Broken Ever Afters

Part 1 - Chapter 2

Months pass since we first set foot in our enchanted world. I do my best to keep track of time using father's pocket watch. Our mother gave it to us when we moved out. Every night before going to sleep I wind it so it doesn't lose steam. We left the real world on the 15th April 1812 and according to my calculations, today is the 1st of December.

After our first encounter with Gothel, we hid in various cottages all around the land, never staying in a particular place for too long. At times we would go extremely close to getting caught and had to leave while in other cases we decided to abandon the cottage for other reasons.

"It will be Christmas soon," I say as William walks inside with a wicker basket in his hands.
"You want to celebrate Christmas? We should have a luncheon and carve the turkey? Oh, wait! I don't think turkeys exist here. We can always settle for vegetable broth, if we have any left."

William empties the basket which is barely half full of edible tomatoes, lettuces, cabbages and carrots. When we move out of a cottage and into a new one, we always take seeds with us to be able to grow a patch of vegetables outside near the mill. Rodents here, however, attack our crops and it has become harder for us to harvest enough crops to sustain us for long.

"I still haven't pinpointed a safe spot for us to stay," I say, taking a quick glance at the land map in front of me. I was designing a map, adding to it each new place we visit or stay at. It takes time to study our surroundings and stay a few steps ahead of Gothel.

"We were driven off hastily from our last location without a plan or direction. Look where that brought us, having to fight off mice for a few vegetables."

"We cannot continue to live like this Jacob," William says, shaking the basket roughly in frustration, as if by doing so more vegetables than it contains would magically fall. "Maybe if we had given Gothel what she wanted, we'd be home, drowning in our misery like normal people. We created this place. Why can't we create some sort of magical door which would take us back home as soon as we go though it?"

After the stunt I pulled with Gothel, using the soil as some sort of magical powder to transport us to safety, Will and I have tried to do the same with objects like doors, windows and archways, picturing ourselves back home.

"You know as well as I do we have already tried everything we could think of and nothing worked. If you think I'm having fun, jumping around from realm to realm, sleeping with one eye open every night because I think I hear howling, you're terribly mistaken. I want just as much as you do to return home even if there's nothing for me to return to."

"Sometimes it does feel like you don't want to leave. After all, you said it yourself. You have nothing to return to. You're using our little adventure to escape facing the truth. Cecilià is gone and I'm sorry but you have to move on with your life."

"Cecilià has nothing to do with this. This is about you wanting us to hand over to Gothel the most valuable weapon we possess to defend ourselves from her. We don't know the repercussions this could have on the other innocent characters. Handing this over to her could mean tyranny and oppression across all realms. Is that what you want?"

"Don't you dare blame this on me," William says, moving away from the table and coming around next to me. With a swift move he takes the manuscript book away from my hands, holding it dangerously close to the naked flame. "For all I care we can burn this thing to ashes. It could solve all our problems."

"Or melt us away with them," I chide, taking back the book and moving it away from the fire. "We don't know for certain we'll be returned home if we destroy this book. What if we're trapped within the burning pages? Would you want to die trying? It might not be the life we envisioned when we left home but we're still alive."

"You call this living?"

A whoosh shoots by my ear and a red-tailed arrow sticks into the wooden mantle between us. I turn around to look through the open window and see, at some distance, a huntsman on his horse with his bow drawn and a wolf gnarling at the horse's feet. We don't need to wait for the crops to deplete. The place has been compromised and we have to flee.

My first instinct is not to run away but to make sure we don't have to start from scratch when we settle down somewhere else. I grab my leather satchel, and fold the realms map between the manuscript pages and, in turn, place the manuscript inside the satchel. Now it's time to run. Fast.

William meanwhile has closed the window and put some furniture against the main door to stall the huntsmen as the growling approaches. Had we used the front door, we would have been walking straight into the wolf's mouth.

"This way," I say, grabbing William from the shirtfront and pulling him towards the back door as huntsmen crash against the front door. If they reach us, we won't have much time to get some distance between us and the cottage. Opening the door, we pour out of the cottage but we part ways. I keep running straight ahead towards the forest while William heads to the left, towards the lake. Growling persists behind me as I enter the forest. Arrows continue to whizz by, landing in trunks of nearby trees until I'm deep enough not to be visible by huntsmen.

A lone wolf trails after me as I run deeper into the forest. I dodge a few trees along the way, careful where to step but not minding where I go. The trees thin out again after a while as I approach the outer edge of the forest. I expect to see a clearing, some hills or a village but nothing of that sort is in view. Stopping abruptly, I grab hold of the nearest tree to break my run as the ground beneath my feet drops and I climb away from the edge, feet shuffling on the soil. I'm standing at the edge of a gorge, next to a waterfall, with nowhere else to go. The wolf stops running and approaches slowly, teeth bared.

Without thinking it twice, I take another look down at the gorge and jump. I don't know what compelled me to jump but it felt the right and best thing to do. The wind created by my momentum of my fall caresses my skin. As I approach the body of water below, I close my eyes and wait for the water to wash over my face. A shiver runs down my spine as I'm immersed in the icy water. When I remerge to breathe, I look towards edge from where I dove from but the wolf is not in sight.

An undercurrent drags me forward and I fight it to climb the river bank and continue my journey. The current is too strong for me and I struggle to keep afloat all the while it pulls me farther away from the waterfall. Rocks sprout from the water in this part of the river and I shift my focus to dodging the mounds instead of trying to pull out of the water.

After a few close calls, I notice I can't clearly see ahead and it dawns to me that yet another waterfall might be coming. I swim, keeping the satchel as close to me as possible so I don't lose it with the fall. When the water's edge comes, I'm spit out and fall along the water but not inside the current. The drop is shorter than the previous one but as soon as I fall into the water, the currents are much stronger than before and I'm slapped against a rock and my head impacting the boulder before the lights go out.