Forest of Dreams

Chapter eleven

When I woke Ayol wasn't in the room. He still wasn't back by the time I'd washed and dressed. I decided to venture out and try the address that the man at the market trader's office had given me.

There was no reply when I knocked at the door. It was in the middle of a respectable looking residential street. I don't know why I had been expecting something more sinister. I stood back and looked for signs of life. Nothing. I knocked on the door of the house to the right. A thin-faced woman answered, wearing a red apron covered in flour. 'Yes?' she asked, seemingly agitated at the interruption.

'I'm looking for your neighbour, next door,' I said pointing to the house, 'do you know where she is?'

'She's dead,' she replied bluntly, wiping her hands on her apron, smearing more flour onto the red material.

'What? How?'

'I'm busy,' she said, closing the door in my face.

I knocked on the doors of three more houses before someone answered. It was a young girl, with short brown hair and a blank expression.

'Are your parents here?' I asked her cheerily.

'No. I like your hair,' she said. I smiled at the unfiltered thoughts of children.

'Thank you. I like your hair too,' I said, returning the compliment. 'I want to know about your neighbour, the one at the house there with the yellow windowsills. Do you know what happened to her?'

'She was a witch.' She leaned out of the door to the side of me and spat on the floor after she said it. 'Witches have to die.'

She was clearly repeating what she'd been told, but I felt unnerved. I thanked her and left, quickly. I turned to see her watching me from the window of the downstairs room.

___

When I got back to the inn a familiar figure was waiting outside the door to the room. 'Hello,' said Garrett, smiling enthusiastically. 'Where have you been?'

'For a walk. I don't know where Ayol is, he left before I woke this morning.' He seemed relaxed, leaning against the door frame idly. He was wearing his usual dark attire, although his weapons were less overtly displayed now we were in the city.

'I know where he is, but I'm here to see you,' he said, grinning like he was in on a private joke. 'He asked me to escort you to the prison, to make enquiries. Are you ready to go?'

I nodded.

'I see you went shopping,' he said, looking me over appraisingly.

'I had to, some horrid men dumped all my belongings in the forest.' I looked at him with a smirk, so he knew I was teasing.

He threw back his head and laughed heartily. 'Sorry about that. But I did look through all your bags and there wasn't much there worth keeping. No offence.' He looked back to me with a glint in his eye. 'Being in Qren suits you.'

___

The prison was grim. I had a real sense of foreboding as we approached. From the outside the only thing visible was the towering walls. It looked like they were decaying, with crumbling, discoloured stones speckling the sides like a disease. A stale atmosphere lingered outside, like everything around it was sour and rotten. The entrance was a huge iron gate, flanked by four terrifying looking guards. Their faces were dour and joyless as they stood unmoving, like weathered gargoyles, hardened by the elements.

'You can wait outside while I go in if you want. It's not pleasant in there,' Garrett said hesitantly.

'I'd rather stay with you. I don't want to wait around here on my own,' I said. He smiled ruefully.