Chapter- 3.1 The unexpected part of the forest
The night has been devastating for them, maybe the morning will bring new hopes.
Ethan woke up at the time of dawn, and the golden rays of the sun escaping through the blocked thorny entrance shone upon his eyes. Lyla and Kiliarn were still asleep. He had tossed and turned all night. It was a restless sleep, full of nightmares and anxiety.
He remembered seeing something weird when he was half asleep.
He saw a hazy image of a figure with ghostly white skin, and azure eyes. At the very first glance, that figure looked inhuman to Ethan.
He was wearing an oversized black cloak, and the most surprising thing was that he was here, in the cave.
The man was roaming here and there around the cave, it looked like he was finding something. The man came across the brown leather bag that Opa gave Ethan when they escaped their house. He clumsily put his hand inside the bag and took out the book. He started to flip the pages with his steady fingers.
The man’s eyes were teary, his face had a sad, desperate smile. In a quavering voice, he repeated “Use it well..."
Ah, that weird dream, Ethan still wasn't sure if it was real or just a dream. The only way to know it was to check the book. Last night it was not opening but that man was able to flip its pages. Ethan quietly grabbed the leather bag and took out the book.
The pages were stuck together like they had been last night. It was the same dusty book, but now there was something new to it.
A beautiful blue flower was now painted on its cover, Ethan couldn’t believe his eyes for a few seconds. He was sure there was nothing on the cover last night, except a fine layer of dust.
Ethan didn’t realize that his hands were already brushing the painting of the flower gently. It was an unusually heavenly flower. Ethan has never seen such a flower in Sunwane. He felt lost in studying the angelic beauty of the flower because he didn’t notice Lyla staring at him.
Lyla was now awake, her eyes were dry after crying her heart out in the night. Her face looked calm now with almost no movement. She had had quite a deep slumber, as she tried to take the thoughts out of her restless mind
“What happened? What are you doing with the book?”
Ethan now realized Lyla was sitting beside him, he answered.
“I think this blue flower painting was not there on the cover yesterday night.”
“I don’t remember it being there or not, but it’s not that big of a matter, right?”
Ethan felt it was not the right time for him to tell Lyla about his dream. Whatever, it was just a stupid dream, there were more important things to be discussed.
“Yeah,” he faintly nodded.
Now Kiliarn was awake too, he saw Lyla and Ethan sitting. He slowly shifted towards where the siblings were sitting“Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Ethan replied dryly.
They all sat quietly for a minute, maybe thinking now what to do? They couldn't stay there forever, they needed to get away from Sunwane as quickly as possible. Lyla couldn’t take the silence anymore.
“So now, how are we going to escape the border of Sunwane?” Lyla asked “Dedred and his men are searching for us everywhere, they will sooner or later find us, and it’s impossible to pass the borders.” A complete silence followed her words but then Kiliarn spoke.
“Well….I thought about it last night. And I have a way in which… we can pass the borders unnoticed.” Kiliarn said doubtfully.
“What’s your plan?” Ethan asked.
“Every morning, merchant Edith passes the border to sell his mats and clothes to the Hallowvale village nearby. If we talk to him, maybe... ….we can pass the borders…hiding in one of his wagons,” Kiliarn suggested.
Hallowvale village was the only village nearby. The three had heard the stories about the village from the merchants who traveled there. A turquoise-blue, sparkling stream wound it's merry way through the valley. Because of its water that flickers like glitter, the villagers named it Silver River. On the banks of the Silver River is situated Hallowvale village. It was a small village situated in between the route to Frostreign.
“But, will merchant Edith help us? And why will he help us, why will he want to put his life in danger because of us?” Lyla asked.
“I don’t know, I couldn’t think of anything else. At least we should try convincing him. And as he daily passes the borders, the soldiers won’t have the slightest doubt about him. Besides there is no other way as far as I can see,” Kiliarn sighed.
“Hmm, well Kiliarn is right, we don’t have any other way,” Ethan gasped.
Ethan’s future was already written and his future was not going to be easy on him. Luckily he was not alone, he was never going to be alone. But maybe, the companions of him that he could trust his life with, will suddenly become strangers, who knows? The future is the keeper of all the unsolved mysteries.
“So, let’s do it fast, we don’t have time to waste,” Lyla said. “We must be careful and alert.”
They came outside of the cave. The three gave a last glance at the cave that had saved their life last night and given them shelter.
They didn’t actually know this part of the forest well, actually,, no one has ever been this deep in the Thorn forest before. Opa had never allowed them to come this deep inside the forest, it was clear that it was not all about animals he was scared of, there is something more dangerous about this forest than that, they could sense it but not see it.
“How are we gonna find the road that leads to the borders? We don’t even know which of these paths will take us to the road.” Kiliarn asked.
Everyone stood still for a moment, Lyla saw the sun rising, it was early morning, the coolest part of the day in Sunwane. Lyla’s brows knitted as she thought of something.
