The Protectors: Book 1 in the Protectors Saga

Chapter 7

  “Avery! Avery, it’s time to get up!” Avery’s father’s voice drifted into her subconscious. It sounded like a hundred drums being pounded on inside her head.

  “Avery!” The voice called again, “You’re supposed to meet Gumptin and the others in five minutes, get up!”

  Avery grunted and turned over in her bed to look out the balcony doors. She pulled the covers down over her head and saw that it was still dark outside.

  “Guess I really didn’t have to worry about those curtains after all.” Avery spoke into her pillow and snuggled back under the cover.

  “Avery!” The voice shouted.

  “I know!” Avery shouted back, “I’m up!” Avery groaned grumpily as she realized she was going to have to actually get up.

  She slowly sat up in bed and glanced around the room with puffy eyes. She thought, disgustedly, how unnatural it was to get up before the sun had even begun to rise. Avery’s movements were slow and laborious as she got out of bed and changed her clothes. She decided to go with a pair of jeans and long sleeve thermal shirt she brought from Earth.

  Avery was still groggy as she descended the stairs, and she found herself exceedingly grateful for the handrail, as she almost tripped a few times.

  When she did finally manage to make it down the stairs without tripping and breaking her neck, she saw her father sitting on the living room couch reading a long piece of parchment. As Avery approached closer she was able to see the words ‘Havyn Ledger’ scrolled across the top of it in bold letters, with the headline, ‘Protectors Return’ written just below it. Avery wasn’t sure how she felt about being part of a headline.

  After grabbing an apple from a bowl on the kitchen table, Avery proceeded to the front door.

  “Bye, honey.” Her dad called to her from his seat on the couch.

  Avery waved her apple filled fist goodbye to him and walked out the door. The sun was just beginning to peak over the horizon, lighting up the tall mountain tops to the west. Even though it still seemed ridiculously early to Avery, a good portion of the villagers were already up and outside working on their gardens and crops, or opening up their shops and beginning their tasks.

  As Avery approached the spot where they were all told to meet she saw Bunny sitting on the side of the well and talking to Skylar who was balletically dancing around in front of her. From the looks of it, both of them seemed to have enough energy to spare, which was a good thing since Avery was having trouble even mustering enough energy to walk over to meet them.

  She spotted Jade walking towards the well from the other side of the village. Jade was wearing all black, as usual, with her hair pulled back and her signature stony expression planted on her face. She had just finished munching on an apple and threw the core over her back shoulder. When she spotted Avery making her way over she let a smile escape and picked up her pace to meet her.

  “Good night's sleep?” Jade asked Avery when they reached the well and Skylar and Bunny.

  Avery shook her head, releasing a giant yawn, “Good, but not nearly long enough.”

  “I hear that.” Jade agreed with her, “Gumptin’s out of his tiny mind if he thinks we’re going to keep meeting him at freaking dawn.”

  Bunny turned her head and looked over at Jade from her perch on the well, “It’s really not that bad.” She told Jade, “If you think about it, we’re supposed to be soldiers, and soldiers are supposed to get up and train early every day. Maybe you should thank Gumptin for wanting to give us the proper training time to keep us alive, instead of complaining about him.”

  Avery couldn’t stop herself from letting a guffaw escape her mouth. She didn’t know if it was seeing Jade first thing in the morning or just being on another planet, but it was one of the first times she had ever seen Bunny chastise Jade, and she couldn’t help but love it.

  “Listen, band geek,” Jade told Bunny, getting almost directly in her face, “we’re not all used to getting up at the ass crack of dawn. So don’t give me any of your five cent comments, alright?”

  Bunny shrugged her shoulders dismissively and turned her head away from Jade. Jade walked over and stood next to Avery, letting her body language tell Avery exactly what she thought about having to spend multiple hours every day training around Bunny.

  Sasha sauntered over to them a few moments later. She wasn’t exactly on time, and as Avery looked over her perfectly done hair, lightly painted face, and matching sneakers and work out outfit, Avery knew why. Perfection took time, and Sasha looked nothing less than perfect even when she was about to get all sweaty. Avery wondered how many days of training sessions it would take for Sasha to stop caring about how good she looked. She assumed the lack of male admirers would drastically cut the time in half.

  Thinking about Sasha’s tardiness made Avery question aloud, “Where the hell is Gumptin?”

  All the girls began to look around, and then, as if on cue, Gumptin appeared from behind a large shrub at the edge of the forest, “I am right here.” He shouted loudly, startling Skylar enough that she jumped back and almost knocked Bunny down the well she was sitting on.

  “Don’t ever do that again!” Avery yelled at Gumptin, grabbing her heart from the fright of having him pop out of nowhere.

  Jade, who would never admit she had been startled, but who was, none the less, grabbing tightly a hold of Avery’s arm, snapped at him, “Stupid elf…where have you been?! If we can be here on time, you damn well better be!”

  Gumptin walked up to them, dragging behind him a brown leather sack about twice the size of him, “First of all, and for the very last time,” he addressed Jade, “I am a gnome, not an elf! Second, only two of you lay-a-bout’s were here on time, Bunny and Skylar. You and Avery were approximately five minutes past due, and Sasha was a weighty ten minutes late.”

  “Whatever,” Jade replied, too tired to argue, “can we just get on with it?”

  Gumptin motioned for them to follow him, but before they left he pointed to the brown sack he had been dragging, “You carry that.” He told Jade.

  “What?!” Jade asked, taken aback, “Why me?!”

  “Consider it as part of your training, which officially starts now.” Gumptin turned around and started to walk towards the forest, intent on ignoring any retort Jade was going to give, “You are a Protector; you have the strength of ten men Jade. It is hardly a major inconvenience. Just pick it up and follow me.”

  Jade looked towards Avery, and Avery nodded her head to tell Jade to just do as she was told. Jade picked up the sack and slung it over her shoulder with hardly any effort. Of course, that didn’t stop her from grumbling heatedly to herself as she followed Gumptin and the others towards the forest’s border.

  Gumptin led them down a small nameless dirt path deep into the woods. For a little nothing path it seemed fairly used. There was no undergrowth or overhanging tree limbs and bushes. They walked for a quarter of a mile until they reached the end of the path. It had led them to a large clearing the size of a baseball field. Short yellow-green grass covered the clearing and towering thick trunked trees surrounded it. To Avery, the trees seemed to form a barrier between the clearing and the rest of the outside world. The ground was soft beneath Avery’s feet. The loose dark soil was soft and pillowy, not anything like the hard compact dirt road that had led them there. The air inside the clearing seemed somehow crisper than the air outside of it. It felt as if the whole place crackled with electricity.

  In the dead center of the clearing was a black stone altar. It was about waist high with a thick width. The stones looked old and worn, and there was a delicate green moss crawling around it. On the top of the altar, attached to it, was a large rusted metal bowl.

  “This place is called Elysianth.” Gumptin told them, “It was created thousands of years ago by the Ancients. Back before there was such a thing as good and evil. Before the Ancients split into different factions, this was one of the places they would meet to perform powerful magic. This place is aliv
e with magic; you can feel it.”

  Gumptin looked around the clearing with reverence as he spoke. It was obvious to the girls that this place held a special meaning in Gumptin’s soul and most likely a lot of other magic folk’s souls as well.

  Gumptin continued, “Over the centuries, many battles have been fought for this little piece of land. Eventually, it fell into the possession of the Elementals. This is the place, over there at that altar, where they created your powers. In a way, this is where you were created. That is why they gave this place to you. It is yours to protect and to train in, a place where you can truly learn to eventually control your powers.”

  “So, to be clear,” Jade spoke up once Gumptin had finished speaking, tossing the sack he had given her to carry on the ground, “The Elementals created us so we’d have to fight the most horrible evil scum you could imagine, which would most likely, as past events have proven, lead to our premature deaths, and all we got out of the deal is a patch of land.”

  At first, Avery had thought the idea of claiming ownership to a patch of magical land kind of cool, but Jade always had a way of forcing Avery to see things from a different perspective. She wasn’t sold on it being cool anymore.

  Although Avery thought Jade had a good point, Gumptin certainly didn’t, “It is a great honor to be given Elysianth, young lady. You and this land are a part of each other.” He flared his tiny nostrils, “You have fought to defend this land against countless enemies who wished to use it for their own purposes.”

  This time it was Avery who spoke, “Wait a second, you mean we’ve had to fight things over this land? We could have been killed defending a piece of land that no innocent people actually live on?” Avery could understand risking her life fighting to protect people’s lives, but the idea of doing it for a patch of grass was a little more than she bargained for.

  Gumptin looked back and forth between Avery and Jade, a look of displeasure on his face, “You two do understand that you do not need to make everything an argument, right?”

  “Yes.” Avery said hesitantly, nodding her head.

  “No.” Jade said without hesitation, shaking her head.

  Gumptin frowned at them, and then asked Bunny, Sasha, and Skylar, “Do you three have anything to say on the matter?”

  Each one of them shook their heads, no.

  “Fine,” Gumptin said, “let’s begin training before any of you have a chance to open your mouths anymore.”

  Gumptin led them through what he considered basic training routines, but what the girls considered torture. After they finished stretching, they started off with push-ups. Gumptin made sure they each did three hundred before moving on.

  “Come on, keep the pace up!” Gumptin shouted at them as they pushed their bodies up and down off of the ground, “Keep going! Your abilities have been dormant for over sixteen years, all your strength, speed, reflexes, senses, powers; your bodies have to remember them all over again.”

  It was only the very beginning of what Gumptin was going to have them do, and already Avery knew she was going to be in trouble. Her arms felt like they were on fire. When she looked over at the other girls, Avery could see they shared her pain, especially Bunny who lay face first on the ground, not moving.

  Once push-ups were finished, it was time for sit-ups.

  Sasha was on sit-up two hundred and sixty five when she collapsed on the ground, “I think I’m dying.” She moaned, her pretty face in the dirt.

  “You are not dead yet, Sasha,” Gumptin told her, pacing back and forth in front of the girls, “and until you are, keep going!”

  Sasha reluctantly picked herself up and kept going.

  After sit-ups it was pull-ups on some low-lying tree limbs, two hundred of them, and then knee lifts, two hundred of them as well. They were followed by squats and jumping jacks that seemed, to the girls, like they were never going to end.

  “Alright, enough.” Gumptin told them.

  The girls fell to the ground. Avery lay on her back, breathing heavily, looking up at the baby blue sky dappled with big white fluffy clouds.

  Gumptin looked down at the girls trying to catch their breath, “That was quite pathetic.” He said.

  “Are you nuts?!” Avery retorted, lifting her head up to look at Gumptin, “I’ve never worked so hard in my life!”

  Gumptin snorted, “Maybe not in this life, but in your pre-Earth life, that was about half of what you usually do.”

  There was a collective groan from the girls at the thought of doing any more.

  Gumptin ignored their displeasure, “Alright, time to run, get up.”

  The girls didn’t move, except for Jade, who lifted her arm up and flipped Gumptin off.

  “Get up!” Gumptin continued, “Get off of the ground! Move it, move it!” He kicked at each one of the girls until they were all on their feet and jogging in laps around the perimeter of the clearing.

  Avery tried to clear her mind as she ran, focusing on the cool air and soft grass, the forest around her teeming with life, anything to keep her mind off of the stitch forming in her side and the feeling of her lungs about to explode. She had no idea how long Gumptin had had them running for, but the sun had now become fully visible in the sky. Jade and Avery had been running side by side and ahead of the others, when suddenly Jade stopped. Avery followed suit and looked back at her.

  Jade had her hands on her knees, and she was shaking her head, “Nope, no more, I’m done.”

  “Oh, thank God!” Skylar exclaimed stopping as well, along with Bunny and Sasha, “I don’t know how long you planned to have us running, but that’s it.”

  Gumptin shrugged his shoulders, “I did not have anything planned. I was just waiting for you to go as long as you could before you had to stop.”

  Before any of the girls had a chance to yell at Gumptin for neglecting to mention that before they had started running, and especially before they had reached the point where they felt like vomiting, Gumptin walked over to the oversized leather sack he had Jade carry. The girls watched as he untied the sack and took out its contents. The first thing Gumptin unpacked was a handful of cotton cloth strips.

  “Tie these around your hands.” He told them, “It is time for your real training to begin.”

  The girls did as they were told, just relieved that they were done with the exercise routines. They tied the strips of cloth around their hands, forming make-shift gloves.

  Gumptin led them to the very far edge of the clearing, where nailed to five separate trees, were leather sacks a foot taller than Avery. Avery pushed against one of the sacks and it gave way a little. It felt, to her, as if it was filled with sand, making it a semblant punching bag.

  “These are your sparring partners.” Gumptin said, pointing towards the sacks.

  Gumptin directed each one of them to a different bag and then made sure they were all in the appropriate fighting stance. Feet shoulder width apart and firmly under you, knees slightly bent, weight evenly distributed between the balls of your feet, hips at a ninety degree angle to your opponent, shoulders square over the hips, and the back straight, head turned to face your opponents with your right fist up just below eye level, left arm brought up in front of the body with the fist just underneath the chin, elbows kept close to the body at all times. It sounded complicated as Gumptin was explaining it to them, but after a short demonstration the only one of the girls who required extra attention to get her stance correct was Bunny.

