The Forgotten Memory --part 3

The next morning at breakfast Fern seemed a little unsure of herself.

“Is something troubling you Fern?” Mistress Chervil spooned a large helping of oatmeal onto Fern's plate.

Fern stirred the oats for a moment and then set down her spoon. “I should not be here any more.”

Mistress Chervil and I both starred at her.

“I mean, you have both been more than kind to me but now I am well and I do not want to cause you any more trouble.”

“You are no trouble.” we both answered.

“But I am. You have to buy food for me, Valerian, you have to share your room, and I am still wearing one of your dresses.”

“You may not leave. Valerian and I both enjoy you. If you truly feel badly about staying here, you may help more with chores. Besides that, where would you go?”

Fern sighed. “I was afraid you would say that. But I would find a way to support myself. Maybe I could become a servant in one of the big cities.”

“No, I agree with Mistress.” I chimed in. “You're not going anywhere.”

“I thank you.” Fern put a spoonful of porridge in her mouth.

Fern--the only one of my character drawings I actually liked!

Fern did start helping with the chores more. She would do everything Mistress Chervil or I allowed and somethings we didn't allow. One of her favorite tasks was herb collecting. She loved gathering the green foliage, or digging for roots.

One day a rare thing happened, Fern was late for lunch.

“I sent her to gather lovage, near the pond about an hour ago.” Mistress Chervil paced the room. “I know she loves that pond so maybe she just got distracted. Will you go check on her?”

I grabbed my straw hat and danced out the door. It was a sunny day, the type I could eat for dinner and I wouldn't blame Fern if she did forget about the time.

When I neared the pond I slowed down and approached on tiptoe, curious to see what my friend was up to. Hearing a little splash my heart lept into my chest. What if she had fallen in the pond and drowned?

Then I saw her bending over the smooth surface and singing quietly to herself.

They jump, they dive,

They swim in three's or five.

Who knows where they come from,

I surely wish I did.

Blue and green,

Yet truly, really, grey.

Will you come,

in,

Come playing in the bay?

It was not a tune I had ever heard before.

I told Mistress Chervil about it that afternoon as we walked to town, leaving Fern at home resting.

She looked at me quizzically for a moment. “That, my dear, is a marine song. I heard it once when I traveled to Crenate City. It is about a big fish they call a dolphin.”

“What is a marine song?” I shifted the basket full of herbs for trading from my left arm to my right.

“It means it has to do with the ocean.”

Something in my mind clicked. “So she's from somewhere near the ocean! That's why she looks so different. And her eyes, I always thought they looked like puddles of sea water!”

“Maybe.” my mistress conceded. “But the ocean people are a long ways off. Don't forget your geography Val. They are on one side of Eindelliar and we are on the other, butted against the Uncharted Lands. Over four hundred miles.”

Despite her voiced misgivings something in her tone made me think that thought had previously crossed her mind.

Suddenly I stopped and grabbed Mistress Chervil's arm. “It also means she remembers something from her past does it not?”

“Something.” Mistress Chervil agreed.

So the months slipped by and Spring bloomed into Summer. Fern and I walked barefoot together and dangled our feet in the pond to cool off. I never told her I had over heard the song, somehow it felt like invading her privacy.

I will never forget the day they came. Two men, in full armor and draped in blue rode into Darag Village. They stopped at the tavern where they happened to come across Elder Maple on her current pet subject: Fern.

“A girl with piercing blue eyes?” they asked.

“Yes!” agreed another villager who had seen Fern many times. “Like yours, only much deeper and darker.”

“You say she lives with the healer? Mayhap we should go visit this mind reader.”

I heard them riding towards us from a mile away. Who couldn't with all the jangling?

“Mistress!” I called. “Two soldiers in blue. They have light hair.” Then as an after thought, “Like Fern's.”

Mistress Chervil came and peered over my shoulder.

“Ho there! We hear you have a mind reader!” The taller one called at they came trotting up the hill.

“No.” my mistress's eyebrows lowered. “We do not.”

“That is what they said down at the pub.” The man waved his arm back towards the Darag.

“We have a girl here yes. But she cannot read her own mind much less anyone else's.”

