As The Clock Strikes Twelve [7]

Chapter Seven

‘Music by the Fireside’

The sound of the horses’ hooves echoed off the trees and rang in Sheanna’s ears even after the horses stopped walking.

Sheanna was so full of fear it seemed as if she couldn’t breathe anymore. She had never been this scared in her life, and she tried to coax herself like Miss sometimes had done to her; She’s your best friend, Sheanna. She won’t hurt you! She’ll only yell at you for a while, and then she’ll make up with you. Don’t act as if it’s the end of the world! She always makes up with you, always, no matter what you’ve done, in exchange for you always making up with her. You two promised each other that you’d be friends forever, even after you both lay in your graves.

But it was easier for Miss to coax Sheanna than it was herself, and every time she thought these words something in the back of her head whispered, ‘What if this time she doesn’t forgive you? What if this silly little lie ruins your friendship forever?’

Sheanna tried not to get herself all worked up. She hadn’t done something that bad, after all! How could Vanessa hate her, or even think such things?

But every time she looked over at Vanessa she saw her face, mixed with expression; sorrow, disappointment, hate. Vanessa had never been any good with hiding her true feelings, and she wasn’t about to start now.

Sheanna almost tripped as she slid off her horse. She had let her eyes rest on Vanessa, who was being helped by one of the guards off her horse, and hadn‘t noticed that her own horse was already moving forwards, bored of being stationed in one place.

Sheanna looked around, letting her gaze wander. Mercy was trying to get off her horse, but just as Sheanna began to walk over to her to help her Sedare appeared by Mercy’s side.

“Here ya go, Squirt,” he said, lifting her off her horse and placing her on the ground. He bent down so he was eye level with her. “You’re crazy brave, kid,” he told her. “You could have fallen off and broken your neck.”

Mercy rubbed the back of her neck as if imagining it broken and examined him with as much reproach as she had before. “I know very well, thank you,” she quipped in her soft little voice.

“Well, you ought to be more careful next time,” Sedare said. “It would be a shame if you fell off.”

“My Father wouldn’t let that happen.” The words were brave, but the voice was not.

“Oh? And how would your father stop the forces of nature from happening?”

“My Father can do anything.” She jutted her chin out and crossed her arms, standing bravely.

A smile found its way on Sedare’s face. “You’re adorable. What’s your name?”

“Mercy.” She examined Sedare closely. “What about you?”

“Sedare.” He shook her hand. “Pleased to meet you. I’ve never met anyone whose father could stop the forces of nature. Congratulations.” A playful sparkle twinkled in his eyes.

“Thank you,” she said boldly, and then Vanessa called her. She walked away confidently, and then glanced behind her shoulder to make sure Sedare was watching. When she turned away again Sedare smiled, and so did Sheanna.

Sedare walked over to Sheanna and laughed. “Did you see that?” he asked.

She nodded, smiling. Fear seemed to leave her so freely at Sedare’s presence. “Do you really believe that?”

“Believe what?”

“That her father can stop the forces of nature.” The two watched Mercy and Vanessa talk, and Mercy turned pale.

“No, of course not.” Sedare smiled. “But you have to keep them faithful, don’t you? There are too many pessimists in this world. We don’t need another.”

Sheanna nodded in agreement, but didn’t speak. Mercy’s face turned from pale to red in embarrassment, and she looked at the ground to avoid Vanessa’s eyes. Apparently Vanessa wasn’t being the most reasonable person in the world.

Sheanna’s stomach twisted. What if that happened to her? She turned her back to Vanessa so she wouldn’t see any more of Mercy’s reactions.

“Is something wrong?” Sedare questioned.

Sheanna took a deep breath. She felt so much better now that she wasn’t seeing Vanessa’s face.

Sheanna turned her attention back to Sedare, and unknowingly smiled at him.

“Hello? Is something wrong?” he repeated. He bore his sparkling eyes into Sheanna’s. She stared back.

What beautiful eyes he had! They sparkled with curiosity and concern. Sheanna felt lost in them, as she sometimes did in a book.

“Sheanna?”

It was only then that she realized she hadn’t answered him.

“No. No, nothing’s wrong.” She looked away from his eyes to break the spell, but it was harder than she had expected.

Sheanna felt Sedare’s eyes examining her, and not wanting to see it, she turned her back to him, somewhat reluctantly. She realized too late that she had turned back to Vanessa.

By then Mercy had been sent on her way. Mercy’s back was to Sheanna, but Sheanna easily guessed she was disappointed in herself, perhaps by the way her shoulders slumped.

Vanessa gazed around, and then her eyes found Sheanna. Sheanna felt her heart race, bounding against her ribcage, and she was almost surprised that nobody’s heads turned to try to figure out what the sound of it was.

