Down a Lost Road (4 page)

I hesitated. I wanted to ask him where we
were, what I was doing there. I wanted to know why I had felt that
sudden kinship with the people, why and where this place existed,
why nothing I knew before seemed to make sense now. But I could say
nothing. I hated that I could say nothing.

The two men halted at the threshold. They
didn’t do anything, but somehow I knew they were there to make sure
I didn’t try to run away. I glanced once more at the sinister spear
before following Yatol inside, wary and alert.

Fire and torches dazzled my eyes after the
dusky darkness outside, and I stood a moment blinking in the light.
The tent was spacious but poorly furnished, with a meager
bedchamber curtained off and a few piles of cushions and furs
scattered on the bare earth. A man stood near the fire, robed in
deep purple, his head uncovered and feet bare. His hair flowed long
and silver-white and his eyes were gold. Except for the weapons and
armor laid in array nearby, I might have thought he was a prophet
or a priest. He had that look.

“
Syarat, khinte yeledin.
Ma yensedet pyelnakha!
”

Yatol’s voice, warm and resonant in the
stillness, startled me out of my thoughts. The man unclasped his
hands and let them drop to his sides.

“
Ki’pyelnakha yensedet?
Ahtva, noharai pyelnakhad ruth Morsta-khailud
mamkerim?
”

“
Tyrsai
.”

Yatol went to him and they spoke for some
time quietly. I tried to catch their words, but they kept speaking
in that strange language that somehow I thought I could almost
understand, but not quite. I waited awkwardly. A chill draft crept
through the tent flap behind me. It crawled over my skin, and I
rubbed my hands violently over my arms.

I’ve never felt so alone, or so scared.
Nothing made sense. My thoughts kept flitting back to Mr. Dansy,
pale with fear, to the brusque words I had first heard from Yatol.
The strange trees of the forest wreathed before my eyes, the
pungent fragrance of magnolia blossoms wafted over me. The forest
path and the main street of town jostled together in senseless
memory. Words tumbled through my mind, and I tried to listen…

Iell egledhruir…khinte yeledin…Pyelthan…

“
Daddy? Why are you
going?”

“
Merelin
!”

Chapter 3 – Confusion

I staggered a full step when I heard my name
screamed into my thoughts. Everything reeled, and I almost forgot
where I was. I thought I saw my bedroom floor for a split second
before my hands hit the soft earth, then all my surroundings rushed
back over me. The tent, the swaying firelight, Yatol crouching
beside me, concerned and anxious. My mind was too muddled to make
sense of it, and my head pounded so hard that my stomach quavered.
I put my face in my hands. I heard the older man murmur something,
then the shuffle of Yatol’s sandals as he stood up. His hand
brushed my shoulder.

“
Yentsi
. Too much
has happened this day. Your mind needs rest. I will show you to
your tent.”

I dragged myself wearily to my feet and cast
one troubled glance at the elder. As the thought occurred to me
that maybe I should nod or bow or say something, he swept out his
arms and inclined his head. I stared until he raised his eyes to
mine, then I turned and fled from the tent, shaking like a leaf.
Why did he bow to me? Who did these people think I was?

I stopped outside the tent, gazing around in
terror. For a moment I couldn’t see Yatol in his dark cloak, but
then I caught torchlight flickering against him and ran to catch up
with him. He led me to a small, dome-shaped tent withdrawn from the
others, empty besides the furs heaped against the far side.

“
This is where you sleep.
Are you hungry? There’s stew, bread, some fruit. Not many things,
but there is plenty.”

I shifted my weight. I
was
hungry,
and thirstier than I’d ever been. But I didn’t want to be a
nuisance, so I only shook my head mutely. I glimpsed his expression
in the dim torchlight, and the way he watched me I knew he didn’t
believe me.

“
Sleep then,” he said. “In
the morning it will be time.”

Whatever that means
. I ducked into
the tent and threw myself onto the furs, undeterred by the thick
animal smell. For a few moments I lay face down in a warm hollow in
the pile, the silvery fur coarse against my cheeks. When I almost
fell asleep like that, I rolled over and made my bed a little more
comfortable, then lay gazing at the sky through a hole in the dome.
After a moment I stared more intently at the eerie darkness,
disturbed. The sky spread calm and clear above me, an almost pale
midnight hue of blue-grey. A few tree fronds swayed in a gentle
breeze across the gap, blackest silhouettes against the sky, but
otherwise there were no buildings, no clouds, no city backscatter,
nothing to block the light of the stars. But the sky was empty.

The realization jolted me wide awake. I
rolled off the pile of furs and ducked quietly out of the tent,
nearly tripping over something just outside the flap. Yatol. He was
just sitting there, cross-legged, watchful, torchlight flickering
on his face. It almost seemed like he was there on guard. Somehow
the thought didn’t comfort me.

I gave myself a moment to study him. He sat
quietly, perfectly motionless – something I could never do. With
his dark cloak shrugged back over his shoulders, I could finally
see what he wore. A long cream tunic hung down to his knees, with a
high collar and loose half-sleeves, and a wide girdle of brown
leather that covered nearly half his lean torso. It almost seemed
like armor, like it could have been part of a leather cuirass
instead of a belt. He wore sandals – or at least they looked like
sandals until they reached his ankles, where they laced up his legs
around leather wrappings. Besides binding in the loose folds of his
dark pants, the leather wraps had a look that reminded me of
Damian’s hockey shin guards. Another piece of almost-armor.

