A Peasant's Hope

Chapter 6

(Jaria)
Jaria paced up and down the hallway as she tried to shake her awful feeling of guilt. In the past, she had done fairly well portraying that she was as evil as she seemed, but she was convinced that the cruelness was from her past guilt. Now she had just added to that guilt by ending her step-sister's son's life. What had she become? She told herself one thing as she laid down on her bed to weep. "You are a horrid monster!", and she believed it. All of the things that the good King and Queen had taught her had melted away over the years. And all of the horrific events were because of her, the once innocent little peddler girl for whom no one cared.

(Laura/Bayne)
"Skippidy doo da! Beeteleboop dat do! Hey Laura, isn't this great?" Bayne shouted over the howling wind
"Mhum. I am having the time of my life precariously dangling over a chasm on the back of a tiny mule that keeps slipping on the loose rocks! Of course I'm having fun; what about you Mister I'm-not-scared-of-heights-or-loosing-my-life?!"
"Wow, you became pessimistic quickly." Bayne added, "You were happy when we got out of the woods and now you are acting as if you wis you'd never been born!"
"Well, if you had never been taught how to ride a pony, let alone never even liked getting your hands dirty, and were now basically dangling over the edge of a cliff and your life was in the hands of a man you only met a day earlier, then yeah, you would be wshing that you had never been born too!" Laura was looking over the cliff's edge when she said this and almost fell off her pony. With a shriek she yanked herself upright. Bayne tried not to laugh, but he couldn't stop himself from letting a big whooping laugh escape his lips. They had many of these moments in which Bayne would poke fun at her and she would get mad. She would then yell back at him, and usually wish she'd never been born. Time and time again, Bayne would sincerely say that he hadn't meant to make her, "...angry, or fearful, or vexed, or depressed. If I'm too much trouble, I caan leave, you know." To which she would say, "No, Bayne, I need you. I can't find him on my own." To which Bayne would nod and keep silent for as long as he could, which wasn't very long. Laura hated that she couldn't do it on her own. She wanted to save him on her own as soon as she built up enough courage.
They had decided not to tell Isobel, because they knew that if they did, "...she would chatter the whole way and we wouldn't get there in enough time." They had decided to take Laura's pony and Bayne's horse, which had been loaded with food, extra coats and clothes, water, butter, and Bayne's sword that he claimed he bought in the nearest town. The weather was fair for autumn, however the trees of the Forgotten Woods obscured the warm sunlight from reaching them. To Laura, these trees seemed to reach out to her engraving nightmares in her head. On the night that they had left, which was the only night that they stayed in the Forgotten Woods, she had a terrifing dream. Petar was young, very young. Their mother was taking him to swim in the stream. They were splashing and having the time of their lives when suddenly a woman stepped out from behind the trees.
"Hello Clara. Oh, don't be alarmed. I haven't come for the boy. He may live. You will pay!" She had walked up to her mother and whispered something that she couldn't hear. It must have been something that disturbed her mother, because she took in a sharp breath and turned ghostly pale. The woman turned and left, leaving Petar crying and Laura's mother in a state of horrific shock.
As the nightmare faded away, another image flashed into her mind. She was inside the Queen's castle, and her brother was lying on the ground, unconscious. She tried to scream his name, but no words came to her lips. She felt helpless; nothing she could do would save him now. She was afraid that when she and Bayne arrived at the castle they would be too late to do anything.