Vanessa looked at her for a while, a blank expression on her face. Then she smiled brightly, a smile that definitely wasn’t fake, and waved to her. Sheanna couldn’t even bring herself to wave back.

“Strange,” she murmured. She looked around to make sure Vanessa meant her, but the only person behind her was Sedare, and he wasn’t even looking at Vanessa; he was looking up in the sky, that same distracted expression on his face, as if he had drifted to another world for a few minutes, deciding this one was not worth while.

Sheanna almost wanted to approach Vanessa, but then thought against it. Instead, she helped the guards round the horses up and tie them to trees. By the time she turned around again to see Sedare, he had already gone to set up the campsite.

Sheanna avoided Vanessa for the rest of the night, scared Vanessa would wave her over and request they eat together or just simply talk. Sheanna made sure to stand close to Sedare whenever she could without drawing suspicion from him, or anyone else, for that matter.

Finally sleeping arrangements were made. Sheanna’s stomach knotted when the guards told her she would have to be sharing a tent with Vanessa.

“We would have brought your tent,” said Mikel, “but we didn’t know you were coming.”

While one part of her asked almost irrelevantly, I have a tent?, the other part was filled with fear. “No thanks,” she said quickly. “I’d rather sleep out here.”

“Are you sure, Princess? It’s going to be a very cold night, and there will most definitely be mosquitoes.”

Sheanna shot a fleeting look at the tent. How she wished she wasn’t even here, and didn’t even had to choose between a tent and the ground! How she wished she was in her own bed, at home, and all of this was simply a dream. It could be, in fact; she had just woken up and fallen into this fantasy world, hadn’t she? She pinched herself to see, and when she still didn’t wake up, she sighed.

“Princess?” Sheanna jumped. She almost hadn’t remembered Mikel was standing there.

“Yes, I’m sure,” she said, slightly impatient. “I just want to sleep out under the stars. That would be nice.”

Mikel gave an odd sort of chuckle. “You’ll barely be able to see the stars under this hammock of trees. Oh well. Hey, you!” Mikel called one of the guard’s attention. “Make a fireside for Princess Day Dreamer to sleep at!”

Sheanna had really almost been disappointed she was sleeping outside, with only a fireside to give her warmth, when she learned Sedare was going to be sleeping outside too.

“You’re sleeping outside?” She almost couldn’t believe the surprise in her voice, and the look he gave her made her realize how stupid her question had been.

“Yes, Princess, no one’s exactly asking for me to share a tent with Vanessa. Why’d you turn her down?”

Sheanna bit her lip. She didn’t want to tell him, not now, with the guards swarming around her. She even thought she saw one of the younger ones pause, as if to listen in on the conversation.

“Later,” she whispered to Sedare while throwing the guard a non-too-friendly glance. Turning red, he looked away and walked on.

Sedare nodded, and walked away, taking in his surroundings vaguely. Sheanna decided to do the same.

It looked just like the other side of the forest, but it was hard to tell; the night had already clothed the forest. A hoot of an owl cut through the silence of the night, and Sheanna jumped in surprise.

Sedare chuckled quietly. “Surely they have owls where you come from?” he whispered to her, careful no one would overhear. The guards had drawn closer to them, but perhaps that was just to keep an eye on them or to put their collected firewood near them.

Sheanna nodded and whispered, “Yes, but I’ve only ever seen them in zoos.”

Sedare gave her a confused glance, but Sheanna shook her head and looked away. She didn’t want to explain, and even if she wanted to she felt too tired to.

A forever later (or so it seemed) the guards had finally finished setting up the fireplace. Immediately Sheanna sat down by the fire, glad for its warmth, but Sedare wandered around aimlessly, looking a bit lost. Before long he slipped past a few trees, and was gone.

At first Sheanna was a little worried. He didn’t know where he was, and she was terrified of him getting eaten by a bear or something that would probably never happen.

But then she realized he did, in fact, live in the woods; and then she calmed down a great deal. She calmed down so much that, despite her very recent and spine-curling fear that Vanessa would explode at her, she fell asleep.

The morning sunlight was not what woke her up; it was music. Music. She had almost forgotten that sound.

Sheanna shifted slightly, trying to find where the source of the music was coming from; and found out it was Sedare.

He sat, his back to her and the fire, his fingers cradling something that looked like a guitar, but sounded a bit different from one. A beautiful song flowed from it, melodic and complex. Sheanna sat up slowly, careful not to make noise, scared to startle him enough to make him stop playing.

He didn’t even seem to notice she was awake. His eyes were closed, and he hummed softly the tune he was playing.

