Children of the Fence (The forgotten Children)

6. Anticipated Trouble

Theodon stared at me for a while.
I didn't say a word. Every breath I took seemed to provoke him even further.
Finally, he got up and left the room, just as quietly as he had come.
He turned round one last time. "I advise you to be very cautious over the next few days. You will get what you deserve."
I watched his shadow slowly disappear behind the door.

"He can't and won't hurt you, Fenn. Don't worry," Quin tried to reassure me.
But I wasn't worried about that. What was going through my mind was a sentence he had almost whispered.
"The sound still echoes in my head..."
I felt him. I hadn't been able to get the sound of breaking bones out of my head either since I had regained the memory.
It was a sound that cut into my heart and I understood the anger he was expressing his pain with. But how could I talk to him? Each word I said was like fuel to the fire.
"Fenn?"
I woke from my thoughts.
"Are you all right?" Layla asked.
I nodded.
"It's not your fault." She took my hand.
I looked up and saw her smiling comfortingly at me.
"Try not to think about it too much."

When Quin glanced out of the window, the sky had already turned pitch dark. The rustling of leaves outside the house proclaimed that a storm was brewing.
It was time to switch off the lights. Otherwise, we would draw attention to the shadows.
Before he left to take care of the lights, he finally asked what the Thallon had done to me. I showed him the marks on my back. For a moment he stared at my injuries, as if petrified.
"I'm just relieved that you made it back ... I hope they never find you."
He told me that most likely they didn't come from whip lashes, but their claws and teeth. Their claws were painful and cut deep into the flesh. Their bite was like that of a snake, and in some cases fatal.
What kind of creatures were the Thallon?
Could they even be grasped by bare hands?
Or were they beings like humans, made of flesh and blood but a heart of stone?
What did they feel like?
How did one defeat them?

After Quin had left the room, Layla and I finally left as well. She took me to the second floor.
It consisted of three more rooms.
I glanced curiously through a half-open door.
There was one room that was furnished with cushions and pillows, which had to be the bedroom. Straw mats and blankets lay all across the floor.
There was a bathroom too. A large wooden barrel served as a bathtub. It was surrounded by buckets of water.
But that wasn't the best part. At the end of the corridor was an armoury, so Layla told me.
I glanced inside. Where were the weapons?
Cloth bags filled with white powder and silver splinters caught my eye. There were small glass spheres that glowed in the dark and various liquids whose contents I didn't know.
The room was bursting with strange tools that I couldn't name and objects that didn't look like weapons.
Intrigued, I ventured a step inside.
Layla laughed amusedly over my shoulder.
"I can show you that room later. For now, I'll take care of the wounds on your back. Come with me."

She retrieved a small tin from a drawer in the bathroom. Then she sat me down on a stool and dampened a piece of cloth under the tap. There was also a shower in a corner of the room. The corrosion had already eaten into everything that had once been made of metal. I could hear the rhythmic dripping from the faucet.
The light on the ceiling flickered a little as a moth repeatedly crashed into it. Layla knelt on the floor beside me. I carefully took off my T-shirt.
She began to gently dab at the wounds with the cloth.
"It may sting a little," she warned.
Carefully, she started applying the contents of the jar to my back. She turned out to be right. I flinched in surprise as the ointment made contact with my skin. The gel had a chilly feel to it, but after a few seconds I got used to it.
"What is it?" I asked.
"It's an ointment made out of marigold by Theodon's sister. Your wounds should get better within the next few days. At least it will prevent inflammation."
I felt her fingers tracing the marks on my back.
A thought occurred to me. "How is it that Theodon's sister lived in the north, but he grew up here?"
"That's a complicated story." She sighed. "When you get right down to it, Theodon is only her half-brother. Her father lost his mind with grief after her mother died and decided to change sides.
He had lost all hope and thought it was best to forget everything and give up his old life. That would happen one way or another, whether he survived the fall from the cliff or not. He left Mirja alone in the north ... Mirja, that was his sister's name."
Layla stroked the back of my neck, where the wounds had cut particularly deep. I winced involuntarily.
"I'm sorry," she apologised. "There are some bite marks on your neck."
"Mirja never spoke to him again. Of course, he couldn't remember her either, but she never forgave him for what he did to her by leaving.
In any case, a few years passed and he found a new wife in Avendor, Theodon's mother. Both his parents died in an accident, when he was quite young. It is not unlikely that this "accident" had something to do with the Thallon.
After struggling to survive alone as an orphan for a few years, he eventually found out that he wasn't alone at all and that his half-sister lived on the other side. Although they didn't grow up together, they soon became very close. After all, they shared the same father. It really changed Theodon's life. He doesn't have many friends here because of his rather withdrawn and secretive nature. But now that North and South have become closer, he has made a few friends here as well.
We were nothing but lonely and scattered children on both sides before all that. There was nothing like this." She gestured around her. "These quarters were only built a few months ago. Many of us lived in the forest before Theodon made this house available. We only became a community after that. Even if some things could be better, I'm still grateful."
The burning of the ointment gradually subsided and I began to feel better.
"On the other side, we had something similar," I recalled. "A small group of tree houses that-" I jerked up in surprise. "Why can I remember that?"
"Your memories are coming back," Layla replied happily.
"I didn't have a vision or anything alike this time. The knowledge was somehow just there."
"Maybe it's stayed with you."
"But I thought I would forget everything."
"Hm ... It's unusual. I can't explain it either."
"I remember building them with a few others. But I can't remember exactly who the others were."
"I'm sure you'll remember eventually. Your memories are coming back faster than what is usual."
I sank back again.
"Don't fidget like that, I'm nearly finished."
"Oh, sorry."