Scavengers of the Deadlands

Chapter Eight: The Calm Before the Storm

 “He’s going to look into it,” Abigail stated, stepping through the door, “but he doesn’t think there is reason for alarm. Is there? I mean, couldn’t she just have slipped away home and been too afraid to tell us?”

Connie looked up at her, her eyes swollen and red. “I don’t know,” she said, “it doesn’t seem right, somehow. Even her letter reeks of fish. Don’t you think it’s odd she said ‘do not forget me’? It sounds almost like she’s asking us for help and why didn’t she write our names?” She sighed. “I’m so tired, Abi, so tired and my eyes are so sore. I never thought I could cry so much.”

Sitting beside her, Abigail put an arm about her friend’s shoulders. “I miss her too. Have you had any luck with the Runes?”

“No,” she shook her head glumly, “I’ve found bits and pieces that look like parts of it, but nothing that really points to anything. The only thing I’ve been successfully able to decode is this,” she pointed at a vague sort of arrow shape amongst the weave. “It indicates direction, and distance but it seems to be pointing directly out into the Deadlands. And why would they take her there? There’s nothing there but cockroaches and blackemarr.”

“It doesn’t point to Andeen?”

“I don’t even know where that is,” Connie sighed, “Niamh never spoke much about her home, remember? She seemed glad to be away from it. Why would they call her home without talking to the school? What sort of emergency could it be? It wasn’t like she was amongst the ruling class or anything.”

“I don’t know,” Abigail replied. “But I’m going to find out. Phinaeus has given us a day to ‘recover’ so I intend to write a couple of letters – one to my father for he has many contacts, and one to Niamh’s parents. If there is something going on, they deserve to know, whether they’re being drawn into a war or not.”

And with that thought forefront on her mind, she sat down and began to write, getting halfway through a letter to her father before her eyelids grew too heavy and sleep claimed her.

*

The better part of a week passed before Professor Phinaeus sent word of his investigation, four days of pretending to pay attention in class, interspersed with exhausting weeping sessions, visits to her mother’s portrait and curt arguments with Araminta. Four days of Connie’s relentless pacing and determined poring through text after text of Runes. The letters had been sent via pigeon-post, the pigeons being descendents of aenimals, bred for their memory and intelligence. She did not expect a reply for at least a week – a painful, restless week. A week of wondering what the kidnappers were doing to Niamh as they, her friends, sat back and waited.

Willow, as predicted, took the news particularly badly and fell into a most intensive sulk. Brought about, Connie tentatively suggested, by the fact that if Niamh had left, she had completely neglected to bid him “farewell”. He could not accept her leaving on her own free-will and spent the nighttimes relentlessly yowling his despair to the night sky. During the days he crouched beneath the inverted tree, refusing to come out no matter how much he was tempted by tasty titbits. He grew thin, clawing and biting at the least provocation.

And then the news came at breakfast. A Second Year rushed over to their table, tail and ears fluffed in his somewhat stressed state. “Professor Phinaeus wants to see you,” he said loudly, “in his office. Now.”

  There was a joint gasp from the others seated at the table, and over the far side and down a bit, Araminta’s ears pricked. All were imagining what terrible crimes these two girls must have committed to receive a summons to the University Head’s office, before breakfast no less. For once Abigail did not care what they thought. She needed news and it seemed she might finally have some.