  Once they were all in their starting stances, Gumptin led them through a rigorous training routine. He had them doing multiple kinds of jabs, standard jabs, twisting jabs, and collapsing jabs, until sweat was dripping down their faces. He had them doing cross punches, hook punches, and uppercut punches. After they finished their punches, Gumptin had them move on to kicks. He had them doing side kicks, back kicks, sweeping, thrust, and rising kicks, snap kicks, and roundhouse kicks. Gumptin then had them do multiple maneuvers in mixed order.

  Gumptin cal
led out, “Hook, twisting jab, side kick, back kick, uppercut!”

  He barely left a breath between his words and the girls were expected to follow him without mistake. In fact, they weren’t allowed to stop with the exercise until they had performed five consecutive routines to perfection. To Avery’s surprise the skills and routines came relatively easy to her. Her muscles were killing her, and she was sure she’d never breathe right again, but she found that all the punches, jabs, and kicks, and doing them in different patterns came habitual to her. They were as easy as riding a bike back on Earth. She didn’t even have to really think about what she was doing; it was as if the nerve endings in her body remembered these activities.

  Bunny, however, was having slight problems and was responsible for that particular training session lasting an extra twenty minutes. When she finally managed to get it down without fault, Gumptin gave them ten minutes of rest.

  Avery hugged the tree she had just released a considerable beating on, letting it support all of her weight. She cringed as her sweat drenched face stuck to the leather punching bag, but it beat collapsing onto the dirty ground along with Skylar and Sasha.

  After what seemed to Avery like thirty seconds, Gumptin announced, “Your ten minutes are expired. Let’s move on to ground work.”

  Avery stayed glued to the tree, hoping that someone, especially Jade, would protest, but after a few moments of silence, she turned her head around and saw Jade literally crawling on her hands and knees over to the near center of the clearing where Gumptin was directing them to go. It was then that Avery pushed herself up off of the tree, thinking that whatever Gumptin was about to do to them, it couldn’t get much worse.

  It wasn’t long before Avery realized how wrong she was. Gumptin first had them work on basic ground roll techniques. They were made to do forward, side, backward, and diving rolls. They weren’t difficult compared to everything else they had been doing, and they didn’t require much energy, which meant the girls took as long as they possibly could drawing out their different rolls. Gumptin, however, was not fooled and had them quickly moving on to cartwheels. First, just free form and then cartwheeling while picking up an object up off of the ground. He used a long stick as their prop.

  Next, Gumptin moved on to handsprings and flips, and this is when the girls became hesitant. As Gumptin explained the technique that went into the acrobatic maneuvers he wanted them to do, the girls looked back and forth at each other, more than sure that one of them was going to break something; they just hoped it wasn’t their neck. Avery could have bet money that Bunny was definitely going to fracture something.

  When he finished explaining, Gumptin pointed to Avery, “I want you to do a handspring into a front flip, run five paces, do a cartwheel into a back handspring, followed by a double front flip.”

  Avery’s mouth genuinely fell open. She was pretty sure she wouldn’t even be able to verbally repeat what Gumptin had said, let alone do it.

  Next to her, Avery could hear Sasha snickering under her breath, “Yeah, Avery,” Sasha squeaked out through her giggles, “show us what you got, big bad leader.”

  “Stow it, Sasha!” Jade barked, glaring at Sasha from the other side of Avery. She turned to Gumptin, “This is going beyond sadistic drill instructor, alright. She could seriously hurt herself.”

  Gumptin shook his head, “No, no, no, she will be fine. Your bodies remember everything. It is just like a cat landing on their feet, completely instinctual.”

  As Avery moaned at the unsatisfying analogy of being compared to a cat, Jade scoffed at Gumptin, “It’s also instinctual for me to want to duct tape your mouth shut, but you don’t see that working out too well, do you?”

  Avery knew Gumptin and Jade were just going to keep talking in circles without agreeing. So, she decided she would rather injure herself doing something productive, than get a migraine listening to them bicker.

  “I’ll do it!” Avery shouted, above Gumptin and Jade’s heated voices.

  Before Avery walked out to prepare for her aerial gymnastics, Jade grabbed on to her elbow, “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Jade told her.

  “Relax,” Avery said, tugging her elbow free, “I’m cat-like, remember.” She said it as much to assure herself as she did to assure Jade.

  Avery walked up to Gumptin, telling herself to keep calm despite her sweaty palms and racing heart.

  “Just remember,” Gumptin told her, “get a running start, breathe, and let your mind go free. Your body will do all the rest. Just do not over think it.”

  It wasn’t the most calming thing Gumptin could have said to her, but Avery took his advice. She took a couple deep long breaths to calm herself and tried to clear her mind. It was difficult at first with the thought of pummeling to the ground in mid jump darting through her head. A petite white flower sprouting up from the ground a few feet in front of Avery caught her attention, and she focused all of her attention on it. Soon, Avery’s mind was free of any thoughts except that tiny flower and the jumps she was about to do. Taking a final deep breath, Avery took off into a run.

  One step, two steps, three steps. On the fourth step, Avery leapt up off of the ground. She bounced into a handspring, then from there into a front flip. She hit the ground a little off balance, but quickly recovered, took five paces, then sprung into a cartwheel, a back handspring, and finally a double front flip. Her landing was a little rocky and she ended up stumbling forward a few feet, landing on her hands and knees, but she had made it without damaging herself, and that was all Avery could have hoped for.

  It took Avery a few seconds of kneeling on the ground before she was fully aware of what she had just done. Avery heard cheers from the other girls standing behind her.

  “Oh, my God,” Skylar hollered, running up to Avery, “I cannot believe you just did that!”

  Jade ran over to Avery as well, grabbing under her arms and helping to pick her up off of the ground, “Are you alright?”

  Avery allowed herself to be picked up and placed on her shaky feet.

  “I can’t believe I just did that either.” Avery uttered, walking around to regain her balance.

  One by one, Gumptin had the girls each do an individualized routine. Just like Avery, they got through them, shocked that their bodies could perform such tumbling maneuvers. Of course, not one of them got the landing perfect; Skylar landed on her butt; Sasha fell on her face; Jade landed so hard on her right ankle that it caused her to curse and fall to the ground, and poor Bunny overestimated her speed, came out of the routine too fast, and slammed into one of the large trees surrounding the clearing.

  Gumptin had the girls flipping, tumbling, cartwheeling, and handspringing until they were all proficient in everything, including the landings. They weren’t allowed to stop until they were almost too dizzy to walk, let alone, whirl through the air.

  “Aren’t we done yet?” Avery whined, sticking her head between her knees to stop the queasiness in her stomach caused by all the spinning.

  “We are done with the tumbling.” Gumptin told her matter-of-factly, “Now, we move on to weapons training.”

  Avery could swear she heard Skylar begin to cry behind her at Gumptin’s words.

  Gumptin let the girls collect themselves for a whole minute, and then moved them back over to the edge of the forest where their punching bag trees were. Between two of the trees was a broad rectangular hole dug into the ground. A brown canvas blanket rest on top of the hole and was covered with fallen leaves and other debris. Gumptin had Avery lift the canvas cover off of the hole. Inside were four round tire-sized bull’s-eye targets, eight wooden swords, and a dozen sticks about six feet in length, a pile of arrows, three bows, two crossbows, and about a dozen sacks of different sizes. Last, but not least, resting on top of everything were three straw stuffed dummies, the size and shape of actual men, attached to a metal pole with a metal bottom base.

  Gumptin had the girls drag the life-sized dummies to the edge of the clearing. He carried with him
one of the sacks that had been in the hole. Gumptin dumped out the contents of the sack, which consisted of twelve thick curved metal spikes and two bulky hammers. The metal base of the dummies each had four round holes in it. Gumptin had the girls stand the dummies up straight and hammer a spike into each hole. This anchored the dummies to the ground making them unyielding.

  Once they had finished staking the dummies to the ground, Gumptin gave them each a wooden sword. He stood them all in row and slowly explained the footwork, the different cuts to make with the sword that are the most effective, cuts to the leg, body, and head, assorted thrusts, and blocks. All the girls listened and followed Gumptin as best they could, but were honestly getting lost once he started to add more than five or six cuts, thrusts and blocks together.

  “You are Protectors,” Gumptin shouted at them after their tenth failed attempt at a series of techniques he had told them to do, “you should know this! You are not trying hard enough! You must focus, because we are not stopping until you get this right!”

  Jade quit what she was doing in mid sword thrust and turned towards Gumptin, “What is this ‘we’ crap!” She hollered, “I don’t see ‘we’ doing anything. I see the five of us working our asses off while you stand their shouting at us!”

  Gumptin kept pacing in front of the girls, barely acknowledging Jade’s outburst, “Trust me Jade, it is far more painful watching the five of you pathetically labor through your elementary training routines, than it is for you to do them.”

  “You’re like a little satanic monster, you know that.” Jade told Gumptin, throwing down her wooden sword, refusing to continue.

  Gumptin still didn’t turn to acknowledge Jade, which Avery was sure he only did to frustrate Jade more, “For every minute that goes by in which you refuse to train, I will add an extra twenty push-ups onto tomorrow’s warm-ups for everyone.”

  Jade stood with her hands on hips, not moving, but Avery could tell she was torn. It was only her pride that was keeping her from picking up the sword.

  “That is twenty extra push-ups.” Gumptin said, “Shall we try for forty?”

  “Jade, you pick up that sword, or I’ll strangle you while you sleep!” Sasha shouted at Jade.

  Avery wasn’t about to let Jade’s pride cost her forty extra push-ups, “Jade, pick…it…up!” Avery made sure to say it in a tone that let Jade know if she didn’t pick it up, there were going to be serious consequences for

  Jade.

  Jade snarled and stomped her foot before bending down to pick up her sword and continue with the exercise.

  Disheartened by the idea of extra work the next day and the fact that they had been out there for over six hours, they all concentrated exceptionally hard and got through Gumptin’s maneuvers in just a few short tries. Once they had completed that task, Gumptin moved them towards the stuffed dummies and had them practice their sword work on them. Three at a time he called them up and shouted commands out to them.

  “Right knee cut, turn, left head cut, body thrust, turn, right body cut!” Gumptin called out.

  They all muddled through the orders imperfect in some way, but not enough for Gumptin to make them keep doing the same ones over and over again.

  After the sword work was over, Gumptin had Bunny bring over six of the long sticks Avery had seen in the hole. Gumptin explained that they were called quarterstaffs and were a very useful and effective weapon.

  Jade complained that it was pointless to have to learn how to use a weapon that didn’t even have a pointy end. The only thing that shut her up was Gumptin’s threat to add more sit-ups to tomorrow’s exercise.

  Avery was just done all together. She was sore; she was tired, and she really didn’t want to have to learn how to fight with a giant stick. These were the thoughts running through Avery’s mind as Gumptin handed Avery a staff and described the proper way to hold it, with both hands.

  Having been through the sword practice before made it easier to grasp using the staff. They learned glides, and strikes, sweeps, and jabs. Once again, Gumptin had them practice on the dummies before letting them move on to the next weapon.

  When they had finished training with the staff’s, Gumptin had them move on to the bow and arrows. The girls pulled out the round targets with the bull’s-eye on them and placed them each at a different distance from where Gumptin was having them stand to shoot. He led the girls in a straight path back into the woods, where there was still clear sight and shot to the targets, but so they would have a longer distance to shoot from. The first target was placed a hundred feet away, the second at two hundred and fifty, the third at four hundred, and the fourth and last target at a whopping five hundred feet away from them. Looking at the targets from where she stood, Avery thought it laughable that Gumptin expected them to hit the targets at all, let alone any of the bull’s-eyes. The furthest target, even though it was the size of a truck’s tire, looked to Avery like the size of a Frisbee.

  Gumptin explained that right-eye dominant archers hold their bow with their left hand, have their left side facing the target, use their right hand to handle the string and arrow, and take sight of the target with their right eye. Avery closed one eye, then the other, and back again, trying to figure out her dominant eye. When her blinking technique failed to give her an answer, she just figured, since she was right handed, her dominant eye was most likely her right one.

  Sasha was called to go first. She picked up one of the sturdy wooden bows and a stiff arrow with a long thin metal tip on one end and three bright red feathers on the other end.

  Gumptin instructed Sasha to move her body perpendicular to the target, with feet shoulder length apart. He had her point her bow downward and get her arrow ready. Then, he showed her how to bring the bow up, and pull the arrow back in one quick fluid motion. He had Sasha take a few deep breaths, aim, and release.

  Sasha’s arrow flew towards the target one hundred feet away and landed just a few inches away from dead center. Since Sasha was the first one to go, and the rest of them had nothing to compare her shot with, they couldn’t help but be impressed and gave her a round of applause.

  Her second shot went about as well as the first one, but her third shot from four hundred feet away didn’t land exactly near the center. In fact, the only part of the target it hit was one of the wooden legs holding it up. Sasha’s last shot was just as bad, except this time it landed in the ground a few feet in front of the target.

  “This is ridiculous.” Sasha complained, handing the bow back to Gumptin, “I’m not some Neanderthal who needs to go out and bow hunt for my supper.”

