Chapter 2
1998 Words
2
“Are you going to grab an oar or are we just going to float here forever?” Leon asked Asher as he jerked a thumb at the empty seat beside him.
“Porky can row,” Asher suggested as he moved the tarp to the furthest point on the bow. “I’ll sit here with Caitlin.”
Porky wrinkled his nose. “I don’t want to row. Besides, I’m holding the lantern.”
Asher shot him a hard look. “Do you want to babysit her?” Asher countered.
The face of the hefty young man scrunched up into a similar look as his nickname. “No way. Girls don’t like me.”
Leon snatched the lamp from Porky and shoved it into the pale hands of Davy. “Just sit down and help me row.”
Porky reluctantly obliged and we continued on our way, though with noticeably less speed and definitely more wheezing from one of the rowers. The choppy seas rocked the boat to and fro with a violence that failed to capsize, but threw my little against my companion’s side. Asher wrapped his arm around me and held me tight against the cruel waves. I looked up and he smiled at me. An unfamiliar heat warmed my cheeks and I looked down at my lap.
“Are you warm enough?” he whispered to me. I could only nod and fidget my fingers in my lap.
In a few minutes there came a shout from Davy who pointed at the seas ahead of us. “Look!”
We all looked and I glimpsed a terrifying sight etched by a sudden strike of lightning. A large island loomed ahead of us. Its craggy shores rose up from the choppy waters like dark sentinels that protected the shadow that rose up from the peak.
It was a castle of some great age. Its walls had been battered for centuries by the harsh winds and cold spray that now clawed at us. Crumbling towers speared the sky like blunt swords and the thick walls, quarried from the stone of the dark island, wore a weathered look that menaced all who saw them with a promise of dark secrets and even darker horrors.
A shiver I couldn’t explain ran down my spine and I found myself sinking into the large coat of my protector. The stormy skies above us crackled with electricity, and lightning pierced the sky followed quickly by its thunderous sibling. The brief light illuminated the tense faces around me as the cold wind cut through their thin, ragged clothing. The boys rowed the boat to a small opening in the rocks where the remains of a dock sat. The bits of sharp upright posts were more a danger than a safe port.
Leon directed the boat close to one of the dagger-like posts and wrapped the rope around the rotting wood. He leapt out and into the waist-deep water, jostling the boat. Asher clasped me tighter to himself as Leon pulled the boat up to the rocky short and beached the rear of the vessel on the rough shore. Heedless of the water that made his pants cling to his legs, he grinned from ear to ear.
“Come on, all! The treasure’s just a short walk now!” He turned away and sprang up the path like a goat.
“Wait for us, Leon!” Porky cried out as he rolled over the side and stumbled after their leader.
“Can’t you go a little slower?” Davy whined as he, too, clambered over the side and after the pair.
Asher longingly watched his friends scurry up the path, but he continued to sit beside me. “We can go, too,” I assured him.
He looked down and searched my face. “You’re sure you want to go?” I smiled and nodded.
Asher grasped one of my hands in his and helped me to my feet. “Come on,” he whispered as he led me to the rear and lifted me over the side.
The rocks were rough on my bare feet, but I tried not to show my discomfort as Asher climbed out after me. He took my hand and we followed his companions up a path that had once been covered in gravel, but was now packed sand and stone.
The rocky shores proved a tall order for my short legs, and only a few feet from the boat I stumbled. The fall wouldn’t have been so bad, but the hard stop on the sharp rocks would have proven painful to my barely covered knees.
Asher’s strong arms caught me and righted me. I clung to his shirt like a drowning sailor and I couldn’t stop my body from trembling. Tears sprang into my eyes as Asher knelt down so we were face-to-face and smiled at me.
“There’s no need to worry. You’re in my care, and I won’t let anything happen to you. Now-” He wiped away my tears with his thumb and his gentle eyes. “Let’s get those away, alright?”
“Are you going to babysit her at the boat or are you coming?” Leon shouted his their position fifty feet up the path.
“We’re coming!” Asher called back before he returned his attention to me. “Hold tight.”
I didn’t have time to ask why before he swung me into his arms and pressed me close against his warm chest. He trudged up the steep incline, but a bitterly cold wind from the sea bid us farewell. As close as I was to Asher, I couldn’t miss that his body shivered like a leaf against the wind.
“Don’t you want your coat?” I asked him.
He smiled and shook his head. “I’ll be fine. I’ve been through worse.”
My curious nature piped up. “What kind of worse?”
His smile faltered a little. “Snow on a cold winter’s day, or the blazing heat during the summer when there’s no shade.”
“Why didn’t you get into the shade?” I wondered.
“I was being taken to market to be sold,” he told me.
I blinked at him. “Sold? But you aren’t a toy.”
He turned his face away and his expression saddened. “Some people thought so. . .”
“Come on!” Porky yelled ahead of us between his wheezes. “We’re. . .we’re almost. . .almost there!”
