The Foster Children of Time

Chapter Seventeen: Tests

Chapter Seventeen

Caroline and Tony said farewell to Rumil and Garsen after taking some small pouches of food and water from them.  With reluctance, Tony also accepted a polished hunting knife from Garsen.  Rumil offered his short sword to Caroline, but she refused it.  They passed the gate and continued on the path.  The terrain grew more level, and pine trees lined both sides of the trail, growing gradually taller as Tony and Caroline progressed.  The trail disappeared into the distance with no apparent end in sight.

After another thirty minutes of hiking they took another break, having found a toppled red pine trunk on the side of the path to rest on.  Tony and Caroline took the time to catch up on everything that had transpired since they split up after their flight from Selwys Castle. 

“So you just bandaged yourself up out in the woods?  That’s crazy.”

“It’s just one of my many talents,” said Caroline brightly.  “Actually, it’s something my Dad taught me.  He was into this major survivalist thing.  He taught us everything we needed to know if we were stranded alone out in the wild, or if the government collapsed or whatever.  He had this fixation with water.  Like every drop was precious.  He would literally make us give prayers of thanks for water.  We used to have to fill every empty bottle with water.  We had a whole garage full of water bottles at one point, so there wasn’t even room for anything else, much less the car.  It was kind of crazy.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“That was mainly after Elizabeth died.  Before Mom and Dad got divorced.”

“Oh, well you weren’t coming around much then, so…sorry to bring that up.”

“No, Tony!”

Anger flared in Caroline’s eyes. 

“It wasn’t me who stopped coming around!  It was you!  I wanted you.  I needed you.  I needed my friend, and you ignored me.  When you saw me at school you ran the other way!”

Tony sat, stunned.  Was that really the way it had happened?

“I…I don’t know what to say, Caroline.  I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry.”

Caroline turned away, covering her face with her hands.  She angrily blinked back tears.

“Oh, forget it.”  She jumped to her feet.  “Come on.  I can’t wait any longer.  The suspense is killing me.   Let’s go see this damn Witch.”

The path wound westward for a short distance and then resumed in a northerly direction.  The pines gave way to patches of colorful wildflowers stretching out on either side of the path.

Caroline sniffed the air.  “Are we close to the shore?”

“Wait, I think I see something,” said Tony.  “Is that a chimney?”

Caroline and Tony stepped forward cautiously.  They could now clearly see a white one-story wood frame house with a gabled roof at the end of the path.  Full sized arched windows were set on either side of the front door, which had a decorative mat laid before it.

“That looks like a painting my Grandma had in her living room,” said Caroline.

“Huh.  Looks a bit too Norman Rockwell for the 11th Century.”

“Maybe we’re not really in the 11th Century.”

“Could be, I guess,” said Tony, doubtfully.  “What’s that?”

A low, pulsing sound was heard.

“It doesn’t seem loud, but I can feel it shaking my ear drums, like when a helicopter flies by,” said Caroline.