  “Practice, Sasha,” Gumptin told her, “more practice. By next week, I want you to at least hit the last target. The object is to hit your enemy with the arrow, not to have it land next to him so that he may see how dangerous it looks.”

  Next to go was Bunny, who did about as well as Sasha did, although, her last shot landed somewhere in the forest behind the target instead of in front of it. This pleasantly surprised Avery; Bunny seemed to have a lot more strength than Avery would have given her credit for.

  Skylar went after Bunny. She hit the target near dead center with her first two shots, but her third was more than a few inches off. However, her fourth shot actually landed on the target, the very outside edge of the target, but so far it was the best shot of the day.

  Next was Jade. She didn’t take as long to aim as the other’s had, but even so, her aim was scarily accurate. Her first two arrows landed right next to Skylar’s near dead center. Her third shot was only a few centimeters from center, and her fourth and most difficult shot, flew through the air, slamming into the target a whole three inches closer to the bull’s-eye than Skylar’s.

  Finally, it was Avery’s turn to go. Jade handed off the bow to her and Avery ran her hands over it. The sensation of the wooden bow in her palms seemed familiar to her body, even though she had never handled one in her life. She picked up one of the arrows off of the ground and got into position.
She tried to remember Gumptin’s words about not over thinking, about letting her body remember the skills it had and letting it do all the work. Avery was skeptical her body would do what she wanted it to do, but she decided to try and give it an attempt. If she failed, she would just blame Gumptin and his stupid reasoning. Avery closed her eyes and let her left hand feel the strong center of the bow, her right hand the delicate tip of the arrow and tight tension of the string. Her body was telling her she knew these feelings, and she forced her mind clear before she could argue away what she was feeling. She took one long deep breath, raised her bow and pulled back on her bow string in one swift movement. It took Avery only a split second to decide and aim at the fourth and furthest target first. It seemed like the world around her went black and the only thing she could see was the bright red center of the circular target. What had seemed so tiny to her just ten minutes ago was now the clearest thing she had ever seen. Her hand released the arrow and it sailed through the air, whistling its way towards the target before hitting dead center in the middle of it.

  After she watched her arrow hit its mark, the world came back into focus for Avery, color returned and the target went back to looking like an unreachable speck.

  “Well, screw me!” Jade whooped, standing behind Avery, staring open mouthed at the shot she had just made.

  “Thanks for making me look pathetic, Avery.” Skylar pat Avery on the back.

  Avery looked over at Gumptin and noticed a small smile on his face.

  “What are you smirking at, weirdo?’ Avery asked, a little embarrassed at all the attention her perfect shot was getting.

  Gumptin’s smile broadened, “I knew you would do well if you let yourself. You were always excellent at the bow and arrow. After practice or patrolling, you would come out at night when the moon was bright enough and practice it for hours.”

  It seemed like Gumptin was fond of the memory, so Avery smiled back at him and nodded, deciding not to tell him that there was no way in hell that was ever going to happen this time around. Avery didn’t think anything could possibly suck more than added voluntary training after what she had already been through today.

  After the bow and arrow, Gumptin moved them on to the crossbow. Unfortunately, it didn’t go quite as well as the bow and arrow training had.

  Sasha had difficulties drawing the bow string back by hand, and before she was able to get it set, it snapped back on her fingers, leaving her with a horizontal red mark across her left hand.

  Skylar hadn’t been paying attention when Gumptin talked about being prepared for the recoil after a shot was taken, and as a result, she was not prepared and ended up with a good sized bruise on her shoulder.

  Avery, whose aim was still impeccable, hadn’t expected the trigger on the crossbow to be as delicate as it was, causing her to accidentally fire before she had lifted the crossbow up to her shoulder. As a result, it fired while she was holding it at chest level, giving herself a bruise to match Skylar’s right above her right breast.

  Avery was still rubbing at her bruise when she witnessed Bunny make the worst mistake of the day. Bunny had just been handed the crossbow, and while she was jokingly asking Avery for any tips on how to avoid personal injury, she unintentionally fired the crossbow; sending one of the sharp crossbow bolts sailing into a tree trunk centimeters from Gumptin’s head. Even though Bunny apologized profusely, she wasn’t allowed to use the crossbow any more that day, and Avery guessed probably ever again.

  Jade, however, did more than exceptionally well, liking the fact that unlike the bow and arrow, she didn’t have to use both hands if she didn’t want too.

  After finishing up their mostly disastrous crossbow training, the girls were hoping that they were done for the day. They couldn’t imagine what else Gumptin could possibly have them do.

  “Can we please go home now?” Avery whined, longing to leave the clearing and all of its tortures behind.

  Gumptin sighed, “You five never complained this much before, not even you, Jade.”

  Jade was sitting on a large rock, looking far too exhausted to give Gumptin any sort of sarcastic reply.

  “You may leave after the final training exercise.” Gumptin told them, “It is time to take what you have learned and put it into practice. You will spar one on one with each other.”

  “Spar?” Jade asked, “You mean you want us to fight each other?”

  Gumptin nodded, “That is correct. I will give you each a wooden sword and pair you up against one another. The first person to make what would be considered a killing blow shall win.”

  “Hell, I’m down with that.” Jade said, jumping off of her rock with new found enthusiasm.

  There was no way Avery could think of that this was going to go well. They were tired, sore, and grumpy, and now they were suppose to beat each other up.

  Gumptin was wearing his usual oversized belt with at least seven different small pouches tied and attached to it. He undid a purple velvet pouch with a gold string and untied it. Inside the pouch was a bright red powder that he used to create a giant circle outline, ten feet in diameter.

  “You must stay inside the red circle.” He told them, “You win the match if you inflict your opponent with what would be a killing blow, or you get them outside of the circle.”

  Gumptin handed each of them a wooden sword, “Jade and Skylar, you two go first.”

  Jade stepped into the circle, twirling her sword around in her hand. Avery could tell she was excited. This was Jade’s element; she loved competition, and she loved fighting. Avery was sure Jade would have chosen to go against Bunny or Sasha, preferring to kick their ass, but she would make do with Skylar.

  Skylar stepped into the circle, across from Jade. She didn’t seem as enthusiastic about it as Jade was, but didn’t complain about it either. Skylar dealt with it the same way she handled most everything, with a light and flighty approach. She danced around in a small circle, stretching her long legs out one at time. She stretched her neck and moved her shoulders around, like a dancer warming up for a performance.

  “You’re going down, trailer trash!” Skylar threw out a little pre-fight trash talk. Skylar was one of the only people Jade let call her trailer trash. Mainly, because Jade liked Skylar, and she knew Skylar meant it lovingly. She just had a crazy way of showing her affection.

  Jade just smiled and set her body into its fighting stance. She let Skylar have her trash talk, confident enough to know that the outcome of the fight would speak for itself.

  Jade went on the attack right from the start. She lunged at Skylar, striking at her left side with her sword. Skylar twirled to the right, avoiding Jade’s initial strike. She raised her sword up quickly to protect her body as Jade swung around, swiping at Skylar’s mid-section. Skylar brought her left knee up and kneed Jade hard in the back, right where her ribs were located. Jade grimaced, arching her back slightly. That was all it took to piss Jade off past the point of trying to make it a prolonged fight. Jade bent her knees and then back flipped through the air, landing directly behind Skylar. Before Skylar had time to appropriately react, Jade reached around Skylar’s chest with her right arm. Then, with all her strength, Jade swung her body hard into Skylar’s. Placing her left hand on Skylar’s back, Jade, literally, flipped Skylar’s body up over her head. A second before Skylar’s body hit the ground; Jade whipped her body around and, fast as a flash of light, gave Skylar a quick kick to the stomach.

  Avery grimaced and looked away, shutting her eyes. Gumptin had said the Protectors possessed a high tolerance to injury and an ability to heal quickly. After watching poor Skylar tossed like a rag doll and kicked in the gut, Avery sure hoped he was right.

  The kick sent Skylar rolling backwards and out of the parameter of the red circle. Skylar stopped rolling and sat up, groaning. She winced as she attempted to stand up, obviously in some kind of pain.

  Jade walked over and helped Skylar delicately stand up, “Are you alright?” She asked, in a to
ne that intentionally kept concern out of her voice. It showed that she wanted to make sure that Skylar was alright, but that she wasn’t sorry for winning the fight.

  “I’ll be fine.” Skylar groaned, stretching out a little as she stood, “I just have to re-learn how to breathe.”

  Gumptin shook his head in approval, which was as close as he got to clapping, “Good job, very good job. You must go into every fight with everything you have. Your enemy will never go easy on you.”

  Jade had definitely set the tone. There would be no going easy on each other just because they were friends.

  “Very well done, Jade.” Gumptin told her, “In this instance, your natural aggression actually comes in handy.”

  Avery noticed Jade smile slightly, then quickly turn away so that no one, especially Gumptin, would notice he had said something that pleased her.

  “Skylar,” Gumptin continued, “you need to react faster. Your movements are graceful and fluid, but you must find a way to add speed, especially to defend yourself.”

  Skylar, who was now sitting down outside the circle, resting her wounded self, gave Gumptin an encouraging thumbs up.

  Avery thought Skylar’s black and blue body tomorrow would be more motivation for Skylar to work on her speed, than anything Gumptin could say to her.

  “Next, Avery and Sasha shall fight.” Gumptin said, pointing towards the circle.

  Avery did as she was instructed and followed Gumptin’s finger into the circle. Watching Jade and Skylar’s fight had made one thing blaringly clear to her, she wanted to avoid getting hit or kicked at all costs.

  Looking ahead of her, Avery saw Sasha getting into position. Sasha didn’t seem nervous or scared at all. In fact, she seemed cocky, giving Avery a little smile and tilt of the head. Sasha seemed completely sure she was going to win this fight. Suddenly, everything became very clear cut to Avery. She was being given the chance to do something she had wanted to do for over ten years, to kick Sasha Seraphina’s ass. Avery didn’t care what it took; there was no way she was going to lose this fight.

  The moment Avery got herself into a fighting stance, Sasha came charging at her. Sasha swung her sword at Avery’s head, but Avery managed to duck in time. Before Avery righted herself again, Sasha tried to side kick Avery with her right leg. Avery took her sword hand and slammed it into Sasha’s leg, forcing her leg down. Sasha gasped in pain and Avery stood up, cutting her left hand across her body and punching Sasha square in the jaw.

  Avery heard Jade whoop from outside the circle, but she didn’t let it distract her.

  Sasha swung at Avery hard with her right fist, obviously upset that Avery had been able to hurt her. Avery spun to the right, avoiding Sasha’s fist. As she spun, Avery switched her sword from her right hand to her left, this allowed her to reach up with her right hand and grab a hold of Sasha’s wrist as her arm was still extended. Once she had Sasha’s wrist firmly in her grasp, she pulled Sasha forward and towards her, at the same time she brought her left leg up, kicking Sasha across the chest. Sasha staggered backwards and fell to the ground. Avery walked over to her, about to thrust her sword into Sasha’s exposed chest. Sasha, never one to go down without a fight, came off of the ground in a backwards hand spring, shoving the heel of her boot into Avery’s chest on her way up. The pain hit Avery like a bolt of lightning. It was all Avery could do to flip out of Sasha’s way as she came at her with her sword raised high. As Avery flipped over Sasha, before she hit the ground, she pushed both of her legs hard backwards, slamming Sasha in the middle of the back. Sasha was sent falling forward landing on her face. Avery landed delicately on her hands and knees, rolling over and springing onto her feet in less than a second. While still lying on her stomach Sasha attempted a backwards kick, once again aimed at Avery’s chest as Avery walked towards her, but this time Avery was prepared for it. Avery grabbed Sasha’s ankle and flipped Sasha from her stomach over to her back. The moment Sasha was on her back, Avery had her wooden sword pointed right in the center of Sasha’s chest.

  The girls clapped from the sidelines, happy to see Avery defeat Sasha.

  “That’s my girl!” Jade shouted, clapping louder than the others.

  Sasha ripped her ankle out of Avery’s grip, stood up, and pushed Avery away from her, hard. It didn’t faze Avery at all as she stumbled backwards from Sasha’s shove. She had defeated Sasha, and that was something that would keep her happy for weeks to come.

  Angry about being beaten, Sasha walked over to the sidelines and complained to Gumptin, “I’m so done with this crap! Yesterday I was the girl every boy wanted to date and every girl wanted to be! I was hot, popular, smart, and wealthy!”

  Avery and the other girls exchanged looks, shaking their heads and rolling their eyes. For as long as they had known Sasha, no one had ever thought Sasha Seraphina was as perfect as Sasha herself did.

  “Now,” Sasha kept going, “today, I’m getting beaten up by Avery Kimball! My life has gone to shit!”

  “For crying out loud,” Skylar exclaimed, as sick of Sasha’s tantrum as the rest of them, which was rare for Skylar since she got along better with Sasha than any of the other did, “stop being such a sore loser.”

  “I don’t think Sasha knows how to be anything else.” Jade added. You could always count on Jade to make a tense situation even tenser.

  Sasha turned on Jade, “Jade, sometimes you really need to know when to keep that trashy mouth of yours shut!”

  “Oh, is that so?” Jade asked, walking towards Sasha, still clutching her wooden sword.

