Chapter Five

-(Samuel's

"Those two girls are very weird mother. Especially Elsa, there is something strange going on with them. I am sure of it."

"I think they are just smart and cute." my mother replies me.

Ever since we or let me say Elsa and Eden found that water spring two weeks ago; we have been going on other assignments and each time we came back with the specific type of crop requested for, in fact the General specifically instructed Bellman to leave just us on those assignments and allow the rest of the foragers to help with other jobs around the city. Since it became obvious they could not get rid of all of them without Elsa intervening.

In a way, I should be happy, because this luck people say they have is making the city quite prosperous but I am not happy because I am sure it won't end well.

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(ORIGINAL

We finish another successful mission and we quietly head home and somewhere along the road; I hear Samuel telling Elsa something but I do not pay them much attention. It is a good thing they are finally starting to get along.

My mind is more on the whereabouts of all the missing people across our city.

If I look closely enough just as Elsa had said our city’s population is reducing and it is not under normal circumstances, something is terribly wrong somewhere.

The general and his band of politicians keep saying the people are leaving on their own or due to the shortage of food but even as naïve as I am, I know that the situation is not as they are painting it to be.

Samuel and Elsa continue ahead with their conversation and I keep to myself until we get to our house. Surprisedly Samuel is still with Elsa, normally we separate at the storage area which also serves as a border between our districts but today he didn't stop there. Now I am starting to think something is going on between these two.

As soon as he leaves I corner Elsa, “What is going on between you and Sam?”

She stares at me for a few seconds like I am speaking a different language. When she eventually grasps what I am getting at, she becomes flushed, “Ewwww! No! Eden! How can you think that?”

I stand my ground glaring at her, “Oh yeah? Why are you all pink then?”

“No no, I am just, I just- forget it, listen there are lots of things going on around here, that is the least of them, common let us go to bed we can talk tomorrow.”

I keep glaring at her for a while longer until I give up.

I am not going to get anything out of her this way, I will just have to wait and maybe sneak up on them or something.

“Quit smiling like that and get some sleep,” Elsa says while pushing me towards our bedroom.

“Little girl, what are you doing sitting in there? Is it your play house? Can I come in?”

I nod my head in agreement and the small person whose face I couldn’t see clearly squeezes herself into the knot of flowers and leaves I was sitting in.

As she gets in I notice she is just about my age with same blonde hair and fair skin, you can even say we were sisters, the only difference between our appearance is our eyes. She has big brown eyes that stands out while I have green eyes that my mother use to say I inherited from my gift. The thought of my mother crosses my mind and I become sad again.

“Little girl, why are you sad?’ she asks again.

“It ---it  is my mother,” I tell her.

She draws closer to me and hugs me whispering soothing words into my ear.

“I understand how you feel, my mummy is gone too. But I am not sad, do you know why?” I shake my head at her question and she holds my hands smiling.

“I am not sad because I have Mamie, and you can have Mamie too.”

“Who is Mamie?” I ask timidly.

“Mamie is like my grandmother, she found me in the forest just like I found you, she is going to be so happy I found a little girl, come on get up let us go to her, she can take care of you, you won’t ever be sad again!” She plasters a big smile on her face and offers me her hand, I am a bit hesitant at first but I take it and she pulls me out of my little makeshift hideout and drags me with her to meet this so called Mamie of hers.

I am scared, but I am also hungry and tired, I have been in that hideout for days now.

She continues jumping along the path, telling me of all the wonderful things Mamie does for her and how much she loves her. We keep going for almost an hour and I notice the path closing up which meant this part of the forest was hardly used.

“Are you sure we are going ---the right way?” I say looking around me.

She stops her amazing stories and stares at the forest for a while with confusion on her pretty face, just when I was about to ask another question she smiles like she remembered something.

”I am sorry, I totally forgot to tell you my name…I am Elsa, what is yours?”

“My name is Eden- but that is –not the-“

“shsushshshs! worry not my little Eden, no one knows this forest better than I do, come on we are definitely going in the right direction.” She takes my hand again and we continue down the ending path.

