Puzzles

Somewhere in the woods

I am in my sitting room, playing with my teddy bears. I must be about four? Josh keeps stealing them, then putting them back when I start to cry. Mum comes in. She is carrying some biscuits. I look hopefully at them.

"Not for you my dear." She says smiling. She puts them down on the coffee table and straightens out her dress in the mirror.

"We have a visitor coming in a few minutes." She says. Her face shows excitement but also nerves. I hear the doorbell and mum rushes to get it. He stands there. His eyes dancing blue and his swishy, chocolate brown hair. His face is serious and solum.

"Maria, we need to talk, I don't have long." She nods and shows him into the front room. I look at him up and down. He walks over and gives me a hug.

My dad.

He turns to Maria.

"I am going to be killed at dawn." Mum stifles a sob.

"They can't do that! You can live with us! You can have a proper family!" She protests. He smiles and looks longingly around the house. His eyes find mine and they stop there.

"She's beautiful. She looks just like you." Mum blushes. I look at Josh, he is looking confused.

"Who is the boy?" He asks.

"My last boyfriends. He didn't want a child so he...ran away." She says sadly.

"Well he is a coward. I wouldn't leave you, I would love to stay-" I can feel that he means it "-but, the circumstances...are impossible." They stare out the window for a while. Something beeps.

"I must go. I will never see you again." He says. Tears start pouring from mum's eyes.

"I love you." She says. He smiles.

"I have never loved anyone more than you and your children." He nods at Josh who grins.

He leaves the house, his family and me.

"Is she ok?" Janet's voice becomes clearer. "She's waking up!" My eyelids flutter open and stare into Luke's face. His face looks different though. It is pale and clammy with sweat. His eyes are also a little red.

"Thank god!" Janet sighs and relaxes against a tree. I realise we are in the middle of a forest somewhere in Australia. I look back at Luke. He is smiling and some colour is back in his face. He then straightens his back so I can get up.

"We thought you were dead!" Janet is half crying now, as she pulls me into a hug.

"What happened?" I ask.

"She must have been a supporter for Oreno. Chances are she has the power of mist. The mist is also known as disguise or secret, if you can see through the mist, there are no secrets." Luke says. I notice him and Janet are normal again, not dad and daughter.

"Our disguises wore off?" I ask. Janet nods.

"They only last for twenty four hours." She says.

"How long were we on the plane for?"

"About nineteen hours." I nod.

"So where are we?"

"We're not sure. We landed on a hill somewhere. We would have taken you to hospital, but it would have been too risky, any supporters would have let you bleed to death, so we walked a while until we came across this forest and decided to camp out here over night. There's a river down the bottom and Luke's been catching some fish and getting some water." Janet says as she throws a log onto the fire.

"How did you get the weapons through security?"

"Blast of mist." Janet pulls out a flask of white gas. "Spray this on it and they disappear, well they're inside the mist anyway."

"Did you kill her?" I ask. She leans in towards me.

"Luke did." She whispers. I look at him. He has his back to us.

We try to eat some weird fish that Luke caught down at the river. I don't feel as if I can eat  after everything though and the other two understand. Then Luke says he's tired and goes to bed. Janet watches him as he goes and once he's disappears she comes and sits next to me.

"You know, Luke was panicking when you were unconscious. When we landed, you had lost a lot of blood. His face was pale and he had sweat pouring down his forehead. One point you were really sick, he vomited once or twice. Then you started getting better, so we covered the wound in bandages and carried you to this place." She whispers, smiling. I shrug.

"Friends care about each other." I say.

"Sure they do. But Luke really likes you. I could see it in his eyes. I think it may have started when he saved you in that storm-"

"What!?" I say. That was him? I had wondered who that was actually. "I didn't know that was him!" She looks surprised.

"He didn't tell you? Well, I thought he would of. What do you think of him?"

"He's a friend!" I protest. She keeps smiling.

I'm lying of course. But I'm not about to discuss this with his sister.

"I think I'm gonna go to bed." I say, wanting to escape this topic of conversation. She nods.

"Ok, I'll keep watch tonight. I don't feel very sleepy."

"night then." I say and climb into the tent. It is actually quite big, with two hammocks and another room with a kitchen area.

"Whoa." I say to myself. I climb into a hammock and dump Janet's bag that she's lending me down too. I don't really want to sleep after all the dreams I've been having. So I just stare at the ceiling and think about what Janet was saying.

One terrible thought passes into my mind now and then.

Luke or Asher?