  Gumptin held his hands up, silencing everyone, “Enough!” He bellowed, “Sasha, you lost, collect yourself and move past it. Your life may not be what you want it to be. I am sure you are not the only one of the Protectors to feel that way, especially after today.”

  Gumptin looked around at all the girls. He knew very well that none of them, except maybe Jade, would have ever voluntarily chosen to give up their lives on Earth and travel to another planet to battle monsters. Gumptin felt for them, but he also had to make sure that they realized they really didn’t have any choice in the matter; it was their destiny.

  “I know it is hard for all of you,” Gumptin said to them, “but this is a birthright that you cannot escape. You are only alive now because the Elementals gave you a second chance at life. They gave you a second chance so that you could come back and fulfill your destinies as Protectors. If you forsake it, if you forsake them, they could take your life away from you as easily as blowing out a candle.”

  Silence crept over the girls as they let Gumptin’s words sink in. They had to except the duties of a Protector so that the Elementals would let them keep living, and they had to keep training so that they had the skills not to be killed by a hideous enemy. All of a sudden, the girls got the feeling of being very small and very not in control of their own lives. Avery wasn’t convinced the Elementals would actually kill them if they chose not to fight as a Protector, but it wasn’t a theory she would ever be willing to test. Of course, whether it was true or not didn’t matter, since it managed to shut Sasha up real quick. Sasha valued her life far too much to ever put it in even more unnecessary danger.

  “Now, if all the complaining is over, then let us continue.” Gumptin pointed to Jade, “You and Bunny get in the circle.”

  Bunny stood across from Jade looking ready, if not just a little bit frightened. Avery didn’t blame Bunny for being scared about being paired off against Jade. It hardly seemed like a fair fight. Jade could have wiped the floor with Bunny back on Earth, and that was before they had all their super human Protector powers reawakened.

  Jade and Bunny ran towards each other. Before they met in the middle, Bunny vaulted over Jade. This surprised Jade as much as it did the other girls. None of them figured Bunny would have the foresight to do a move like that. Jade was shocked, and the half a second it took her to recover from her shocked state cost her. Bunny landed facing Jade and managed to backhand her along the side of he
r skull before Jade could defend herself. Jade tripped sideways shaking her head. Bunny advanced on Jade. She lifted her sword to swipe at Jade’s side, but this time Jade was ready for Bunny’s attack. Jade lifted her elbow up to deflect the blow; then gave Bunny a hard side kick to her midsection. The kick caused Bunny to flail backwards, giving Jade a chance to go on the attack. As Bunny righted herself, Jade whacked the sword away from Bunny’s hand with her own sword. Once Bunny’s sword was on the ground, Jade laid a hard roundhouse kick on Bunny, causing her to fall face first onto the ground. Jade reached down and grabbed Bunny by the back of her shirt, preparing to flip her over, but before Jade could do anything, Bunny spun herself over and hit Jade hard on the side of her head with her fist. Jade backed away clutching her head, a trail of blood was beginning to run down her face.

  The girls gasped at the sight of the blood. It hadn’t seemed like Bunny’s punch could have caused such a bloody wound, but when Avery looked over to Bunny, she saw Bunny clutching a good sized rock in the fist she had struck Jade with. A flash of the Alex Marquez incident from their youth popped into Avery’s mind.

  As Jade was still clutching at her head, Bunny rolled forward on the ground; knocking Jade over. Bunny picked up her sword from where Jade had knocked it away from her, walked over to Jade, stood over her, and placed the tip of her wooden sword on Jade’s neck.

  “Too bad for you, but you’re dead.” Bunny said, smirking, looking down at Jade.

  The girls stood silent, holding their breath, shocked at what they had just seen. Little Bunny had actually defeated Jade in a one on one fight. Of course, she had pummeled Jade in the head with a rock to win. Avery wasn’t sure if she was more shocked because Bunny had actually won, or because Bunny had done something bordering on dangerously vicious to win.

  Jade snatched the sword away from Bunny and stood up in one fluid movement.

  “Bunny!” Jade growled savagely, advancing on Bunny, clutching the sword like she was about to strike her with it, “What the hell was that?!”

  “I’m sorry.” Bunny said meekly, backing away from Jade. She had transformed back to her usual submissive self. All signs of the formidable warrior Jade had faced were gone, “I really didn’t mean to hit you with the rock. When I landed on the ground I just…”

  “You just what?” Jade angrily interrupted her, “You just unwittingly grabbed onto a rock and accidentally knocked me on the side of the head with it?!”

  Jade lifted up the wooden sword a little more, and Avery was sure she was going to hit Bunny with it.

  “Alright, alright,” Gumptin said, stepping in between them as tears began to form in Bunny’s eyes, “Jade, just calm down. I never said you could not use foreign objects to fight with. In a real battle, if you are weaponless, a rock is a perfectly acceptable means to defend yourself. However,” he looked towards Bunny, “I would discourage from using such tactics against your fellow Protectors.” He gave Bunny an anxiously unsure look.

  Bunny nodded in agreeance and assured Gumptin and Jade it would never happen again.

  Jade threw the sword down, “Unbelievable.” She said in disgust, walking back over to Avery.

  “I guess Bunny was out for blood…literally.” Skylar told Jade, staring at the red stain on her face.

  Avery took out a crumpled unused tissue she had stuck in her pocket before she left her house and handed it to Jade to help clean herself up. There was a lot of blooding running down her face, but the wound itself didn’t look too bad.

  “Well, since Bunny won,” Gumptin scrunched up his face, “however controversial, that means Avery and Bunny will fight each other.”

  Avery stepped into the circle and glanced around the ground, searching for any visible rocks. The last thing she was going to do was let Bunny near any of them. Across from her, Bunny seemed to have gotten over inadvertently slicing Jade’s head open. She looked ready and determined.

  Avery and Bunny circled each other for a minute, getting closer and closer. When they were only inches apart, Bunny thrust her sword towards Avery’s stomach. Avery deflected it with a swipe of her own sword. Then, Bunny went on the attack. She struck left with her sword, swiped right, thrust, and swiped left. Avery deflected the blows, but Bunny’s aggression was throwing her off. After watching Bunny defeat Jade, she had known going into the fight that Bunny was a much better fighter than she would have ever given her credit for, but her tenacity was something Avery hadn’t been prepared for.

  Bunny brought her sword up and attempted to bring it down on Avery’s shoulder. She struck left, right, left again, and finally straight down on Avery’s head. Avery managed to stop each blow. Getting tired of being on the defensive, she took a step backwards and threw her sword from her right hand to her left. Avery watched as Bunny’s eyes followed her sword from her right to left hand, and in that fraction of a second that Bunny took her eyes off of Avery’s right hand, Avery closed it into a fist and clocked Bunny hard on the left side of her face. The few seconds it took Bunny to collect herself allowed Avery to handspring away from her and into an offensive position. Bunny shook her head, as if she was trying to wipe Avery’s punch away. Bunny charged towards Avery, and Avery let her get within just a few feet before her body made the unconscious decision to fling her sword at Bunny. The sword sailed through the air before striking Bunny directly in her chest, knocking her to the ground.

  “Oh, yes!” Jade cheered from the sidelines, “Too bad for you, Bunny, but I think you’re dead!”

  Avery walked over to where Bunny was laying on the ground, on her back, and offered Bunny her hand, “You ok?” She asked, hoping her blow hadn’t hurt Bunny.

  Bunny smiled and grabbed onto Avery’s hand, pulling herself up, “I’ll live.” She told Avery, “I lost to you, which is a hundred times better than losing to Jade.”

  “Very well done, both of you.” Gumptin said, smiling broader than he had all day, “Now, you may put everything away.”

  The girls weren’t thrilled about having to put away all the weapons and other equipment, but they knew that once they did, they would be that much closer to being able to go home, and that made them ecstatic.

  The girls placed all of the weapons away back into the large storage pit, then began trying to un-stake the target dummies from the ground. As Avery was helping Jade loosen one of the heavy metal stakes, her eyes glanced over to the black stone altar in the center of the clearing. She had been practicing around it all day, but now as she stared at it, she began to wonder why it was even there and what purpose it served. With all the misery Gumptin had put them through throughout the day; she hadn’t had a moment of calm to think about it.

  When they had un-staked the targets, Avery let the other girls carry them back to the pit. She walked over to the altar in order get a better look at it. The black stones that the altar was made from were smooth, like river rocks. The altar, itself, stood as tall as Avery’s waist, and the broad metal bowl attached to the altar reached her chest.

  Gumptin meandered over to Avery, watching Avery examine the altar.

  “What exactly is this, Gumptin?” Avery asked, walking around the altar, letting her fingers delicately brush the green moss growing on it.

  “That is the Elysianth altar.” Gumptin answered her, “I told you this clearing was powerful, well this is the epicenter of the power. It is where someone with the skill and knowledge of the old magic would perform a spell or ritual to harness or tap into the power of Elysianth.”

  Avery tilted her head and looked into the oversized metal bowl connected to the top of it. She didn’t really expect to find anything in it, except maybe a few leaves and some dust. That’s why when she saw the ashy remnants of something having been burnt she was surprised.

  “Do people use this to light fires in?” Avery asked Gumptin, wondering if maybe that’s what the Protector’s used the altar for if they were ever out there at night.

  “What?!” Gumptin said, a bit more loud and abrupt than Avery th
ought necessary, “This altar has not been used for at least a century.”

  Avery snorted, “Well,” she said, running her index finger through the burnt debris, “somebody used it as a fire pit not too long ago.”

  Gumptin rushed over and stood directly next to Avery. Avery took a small step to her left, so that he wouldn’t be plastered against her leg.”

  “What is in there?” Gumptin sounded anxious, “What do you see?” He stood on his tip-toes trying to see into the bowl, but barely made it eye level to the top of the altar, let alone, the bowl.

  Avery glanced at Gumptin, curious as to why he was acting so paranoid, “Nothing, really,” Avery told him, “just burnt stuff. I have no idea what it was, maybe paper or leaves.”

  Avery continued to swish her fingers through the ash in the bowl. All of a sudden, her finger hit something solid.

  “Hold on a second,” Avery said, reaching both her thumb and index finger in and pulling out the object, “I think I found something.”

  Next to her, Gumptin moved around nervously, impatiently waiting to see what she had found.

  Avery pulled it out and dusted it off, still not quite sure of what it was. She continued brushing the gray ash off and turning the thin finger-length object around in her hand. Then, in a flash, she realized what it was. It was a blackened and burned, thin, finger-length bone.

  “Ewwww!” Avery exclaimed, dropping the bone on the ground and quickly wiping her hand off on her pants.

  Gumptin immediately bent down and snatched up the bone off of the ground. He looked the bone up and down carefully. When he brought it up to his nose and sniffed it, Avery thought she might throw up. Gumptin tucked the bone away securely in one of the tiny fabric pouches he had hanging on his belt.

  “Was there anything else in there?” He asked, “Any bits of flesh?”

  “Flesh?!” Avery hollered, “Gross….I don’t know, everything’s burnt away except that icky little bone.”

  “This is very unusual.” Gumptin said, more to himself than to Avery, “A spell cast here involving a bird bone cannot be a good thing.”

  Avery continued wiping the ash off on her pants, “Spells, and bird bones,” Avery griped, “you magical people are just freaky. What do you think happened here?”

  Gumptin shook his head, “I am not sure. I will have to consult the Elementals; only they would know.”

  Avery didn’t have near enough energy to listen to Gumptin talk about Elementals and spells performed in sacred places. She could tell that Gumptin was concerned about whatever had happened here, but she also knew that Gumptin was one of the most diligent and dogged beings she had ever met. Whatever had happened, she knew Gumptin would figure it out.

  “Fine, you’ll talk to the Elementals. Can we please, please just leave now?” Avery walked over to join the other girls finishing up putting everything away.

  Avery threw one last wooden sword into the pit, then covered the hole up with the large canvas and helped spread debris on top of it, making sure it was camouflaged, something Gumptin said was very important. By the time they had finished with everything, the sun was beginning to set in the sky, giving a deep purple glow to the now empty clearing.

  “Very good,” Gumptin told them when they had finished, “now, follow me.”

  It was only because Gumptin started walking in the direction of the village that the girls did as he asked.

  The walk back to the village seemed to go on forever. Avery’s body fought her the whole way. After twelve hours of the most grueling work Avery had ever done, her body demanded she lay down and stop using it. She tried to keep her mind on her soft comfy bed and a warm shower, just to give her enough motivation to follow Gumptin back to the village.

  When they did finally make it back to the village, the girls began to disperse in their separate ways, not one of them saying or waving goodbye.

  Gumptin was still walking ahead of them, and without even turning around to see that they were each on their own paths to go home, he said, “Before you return to your homes, I need the five of you to follow me.” Before any of the girls had a chance to protest, Gumptin added, “You can come with me tonight, or you can come with me tomorrow after you have trained for an extra hour added on for not coming with me tonight.”

  Avery groaned. From where she stood she was able to see her house. There was smoke coming out of the side metal chimney and warm yellow lights shining out from the bottom floor windows. She could even see her balcony, protruding out from the large tree trunk in the growing darkness. Avery knew just beyond that balcony was her room, and in that room was a bed that she longed for more than she had ever remembered longing for anything in her life. It was hard for Avery to turn away from the inviting sight in front of her, but there was no way in the world she was going to train for an extra hour tomorrow.