‘There’ was the imposing castle. At a closer view, the walls showed their wear with pock marks and c***k that had rotted away. Some of the stones themselves had cracked under the strain of their duty. The entrance was an arch of the same stone, and some of those rocks had collapsed. They created a pile that partially blocked the gate, but from my vantage point in Asher’s arms I could see the barren dirt that occupied the courtyard.
We rejoined Asher’s friends at the pile of boulders, and Leon led the way over the rocks. Asher, however, hesitated. “Guys?” They paused halfway over the top and looked back. He nodded at the courtyard. “There’s no weeds.”
Davy looked over the courtyard before he returned his attention to Asher and shrugged. “So what?”
Asher looked to our left and right where the weeds pressed against the walls like invaders. “There’s weeds out here. Why aren’t there any in there?”
“Maybe the ground is bad,” Leon suggested as he continued the climb. “Come on. Are we going to let some stupid dirt stop us when we’re so close?”
Asher pursed his lips before he looked down at me. “Are you okay coming with us?”
I swept my eyes over the area with its deep shadows and chilled wind, and shrank closer to him. “I don’t want to be left here. . .”
He smiled. “I won’t leave you. Let’s go together.”
He took the small hill step-by-step, each foot carefully placed to prevent his needing his arms that held me. By the time we reached the top his friends stood in the center of the courtyard. Leon held the map in his hands and, with the use of Porky’s lantern, was studying the worn paper.
“It should be somewhere in the keep,” Leon mused as he examined the part of the courtyard at his back. He nodded at a rotten wooden door that hung limply on the top hinge twenty feet on the left from the main archway. “There. That should get us there.”
At that moment a sharp, cold breeze blew across the courtyard. The wind flitted around the small group as Asher and I reached the bottom of the rock pile. We were only brushed, but the chill sank into my bones and made me shiver again.
“This really isn’t a good idea,” Asher insisted.
Porky glared at him. “Then stay here. Nobody’s making you come.”
Asher pursed his lips, but said nothing more. He followed the others as Leon led them over to the door. Leon pushed one palm against the wood. The door crumbled beneath his light touch and shattered into dust once it hit the ground.
He scuttled back to avoid the dirty fog and crashed into his friends. They held him up and he sheepishly looked over his shoulder at them. “Kind of dusty, isn’t it?”
Davy’s face was paler than before when he nodded. “Yeah, and a little spooky.”
Leon’s eyebrows crashed down and he spun around to face us. “Are you all getting cold feet? We’re this close to getting what we always dreamed of and you guys are letting some dust and wind scare you.”
Porky nodded at him. “You’re shaking, too.”
Leon hid his unsteady hands behind his back and frowned. “It’s just cold here, that’s all. Let’s get inside.”
Leon marched forward and the rest of us followed, but there were dark shadows of doubt that lingered on the faces of the others. The door led into a narrow hall that was without adornments beyond the simple candlestick holders that hung from the bare stone walls. Doorways filled with darkness lined both sides of the dark passage. A few loose leaves dotted the floor, but otherwise the hall was without cobwebs or other adornments of neglect besides dust.
Davy shivered and wrapped his arms around himself. “I think it’s colder in here.”
“Where are we going?” Porky wondered as he held tight to our single light source. Even my young self noticed that he spoke in a voice hardly above a whisper.
Leon paused and squinted at the map. “There’s supposed to be something-” He froze and his eyes widened. “There!”
Leon leapt forward and grasped one of the candlestick holders. He thrust downward and the candlestick followed like a lever. There was a click from behind the wall and part of the stones swung inward to reveal a hidden passage between two of the doorways.
A wide grin stretched across Leon’s face and his eyes twinkled with glee as he looked at each of his friends. “Well? What did I tell you?”
Porky leaned toward the hidden passage and held the lantern high above his head. He revealed a short, narrow hall that dropped out of view down a stairway. “This looks like it goes down into some sort of basement.”
“That’s just as good a place to hide the wishing vase as the attic,” Leon pointed out as he snatched the lantern and headed into the passage. “Now come on!”
The others looked at each other before they headed one-by-one into the darkness. Leon was fast, almost too fast, and the darkness crept up behind us, threatening to pounce. We reached the top of the stairs and saw Leon vanish around the corner of a landing.
“Wait up!” Davy yelped, and Porky and he clattered down the stairs like a pair of frightened ducks.
“They’re silly,” I spoke up.
“They’re just a little scared,” Asher mused as he readjusted my weight and strode after them.
I looked around at the growing darkness and shrank closer against him. “So am I. . .”
“We’ll be out of here soon,” he promised as we reached the landing and watched his friends disappear around another corner. “We just need to get that vase and then we can leave.”
“Is it a pretty vase?” I asked my new companions.
He shook his head. “I don’t think so, but it’s supposed to grant wishes.”
My eyes widened. “Maybe it can take me home?”
Asher laughed and readjusted his hold on me. “No, big wishes. Besides, I’ll take you home after we’re done.”
“There it is!” came a shout from Davy.
- Writer
