Scavenger Hunt

Thief!

Boom! The night sky burst with color as each rocket exploded before our eyes. The fireworks are always my favorite part of the Festival of Eleven. Every year on November eleventh, we start with the party and the food, then comes the dancing, followed by the countdown to the Great Wish, eleven minutes after eleven at night. Then comes the moment of silence as everyone holds their breath, waiting for the first magnificent blend of color and sound to shock the senses of every single person in the audience. I love it. Even when everyone goes around shouting afterwards because no one can hear properly. I love that too.

As I leaned back against the topless tree - named for the giant hole that allowed you to see straight through the leaves into the sky, and giving the tree the look of a balding man’s head - there was a moment when I just let myself get lost in the beauty of the fireworks. Just for a moment though, because the fireworks ceased just as the alarms began to sound throughout the square. 

Senshu raced to block all the exits, cutting through the confused crowd like a knife through butter. The alarms were only used in three cases:

1) There was a storm coming and the citizens needed to find shelter.

2) We were under attack.

3) A horrible crime had been committed.

There were no signs of a storm as far as I could tell, taking out option number one. I didn‘t see any weapons or soldiers, eliminating option two. That left only one option, an option I preferred not to think about it. 

I think others in the crowd began to reach the same conclusion I did, because people began running about, discussing the possibilities to one another, no matter how ridiculous the idea was. I stood with the crowd, allowing them to pull me along, listening to their whispers here and there.

“Do you know what this means?”

“…must have been a crime during…” 

“…a murder! While we were…”

People began to panic. Parents called out to the children that had run off. Friends called out to each other.

“Mikayla,“ I heard a familiar voice call out my name. “Mikayla Storm!”

“ I’m right here Ria!” I called back to her, searching for the owner of the voice. Ria was my best friend, besides Tiki of course, but he was a cat, so he didn’t count. She had straight, blond hair that went halfway down her back and beautiful, stormy grey eyes. She was shorter than me even though at sixteen she was a year older, but I was taller than most girls my age, so that wasn’t unusual.

“Mikayla! There you are, I leave you for two seconds to go to the bathroom, and when I come back I find you wandering aimlessly away from our spot with these alarms blaring in my ears. What did you do now?” Ria talked in this rapid-fire way that caused all of her words to slur together, but after seven years, I could understand just about everything she said.

“That was one time, will you let it go already?” I complained. That was really how Ria and I become friends. When I was seven, I got really upset and ran away. After a day, the Head Priestess - and my adopted mother - was certain I’d been kidnapped and forced the senshu to sound the alarms and notify everyone to look for me. In reality, I was in a small, unused broom closet I’d found a while back. I had stocked it with snacks and a few toys, and spent some of my lonely hours in there. It was my secret hideout, complete with a pile of blankets for a bed.

Ria caught me sneaking out to use the bathroom. She went into my hideout and refused to leave until I had gone home. Well, it only took about ten minutes with her until she annoyed me to the point that I had to relent, or I would quite possibly lose my mind. Every day after that, Ria came to check up on me, and we eventually became close friends.

“Never shall I let it go. In fact-” Ria was cut off  by the Head Senshu, Drake Fron, who was up on the steps of the temple, yelling for silence. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at him. He wants people to be quiet, so what does he do? He starts screaming at people. Pure genius. After ten minutes of Drake yelling so loud his face turned red, one of the regular senshu has to step up and use the whistle that is conveniently hanging around his neck for situations like this one. Everyone stops talking, except for Drake, who is still yelling like the buffoon he is. He finally stops, straightens his shirt, and takes a deep breath.

“I would like to start by getting rid of any ridiculous rumors containing any guards getting killed. No one was killed, only one guard has minor injury, and he will be fine.” The Head Senshu is a tall man with dark hair cut close to his head. He has a big nose and bad breath, and always talked to people like he was much too important for them, when actually, most people thought rats were better than him. “The alarms were sounded because there was a robbery. Heranasi’s amulet has been stolen! We are asking everyone to remain calm, and return to their homes in an orderly fashion.”

Well, things didn’t exactly go as our brilliant Drake planned. At the mention of the guard, people began to shift around uncomfortably, and by the time he got to the instructions to go home, people were in frightened clumps, moving to one another without any real purpose, and just generally ignoring Drake’s wishes. Senshu began trying to transform the unruly crowd into an empty square so they could go about their other duties, but no one quite seemed to care. They were more intent on finding anyone who would listen so they could share their wild theories with one another. And the few who did care were so caught up thinking about the robbery that they just ignored everyone else. And who could blame them? Heranasi’s amulet is sacred to our people! Poor Priestess must be crushed. Even Ria was speechless.

I had to find out more. Knowledge is power, and right now I was seriously lacking anything important  that had to do with the robbery. I started to make my way over to Drake, irritating as he is, he’d be the one to have the information, but stopped when I noticed the mob that was attacking him with questions. I’d never get through to him that way. Who could I get to? I had many friends among the senshu, but I doubted any of them would have the details I sought.

Priestess! She could tell me what I needed to know. I scanned the crowd for her deep blue robes that signified her as the Head Priestess of Heranasi’s Temple. There! I could just make out her long, black hair all done up in her signature celebratory bun behind a wall of senshu. I ran over to her, Ria trailing just behind me. The senshu parted as we approached, allowing Priestess to see us for the first time.

“Mikayla! And Ria you too, come here.” Priestess opened her arms wide as Ria and I moved in to embrace her. There were tears streaming from her big, brown eyes, and I suddenly felt guilty. I should have been over here comforting her, not running around trying to find out about the robbery. “This is terrible! Just terrible! To think, some low-life scum would come, sedate the guards with blow darts, take the amulet, and to do so on a day that we celebrate Heranasi! It’s atrocious.” Poor Priestess began to sob. Ria and I comforted her as best we could, but after a while, it became clear she couldn’t stop. 

“Ria, why don’t you go find your family? I think Priestess and I should go home.” Ria looked at me solemnly and nodded her head, turning and fading into the crowd as she looked for her father and two brothers.

The square was beginning to clear out a bit when I led Priestess up the stairs that took us to our home just down the street from the temple. By the time I had deposited Priestess on her bed and put a kettle on to heat water for tea, Priestess’ sobs had begun to subside. She now just sat there silently, a blanket wrapped around her small form, staring off into space.

I sat down next to her and put my arm around her shoulder. “Priestess, don’t worry, it’ll be okay. We’ll get the amulet back, you’ll see. The senshu will find out who did this.” I didn’t really know where I was going with it, but it seemed to have soothed Priestess a little, so I continued. “ We’ll catch the scum that did this, and when we do, I’ll make sure that he rots in a cell for the rest of his life!”

I thought I was doing a good job, but Priestess just collapsed back into her pillows and resumed crying. I ran and gave her the hot tea I made, but when I  came back, I found her mumbling to herself. “The Prophecy has finally come, oh the Prophecy, it waits over two-hundred years to come, and it chooses now! Oh the Prophecy, the Prophecy, how did I not see it coming, oh the Prophecy…” On and on she went until I finally just set down the tea, wrapped her up in blankets, and extinguished the candles.