From what I’d seen of the other people here,
Yatol’s fashion sense placed him somewhere between the guards with
their brass-studded armor and the purple-robed elder. Interesting.
If I’d heard someone describe his clothing, I would have been
skeptical…but Yatol certainly wore it well. I blushed, realizing
that I’d been standing there staring at him for what must have been
a few solid minutes. But he didn’t seem to have noticed me. Finally
I dropped onto the ground beside him, and he started out of his
thoughts to glance at me.

“
You should
sleep.”

“
What about you? Don’t you
sleep?”

“
I need little.”

I frowned at his reticence. Part of me found
it ridiculously intriguing, but part found it plain annoying. He
was by far the strangest guy I had ever met – so young, but he had
the sort of quiet strength and self-assurance you’d expect in a
soldier. And that light in his eyes…he was hard as iron. I felt
like a complete child compared to him. No wonder he’d hardly given
me a second glance. He probably thought he had to baby-sit me or
something. Figured.

We sat in silence a few moments, then he
unstoppered a leather sack and passed it to me.

“
Drink.”

“
Wha—” I began, but stopped
and lifted it to my mouth.

“
It is water.”

And I would have drunk it without him
telling me. I don’t know why – I just trusted him. Somehow I think
I had from the first moment I’d met him, for all I’d questioned
him. Trusting him felt instinctive.

I tilted the waterskin back, letting the
warm pure liquid fill my parched mouth. The first mouthful turned
gritty from the sand coating my tongue. Before I could force myself
to swallow I gagged and spit it out into the shrubs with a
shuddering cough. My face burned with embarrassment. Did I really
just spew disgusting water all over the bushes in front of Yatol? I
wanted to curl up in a little ball and disappear, but when I risked
a glance at him from under my hair he didn’t seem to have
moved.

I took another long gulp and handed the skin
back to him. He took it silently, fit the leather wad stopper back
into the opening, and hooked it to his belt. I leaned my head on my
knees, trying to figure out how to ask him about the stars. But
when I finally spoke an entirely different question spilled
out.

“
Yatol. This isn’t one of
those…where time, you know, when it…” I scowled at the ground, then
blurted, “Time is the same here as on Earth, isn’t it?”

He hesitated. “I do not know, but I think it
is so.”

“
So right now, my family
won’t know where I am, will they? They’ll think I’ve gotten lost,
or kidnapped. They might even send out a…send out a search for
me.”

“
Aye.”

I glowered at him in the darkness, knowing
he wasn’t looking at me. “What am I doing here? I want to go home.
I don’t understand it here. I feel like I’m in a dream. Everything
feels like a dream. Why haven’t you told me anything about why I’m
here?”

“
No one keeps you here
against your will,” was the only answer I got, but I thought he
sighed as he said it.

“
I don’t know why I asked,”
I muttered.

Yatol shot me a quick glance, but he didn’t
say anything else. After a moment I crept back into the tent and
curled up on the furs, stifling tears in the warm darkness.

* * *

All too soon, it was morning. Daylight
streamed in through my window, and a crowd of grackles in the
magnolia filled the air with raucous whistles and clicks. And Mom
stood beside my bed, an expression somewhere between concern,
relief, and maternal anger clouding her face.

I stared up at her through sleep-bleared
eyes, too stunned to speak. I didn’t need to. As soon as she saw me
awake she let me have it.

“
Merelin, what on earth
where you doing, going missing on us like that? We were worried
sick! As if your fath…” Her voice died, and even though I had
turned my head away I heard her sigh. “I’m just glad Damian found
you when he did. What were you
doing
down there?”

“
Down where?”

“
Don’t you remember? He
found you down by the creek, sleeping under a tree. He practically
had to carry you home. You wouldn’t wake up no matter what he
did.”

“
Oh.”

“
You don’t
remember.”

I hesitated. “The creek? No.”

“
Not even what you were
doing all day yesterday?” She frowned, studying me intently, then
added, “We almost called the police.”

I thought about making something up, but
clamped my mouth on the lie. At the same time it struck me as odd –
they only
almost
called the police. Apparently they hadn’t
been that worried. Somehow I wasn’t upset, just strangely
curious.

“
I’m sorry,” I muttered.
“It won’t happen again.”

My stomach sank as I said it. I hoped it
wasn’t true.

“
If it does…” Mom said as
she withdrew from my room.

She didn’t finish the threat, but I could
guess what she would have said. Well, I was right – it
had
been a dream. More vivid and surreal than any dream I’d ever had,
but just a dream. Somehow the thought made me heart-achingly sad. I
closed my eyes, wistful, hoping against hope that somehow I could
slip back into it. But, just like a dream, it seemed so hard to
grasp and analyze any one of the images I could still recall. All I
could see clearly were Yatol’s eyes. If only I could look into
those eyes again…

It was just a dream. He doesn’t exist.

I swallowed back the raw lump in my throat,
covering my face with my hands.

It was just a dream. I couldn’t let myself
get upset over it.

Grow up, Merelin
.

I rolled over and glanced at my bedside
clock. Almost ten already, but I could have slept another three
hours at least. I stretched my arms drowsily and levered myself
upright, and found myself still in yesterday’s clothes.
Absentmindedly I bent to straighten the hem of my jeans.

A thin trickle of pale sand sifted onto the
floor. My breath caught in my throat, and I reached out tentatively
to brush the grains.

Heart racing, I made a quick trip to the
bathroom for a shower and other necessities. It must have been the
fastest shower I’ve ever taken, summer-style, hot then cold. The
sight of sand swirling out of my hair and down the drain made me
giddy. I toweled off as quickly as I could, tugging on a fresh tee
and a pair of non-dusty jeans, ignoring the little voice that
reminded me how much I had hated jeans yesterday. My hair was
hopeless when it was wet, so I just combed out the drippy
mouse-brown length and slipped an elastic over my wrist for
later.