The Land of Miu (Land of Miu, #1, 2nd ed.)

Chapter 8

 “Emma! Emma!”

They searched the cavern twice, but Emma was nowhere to be found. Defeated, Kate stood beside the boulder where her sister should have been crouching. She stared at the empty gap, mental pictures flashed through her mind.

Joe taking Kate to the hospital, when she was seven, to see her new baby sister. Emma muttering Kate’s name for the first time. The big, excited eyes and huge smile over last year’s Christmas present, wrapped in paper Emma had made herself - there had been so much glitter stuck to everything that Mum had complained for weeks.

“Kate! I found something.”

Snapping back to reality, Kate turned to look at Siptah. He stood in the entrance of the tunnel they would use to leave the cavern. He held a red strip of thin leather.

“This belongs to Min. He has taken Emma.”

Alara sank to the ground. “This is my fault.”

Ignoring her, Kate walked over to Siptah and took the piece of leather from his grasp. “Are you sure this is Min’s?”

“I am sure.”

“It is from the front of his tunic,” added Alara. “I should have known he would do this. Why did I not stop and think?”

“It is not your fault, Purr-princess,” said Siptah. “You warned me from the start that we should not get close to the humans, that it would be dangerous for us and them. You told me to be more aloof, like ...”

Siptah stopped talking. Alara turned to look at him. “Say it. Like me.”

Kate straightened up and pushed her palms over her face. “None of that matters. We have to get Emma back. We have to get her back now. Where would Min have taken her?”

Alara and Siptah looked at each other, but neither of them replied.

“Tell me. Where?”

Alara shrugged. “I do not know where, but it will be in one of the many caverns.”

Kate groaned. “Tell me why ... why did he take her?”

“Because he knows it will stop us going straight back to Manu.” Alara removed her pack and placed it in her lap.

Kate stared at the pack, then at Alara. “What are you doing? You’re not still thinking of stopping here are you?”

The princess nodded. “We have to sleep.”

“No,” yelled Kate, her voice sounded strange, even to her own ears. “We can’t stop. They might be close by. We have to go after them now.”

Siptah stepped forward. “She is right. There is a better chance of catching up with them if we leave immediately.”

Alara looked sad and uncertain for only a moment. “Very well.”

They left a torch burning in the tunnel entrance leading back to the spider. Alara and Siptah agreed that it was unlikely that the spider would return, but Kate wasn’t taking any chances.

Armed with a torch and a pack each, they left the cavern and continued their journey. All thoughts of returning home had left Kate’s mind. Her only priority now was finding Emma.

Some time later Siptah stopped at a fork in the tunnel.

“Which way would they have gone?” asked Kate.

Alara and Siptah pointed at the tunnel to the left. “That way.”

“How do you know?”

“The other tunnel leads away from the city and Min must return in time to claim the throne,” replied Alara.

They continued on.

The farther they walked, the harder it became. Kate was tired and she knew her companions were too. Yet every time she considered stopping, Emma’s face popped up in her mind, and Kate was more determined than ever to continue on.

“Kate, we have to rest,” said Siptah.

“We can’t. Emma needs us to help her.”

“If we continue, someone will get hurt,” replied Siptah.

Kate shook her head. She needed to sit down as much as they did, but what if those few short minutes meant the difference between finding Emma and not finding her?

“If we do not rest, we will not be able to think straight,” said Siptah. “We need clear minds so that we can rescue Emma.”

A sob escaped from Kate. “We can’t stop. All this is my fault. If I hadn’t let her go to let the kittens—”

She stopped abruptly and looked at Siptah. The torch light brought out the ginger in his grey fur and reflected in his green eyes, which were big and sad. He seemed human, but he wasn’t. She kept forgetting that this boy was the kitten she loved so much. She looked down at the ground between their feet.

“Kate, I—”

She didn’t want to hear what he had to say. She pushed passed him and started running along the tunnel.

“Kate?”

She ran, down one tunnel then another. She ran blindly because she could see little through the tears that filled her eyes.

“Kate!”

Why had the kittens come to their house? It wasn’t fair. Her family had taken them in and loved them. Kate had loved them. She had held Jasper in her arms and cuddled him. If she had known he was really a boy, and that he knew what was being said, things would have been different. She had shared so many secrets with the tiny, tabby kitten. She felt betrayed.

“Kate, come back.”

Kate heard the desperation in Siptah’s voice.

All her disappointments in life rose to the surface. All the hurts. The feelings of being left out of the circle of love in her family. Being on the outside looking in. The resentment that Joe wasn’t really her father. The anger that her own father had died when she was a baby, leaving her with nothing—not even memories. All the things that had festered inside her over the years, making her feel miserable.

Kate sobbed and continued running.

“Kate! You are going the wrong way!”

She faltered. The ground tilted. She fell forward, the torch flying out of her hand and rolling away from her. Away, away and then ...

The torch disappeared over the edge of the rock path. Kate screamed as she slid along the ground after it. Her hands groped for something, anything, to stop her.

There was nothing to grab.

Her heart in her mouth, she tumbled face first over the edge of the chasm. Fear stifled the scream lodged in her throat.