Lockewood Awakens

 

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LOCKEWOOD AWAKENS

1.

Find the man with the half-moon scar. The words echoed in Anne’s head as she laid beneath the scratchy wool blanket given to her by Benjamin, the innkeeper of The Quiver. Who was this man? And how could he help her? Her mind was full of questions, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t turn them off, like a leaky faucet that won’t quite stop dripping.

How are we supposed to find this man?

 

Drip.

What am I supposed to say to him if I find him?

 

Drip.

Why does he have a half-moon scar?

 

Drip.

 

The questions kept coming. Anne stared into the darkness, convinced she would lie awake until the first signs of dawn showed over the horizon. She focused on the sounds of the night to distract her. Crickets sang their nighttime song. An owl softly spoke nearby. The wind blew gently through the leaves, reminding her of the home she left behind.

Trevor and Ollie slept nearby, lying on their backs and snoring quietly. Anne imagined the cartoons she watched with her dad on Saturday mornings. The one where the old man was sawing logs in his wood bed, a single, white feather being blown up on the exhales and sucked down when he inhaled. She smiled wanly in the darkness. A good memory, but it brought with it the realization that she was alone in a strange world with two men she hardly knew.

She rubbed her hands up and down her arms, trying to create a little more warmth than the blanket was providing. Her eyelids drooped, heavy from exhaustion. It had been a busy day. But try as she might, she couldn’t get to sleep. Counting sheep didn’t work. Neither did closing her eyes and focusing on her breathing.

The stillness of the night was both comforting and off-putting. It reminded her of camping with her family. For a long while she couldn’t put her finger on what seemed so out of place, until finally it came to her. There was no noise pollution. No cars roaring by at all hours of the night, radios blaring. No dogs barking. No police sirens wailing in the distance, their whoop-whooping loud enough for all to hear. There was none of that.

Desperate for rest, she turned over onto her stomach and laid her head on her arm. Her hair spilled over the edge of the cot like a fine, brown stream pouring from her head. Tomorrow I need to find something to keep my hair out of my face. Then I need to find the man with the half-moon scar. The questions began again, resulting in a heavy and very audible sigh from Anne. How would she be able to concentrate on either of those things if she couldn’t get some sleep?

The light of the moon glinted off the pair of glasses Ollie had set on the wooden table under the window, and onto the wall she was facing. She watched as the wind blew through the branches, casting ominous shadows that danced on the floor. Part of her wanted to get up and peer through the glass at the strange world they had entered, but she knew if she did, sleep would elude her the rest of the night.

Instead she laid in restless wakefulness, watching with heavy eyes as a sliver of reflected light made its slow march across the room. The cots groaned under the weight of the boys as they adjusted in their sleep. Anne cut her eyes at them, jealous of their ability to slumber at a time like this. But to be fair she would be sleeping too, were she able. She closed her eyes in the event one of them opened theirs, and waited for the creaking to cease. When it did, she made a few adjustments of her own, then resumed her affair with the moonlight.

2.

Anne slept much longer than she intended. Bright light flooded the room by the time her eyes fluttered open. She pawed groggily at her face as she sat up, her hair a rat’s nest atop her head. The other cots were empty, blankets folded neatly and placed atop their canvas bunk. Ollie’s glasses were gone, more than likely on the face of their owner.

She stretched and yawned, then tiptoed to the door separating her from the rest of the tavern. As she eased it open, the voices of her male companions, and those of their new friends, drifted up to her. It seemed Ollie had the same question on his mind that had kept her up all night.

“So how do we find this guy with the half-moon scar?” she heard him ask. The proprietors of the tavern, it seemed, were not so eager to discuss it. At least not without her company.

“I think we ought to wait until Lady Anne awakes,” came the voice from the older gentleman, Benjamin. “I would prefer not to have to repeat myself.”

If Ollie was offended, his voice didn’t reveal it. “Sounds good to me,” he said between bits of something. At least that’s what it sounded like to Anne. “Say Philip, tell me again the name of the town we’re in?”

It amazed Anne how quickly Ollie had adapted to being in a strange world. Of the three of them, she believed him to be the most likely to have a breakdown, but so far that was the furthest thing from the truth. To be fair, he had a few hours head start on she and Trevor, but he came through alone. She and Trevor at least had one another. Plus, they were conscious when they came to Lockewood. The same could not be said for Ollie.

“Aldea, sir Oliver,” came Philip’s truncated response. It wasn’t clear whether Philip disliked Ollie, or was just tired of the constant questions. Anne could hear them chewing, and imagined the four of them – assuming Benjamin was present as well – sitting awkwardly together as they ate their breakfast.

At the thought of food, Anne’s stomach let out a low rumble and her mouth filled with saliva. She moved across the room and stood in front of the window, using it as a makeshift mirror. Without a brush, her fingers would have to suffice, so she ran them through her hair, which already had a greasy feeling due to lack of washing.Realizing that there was only so much she could do with it, she gave herself a quick, confident wink and headed down the wooden stairs that separated the room from the rest of the tavern below.

The four men were gathered around one of the many tables scattered throughout the ground floor, tin plates full of food set before them. Trevor was munching on a piece of fruit that looked like an apple, but was pink instead of red, while Ollie was cutting up a piece of ham and shoveling it into his mouth as fast as he could.

