ANTHEYA
or
THE ENCHANTED FOREST
CHAPTER TWO
"Alice," said the mayor sternly. "Where have you been?"
"I...I was..." stammered the girl, shrinking away from the tall man.
She could not find the courage to say anymore. Obviously he knew she had not been to the forest.
"Why did you not go with the others?" he asked, even more sternly.
Alice looked down at her feet. At last she managed to whisper,
"Because...I was afraid."
"You know that it is the law, Alice," he said. "You must go to the forest in your thirteenth year. You did not go."
She stole a quick glance up at him, and said,
"Did Joseph come back?"
"No, he did not. And you will not either. You must leave this town at once and never return. That is the penalty."
"But sir!" she gasped, her heart leaping into her throat in terror. "What...what about...my parents?"
"They will believe that you, too, did not return."
Alice stood rooted to the spot for one horrified moment, then she turned and fled out of the gate with tears streaming down her face. As she passed out of the town, a hand grasped her arm and she stopped. Gilbert was standing there with a look of sympathy on his face.
"I heard," he said simply. "I might as well not go back to my town."
"Where will we go?" she asked after her tears had subsided.
"Down the road, I suppose," he replied. "Find a town where no one knows us. Stay there."
"Not now, please," she said. "I'm so tired from staying up all night."
"We'll go down a ways, then," Gilbert said.
They had only walked for a few minutes when they came on the stump of what had once been a huge tree, and they sat between the enormous roots and leaned against the stump. Alice fell asleep almost immediately, but Gilbert, who had slept that night, was less tired and stayed up, watching the moon and stars fade into the paling sky. Soon the birds began to twitter in the branches and the sun came up behind the far mountains to the east. Alice stirred and then sat up, throwing off the blanket she had wrapped around her and rubbing her arms.
"I'm cold," she said. "And I don't like sleeping on a root."
"Well," Gilbert said. "I'm a little cold, but I'm hungry, too. Is there any food left in that sack?"
Alice hunted through and found several slices of bread, cold and hard by now, and divided them between herself and Gilbert.
"Here's some water, too," she said. "But not much."
After they had eaten they started back down the road.
"I wonder if the wolves will be out after last night," Alice said.
"Why do you keep calling them wolves? They're werewolves," corrected Gilbert.
"Because it's such a horrid word. I don't even like saying it. They are wolves, anyways, just a different kind."
Her companion shrugged and they walked on in silence, breathing in the sharp, cool autumn air and listening to the birds sing. There were fewer of birds by now; most had gone south. The few hardy ones that were left sang cheerfully, as though it were not nearly winter, or that the leaves had not all fallen to the ground and turned brown. Alice stooped and picked up a leaf that still had tinges of orange and red in it.
"It's a pity," she said. "They looked so beautiful at the beginning of fall."
"Come on," Gilbert said. "I think I see a clock tower ahead. It must be the one we heard last night."
The town was farther away than it had looked, but they reached it at last. It was bustling with people, and made Alice think of her own town. They walked down the streets, getting more and more hungry, until they reached a bakery in the town square. A large man with brown hair and a spotless white apron was standing outside talking to two men, who each had large sacks full of wonderful smelling food. When the men had gone, the two children approached the baker.
"Hello, sir," Gilbert said, holding out his hand.
The man gripped it tightly, shook it hard, and said,
"Hello yourself. Have you come to pick something up?"
"No, sir. We just got here and we're hungry, but we don't have any money. Do you think...we could do something for you...to earn a meal?"
The man lifted his eyebrows and looked them over carefully. Alice felt her cheeks grow hot.
"Where are you from?" he asked.
"If you don't mind," Gilbert replied. "We would rather not tell you. But," he added quickly, as the man seemed about to object. "We aren't running away. Truly we aren't. We don't have a home."
"Very well," said the baker. "I'm Bradley Ross. If you would like you may work for me and my wife, and you will get beds and meals in return. We...just lost our two helpers."