It was a long time before he finished the song, and when he did, he sat in silence for a while, letting the sound finish ringing off the trees in the forest.

“That was beautiful,” Sheanna finally said softly, as not to alarm him.

But, of course, she did alarm him. He jumped about a mile in the air, and then turned to look at her, panting from surprise.

He seemed as if he couldn’t speak for a while; he fidgeted with the words inside his head before finally some of them arranged themselves in a sentence. “I . . . I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t,” Sheanna lied, not wanting him to feel any guilt, and also hoping he’d play again. “I just woke up from a dream.”

Sedare seemed satisfied with that answer, and said no more.

They sat in silence for a while, perhaps because neither of them knew what to say, or perhaps because when you hear a something so delicately played you had to sit in silence for a while, in some sort of reverence. Finally, though, Sheanna did speak. “What song is that?”

“It’s just a lullaby.”

“You mean you have no idea what it’s called?”

“That is what it’s called. ‘Just a Lullaby’.”

“Oh!” Sheanna turned red, and looked down to hide it. “I . . . I don’t think I’ve ever heard it before.”

“Of course you haven’t! You don’t even live here!” Sedare’s voice was much too sharp.

Sheanna was taken back by the way he responded, and he turned slightly red. “Sorry,” he said softly, “but you wouldn’t have known it anyway. My mother herself wrote it.”

“Your mother?” Sheanna didn’t know why she was surprised. People were allowed to have mothers, right? But Sedare just didn’t seem like a child who relied on his mother; well, Sheanna didn’t rely on Miss anymore, but she just couldn’t picture Sedare with a mother.

He nodded, and upon seeing Sheanna open her mouth to bombard him with questions, he held a hand up. “Wait,” he said. “I’ll tell you what you’d like to know, if you answer one question for me.”

“Fair enough,” Sheanna said quickly, not thinking what the question could be.

Sedare gave a sly smile. “What’s between you and Princess Victoria? You‘re acting all odd around her. I mean, I‘ve only just met her, so I don‘t know if this is your regular behavior towards her . . .but by the way you described her in your little story, you seemed fond of her. So what‘s the problem?”

I really should have listened to the question before agreeing to the terms, thought Sheanna bitterly. “You’ve noticed?” she answered in a soft voice.

“Princess, a person who was blind and deaf would have noticed. Now, tell me. What’s wrong?” His eyes bore into hers, begging her to tell him.

Sheanna looked away, and was ashamed how difficult it was to break eye contact. “You remember the lie we told; about us being childhood friends?”

“Yes.”

“Well . . . Victoria and I really are childhood friends.”

A very long pause followed. It was silent except for the cackling of the fire and the crickets, which sounded far off in the distant, but in reality were actually pretty close. Finally, Sedare spoke.

“So . . . she comes from your world, too?”

“Yes.”

Sedare heaved a heavy sigh. “That’s perfect,” he murmured. “Just perfect.”

Sheanna looked at him, not able to comprehend, but decided to let it go, but only for the curiosity that burned inside her. “Now, you promised. Tell me about your mother. Where is she; why haven’t I met her?”

“She would have liked you,” he said abstractly, perhaps purposely not answering any of her questions.

“Would have?” Sheanna felt her stomach knot, expecting what he was going to say next.

There was a pause, but it was ended short by Sheanna’s curiosity. “Are you an . . . ?”

“Orphan?” Sedare spoke the words she hadn’t dared spoken. “Yes.”

Sheanna frowned. She now realized his reaction before with the song; she had accidentally touched a wound that hadn’t healed yet. “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

He shrugged, as if it was neither here nor there, and began to play random notes on his instrument.

It was only then that Sheanna looked at it—-really looked at it.

“It’s a lute!” she cried aloud. “You’re playing a lute!”

Sedare gave a small smile. “Yes, I am.”

“You’re actually very good tonight.” Sheanna tried to make a conversation.

“As opposed to yesterday, when I was awful?” teased Sedare.

Sheanna laughed.

Sedare smiled back, picking his way through the cords until suddenly he fell into the lullaby again.

Sheanna sat there, smiling. It seemed perfect; a few stars peeked bravely out in the dark sky, which was revealed in the one place the leaves didn’t stretch. Sedare played his lullaby over and over again, as if pointedly trying to make Sheanna fall asleep.

At first she fought the impulse to sleep; but soon it got too hard, and she just let the sound of his lute and the cackles of the fire lull her to sleep. The last thing she saw before she fell into a dream was Sedare sitting there, playing his lute as if he belonged no where else in the world other than right there beside her, playing his lute.

And that was the only place Sheanna ever wanted him to be.