  The rest of the girls shared Avery’s mind set, even Jade. Avery could see Jade’s jaw clenched tight, a clear sign she was biting her tongue, fighting the urge to actually say what she was thinking.

  They each fell in line silently behind Gumptin, following him to wherever he desired. Where he desired, as it turned out, was a large tree house. Avery wasn’t going to count the trees on either side of it, but she was pretty sure the house was in the center of the village. The bark of the tree was dark and there were only two very small square windows in it, both in the front of the tree. The door leading into it was round and the same color as the bark of the tree. If it weren’t for the ornate brass lock and round doorknob, it would look as if there was no door at all. There was a glass lamp on the right side of the door.

  Gumptin waved one of his small hands towards the lamp and said the words, “Siata Doso Illumia.”

  Inside the lamp there was a small red flicker, and then it burst into an orange glow.

  The girls stood, shocked. They had known Gumptin was a Wizard, but besides seeing him open the gateway, which they were told anyone could do, hadn’t actually seen him do anything magical.

  “Dude, that was awesome!” Skylar shouted, clapping Gumptin on the back, “If this was Earth, you could totally own Vegas!”

  Once the lamp was lit, the girls could see that above the door, a small wooden sign hung from a metal post stuck into the tree. Written in dark green calligraphic letters, the sign said, ‘The Library‘.

  “After everything you’ve put us through today, now you made us follow you to a library?” Jade blurted out, finished with biting her tongue, “Unless we need to learn how to fight a librarian, I’m going home.”

  “This is not like the libraries you are use to Jade.” Gumptin told her.

  Avery laughed out loud at that idea and couldn’t stop herself from saying what came out of her mouth, “I don’t think Jade’s ever been in a library in her life, so she has no basis for comparison, Gumptin.” Avery laughed even harder the more she thought about the idea of Jade in a library. Jade rarely went to school voluntarily, let alone a library.

  Jade reached over and punched Avery on her upper arm, “Don’t mock me in front of the elf, stupid!” She yelled at Avery.

  Ignoring the fact that Jade had once again inaccurately called him an elf, Gumptin continued explaining, “This is not an actual library, per se. This is the Protectors home base. It is in here that you have your meetings, discuss your course of actions, and where Avery gives her orders.”

  Avery saw Sasha roll her eyes on that last part, and she wondered if the joy she felt from knowing how much it tormented Sasha to think of taking orders from her made her a bad person. It only took a brief second for Avery to come to the conclusion that she didn’t care, and that she would continue to relish Sasha’s aggravation.

  “Inside are stockpiles of different weapons.” Gumptin went on, “There are maps of every region and village on Orcatia. Notes and journals on your battles and exploits are kept in the library, some written by you, some written by me, and even others by a third party. Any letters you receive asking for help or thanking
you are also kept in there. Plus, although, it is not an actual library, in the literal sense, the second floor is entirely used as a library for the Protectors.” Gumptin’s voice began to carry a hint of excitement as he talked about this, “There are hundreds and hundreds of books containing information on different monsters and spells, Wizards, Demons, and prophecies. There are history books detailing any and every event that has ever occurred on Orcatia.” As he spoke, it was obvious how much Gumptin cared for the books, much more so than any weapon he had showed the girls how to use that day.

  When he finished explaining to the girls exactly what the library was, he reached into another cloth satchel hanging from his belt and pulled out six large silver keys. He gave one to each of the girls, and held on to the sixth one for himself.

  “Keep these on you at all times, and whatever you do, do not lose them.” Gumptin said this, staring directly and intently at Bunny.

  The key was as large as Avery’s hand, and she had no idea where she was suppose to keep it. It certainly wasn’t going to fit on any key chain she had ever seen. The key, itself, was tarnished silver with a fancy letter ‘L’ engraved into it just below the top ring loop.

  Gumptin stuck his oversized key into the oversized lock and turned it, opening the door.

  The girls walked into a dark and narrow entryway. From just a few feet ahead of them, they heard Gumptin shout, “Siata Doso Illumia Allea”

  A few seconds after he uttered those words, every lamp inside the tree house burst into light.

  Now, with everything lit up, the girls shuffled farther into the headquarters. The entryway stretched on for a few feet and was only wide enough for two girls to walk side by side comfortably.

  Avery and Jade were the first two in behind Gumptin, and they squeezed their way through the entryway, their arms pressed up against each other.

  It was easy enough for them to see over Gumptin, to the main room of the library. It was a large room, with the walls painted a dark green, and shaggy brown rugs scattered across the wooden floor. In the center of the room was a broad, circular, dark wooden table. There were seven chairs, all different sizes, with different colored cushions, spread around the table. On top of the table were several maps, a book entitled, ‘Forces of Great Power During the Xenic Age’, and multiple scraps of paper with writing on them.

  As Avery moved closer to the items on the table, she was able to get a better view of the maps. Unlike the maps stuck to the wall of her room, with past events written upon them, these maps seemed to have plans for future actions drawn on them. There were red arrows drawn onto the map, pointing towards a forest region called Darksin Forest, located around the Emperor’s fortress. Above the red arrows were written the words, ‘Weak point, 500+ strong needed, Elves from the right, Horses to fortress gate’. Avery had no idea what it could possibly mean, but she noticed it was written in her hand writing. Another thing she noticed that was written in her hand writing were some of the notes on the strewn pieces of paper. She picked up one of the notes and read it, ‘October 11th- Emperor’s army at Blackmore’s border. Reports of 800+. King Jeremus’s army holding off invasion on western front. 200 dead. October 15th- Blackmore still holding. King Jeremus asking for help (unable to lend aid). King Draven sending part of his army to help. October 25th - Led Protectors into Hunthill. Small group of Emperor’s army trying to advance on the Eastern front (were able to hold them off). Battle lasted four days. 250+ dead. Sasha received head wound (not too bad, but keep eye on her). October 27th - Stormfell Mountain dwarves joined Emperor. Heading to Stormfell to stop invasion of mountain villages. October 31st - Back from Stormfell. Village of Gunning lost. Dwarves and Emperor’s army held back (for now). Injured right shoulder. Body is sore. November 3rd - Emperor’s army regrouping. Pushing harder on Blackmore. King Draven sent rest of army south to Kellington where Emperor is trying to invade from southern border. November 5th - Fight in village of Klover. Enemy led by two Were Demons. One Demon forced to talk - said Emperor will attempt to take over villages on the coast (better access to ocean ports). Leaving to port town of Secregorn tomorrow. (Body still sore - rewrap wounds before journey). November 10th - Back from Secregorn. Few small battles. Emperor’s army still mainly congregating near Darksin. 4 more villages have fallen in our absence. Emperor advancing more heavily on Blackmore. King Jeremus close to falling. Port villages defended, but weak. More and more going over to Emperor. Gumptin searching for solution in his old books. Sasha and Skylar injured. Jade hurting (though she won’t admit it). Bunny struggling. My body is so sore. November 13th - More fighting. Trying to advance, but not making any headway. Need the use of the King’s army and the elves, any others willing to help. Over 1500+ Orcatians confirmed dead. Protectors are failing’. The last entry was dated November 17th, the day before they had died. It said, ‘Nothing but more fighting. Can’t hold Emperor back. More people die. Protectors grow more tired and hurt. Bunny was right, something has to change’. Below the last line were written words that had been crossed out. Avery brought the paper up to her face, to try and make out what was scratched out. The words said, ‘I’m so tired. So tired. Too tired’.

  Avery read the notes she had written in her previous life on Orcatia and couldn’t stop the cold knot forming in the pit of her stomach. Everything was written as simply as if it were a grocery list. Avery was surprised at the ease and detachment her previous self could have written about death and fighting. Just reading the notes made Avery feel like curling up in a little ball and crying. She wanted to curl the paper up into a little ball and throw it in the trash, but resisted since she was sure it contained information they might need sometime in the future. So instead, she let the laundry list of despair fall back onto the table. There was a momentary thought she had to try and study the notes more to get a better idea of what she should expect as a Protector, but Avery knew full well that her mind wasn’t yet ready to accept the fact, that at some point in the near future, she too would have to live through the events she had written about.

  Next to the notes with her writing on it, Avery spotted a piece of paper with what she recognized as Jade’s hand writing. It read, “November 11th - Patrol with Skylar on the Selvin Road, encountered small group of trolls, one ugly bastard escaped (Skylar wouldn’t let me follow it into Darksin - Per Avery’s orders to keep out of that area), witnessed Emperor’s army advancing on Blackmore - (Note: inform Avery)’. Avery smiled, it comforted her that Jade seemed at least slightly similar to her previous self. For her own part, the more and more she found out about her Orcatian life, the more tightly she wanted to hold on to the life she had on Earth.

  The other girls walked up to the table to look at the maps and read the notes.

  “Wow,” Skylar said, after picking up Avery’s notes and reading over them, “this is crazy heavy stuff. I can‘t believe you wrote this, Av.”

  Jade grabbed the paper out of Skylar’s hand and glanced over it. Once she had gotten the general idea of what Avery had written, she looked up at Avery, concern written all over her face. It was obvious she hadn’t liked what she read.

  “Skylar’s right, this is pretty heavy stuff.” She told Avery, setting the piece of paper back on the table and staring back up at her, “You ok with this?”

  Avery shrugged, not quite sure if she was or not, but not wanting to concern the others with any anxiety the notes had given her, “Don’t worry about me.” She told Jade and the rest of the girls, “I remember as much as you guys do, which is nothing. I don’t remember living through those things, let alone writing about them.”

  “Sure,” Jade said, not wanting to push her any further, “if you’re fine, than I’m fine. You just don’t really sound like the Avery I know in these notes.”

  Tell me about it, thought Avery. She turned her attention to the rest of the room to take her mind off of her past Protector activities. The dark green walls were covered with maps, just like her room. They were maps of different kingdoms, the moun
tainous kingdom of Blackmore, and the kingdom of Espria, which seemed to consist of mainly grasslands. There was the kingdom of Greycian, surrounded on three sides by large bodies of water. The kingdom of Eternel had dark forests and rocky mountains. Then there was a map of their own kingdom of Nightfell, with their village, Havyn, located on the map, surrounded by the Wildwood forest. King Draven’s castle rested in the center of the kingdom, acting as the focal point of the map. There were a dozen other maps mounted on the walls, all of different kingdoms, with different mountain ranges, forests, villages, and oceans. Avery sincerely hoped Gumptin wasn’t expecting them to learn all of the different locations and landmarks.

  There was an open doorway off to the left side of the room. It led into a narrow hallway that led off to two separate smaller rooms. The first of the two rooms was a cramped weapons storage room. The walls were lined with different weapons, there were rows of crossbows, swords, axes, knives, whips, bows, and staffs. The second room was just as cramped, except this room was filled with three flimsy looking straw beds, each with one pillow and one blanket. Avery assumed they must have slept over here when they were busy and needed a quick nap. Although she couldn’t imagine getting any sort of restful sleep in those awkward beds. There was one small wooden nightstand in between the first two beds with a dim lit lamp and a short stack of books. Avery didn’t bother to look at what the books might be, figuring they were most likely in the same vein as the book on her bedroom night stand, involving spells, and creatures, and how to defeat them.

  After a quick examination of both rooms, Avery walked back out to the main room. There was a large spiral staircase off to the right side that led up to the second floor. Avery grabbed onto the thick wooden banister and proceeded up to the next floor. The staircase was wide enough for Avery to lie down straight across the stairs head to toe, and dark burgundy carpeting covered each wooden step. It spiraled around twice before leading Avery out onto the second story landing.

  The first thing that Avery noticed was the smell. The scent of dust and old books, mixed in with an almost musky cinnamon smell, floated up her nose. The floor creaked beneath Avery’s feet as she walked farther into the room. There were rows and rows of bookshelves, most of them stretching over ten feet high, hitting the top of the ceiling. On the outside of the bookshelves were handwritten signs, labeling the different categories of books. Avery walked down between the two shelves labeled, ‘Ancient Demons, 2000 yrs. +, M-Z’, and ‘Poisons, A-S’. The shelves were packed so tightly with books of every different size that some books sat on top of each other at odd angles, just daring a reader to try and grab one without causing the entire stack to topple over. Some of the books appeared fairly new, but others looked so old and tattered, Avery was sure if she tried to take them off of their shelf, they would fall apart in her hands. Avery blew on one of the rows of books on poisons beginning with the letter E and small cloud of dust blew up in her face. She coughed and cleared the air in front of her face with her hand. Rubbing at her nose, which the dust was beginning to make tickle, Avery turned her attention to the row of bookshelves. The books on Demons weren’t as dusty and in much more disarray, an indication they received a lot more use than the books on poison. A black leather-bound book on the bottom row caught her attention. It was sticking out about an inch over the bottom shelf, like someone had been recently reading it and put it away hastily. Avery reached down and picked up the book. In faded red letters and a stylized cursive that Avery could barely make out, the title read, ‘The Nexus Demon by Leoflin the Wizard’, Avery heard someone else coming up the stairs and bent down to quickly put the book away. She didn’t bother to kneel down or squat, which meant the book, looked just as it had before, sticking over the edge.