He broke off and quickly turned and went into the bakery, holding the door open for them. Alice had observed the sad look on his face just before he turned away, and her mind quickly came to a guess as to why.
They came inside and found that the bakery was only in the first large part of the building. Stairs led up on one side of it, and a door opened at the back into what looked like a living room.
"Marjery!" called the baker.
A woman, small and round with curly black hair, came down the stairs tying an apron on.
"Yes, Bradley?" she said, letting her eyes rest on the children an instant before looking away.
"These here are...bless me, I haven't gotten your names yet!"
"I'm Gilbert, ma'am," the boy said, holding out his hand, which was taken and released quickly. "This is Alice."
Alice smiled shyly, and held out her own hand, but the woman did not take it. She stood waiting for her husband to explain why they were there.
"Well, these are Gilbert and Alice, and they want to work here for us, in place of...I mean for room and board, so to speak. Since, well..."
Marjery's eyes dimmed, but she smiled faintly and said,
"Welcome to our home, children. We were about to eat. Join us."
Bradley closed the shades in the bakery windows, locked the door, and then they all went through the living room to the dining room. A small kitchen adjoined it, and the smells of stew and hot, fresh bread were wafting from it. Marjery got out two more bowls and ladled stew into them, set them on the table, and placed thick slices of buttered bread beside them.
"Sit, children," she said in a very motherly tone. Bradley held Alice's chair, then his wife's, and he and Gilbert sat down.
There was an awkward silence at the table as they ate, and Alice knew it was because they were there. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat and watched Marjery out of the corner of her eye. She was not at all like Alice's tall, slender mother. Her dark hair was put up and little ringlets fell out of place around her cheeks and forehead. Alice's mother had wavy golden hair, much longer, which she always wore down or braided.
Everyone said that Joseph looked like their mother, but Alice, with her dark brown hair and sea green eyes, looked more like their father.
With an inward sigh, she realized that, no matter how motherly this woman might be, she would never be her mother. Would she ever see her mother again? Not likely, unless they somehow met somewhere other than Alice's hometown.
After their meal, Marjery led them both upstairs, where two bedrooms stood side by side.
"Here are your rooms," she said softly. "You may start working tomorrow. For the rest of today you may do as you please."
Alice's room was bright and cheerful, painted pale yellow, with a vase of fresh red rosebuds on a table. Alice's eyes narrowed, and she tried to remember when the last time she had seen the same thing. Then she remembered: her aunt and uncle had done the same thing when her cousin, James, had not returned from the forest. It was the custom. Marjery hurried in.
"Pardon...the flowers," she stammered. "It is only for a day. I will put more cheerful ones in tomorrow."
Alice smiled and put her hand shyly on the woman's arm.
"Don't worry about it," she said quietly. "I understand. My cousin..."
Marjery turned and went out hastily, closing the door behind her. Alice sat down on the edge of the bed and looked around. There were no personal items in the room, nothing to show anything about the girl who had had it before.
Mother has probably done that to my room by now, she thought. And to Joseph's. What do they do with everything?
She got up. She wanted companionship, and felt sure that her new employers did not want hers, so she went to Gilbert's room and knocked.
"Come in," he said.
She stepped inside and saw that it was much like her own room, except that the walls were simply white. A vase identical to the other stood on a small dresser, full of red rosebuds.
"What do you think?" he asked her.
"I think we need to be careful around them," Alice said. "Don't say anything about your or theirs."
Gilbert nodded.
"And just do your work," he added. "We are working for them; we're not their children."
"Are we going to stay for long?" she asked. "I would think that they might be regretting their generosity right now, and thinking it was more like rashness."
"Perhaps," her companion said. "If I get a feeling that they are tired of us, then we'll leave. Or if we get tired of being here."
I was worried they were going to be exactly the same (thus proving that my idea wasn't as original as I thought when I wrote it), but you're definitely succeeding in making this original and your own.