The Children of the Forgotten

Chapter 4

        Once everyone in the room had left, Carter turned to Tessa with fury in his eyes. 

"You pathetic little thing, making me look bad in front of all my workers!" He yelled. 

"With all due respect, Carter, we are a team, and a functioning one, with or without you bossing us around.... I deserve to sit in a higher position than the one I am in!" Tessa huffed. 

Carter gasped, "That's 'Sir' To you!" He bellowed, "You are prohibited from attending any more council meetings from now until I feel like inviting you back to one!" Carter exclaimed. 

"Fine," Tessa said with disdain, "I wasn't writing anything down anyway.." She said before wading up a piece of paper from her notebook and throwing at him as she walked out the one-half of the door that still stood.  

"Prohibited," Tessa huffed, "What kind of crap is that?" She said as she locked up her library for the night. 

Tessa got onto her horse that went by the name of "Pirate", for it was missing an eye. It had been shot a year earlier, and Tessa's brother was happy to help with the healing of it. 

As the horse rode a little while past the main square of the village, she noticed her brothers cottage with smoke coming from the chimney, implying that he was home. Visiting would be such a hit on her schedule though, sighing as she rode on. 

When she finally arrived at her house, Tessa looked into her yard and saw two of her hunting ferrets fighting over a rock. One of them was bouncing around it in circular patterns, the other was waiting for an opportunity to strike. 

"No biting..." Tessa said as she walked on, two more ferrets came running past her feet as she walked into her living room. 

Tessa had been raising the ferrets to hunt for her, she could then trade the small game meat at the village market for a small profit. One ferret, whom she happened to like, Aleca, ran in with one of her socks. 

"Aleca, that is not yours," Tessa sighed as she chased her around for a moment. 

She had done this sort thing almost every night, Aleca then smiled and bounced around the room with the sock as a sign of pride. 

"Fine, keep it," Tessa sighed again, "Things didn't always use to be so glum, did they?" Tessa murmured as she walked into her bedroom and looked on her vanity, the drawer was broken by Samuel, the chunkiest of her hunting ferrets. Upon closer inspection, she saw a small leather strap hanging from the broken drawer and upon opening it to reveal her old sketchbook. 

Tessa gasped. "I used to take this with me everywhere..." She cried. She opened the book and started to imagine her childhood. 

As a kid, Tessa wasn't interested in much, but she liked to draw, though she mostly liked to peeve the nannies at the orphanage she stayed in because they always found her drawing on the wall. Except they were also occupied with trying to show her brother that encouraging the behavior wasn't very good. 

Noah was always kind of a rule keeper as appose to a breaker, but he always encouraged Tessa's drawing, for they seemed to all keep record of the kinds of days they had and the games they played. Noah enjoyed playing around and building things with whatever he could find, then knocking them down. Though he always seemed to come up with a new escape route for all the people inside the little book villages, he never wished pain upon anyone, at least not then.

As kids, Tessa and Noah couldn't be more close, but when they got to be about 10, the orphanage grew colder and more painful. Neither of them wished to stay any longer, Tessa eventually got a hold of a notebook and taught herself to write about what was happening in a journal as opposed to drawing them. They feared they would be stuck there for the rest of their lives. 

Until one day, a man had come to take, take whatever he could find, including the children. The doors were left open, all was in chaos, but Tessa and Noah weren't, kids were being grabbed right and left, the only thing that truly mattered though was that they got to that door. 

Noah was grabbed by the leg as they were running for the door, Tessa jumped over and helped him escape when they made it outside, they were stuck outside, forced to make it on their own now. Tessa managed to save her notebook, Noah, however, brought something much more important, a first aid kit. Tessa smiled before looking down at the blood streaking down her leg, she could still feel the fingernails of the man trying to shove her off, but saving her brother was more important. Noah swiftly opened the first aid kit and put a wrap over the cut and washed it off with water. Tessa looked up at him and hugged him. 

From then on they did alright, Soon afterward they found "Hunter", Hunter was a pet weasel that they had decided to keep to find food for them, and with Hunter's help, they survived. 

Tessa closed the book and sighed. "Nope, never truly happy..." She said. 

                                                                        Ben 

Meanwhile, Ben walked over to a riverbank and growled, "The freaking water was right there in front of his stupid face!" He yelled before kicking the cantine, the cantine then rolled into the water and started drifting away rapidly.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Ben yelled before reaching for it and also falling into the river. 

As he drifted away, the carrier pigeon who had a letter from his wife seemed to be following him as he floated. The bird then dropped the letter into the water, as if Ben would get the chance to open it as he was flopping around for his life, the rocks started to be visible from a short distance now. 

"Find some help you, you, bird!" He yelled in panic. 

The pigeon then flew down to preen its self on the nearest rock. It cooed peacefully as it watched Ben float away.