“I know which path we should take, I have heard from merchant Edith that the road lies in the east of the Thorn forest, so we shall take this path, from where the sun is rising,” Lyla pointed to the path above which the sun was shimmering gently.
“Great Lyla, let’s follow this path,” Ethan said.
They started following the direction of the sun, they walked for a while and after some time the path started to become denser with more thorny trees and plants. The air that surrounded them grew warmer and heavier. A watchfulness was upon them, hidden eyes close enough to feel their breath but far to reach.
They were walking for a while now, they saw the sun above them rising slowly to a new day. The ground here felt it had never been trodden before, the dry decidious trees started emerging as if it the forest was devouring the strollers that walked in this forgotten part of the forest. Soon, the forest ended abruptly, they were expecting to see the road but this was not the roads or a normal plain.
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125,029 Literary Works • 672,786 Reviews
Hey! forever here for a review!
At last I have reached this chapter. So, let's get to the review.
Here, I am a bit confused about the description. As it's a cave, I don't think the Sun rays will enter it or there were some holes in the cave?
Here, I guess you wrote that italic thing twice maybe cuz it didn't appear. Also put a comma before he and make it in lower case.
I don't really know if by ............... You meant a long silence but if you meant it, write it in words.
Why did it really end here? Obviously, to make us more curious
Please tag me when you post the next chapter. Will be waiting for it. Till then, byeeee
Keep writing!
~Forever
Hi Alice,
Mailice here with a short review!
You wrote a great chapter with some interesting things that happened in it. Let's start right away with this mysterious dream / figure that Ethan saw that night. Was the person really there or just in a dream? Was the blue flower already there? I think you've created a very good mystery out of that, because the reader doesn't know directly if that flower was really on the book when they got it from Grandpa. I think that's definitely still a very intriguing point that will be important for the future (and also think it's great that it's something so simple and yet probably dealing with a lot of meaning).
I liked how the children decide how to proceed. I'm glad to read that they have found a supposed way with the merchant Edith and am also glad that they have focused on this plan. I'm just not so convinced how the ending will play out now that it seems they've lost their way....
The chapter had some parts where you repeated yourself a lot in terms of words, where I think some synonyms or pronouns would be a good idea to keep the flow going. I've described more below.
I think you've included some very, very beautiful descriptions in this chapter, describing the nature around Ethan, Lyla and Kiliarn. It brings the area to life very well. But also, like that weird character you introduced, you described in good facets.
I noticed that you added new places, like Hallowyale village and Silver river. As these are proper names, I would also start the village/river with a capital letter.
Other points I noticed while reading:
I'm not sure if I'm a bit tired or if you wrote the sentence a bit twisted.
With the previous sentence not inserted, you start four out of five sentences in a row with a "he". I would try to rewrite that a little bit so it doesn't sound so repetitive. For example, you could replace "he saw a hazy image" with "It was a figure, he believed, with...".
The reader knows here that it's about the book, as it was written about several times earlier, and think you can rewrite the "out the book" with "took it out" here.
Somehow the italic didn't come out here...? At least the "He" has to be written in lower case and there has to be a comma in front of it.
Here you often repeat yourself with "flower". Here you could use "it" again or try to describe that the flower has blue blossoms to add a little variety to the description.
The "s" seems to be still tired, otherwise it would have stretched and stayed big already.
I would insert an "and" here instead of a comma.
The transition from all the characters to Lyla was too hurried here. I think you could have written a bit here about what Ethan and Kiliarn are thinking before going over to Lyla, who might already be done brainstorming or already know where to go.
I would rewrite this because it's contradictory the way you've worded it here. Maybe you could write it like this: "The first moment the silence came back. It was Kiliarn who spoke after a while."
There are way too many points in here.
I love that description! It's a regular quote.
Sometime is written apart here.
This was a great transition chapter to the next point, with an exciting cliffhanger. I'm very curious to know what this plain is now, and what makes it so not normal.
Have fun writing!
Mailice.
Thanks for the review Malice. And again out of my excitement I made mistakes.
XD yeah, I am stupid you know. Maybe I like the........ that's why I ouldn't stop myself from putting more lol. But I will keep it in mind now.
And yeah I didn't realise that I put too many "He" there. I will edit it and all the other mistakes you pointed out.
And there is a reason I am not giving a full discription of the flower, maybe you must have already guessed it, but just wait. There are so many things ahead, many mysteries, adventures, politics and a heart warming relationships. I am excited to writeeeeeee and you must be excited to seeeeeee!!!!!!!!
I can tell you're excited.
But that's not a bad thing. I don't know if you've mentioned this before, but is this the first story you've written?
Yeah! It's my first story and it's a shame that I have never even written a short story. Actually I got into writing after I joined YWS
When I started, I never wrote a short story either. I was about to write a larger novel and it had so many mistakes at the end that I didn't even know what I wanted to write anymore.
I think it's also better to write something bigger in the beginning because you also learn what information is important to write a short story and how to resume everything.