recognized the boy who had been signed up as my partner. It was Leo.

     He had been running up to us both, waving while doing so. When he had stopped next to us, he smiled.

    “Hello! How are you two doing?” he asked.

    “Hello again…We’re doing good. You?” I returned the question. 

    “Very good,” he said. Why is everyone happy today? Is it because of the festival? I looked over to see that Ella’s expression had hardened from what I saw a few moments ago. Her smile, light happy expression had all disappeared and got replaced with wariness and coldness. 

    “You okay, Ella?” I asked, as I lightly touched her shoulder, trying to get

her attention. 

    I seemed to have caught her attention as she turned her head to look at me. 

    “Yeah, I’m okay. . .” she replied with a smile. She once again turned her head, and looked into the distance. 

    “It looks like the others are here for training. We should probably go so we can start,” she suggested, while she was getting up on her feet. Once she stood, she looked back towards me. 

    “Are you coming?” she asked curiously. 

    “Yeah…coming,” I replied, getting up also.

    “Oh, I didn’t notice they were here. Good eye,” Leo said, staring in the distance at the group of kids, then at Ella. 

    In return, Ella just gave him a hard stare, and slowly nodded her head once. 

    Instead of acknowledging his compliment, she ignored him, and walked away towards the crowd of people without a word. 

    Leo looked confused, then looked at me as if asking if he did