  The end of the two stacks led out to a narrow middle walkway lined with overstuffed and battered old plushy looking chairs. Brass pillar candleholders with sturdy white candles sat next to the chairs and helped to light up the room. As Avery got closer to the candles, she realized they were releasing the soft cinnamon scent gently filling the air. Avery stepped into the hallway and looked it up and down and back and forth. There were more rows of bookshelves lining the other side of the hallway. At least twenty rows of shelves, from what Avery could tell, and that was just on this side of the room. The lack of windows, burgundy walls, dark wood, candlelight, and cramped quarters lulled Avery into a relaxed state, reminding her just how tired she really was. She glanced over at a lumpy blue velvet chair and wondered if she curled up in it and fell asleep it would bother the others.

  Avery was about to sit down in the chair, just to rest her aching body for a second, when Gumptin called from downstairs, “Ladies, can I see you all down here for a moment?”

  Avery stopped herself half-sit, and ignoring her screaming thighs, made her way down the stairs. She was followed down the stairs by Bunny, who had a book in her hand. Avery had figured that if one of them was going to walk out of there with a book in hand, it would be Bunny.

  When Avery arrived downstairs she saw Jade, Skylar, and Sasha entering from the weapons storage room and that Gumptin had laid out a few weapons on the large round table. Among other things, there were five broadswords tied together with a leather buckle strap.

  “These are yours.” Gumptin said, handing out the swords to each of the girls.

  Each sword was different, and the one Avery was handed had a thick steel cross-guard with an intricate scroll work etched into it. The grip was white pearlescent and the pommel at the top of the hilt was a silver crescent moon with a crystal jewel inlay. The sword was safely tucked away in a black leather scabbard that silver horses emblazoned on it.

  Avery unsheathed the sword and held tightly onto the smooth handle. She swung it back and forth a little, making sure she didn’t hit any of her fellow Protectors in the process. The sword was heavy, but not so much that it gave Avery trouble to wield it with just one hand. Avery couldn’t understand or describe how holding the sword was making her feel. She had practiced with a wooden sword in the clearing earlier today, but something about holding this particular sword, at this moment, was causing some sort of feeling to stir up inside of her. Avery would have thought it was a feeling of comfort, if she hadn’t believed it utterly ridiculous to be comforted by a metal object used for killing things.

  “These are all of your everyday weapons. They were summoned back to the village with you after you died.” Gumptin told the girls, as he handed out the rest of the weapons he had placed on the table.

  “I just love how you talk about us dying, with about as much emotion as you would have ordering a drink.” Jade said sarcastically, grabbing onto a ragged silver handled knife Gumptin was handing over to her.

  Gumptin scrunched up his nose, “I never drink,” he said, shaking his head emphatically, “it has devastatingly awful affects on my Wizarding abilities.”

  Avery smiled, imaging the incident that led Gumptin to that realization.

  Gumptin handed Avery three different daggers, a medium sized one with a white handle and jewel on top, that Gumptin told her went into her belt, another medium sized dagger with a thin brass handle that went into her boot, and a third long steel dagger in a black leather sheath with two straps that went around her wrist and arm. The second Avery took the dagger out of the sheath, a flash of an image went off inside of her head, she saw herself unsheathe the dagger, and then saw a flood of red cover her hands. The image lasted less than a second, and then it was gone. Avery grabbed on to the table to stop herself from teetering over.

  “Are you alright?” Jade asked, concerned, about ready to put down the dangerous looking curved dagger she was stroking admiringly and rush to Avery’s side.

  “I’m fine,” Avery said, stopping Jade by holding up her hand, “it’s just hitting me how tired I am.”

  “You and me both.” Skylar quipped, “Not even dance practice prepared me for this.”

  Avery smiled at Skylar and avoided eye contact with Jade. She f
igured it was probably just some weird déjà vu she was having from her life before Earth. Nothing to worry herself over, she told herself, and certainly nothing to worry Jade over.

  Gumptin handed Avery a wide black leather belt with a silver buckle and what looked like another smaller black leather belt with straps attached to it. Avery just stared at it, not taking it from Gumptin’s hand. The belt, itself, she understood, but she had no idea how she was suppose to wear the smaller belt with the straps.

  “Get down here.” Gumptin grumbled, frustrated he was having to actually show her how to put it on.

  Avery kneeled down. Gumptin strapped the belt around Avery’s ribcage, just below her chest. Gumptin pulled it tight and attempted to fasten the buckle into the well-worn second belt hole.

  “Ouch!” Avery cried out as Gumptin braced his shoulder against Avery’s body and pulled with all his strength on the belt, finally fastening it.

  “There, how is that?” He said, panting, looking proudly at the fastened belt.

  “Tight,” Avery grimaced, trying to move her ribcage around under the constrictive belt, “it hurts.”

  Gumptin stared at Avery and the belt scrutinizingly, “Hmmm, I think you have gained a few pounds since you have last worn that.”

  Avery stopped squirming under the belt and glared at Gumptin with a look that could kill. Standing above Avery, Sasha guffawed, and even Jade couldn’t stop herself from snickering a little.

  “Now, that’s a real ouch.” Skylar joked, laughing.

  Completely oblivious to the laughs of the other girls, Gumptin suggested, “Perhaps we should try to loosen it one belt loop.”

  Sasha burst into laughter.

  “It’ll be fine!” Avery snapped, abruptly ending the weight part of the conversation, “Just show me what to do with the other straps.

  Gumptin took the straps, which were attached to the back of the belt, and crisscrossed them over Avery’s shoulders and across her chest, where they attached into two little holes on the front of the belt. Now that Avery was all strapped in properly to the contraption, she still had no idea what purpose it served.

  Gumptin reached up to the table and picked up what looked like an oversized sword sheath with two small circular straps on the underside. It was made out of black leather, just like Avery’s belt and had the same silver horse design emblazoned on it as her sword sheath did. There were fifteen long arrows with white feather tips sticking out from inside of it.

  “This is a quiver,” Gumptin said, “it is used to hold your arrows in.”

  He strapped the quiver onto one of the straps crisscrossing Avery’s back. Then, took the sheath for Avery’s sword, and with two small leather straps, tied the sheath on to the second strap crisscrossing Avery’s back.

  Avery picked up the sword Gumptin had given her and slid it into the sheath. Once the sword was in its sheath, Avery reached back with her right hand and pulled the sword out. She felt the blade of the sword graze her hair, centimeters away from her ear. Avery made a mental note to practice that move some more before trying it again and at a much slower speed.

  Next, Gumptin grabbed one of five bows that had been leaning against the table. The one he handed Avery was made out of a dark wood, so dark it almost looked black, with a silver vine design encircling it. If Avery had been standing it would have reached up to her waist. The ends were curved slightly and had silver metal tips. Gumptin hooked the bow around the quiver on Avery’s back.

  “Stand up,” he told her, “stand up and turn around. How does it feel?”

  Avery did as Gumptin instructed. She stood up and moved around, turning and bending.

  Gumptin smiled, “Feels good, does it not?” He said, “You use to wear that all the time before you went to Earth. It was like a second skin to you.”

  Honestly, to Avery, it didn’t feel good at all. It felt constrictive and cumbersome, and Avery couldn’t wait till she was able to take it off.

  “Whatever,” Avery sighed under her breath, and then, not wanting to upset Gumptin’s smiling and proud face too much, she said loudly, “It feels great.”

  “I knew it would.” Gumptin beamed and continued to pass out the rest of the weapons to the girls.

  By the time Gumptin had finished distributing all the weapons, Avery not only had her sword, bow, arrows, and daggers, but also a crossbow and whip that Gumptin told her attached to the saddle she would be using on her horse.

  “Are we done, already?” Sasha asked, trying to hold on to all of the weapons Gumptin had just given her, but doing a poor job as a tiny dagger the size of a toothpick slipped out of her hands and onto the floor, “Can we go home and try to get some sleep,” She said angrily, picking up her dagger off the ground, “or is there some new torment you’d like to put us through?”

  Gumptin shrugged nonchalantly and shook his head, “No,” he answered, “you may leave now.”

  The girls let out sighs of relief and began to try and amble out of the library.

  “Just remember,” Gumptin called out, before any of them had a chance to make it through the door and out to freedom, “dawn tomorrow, same place, and this time make sure you are all on time! I would hate to have to make you work any harder than you already fail at doing!”

  All of the girls ignored him, except for Jade, who for the second time that day, presented Gumptin with her middle finger raised high up in the air.

  Avery and Jade were the last two girls left in the library, when Avery turned to Jade and said, “You go ahead. I’m going to have a little talk with Gumptin about tomorrow’s training session.”

  “I’ll stay with you for that.” Jade told Avery, “I’d like to have a little talk with Gumptin about our training sessions, too.”

  Avery chuckled, “No, that’s exactly why you should go. If you end up talking to Gumptin, we’ll all end up spending an extra two hours in training.”

  Jade hesitated for a moment; then gave in, “Fine,” she said, “just don’t waste too much time with him. I can tell that little bastard isn’t gonna go easy on us, and you need to make sure you get some rest.”

  “I will.” Avery told her, “See you tomorrow.”

  The real reason Avery had wanted to talk to Gumptin alone had nothing to do with training. She wanted to speak with him about the incident involving the eyes in the gateway at the park. Avery had wanted to talk with Gumptin alone so as not to worry the other girls, and with this new life of hers being so hectic, now seemed like the only time she would be able to do it. Avery walked over to where Gumptin was sitting at the table, writing something down on a large yellow parchment of paper.

  “Something is troubling you.” Gumptin said, continuing to write, “You may have changed a great deal Avery, even more than I would like to admit, but you would never come speak to me alone unless something were bothering you,” Gumptin looked up at her, “and that has not changed.”

  Avery sat down in the seat next to Gumptin and proceeded to tell him about the terrible black eyes she had seen floating in the Ora Gateway before she had jumped in and how they had produced the sharp pain she had felt in her chest.

  Gumptin listened intently, taking in every detail of Avery’s description. When she had finished, Gumptin sighed and hung his head, a weary look clouding over his face. Avery could tell Gumptin knew exactly what it was she had seen and that it might be worse than she had thought.

  “That, Avery,” Gumptin said, a tired strain in his voice, “was the Emperor. Those were his eyes. He is powerful enough to use the gateway as a mirror to see into different worlds. If you saw his eyes, it means that he saw you, and that he now knows the Protectors are alive and back on Orcatia. It means that he will most likely try and attack soon, sooner than I had hoped. It means you will not have time for much training before returning to fighting.” Gumptin sighed even deeper, “This is very troubling Avery. Someone must have told him of your return; it is the only way he could have known what gateway to look through and when.” He rubb
ed at his temples, “I really must speak to the Elementals, and soon.”

  The sight of Gumptin looking so weary troubled Avery more than what Gumptin had to say. Yes, Avery could admit that the eyes she had seen had been terrifying, but besides what she had been told, a pair of glowering eyes, and some random scribbling on a few pieces of paper, Avery had no real experience with the Emperor. To Avery, Gumptin might as well have been talking about some villain out a scary story. She tried to convince her mind and body to be scared or apprehensive, but as of this moment, it just wasn’t working.

  The one thing that did concern her slightly, she decided to ask about, “Gumptin, what was that pain I felt in my chest when saw those eyes?”

  Gumptin shrugged, not seeming near as bothered by it as Avery was, “It was most likely just the Emperor’s power causing your body to remember something it connects with Emperor. More like an echo of pain than actual pain.”

  This took Avery back, “Echo my ass, it actually hurt!” She protested.

  “Yes, I suppose it would,” Gumptin told her, “but it won’t actually physically harm you in any way.”

  That was all Avery could take hearing for the night. The Emperor knew they were back, Gumptin was going to talk to the Elementals, and her heart was intact and damage free. Anything else Gumptin had to say, Avery was way beyond too tired to listen to. Avery stood up and gathered all of her weapons into and under her arms.

  “Well, I hate to leave when you look so depressed,” She said to Gumptin, “but you kicked my butt too hard today for me not to go home and try to get some rest.”

  When Gumptin didn’t answer her after a few seconds, lost in thought, staring down at the paper he had written on not long ago, Avery took it as her queue to leave. She gave Gumptin one last concerned look, then walked out of the library and into the dark Orcatian night.

  Avery could see the large trees of the forest silhouetted through the moonlight in front of her. The black still forest was in sharp contrast to the busy village going on around her. Bright lights shone out from the giant tree houses to her right and left, and out of those same houses poured the delightful smells of evening dinners. Avery took a deep breath in, the smells of meats, breads, and spices made her stomach growl, letting Avery know just how much it was craving food. Gripping tighter on to the weapons she was holding, so as not to drop any, she turned to her right and began to make her way home.

  Three tree houses down she stopped in front of Bott’s Apothecary & Sweets. She hadn’t meant to stop, but the delicious scents of cinnamon, vanilla, yeast, and chocolate, literally stopped her in her tracks, and once again caused her stomach to scream out its hunger.

