Inexperienced Heart

Chapter 25: Revealed

Landa walked slowly towards the invisible Lost Surfer's Hollow. Galadriel had told her the way. She was blindly following his directions. Her eyes were streaming with tears. The picture of Logan she saw, standing there alone, confirmed her suspicions. He hated her. Anyone could tell just by looking. He probably thought the kiss was meaningless, just to make it fair. But it wasn't. There was so much meaning behind it, how much she cared for him, how it hurt her to say goodbye as she was going to her doom.

"Why couldn't he forgive me? Why couldn't he see the meaning?" Landa wondered sadly.

She looked ahead, but her tears blinded her. She wiped them away, but saw nothing. She began to panic. The place was supposed to be here. The wizard had said so. He would not lie.

"An open place beyond the woods, where the trees have stopped growing and the ground is the color of dead grass. When you see that, you have arrived and Lost Surfer's Hollow will be revealed," he had said.

Landa started to run, ready to scream. What if this was the wrong open place? What if the wizard was mistaken about the location? She increased her speed. She did not understand!

She stopped to catch her breath. She took one more step and saw and heard weird things. The sky turned dark. There were hushed whisperings all around her. She tried to understand it, but soon gave up, because the voices were uncomprehensible. Around her were red lights moving about that didn't take definite shapes, but Landa was sure some of them were shaped like people. And then it was all done. It took very little time. Then, everything was back to normal, except...

Landa looked ahead of her and for the first time noticed the mansion. She did not even remember to look at it come into visibility; she was so busy listening and looking at the sky.

She saw the mansion, looking very tall and not old at all. Suddenly, her eyes fell on the entrance and her eyes grew wide with terror as she recognized Aldrich Palson lounging lazily in a rocking chair. That discovery reminded her she forgot to call the others.

She put the golden horn to her mouth that she was carrying all along and blew into it, making a low noise resembling that of a cello. Those were Galadriel's instructions; that when the mansion was revealed, she was to blow the horn, notifying the wizard and the other two that Landa had accomplished her mission and that it was safe for them to join her.

While she waited for them to catch up with her, running the hundred yards separating them, she wandered aimlessly and was startled to hear Palson's voice.

"Oh, you finally came. Nice of you to come visit."

Landa saw him grinning mockingly at her. She was only a few feet from him. She wanted to run up to him and punch him extremely hard, but she controlled her temper. She knew if she attempted it, it would be suicidal. She'd be dead instantly as he could kill her with just one magic word.

Landa could not come up with a suitable remark to his comment, so instead she said, "Let Mira go!" He laughed wickedly and disappeared in a flash. She was surprised even though she knew what he did. You don't see people disappear into thin air every day.

Landa actually felt relieved he went away. He scared her. She was confused why Palson did not kidnap her right at the instant she appeared. It would have been simple and as no one was around, no one could have saved her.

She decided to think whether she should go in and try to rescue Mira or wait for her friends to show up. She was about to go in when she saw her friends running towards her.

She thought about running towards them, but decided against it as Logan was in front and he already hated her. At least she thought so.