The Last Healer

Chapter 19: Ariella

Chapter 19 Ariella

            This was a really bad idea. I thought darkly as the sun beat down on top of me.

When I woke up and found a note from Mother saying that they all had to work today and wouldn't be back until dinner, a part of me thought it would be a brilliant idea to take them lunch. It wasn't until after I had left that I realized that I had no idea where they worked or who to ask. Stupidly, I thought that I could find it by chance and ended up getting myself lost. Horribly.

I shouldn't be here. The thoughts swirled in my mind while my eyes scanned my surroundings, the rundown wooden building, the broken windows, and glass littering the ground. There was no one in sight, no wind blowing through, no creaking building, only an unnatural silence. This place felt inhuman and scary; my shoulders seized up and my feet pounded on the street as I rushed away from there, the basket of food clung tightly in my hands.

Finally there was someone ahead and a sense of relief flooded through my body. Even from this distance, I could tell that it was an elderly woman; her grey hair glinted in the sun. As I got closer, I realized that the woman was sweeping dust out of the doorway. Her green eyes shot up and glanced at me and then behind me.

"Child, please tell me you didn't come from that way." Her voice was sharp and stern, her eyes glinted with a mixture of worry and anger. Her lips parted and she continued before I had the chance to respond. "That was a dangerous place to go, young lady. No one but thieves and people who have reasons to hide go down there."

"I-I'm sorry."

"It's best that you go home." She told me. "A girl like you wouldn't last a second if someone tried to attack you and I'm sure your parents would be worried sick if you disappeared."

"D-disappeared?"

"Yes." She clicked her tongue before waving me over. I took a couple steps forward, but was careful to stay more than an arm-length away. She shook her head and pointed the opposite way that I came from. "Follow that road until you hit a road double the size of this one. Turn right and it will lead you to the town square." The woman shook her head once more before turning her back on me and the brush swished back and forth.

My eyes shifted between her and the road she told me to take and, after a moment, I gave her a small curtsy and thanked her. Pebbles shifted slightly as I walked over them and I could feel the warmth of the sun through the hat.

It was hard to tell how far I walked since every house looked the exact same. The wooden structures only had one door and two windows, and a small patch of grass in front. A couple of them had a small box of flowers under one of the windows, but that was few and far between. There were few people walking in the street and, those that were, ran by without so much as a look in my direction.

Finally. I sighed inwardly as I came across another road. It was about twice the size of the road that I was on, if not bigger, and I knew that this was the road that the woman had meant. Wagons and horses took up most of the space, the people walked on the outside, and a soft buzz of the constant chatter filled the air. I did as the elderly woman told me and took the right at the road.

Wooden buildings with all kinds of signs lined the streets.  One of them had two knives crossed like an X; another had a dress painted on it; and another, with a particularly large group outside, had a mug with some kind of muffin shape on top.

Studying the people themselves, I slowly began to feel unconscious. Most of the people were dressed in shades of brown or blacks and very few had small accents of white. I knew that I stood out, how could I not? My purple dress, straw hat with a matching ribbon, and matching shoes, it was obvious that I didn't belong here.