  Mrs. Bott was standing in the open doorway sweeping off a yellow welcome matt with her broom. Her hair was up in a bun piled on top of her head, just as Avery had always seen it, and stuffed under a purple bonnet with a pink bow on top. She wore a purple dress with a pink and red striped apron tied around her plump waist, although, Avery didn’t see the point of her wearing an apron at all, since she seemed to have more flour stained across her actual dress than on the apron.

  When Mrs. Bott glanced up and saw Avery gazing into her shop, a huge smile swept over her face and she exclaimed, “Avery, what a lovely surprise!”

  She threw her broom down behind her, not caring where it landed and quickly shuffled over to sweep Avery up in an encompassing hug. Avery grunted as the impact of the hug caused the crossbow she was carrying under her arm to slam into her side.

  Mrs. Bott, still smiling broadly, released Avery, and then with just one breath, rushed to tell her, “Oh, it’s so nice to see you! What are you doing here?” She looked down at all the weapons Avery had in her hands, “What on Orcatia is all that stuff you’re lugging around? Oh, you must be here to see Wilbur! Are you sure you can carry all of that by yourself; you’re such a tiny little thing. Wilbur,” she called out, “Avery’s here! Of course, I suppose you can carry heavy stuff better than any man here. Wilbur, get out here!”

  Avery gazed at Mrs. Bott, shocked at how the woman could say so much in just one breath. Avery didn’t know how to respond to her, or if she was even suppose to for that matter.

  “Wilbur!” Mrs. Bott yelled, again, “Would you please get your string bean butt out here?!”

  A split second later, a skinny bald man with a gray beard and bushy eyebrows, standing over six feet tall, came rushing out of the shop. He was hurrying so fast, he didn’t see the broom Mrs. Bott had discarded on the ground. His large right foot caught under the broom handle, tripping him, causing him to pummel forward, right into Mrs. Bott’s back. Luckily, she was sturdy enough for the impact only to move her a step forward. She turned and looked at the poor man as if he had just spanked a chicken.

  “Sorry, Beatrice,” He told her timidly, “I think somebody left something in the doorway that I tripped over.”

  Mrs. Bott scoffed, hitting Wilbur lightly in the stomach, “Don’t be ridiculous, no one would do such a thing.”

  Wilbur nodded and coughed slightly, “Yes, dear, whatever you say.”

  “Anyway,” Mrs. Bott said lightly, changing the subject, “Avery is here to see you.”

  Avery, who hadn’t said a word since Mrs. Bott had seen her, suddenly realized she was going to have to speak. Watching Mrs. Bott and Wilbur had been like watching a film. So much so, that she had actually forgotten she was supposed to be a part of the interaction.

  Avery shook her head, focusing her thoughts, “No…no,” she stammered, “I’m not here to see him.” She nodded her head towards Wilbur, unable to point with her hands so full, “I was just walking home from training and stopped to smell your food. It smelled soooo good, I couldn’t help it.”

  “Oh.” Mrs. Bott said, sounding slightly surprised, and then bursting into laughter, “Oh, dear me.” Mrs. Bott laughed so hard she had to wipe her eyes, “To think of it,” she giggled, “Avery Kimball here for my treats.”

  Mrs. Bott was laughing so heartily, Avery almost felt like she should laugh along with her, but the fact she had no idea what the woman was laughing at stopped her.

  “Beatrice,” Wilbur said, placing his hands on Mrs. Bott’s shoulders, trying to stop her from laughing, “the girl doesn’t remember anything from this life.”

  Mrs. Bott’s laughter died down till she was almost frowning, “Oh, dear, I keep forgetting. You poor little thing. Let me explain, you see Wilbur, here,” she pointed to where he was standing behind her, “he’s actually my husband, Mr. Bott. Now, I know it’s hard to believe that someone as appealing as myself, would marry such a gigantic splinter of a man, but sometimes you just can’t fight the obstacle hurdling power of love.”

  Avery stifled any laughter rising in her throat, pretending she had a cough, just in case Mrs. Bott wasn’t joking.

  “Anyway,” Mrs. Bott continued, “he’s the apothecary in Bott’s Apothecary & Sweets, and I’m the sweets. Despite his appearance, he really is quite an extraordinary apothecary. People come to him from all over the kingdom, and sometimes even other kingdoms. Naturally, as a Protector you would use his services. You use to come quite frequently to see him for remedies, potions, for cuts, sprains, bruises, and worse. I only thought you were here to see him because you haven’t come to this shop for my sweets since you were about four years old.”

  “Really?” Avery asked, finding that hard to believe.

  Everyone she knew, knew she had a notorious sweet tooth. In fact, for lunches back on Earth, sometimes she would make due with a soda and candy bar, unhealthy to be sure, but always enjoyable.

  “Oh, yes,” Mrs. Bott told her, “you weren’t like Jade or Skylar. They were in here all the time for breads and cookies, mostly after a battle or hard training session.” Mrs. Bott laughed at the memories playing in her head, “I think Jade was in here more than she was at home…such a pistol of a girl”

  That, Avery could believe, especially with Jade. That girl ate like a horse, any and everything she could get her h
ands on. It always amazed Avery how Jade managed to stay so thin, when it looked like she ate more than she actually weighed.

  “You, on the other hand,” Mrs. Bott said smiling, resting her hand on Avery’s shoulder, “were always the little soldier. You made sure you stayed in perfect physical condition. You never put anything in your body that wasn’t good for you. So, I suppose you never had any reason to come and see me.” Mrs. Bott still smiled as she said this, but Avery could see a slight hurt behind her round bright eyes.

  Avery squirmed a little in the tight belt strapped around her ribs, thinking about how her past Orcatian self would feel about all the pizza, soda, candy, and tacos her Earth self had consumed over the past sixteen years. For some reason she couldn’t understand, especially considering they were technically the same person, but she took pleasure in the knowledge that it would probably piss her Orcatian self off.

  “Well, Mrs. Beatrice Bott, you can guarantee that this Avery will be stopping by frequently for your delicious delights.” Avery said this to Mrs. Bott, slightly to cheer her up, but mostly because it was the truth.

  Mrs. Bott clapped and smiled fuller than Avery had seen yet.

  “Would you like something now?” She asked and ran inside her shop, not bothering to wait for Avery’s reply. It didn’t really matter, since Avery’s reply would have been a definite yes.

  Wilbur smiled softly as he watched his wife bounce off into her shop, “I think you just made her day.” He told Avery warmly.

  “Trust me, the feeling’s mutual.” She told Wilbur.

  Mrs. Bott came bounding back with a pink colored sack full of sweet smelling goodies. She slipped the thin handle of the sack between Avery’s thumb and forefinger, the only place Avery had left to hold on to anything. Avery left the smiling Mr. and Mrs. Bott, promising to come back soon for more treats.

  The sight of her own house, with its soft light pouring out of the windows, lighting up the space in front of it, and multiple flower beds, gave Avery a feeling of relief. She didn’t necessarily consider it home, that space in her heart belonged to a little peach adobe house back in Redemption, but the thought of the soft bed waiting for her and her family somewhere inside, comforted her more than anything else could on this planet.

  Just as she was about to step up to her front door, movement at the stables to her right caught her eye. She turned her head and saw a small, scraggily looking man lifting a saddle half the size of him off of the ground by the hitching posts and teetering with it into the barn. Avery watched him stagger from side to side then front to back, before getting a small semblance of balance.

  It took Avery a second to decide what to do; after all, she had made it so close to peace and rest. Avery sighed long and hard and looked up to the black sky with its blanket of stars, “Typical.” She said under her breath. She set all of her weapons down on the wooden bench to the side of the door. The bag of treats Mrs. Bott had given her and the long steel dagger that had given her the case of déjà vu both slid off of the bench as she let go of the pile of weapons. Avery made a grab for the sweets, letting the dagger fall to the ground and into the dirt.

  “That was close.” She said, delicately setting the bag down, then bending over, picking up the dagger, and tossing it back onto the weapon pile.

  Avery walked over to the entrance of the stable where she had seen the man stagger into. The musky smell of hay and horses hit her. It caused her nose to tickle a little, but other than that was quite pleasant, even soothing. She entered the stable and looked around. The stalls and inside walls were made out of the same dark wood as the outside of the stables, and the entire ground was covered with straw-like yellow hay. To Avery’s left, was an extremely large walkway with stalls of horses lining both sides. To Avery’s right, there was a much shorter walkway with a few stalls of horses on one side and rows of saddles protruding out of the wall on the other side. The stalls themselves were good sized, with crescent moon shaped stall doors. In between each stall was a small, round, opaque glass lamp, casting everything in a dark firelight. In front of Avery were two bulky barn doors. Avery was about to grab onto one of the doors hefty metal handles, when the door swung open out towards her, and the little man she had followed in came scurrying out, carrying a bucket of oats.

  Avery shrieked in an embarrassingly high pitch and jumped back. At the same time, the man hollered loudly and dropped his bucket, spilling the oats out all over the ground.

  “Jumpin’ June bugs!” the man shouted, bending down to pick up his bucket, “Sneakin’ about like a troll in the night, what’s wrong with ya?”

  Before Avery answered, she tried to calm her breathing down. Even though she had caused him to drop a bucket of oats, he had startled her just as much as she had startled him.

  “I wasn’t sneaking,” She gasped out, “I was coming to see if you needed any help.”

  The man huffed, “Do I look like I need any…” he looked up at Avery before he had finished what he was going to say and stopped mid-sentence.

  Now that he was looking at her, Avery could see he was a man in his sixties, with tufts of graying hair encircling a small bald spot on top of his head. His skin was tight and leathery, like he had been working outside in the sun and elements his entire life. He had thin drawn lips that made his face look even tauter than it actually was. All in all, he looked quite unpleasant, except for the kind brown almond shaped eyes that stared up at her.

  “Ms. Avery,” he said, blinking, “I didn’t know it was you. I’m sorry if I sounded a bit harsh.” His voice was genuine, and as he talked to her, he hugged the bucket he had picked up against his chest, like a child clinging onto a stuffed animal for comfort. It gave Avery the impression she was making him nervous in some way.

  “That’s fine,” Avery told him, faking a smile, “it really wasn’t that harsh anyway.” Not compared to some of the things Gumptin had shouted at her during training, “I’m Avery.” Avery said, holding out her hand. She was aware that the man obviously knew that, but since she had no idea who she was talking to, she felt introductions were in order.

  The man stared at her for a moment, then at her outstretched hand, then back at her, looking uncertain. Eventually, a slow smile began to form on his face.

  “Oh, I forgot…ya don’t remember a thing do ya?” He reached out his hand and grabbed onto Avery’s, shaking it vigorously, “Well, I’m Thomas, Ms. Avery, Thomas Mullimany. I run these here stables, have for the past forty years.” Thomas’s chest puffed out slightly. It was an apparent source of pride for him, and Avery had to admit, they were the cleanest stables she had ever seen.

  Avery remembered Pip telling her he worked for a man named Thomas in the stables.

  “Well, it’s nice to meet you.” Avery said, this time with a genuine smile, “The stables look awesome. You and Pip do a really great job.”

  Behind Thomas’s leathery tan skin, Avery could swear she could almost see him blushing, “That’s might kind of ya.”

  Avery pointed outside, to the heavy saddles by the hitching post, “Did you need help with those?” She asked Thomas.

  “Oh, no, I wouldn’t want ya to strain yourself.” Thomas joked, laughing heartily at his own humor. He knew Avery was strong enough to carry all of the saddles with hardly any effort if she wanted to.

  “Are you sure?” Avery persisted, “I’ve supposedly got the strength of like ten men. It would be no trouble for me.”

  To Avery, Thomas looked like he barely had the strength of a child, let alone one grown man. How he managed to carry the first saddle in all by himself was a mystery to Avery.

  Thomas shook his head, “No, no, Ms. Avery, it’s me job. Plus, I’ve still got to clean and polish them.”

  Avery accepted Thomas’s refusal without further argument. After all, she hadn’t really wanted to help carry the cumbersome saddles in the first place; she just knew how guilty she would have felt if she hadn’t asked.

  “Well, if you ever need any help, y
ou know where I live.” Avery told him, “Of course, Gumptin keeps us so busy I probably won’t be there, but you can always try.” Avery turned to leave, but turned quickly back around, remembering something else she wanted to tell Thomas, “Oh, by the way, just call me Avery, no Ms. Avery…just Avery.”

  Thomas just stared at Avery for a few seconds, a small smile on his face, “Ya know, Ms. Avery….oh, sorry, just Avery. Anyway, ya know, I think this is the longest conversation we’ve ever had.”

  This shocked Avery, “But you said you’ve been here at these stables for forty years. That means you’ve been like fifteen feet away from me for my whole life.”

  “I watched ya grow up.” He said.

  Avery didn’t understand, “So, why didn’t I talk to you?”

  Thomas looked at the ground and then back up to Avery, as if searching for an answer to her question, “Ya just had other stuff to do.”

  Avery didn’t like that answer at all. She couldn’t think of anything that she would have to do that would prevent her from having a short conversation with a perfectly nice man whom she had known for her entire life.

  Then, a thought popped into her head, “Oh, my God, was I a bitch?!”

