The Cave Of Mystery

The Mysterious Letter

On her way down to the river, Arabella Winfrith Helena Porto walks slowly down the dirt path. Living in the village of Konstantina, it is her duty to help the village collect food for the whole of Argyris. Her father, Christos helps with this job but her little sister, Maria does not have to help until she turns 12 in one year. With her fishing net in one hand and her bait in the other, she makes her way down the pathway towards the helpful river. Passing her father on the way, while he was handing in their daily catch, Arabella waves to all the passing village folk who were doing all their different duties. Lately, she and her part of the town had had a lot of trouble finding seafood for Argyris so Arabella was hoping that today would be her lucky day.

After a couple hours at the stream, watching the rest of the village come and go, Arabella started to lose hope in finding any food at all so she decided that the best thing to do would be to go back home. Frustrated, Arabella gathered up all her dirty tools and, downheartedly, trailed back to her tiny cottage. Walking through her front door, Maria skipped up to Arabella already happy and willing to help make dinner.

"I'm sorry Maria. The fish have moved to a new part of the river, they're not there anymore." Said Arabella in response to Maria's confused look at Arabella's fishless net.

"Oh. Well, will we have to go without dinner tonight?" replied Maria trying not to sound sad.

"No, you can help me gather fruit and veggies from the garden. We'll have a feast with all the different foods" responded Arabella, attempting to sound cheerful.

Maria and Arabella headed out the back door and into the tiny garden. There weren't many different types of food growing in the plant pots so Arabella knew that it would be an incredibly bland dinner but she could see that Maria was starting to think the same thing.

"Well, we haven't got much but we'll make it great. Ummm, we'll get some lettuce." replied Arabella rapidly while she realized that someone had stolen all the lettuce and left only one leaf left, "Oh well. We can just have some carrots and cucumber, I know that those are your favorite vegetables."

Realising at once what was happening, Maria acknowledged the attempt to sound cheerful in her voice and said, "I'll look for dad, don't worry I'll be back soon and perhaps we can buy some food down by the market."

"Okay, be quick so that you can help me prepare the vegetables," responded Arabella handing Maria their families small supply of savings. "Spend wisely."

After another couple of minutes, during which she had gathered a little basket of carrots her phoenix's bright orange feathers soared into view. Raye landed elegantly on the fence surrounding the cramped garden and started nudging Arabella to get her attention.

"All right, all right. What is it?" she said giving in and taking the torn letter. All she saw was 'Come to meet me by the lake at midnight tonight - Lavender'