In a Forest, Under a Tree Where Many Plans Were Made

Chapter Five

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Hi readers! It's LisJustice. Now, you all know very few things about Jack. He lived in a treehouse and loves Summer with all his heart right? Well, I thought you might be hungering for more info on our gorgeous protagonist, so here's a whole chapter dedicated to him!! And if you want a particular thing in a chapter, just message me! I'll see if I can fit it into the storyline I'm building here. And if you would like a character dedicated to you, well, maybe I can find you in Radnok (yup, brand new town introduced in this chapter) when Jack and Summer visit!! (ooooooh suspense!!)

Happy reading!

-L

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🌲 What Happened to Jack? 🌲

Summer spent most of her nights wondering this: What on Earth happened to Jack? He had no family. He had no life. It was like he just appeared one day. His parents couldn't have been killed in the Great Fire. He claimed to have been living alone since he was five. That was three years before the fire. So what did happen?

Summer asked him the next day. He was chopping more trees, having fashioned himself an axe. Summer sat lazily beside him, it being a hot day. She was writing in her notebook when she thought to ask. This is what happened.

Jack had been in the woods. His father: he had no idea who he was. His mother: depressed and lonely, Jack had been an orphan from the day he was born.

So he was five. He lived in another village, quite far from Kryston, called Radnok. Radnok, if possible, was even smaller than Kryston. It's population was barely forty. Kryston seemed huge compared to it. At least at the time before the great fire.

So Jack had ran away. Already too grown up for his five years, he knew of Kryston and decided to start again. He didn't pack a thing. One night, after many furious hours of shaking his mother, trying to get her to speak, to move, to live again, he ran away. He ran and ran, and didn't stop. It took him a week, and in that time he didn't sleep. Or if he did, he doesn't remember.

Eventually, he found Kryston. Straight away, he went to the Other Shop. He blended right in to the crowd. He saw the shop, and went in it. It was like the shop in Radnok.

The shopkeeper was a lot younger than what he is now, but he was still wise. He saw this child, starving and poor, and gave him food, and let him sleep in the back room. After a while, the man built him a tree house. He put a bed in it, and gave him a chest of drawers. The whole time Jack was in Kryston, he never spoke. Never.

Not until he met Summer.

And that is what happened to Jack.

Summer gasped as she took it all in. Jack was the first person he had spoken to in Kryston. Perhaps the first person he had ever made friends with in his whole life. Summer suddenly understood why he loved her so much. Jack had been in the most terrible place. No family. He knew he had left his mother to die, because he was the only one putting food in her mouth, making her eat and drink. If he wasn't there, she would just waste away. She'd sit in that very chair, the same one she first sat down in in shock when they said that when she was pregnant her husband had run away. She gave birth in that chair, a couple of people helping. Then she just sat and didn't move except to feed herself and her child. Then when Jack stopped breast feeding and needing her, she stopped working. She sat. And sat. And sat. And sat.

And she never got back up.

So when he met Summer, it was like the world started again. He met a girl who could fend for herself, who didn't just stop working when her world disappeared. But Summer had come close that night when Jack couldn't find her. But they both knew that if Jack never returned, Summer would go back to Kryston. She'd look for survivors. She'd try and make the place again. For Jack.

But Jacks mother never could. She was weak. You may say it's because she loved her husband more than Summer loves Jack but that's not true. If she did, she would look for him. And most importantly, if they did, why did he leave?

Because they were weak.

Jack sat down next to Summer. He put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her in. "Never just stop working like that. It's not fair to anyone." He whispered. Summer shook her head, swearing she wouldn't. And she was telling the truth too.

Summer and Jack sat in the sun and talked. And every second, as usual, Jack was so grateful he had left his mother and found Summer. And Summer was also grateful. Jack was the reason she was alive. Only he had the guts to tell her that they were going to unintentionally blow up Kryston. And Summer, if possible, loved him even more for that.

And that, is what happened to Jack.