That was not strictly true, Fern did seem to be a little less confused these days. Mistress and I however, both knew why she was saying that. Someone had obviously wanted Fern dead. Someone who was probably a countryman of Fern's like these two were. If these men were in anyway connected with her and had evil intentions perhaps, if they thought she was out of her mind they would decide she was not a threat and leave her alone.

“Can not read her own mind?” the second man asked with a slight lilt in his speech.

“That is right.”they were at the bottom of our porch steps now and dismounting. “She cannot remember anything.”

“Even things we told her yesterday.” I added.

Their eyes flickered to me.

“Well, then I guess it was a dry run mate.” the man with a lilt began remounting. “Say,” he stopped suddenly, “They said she had blue eyes. Does she also have light hair? Maybe she is a country woman!”

The taller man grinned. “Yeah! Does she look like us? Mayhap we know her! Would not that be nice out here in this wilderness to see one of our own.”

Mistress Chervil stiffened next to me. I felt her hand slip into mine for half a moment but that was all I needed. She was my mistress, and I was her apprentice, we understood each other.

I stepped back inside and went into my bedroom where I had last Fern.

Fern was not there.

The men stormed the house regardless of Mistress Chervil's attacks. The valiant woman even grabbed a knife and received a twisted wrist for her efforts. Caught off guard we were totally at a loss how to defend ourselves.

Then my wrist was grabbed from behind and my whole right arm twisted behind my back. It hurt.

“I can break bones.” The man with the lilt offered me. “Where is she?”

“I do not know.”

He twisted harder and I grunted.

“Where darling. Just tell us and all this pain can go away.”

“I do not know.”

I screamed as I felt my thumb crack.

“Stop that!” a deep but feminine voice filled the room commanding obedience.

We all turned toward the sound.

Fern stood in the doorway, the tall slender figure backed by the setting sun. Her hair seemed to be glowing and her blue eyes looked cold and deadly.

“Fern.” Mistress Chervil moaned.

The man let go of me and starred in surprise.

“Someday when right has been wronged, I will have your heads for this.” her voice was ringing with authority. “You may think I will not remember your faces men, but I will. Ask your master, he will tell you that I forget nothing. Ever.”

“Just wait until Lord Ray gets his hands on you Cet--” the taller man began but in a blink she was gone.

I heard her fleeing down the porch steps and tried to stop the men but they were after her like hounds after a fox.

A fox is a fitting picture of Fern. She took their horses. Jumped on one and grabbed the reigns of the other. There was no question she was a master horse rider and the thought slipped through my mind that maybe she could read as well.

Master Conifer later filled me in on what followed. Fern rode their horses into town, briefly told of what had happened at the house and then, when Darag Village was on her side she waited.

The men came puffing up the street but never made it past the pub. The twang of two longbow strings was heard and both men fell, arrows through their bodies.

Mistress Chervil and I arrived just as they were carting the bodies away.

“I am going now.” Fern strode toward us.

“Where?” I asked, cradling my still unbandaged thumb.

She smiled, a little bitterly I thought. “Anywhere I have not already been.”

“Mistress Chervil,”she embraced my mistress, “I thank you for your care.”

Then she turned to me. “Valerian, I am afraid I will have to borrow your dress a little bit long but I return the nightgown. And by the by, you are a wonderful teacher.”

“But you already know how to read do you not?”

“English, Latin, Greek, and French. But you would do a good job teaching someone who did not know.” Then she embraced me too and I felt tears running down my face.

Turning quickly away she mounted the stronger of the two horses, my short dress hiking up past her knees. “I leave you this other fine horse, Mistress Chervil.” She nodded, turned and cantered out of town.

“Fern!” I called and ran after her.

The Land of Eindelliar. I spent several days last week learning calligraphy in order to draw this.

She pulled the horse up.

“You said you remember everything do you not?” I panted, coming even with her.

A look of intense pain slithered across her face. “Everything.”

“What is your name?”

She looked toward the sun, giving it's last gasp of light. “What you do not know, can not hurt you.”

Then she turned her horse and galloped away into the fast falling twilight.

The End

So, what do you think? Is my writing boring? Are my drawings hideous? If you say "yes" I'll agree with you. :)

Happy Birthday Grace! I hope you enjoyed the story!