"What is that?" Anne asked, pointing at the fruit as she approached the table. The men stopped eating and turned toward her, watching her intently as she approached.

"It's a pinkberry," Benjamin answered. He was considerably older than the rest of them, and had long since grown past the stage of worrying what others thought of him. If no one else wanted to speak up, he was more than happy to.

"Do you want to try one?" he asked Anne, tossing one to her before she could answer. She caught it deftly in her hand and looked at the fruit. It was the pale pink of a tulip first beginning to peek through its bulb in early Spring. The outside was soft, yet firm when she pushed her thumb against it.

"What does it taste like?" she asked Trevor as she held it up to her nose. The smell reminded her of breakfast with her parents who always made sure there was plenty of fruit.

"It's sweet, like a strawberry, but it reminds me of a mango." He took another bite, wiping the juice dribbling down his chin with the back of his hand.

Anne looked at the fruit in her hand, shrugged her shoulders and took a bite, wondering if this was the way Eve felt when she was deceived by the serpent. The thought lasted only for a moment, as her mouth was flooded with juice from the fruit as she bit into it. It was like nothing she had ever tasted, and although she wasn’t aware of it, the gentlemen surrounding her smiled as a small moan of pleasure escaped through her lips.

As she finished off the piece of fruit, she began greedily sucking the juice from her fingers. It was at this moment that she remembered there were others in the room with her. She looked up to discover she had an audience, and her face grew hot and flush.

“Okay,” she said as she elbowed her way into a spot between Trevor and Ollie, grabbing more fruit and taking a large bite. It was so delicious!

Even though her mouth was full of pinkberry, and even though her parents had raised her to behave better, she peered at the two men sitting across from her as she chewed noisily, like a toddler given a tasty treat. These were the men who had been present when she and Trevor had first arrived in this world. They could help her.

The question formed easily in her mouth as she took another hunk out of a piece of pinkberry and wiped the juice from her hands onto her jeans.

“How do we find the man with the half-moon scar?”

3.

Anne never meant for things to come this far, and from the miserable look plastered on Trevor’s face, she was nearly certain he felt the same way. The plan was, and had always been, to take revenge on their so-called boss by planting some knockout gas in her home, kidnap her, strip her down to her undergarments – an image Trevor found all too appealing – and leave her stranded on a piece of property far away from civilization.

It had all gone horribly wrong.

To begin with, Ollie was nowhere to be found. She and Trevor had wondered aimlessly up and down the pristine hallway searching for any sign of him. It reminded Anne of the hallways in Scooby-Doo when the music started playing and the gang was chased in and out of random doorways by the villains. There were doors everywhere.

Big doors. Small doors. Wood doors. Metal doors. Doors with plants growing out of them and doors that sat askew in their frames as though they had been painted by Picasso. One had the silhouette of a rabbit holding a pocket watch engraved into it. When Anne had dared to put her ear close to it, she was greeted with a sultry voice asking, “Who. Are. You?” As she pulled back from the door, she noticed skinny tendrils of smoke escaping under the jamb like thin, white fingers searching for something to grasp onto.

She turned to look at Trevor, who’s wide eyes told her all she needed to know. This place was weird.

Another door they came across had a pair of large revolvers with yellow grips, their barrels crossed. Beneath the guns was a tall, black tower with a rose next to it. Anne didn’t dare get as close as she had before, but took a few hesitant steps toward it. Thankfully, no one spoke to her this time, but she could have sworn she heard the thundering of shots being fired. The smell of gunpowder filled her nostrils as she reached out with a trembling hand to touch the door.

It was wood, and although it looked smooth and soft, when she ran her fingers across it she was reminded of the rough, weather-worn fences she often saw on farms around Kansas. In her mind she saw a man, worn and weary, joined by four companions. They were on a quest, but before she could glean anything further, the vision dissipated, like a cloud blown away by a strong wind.

She watched Trevor try his luck with one that was covered with twisting vines and dark-green leaves. Though she wasn’t as close as he was, she thought she could hear kids playing and waves as they crashed down on the shore. The salty smell of the beach filled the air as Trevor pushed aside a few leaves and pressed his ear against the door. His eyes were wide with terror as he pulled away and looked at Anne.

“What?” she asked as he backed slowly away. “What is it?”

He wouldn’t tell her.

Curiouser and curiouser.

4.

The hallway they found entirely by accident. Or at least it seemed that way. Often Anne would find herself wondering if perhaps it wasn’t all intentional. That they had been steered in a certain direction, blindly following along like pigs down the chute to the slaughter. The more she learned about Lydia – in addition to what she already knew – the more she came to see just how foolish she had been.

Bright lights greeted them as they exited the staircase and stepped into the hallway. It was a brilliant white, and the combination of the two was disorienting. Anne squinted against the light, waiting for her eyes to adjust. She looked back at Trevor who was doing the same.

“Thoughts?” she whispered as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing. The corridor stretched endlessly in two directions, and neither gave any indication as to which way would lead them to their friend. Trevor had the same quizzical expression she was certain she shared as he tried to make reconcile the scene before him.

 

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