We walk and walk until there was practically no paths anymore, then we start going in circles. I don’t think this Elsa girl notices because she is so happy going on and on about how much she is lonely and needs a play mate and she is so glad she found me, I had to stop her because it was starting to get late.

“Elsa—“ she looks at me and for the first time I notice that she looked worried.

“Eden, I am sorry, I don’t know the forest at all. In fact I am no good. All the trees look the same to me. I just wondered off a bit from the house to get wild berries for Mamie because I wanted to make her happy but I think I got carried away and that's how I found you. I thought I could find my way back home but now I am afraid we are lost! I am sorry. Maybe we should just sit here and wait, I am sure Mamie is already looking for me, she is quite good at tracking, but it is getting so late already, what if she doesn't find me?” she finishes looking sad and worried all at once.

“I can get us to Mamie,” I say with confidence.

“You can? But how? You don’t even know where our cottage is?”

“I am pretty good with the forest,” I say to her with a small smile.

“Really? How can you do that, I wanna help! I wanna help!” She grins looking very excited.

“Okay, you need to tell me anything specific around your house, a tree, a garden, a flower, anything you can remember.”

She puts a finger to her head and frowns trying to remember and then her smile comes back to her face. ”Mamie has a tomato garden around the house, can that help?”

“Yes, it can.” I close my eyes and try to sense the smell of tomatoes around me, I turn in different directions trying to catch a scent and then I get it. I bend down at that spot and touch the ground feeling for the roots.

My body had a way of connecting to every plant and tree around me, my mother thought me to always find my way by reaching out to a particular plant or tree and following its roots to my destination. I do the same thing with the tomatoes and to make Elsa even more excited, I grow wild berries along the connection I feel so the wild berries can lead us home.

“Oh my God! Look at all the wild berries! Mamie is going to be thrilled! come on let us go pick them!” She drags me along the path of berries I had created and we pick the berries as we go; dropping them in a makeshift bag she had made with her shawl.

As soon as the last of the berries is picked, Elsa looks up and sees her cottage.

“We did it! We made it home! Come let’s go see Mamie,” she says dragging me to the cottage.

We didn’t even get into the house when a woman briskly comes from the back of the house and runs toward Elsa, picking her up into her arms to hug and kiss her making Elsa to giggle happily.

”Put me down Mamie.” She cries.

“I won’t put you down; do you know how worried I was when I could not find you? Where did you go my dear?”

“I am sorry Mamie, I went to get you these.” She points at the makeshift bag of berries she had dropped on the ground when Mamie lifted her.

”Aawwww!" She exclaims happily.

"Elsa, you should not have gone that far.” She drops Elsa to inspect the fruits.

”They are amazing, thank you my child.” She bends on one knee to place a kiss on Elsa’s cheek and that’s when she sees me.

”Elsa, who is your friend?" she asks curiosity obvious in her eyes.

“Oh I am sorry, I totally forgot!” She runs towards me and takes me by the hand towards Mamie.

”Mamie, this is my little sister Eden! I found her in the forest, I got lost while I was looking for berries and I found her in a beautiful play house, she looked so sad Mamie, so I told her to come along so you could make her as happy as you made me,” she says giving Mamie the puppy eyes.

The woman signals to me to come closer to her.

“So you are Eden,” she says it like she knew me, then I see pain flash in her eyes which she quickly covers with a very big smile.

”Elsa I don’t think you are older than Eden, you are about the same age,” she says, a smile growing on her lips.

“But I am taller.” Elsa protests.

“With only a few inches,” Mamie tells her.

“Well that makes me older!” Elsa insists.

Mamie starts laughing at the fuss Elsa is making about being older and she looks at me.

”Eden, what do you think?”

“Let Elsa be the big sister, it doesn’t matter.” I respond not wanting to make Elsa sad.

Elsa starts jumping with excitement and she comes over to me and gives me a very big hug.

“I will take very good care of you!” she says giving me a big kiss.

I laugh and join her and even Mamie joins us, but our excitement is cut short when we start hearing the sound of horses approaching the cottage, Mamie immediately asks us to go into the house and stay there until she comes for us.

“Is everything alright?” I ask her, getting worried.

“No my dear, they’ve been looking for you, but I won’t let them take you, go now, Elsa will show you where to hide.”