  “What?! No, no,” Thomas said quickly, dropping the bucket he had been holding and raising his palms in the air to stop her current train of thought, “ya were very polite. Ya’d say ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ and sometimes ya’d even ask me how I was doing. Ya just were so busy with everything. Ya didn’t have time to think about anything but being a Protector, about doing your job and doing it well. Ya didn’t have time for people like me.”

  Thomas’s words hit Avery like a slap across the face. Avery hoped against hope that whoever she had been, hadn’t given Thomas and the other villagers the impression she didn’t have time for them. No matter what being a Protector had in store for them, she could never imagine isolating herself off from the people she saw every day. As disgusted as it made Avery to think that people could feel as if they weren’t important enough for her to concern herself with, she also knew the person she was now would never give off that sort of perception. Avery walked over to Thomas and picked up the bucket he had dropped twice now.

  Handing the bucket to him, she said, “Thomas, I promise, that’s not me. This time around you’ll get a lot more than just ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’. So much so, that you’ll actually probably wish I would just shut up.”

  Thomas took the bucket from Avery’s hands, keeping his eyes on the ground, and even though he wasn’t looking at Avery, she could still see him blush slightly again, a small close lipped smile on his face.

  Thomas cleared his throat and glanced up at Avery, “Thank ya,” he said, “but like I said before, ya were never unkind, just preoccupied. Plus, anytime ya came in the stables before, it was usually for your boy.”

  Avery tried to decipher Thomas’s sentence. She could assume that he wasn’t actually talking about a real boy. To help Avery out, Thomas pointed to his left, and Avery’s eyes followed to what he was pointing at. Straight down the short walkway to Avery’s right, in the very last stall, facing outward, an enormous black horse stuck its head out as far as the stall door would allow him.

  “He’s yours,” Thomas told Avery, “name’s Phantom…good, good horse. Never a day went by that ya didn’t see him, so he’s missed ya quite a lot.”

  Avery had always loved horses. When she was younger, she and Skylar had taken horseback riding lessons at a ranch outside of town. From then on out, she had always wanted her own horse, but knew not to ask since her parents wouldn’t have been able to afford it.

  The big black horse whinnied softly, stomping his front foot upon the ground as Avery approached him. She walked past four other horses before she reached him, a medium sized dark brown horse, with a circular nameplate on his stall that said ‘Ajax’, a petite all white horse, whose star shaped nameplate read, ‘Dancer’, a good sized dusky gray horse that had the name, ‘Belle’ written on its nameplate, and an athletic looking buckskin with a square nameplate and the name, ‘Steel’ carved into it.

  When Avery reached Phantom’s stall, he dug his huge head into her torso and started to rub her with it. The initial force knocked Avery back slightly, but she recovered herself quickly, patting him on his large nose. He was the biggest horse Avery had ever seen, a good foot taller than the rest of the horses. He was completely midnight black, except for the shaggy white hair around his massive hooves. His breath was hot against Avery’s stomach, and she giggled as he started to nibble on her dirty shirt.

  “Did you miss me?” Avery asked, brushing Phantom’s long, shaggy, silky mane out of his eyes.

  Phantom reached his head up and lightly brushed Avery’s cheek with his warm nose.

  Avery laughed, “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  Avery spent another twenty minutes with Phantom, brushing his soft coat, feeding him oats, and basically enjoying his company. Thomas told Avery that Phantom and the rest of the Protectors’ horses had been rigorously trained, due to the fact they were with the Protectors for every battle and every mission and needed to behave accordingly. So, at Avery’s request Thomas showed her all of Phantom’s commands, and Avery haltered up Phantom and took him to the large fenced in pasture behind the stables to practice the commands on him. She practiced getting him to stay, coming to her when she whistled, kneeling down on his two front legs, rearing back on his hind legs, walking, trotting, and running on command. Phantom was so well trained, it didn’t matter if Avery was giving the commands correctly, he still knew what to do, something Avery was thankful for.

  Although Avery could have stayed out there for hours in the cool night air, working with Phantom, it was getting late, and she had promised Jade she would get a good night's sleep. Avery walked Phantom back into his stall and unhaltered him. She gave him one last handful of oats and a pat goodbye. She could see why the old Avery had spent so much time with Phantom. Unlike training with Gumptin, it was actually enjoyable, and she didn’t feel the need to vomit after twenty minutes.

  As Avery was about to leave the stables she saw Pip walk in from the back entrance.

  Pip smiled widely when he saw her, “Thomas told me ya were here. I don’t know what ya said to him, but he’s in an awfully good mood.”

  The thought that something she had said put Thomas in a good mood made Avery feel warm all over, like she had made up for her past transgressions, “We just worked Phantom out for a little bit.” Avery told him.

  Pip might not have been convinced that was all Avery did to put Thomas in a good mood, but he didn’t question Avery, “Well, whatever ya did, ya made him happy.”

  Avery smiled, “I’m glad.”

  Pip stared at Avery intently a small furrow forming between his brows. Then, after giving Avery a quick look up and down his face relaxed into a small sideways smirk, “Ya know, it’s strange,” Pip said to Avery, shaking his head, “I know you’ve had a whole other sixteen years on another planet, but to everyone here, you’ve only been gone a few days. It’s just weird to see ya so different. It’s almost like you’re a whole new person.”

  “You know, I’m going to take that as a compliment.” Avery wasn’t sure Pip had meant it as one, or if it was just an observation, but after the very few details she had learned about her former self, she was going to take it as a compliment whether it was intended as one or not.

  “Well, ya seem a lot more open now, more…warm.” Pip said, “So, I suppose that’s a compliment, but I always liked who ya were.”

  “Pip…” Avery was about to ask Pip exactly what that girl, who he had always liked, had precisely been like, but she stopped herself, not quite sure she was ready to hear the entire version of her old self. So, instead she finished with, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Pip pursed his lips together, looking slightly disappointed, as if he had known Avery was about to get more personal, but decided to stop herself.

  “Night.” he tol
d Avery, walking away to help Thomas with the nighttime stable duties.

  Avery meandered back to her house. The weapons and sweets were lying on the bench where Avery had left them. She bent down and piled them all back into her arms. They seemed even more difficult to hold onto this time than they had before she set them down.

  As Avery struggled with the large doorknob on her front door, cursing Gumptin for making her carry home so much bulky junk, she heard her three dogs run up to the door, barking. Once she did finally manage to turn the knob and open the door, her two rambunctious German Shepherds charged her, leaping up on her and knocking everything except the bag of sweets, which she held onto with an iron grip, out of her arms. Avery pushed the fallen weapons to one side of the entryway and proceeded to give each of her slobbering dogs a giant bear hug. She intended to pick up the weapons later when she actually needed to use them. After giving each dog equal amounts of love, Avery looked up and saw her parents and Cinder sitting down at the dining room table.

  “Avery!” Cinder shouted, jumping up from her seat at the table and running towards her big sister with her arms flailing wildly.

  Cinder made her way through the wall of dogs and wrapped her arms around Avery’s waist. Normally, Avery would have bent down to hug Cinder tightly and pick her up into her arms, but today, Avery’s tired body just wouldn’t allow that to happen. So, instead, she remained upright, hugging Cinder around her shoulders.

  “You know what I did today?” Cinder asked, staring up at Avery, resting her chin against Avery’s stomach, “Guess what I did today. You’ll never guess what I did today. Guess what I did today.” Cinder jumped up and down, unable to control her excitement, her blond curls bobbing up and down with her.

  Avery was too exhausted for guessing games, but Cinder seemed so excited, she didn’t want to burst her bubble, “I don’t know, what did you do?” Avery asked, trying to sound eager to hear Cinder’s answer.

  “Well,” Cinder said, grabbing hold of Avery’s hand and walking her over to the dining table, “first, this morning, when I was still tired, mommy and I went out to the garden and planted purple flowers. Then, we picked some tomatoes and lettuce. Then, we picked some apples off a tree. Well, Mommy picked them and handed them to me and told me not to eat them till we got inside. Then, I helped Mommy bake some bread, which made the house smell really really yummy. Then, we walked down to the store and bought more stuff I wasn’t allowed to eat, and I met a really nice girl named Ginger. She’s a year younger than me, but that’s ok, ’cause she’s still nice and likes cats. Then, I came home and colored, and then I helped Mommy with dinner.”

  “Wow," Avery said, rubbing her little sister on top of her blond head, “it sounds like your day was a lot busier than mine.”

  The square dining room table had a purple and green plaid tablecloth strewn over it, and in the center, sat a green ceramic vase with bright bell shaped pink flowers sticking out of it. There was a basket full of warm sliced bread, still slightly steaming, a big pot of what looked like vegetable soup, a pitcher of water, and a leafy green salad sitting on the table.

  Avery sat down across from Cinder where a place for her had already been set. Her mother ladled her a bowl of soup and as the smell of spices and broth hit her nose; Avery could feel her stomach lurch. Avery was too hungry to even bother with a spoon. She picked up her bowl with both hands and slurped down the warm salty broth and chopped vegetables. Cinder giggled as she watched Avery attack the basket full of bread, slamming a large piece into her mouth.

  “Avery, honey, maybe you should slow down.” Her mother told her, holding her own spoon above her untouched soup.

  Avery held up her finger to her mother as she tried to swallow her large mouthful of bread, “Mom,” she swallowed hard, “if you knew what Gumptin had put us through today, you’d be asking me why I only downed my little bowl of soup, instead of the whole pot. To which the answer is…I was trying to be polite.”

  “Speaking of today,” her father said, slurping his own soup up, “how did everything go?”

  There were a hundred different answers running through Avery’s mind, like, ‘horrible’, ‘I hated it’, ‘my life officially sucks’, ‘if the Emperor doesn’t kill me, Gumptin’s training will’, but, “Fine.” Was the answer she decided to go with.

  Her mother looked at her with concern, “Did Gumptin say anything?”

  This question puzzled Avery slightly. She wasn’t quite sure what her mother was asking. After all, Gumptin had said a lot of stuff, most of it insulting, and definitely nothing her mother would be concerned with.

  “About what?” Avery asked.

  “About how your training was going. Does he think you’re at the level you were before Earth? Is he going to make sure you get an adequate amount of training before you’re actually expected to go into battle? Does he know anything about the Emperor’s plans? Do those plans include the Protectors? How does he plan to get you better prepared this time?” Avery’s mother rattled off her laundry list of questions without any pause, looking intently at her daughter, fully expecting an answer for each question.

  Avery just stared at her mother, one dark eyebrow raised. She stuffed another piece of bread in her mouth, stalling for a little time. There was no way Avery wanted to discuss any of that with her family. She wanted to keep all the conversations involving her previous and possibly future death between herself, the other Protectors, and Gumptin. She wanted to keep her family, especially Cinder, removed from that worry, both for their sake and her own sanity.

  “We just trained, Mom.” Avery told her mother, knowing full well it wasn’t the answer her mother wanted, “I don’t think Gumptin feels there’s really too much to worry about right now.” Avery lied.

  The look on her mother’s face showed Avery she really didn’t believe her lie.

  Avery’s father reached over and rested his hand on Avery’s arm, “Are you alright, sweetheart?” He asked.

  Again, Avery didn’t know how she was supposed to answer. Of course, she wasn’t alright; she had just spent the entire day going through Gumptin’s boot camp from hell; she was going to spend tomorrow doing the same thing and all for the purpose of getting her and the other girls prepared to face the psycho who had already killed them once.

  “Why wouldn’t I be alright?” Avery asked, then chugged a giant gulp of water to stop herself from showing any emotion.

  “Well, your mother and I were just worried that maybe this all might be a little overwhelming for you.” Her father told her, “That, maybe you might not be able to handle it as well as you did before.”

  Her father’s words caused Avery to prickle slightly. It annoyed her that her father would suggest that her old self, who had died, by the way, was more capable of handling anything better than she could now.

  “I’m fine.” Avery said in a clipped tone, not trying to hide her irritation.

  Avery saw her mother glance at her father, then back at Avery, then back at her father, and then both of them glanced back at Avery, concern written all over their faces.

  That was enough for Avery. It had been far too long of a day for her to sit there and deal with this.

  After one more chug of water, Avery informed her parents, “I’m going to bed.”

  She stood up out of her seat, walked over and gave Cinder a kiss on the top of her head, “Night, Cin. Goodnight Mom and Dad.” Avery told them.

  As Avery clumped slowly up the stairs, she heard her sister chanting, “Goodnight…sleep tight…don’t let the bedbugs bite!”

  The moment Avery entered her room; she ambled over to her bed and collapsed on top of it, not even bothering to get undressed.

  The last thoughts that passed through Avery’s mind as she lay on her stomach, face buried in her puffy pillows, were of her parents questions and concerns. She thought they were reasonable fears and didn’t totally blame her parents for bringing them up; she just couldn’t share them. Avery was sure that deep down i
nside of herself somewhere she had to be scared; it just hadn’t become a real thing for her yet. She wondered if she was foolish, or just really dumb for not being scared of the Emperor. Then, she thought that maybe it was a good thing she was either foolish or dumb, because if she allowed herself to fully comprehend what she was going to have to face, she would run screaming into the nearest hole.

  Avery sighed heavily, turning her face towards the night sky, framed by her balcony doors, before mumbling to herself, “I can’t believe it’s only been one damn day.”

  Then, she quickly fell into a deep dreamless sleep.