Forgotten Embers

70. The Cartographer

Avera came with Benjamin back into the living room of Eliezer's home, having finished their jaunt through the woods together, to find their host and his companion sitting, chatting, and sipping on tea along with another man.

"Hello, sir," Avera said sheepishly.

"Hello," the man replied with a well-humored grin.

He was a built man with weathered skin and he spoke like a man from the northern regions.

'Perhaps this is Sam, then...'

"Would you like some tea?" he added, holding up his porcelain cup.

Eliezer laughed. "Aren't I the one who should ask?"

"Pardon," Ben said with his usual quiet insistence, "but some introductions may be in order." His voice was kind and unobtrusive.

"Of course, dear," Dorcus replied pleasantly. "Benjamin, Avera, this is my brother, Samuel."

"How do you do," their visitor said with a smile and a quick wave of his hand.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Benjamin replied with a bow of reverential courtesy.

"Sir," Avera said with a quick bow of her head.

"Ehm... would you like some tea?" Eliezer asked them with his arm wrapped around Dorcus's shoulders, an unusual sight but sweet.

Ben shook his head, putting his hands up to stay him. "No, no. We're quite fine, thank you. We wouldn't move you from your comfort, anyway," he said, declining on behalf of them both.

Eliezer smiled. "Alright, well... if you change your mind..." he offered, indicating that he would gladly accommodate them.

"Hey..." Sam interjected, trying not to interrupt. "Avera, right?"

Avera looked at him with surprise. "Yes?"

"They were telling me a little about you. Tyberion's daughter, aren't you?"

She blinked, and her chest tightened, some mixture of hope and dread welling within her all at once. "Yes."

Samuel smiled. "I have a letter for you from your father," he told her, taking another sip of his tea before setting it down and beginning to rummage through his sack.

'A letter...'

She could scarcely believe it. The hope of seeing her father or even learning what had happened to him had become a lost dream that she held at a distance. Even now, her heart would hardly be compelled to lift to the hope of the expectation of the letter because of its great hurt, turned to sickness by all of her past hopes, so many times deferred.

Samuel quickly presented her with a small, lightly crumpled envelope marked "Avera" in her father's writing, and she held it, trembling.

"It's unopened," Samuel assured her with a smile. "He left it for you, and I wouldn't pry. So... I can't tell you what's in it, either."

Avera nodded. "Thank you," she muttered, staring down at the worn paper in her hands.

Benjamin came and put his hands on her arms, bolstering her spirit. "Avera," he whispered softly in her ear, "no matter what is in that letter, no matter what it might say of your father, we're here for you, and that will never change."

"But, Ben, I'm scared," Avera confessed, crying.

His voice and his hands were comforting, but the pain and hurt of all the years was swirling within her. It turned her stomach and made the tears to run down her taupe skin from her eyes like streams of water on barren lands.