Escape from Cirices Part 1

Chapter 9

The horizon was a pale purple-grey colour. Frost hung on the trees and the grass at the horses' feet. Abigail watched the sun, emerge from the East and turn the sky a rosy pink. That rosy pink dawned into a carrot coloured orange, then to a pure gold and finally the sky became bright blue, the colour of a warm Summer day in Cirices. Abigail guessed she never saw such a bright sky because of the pollution around Cirices.

When they finally stopped for a rest, it was midday, when the sun was just in the centre of the sky. The four girls had found a small creek, however it was far too small to be the Green River. When Abigail stopped and got off, she spotted that Noctus already had saddlebags on him. Her parents must attached and filled them while Abigail was asleep. Abigail noticed she was already dressed, her Mum must have changed her while she was asleep. She wore a brown top underneath her father's cloak, black pants and her hunting boots.

Abigail checked the first saddlebag which contained food, water, a sleeping bag and other essentials such as iodine, to purify water. The second saddlebag had a brown skivvy and a spare change of underwear and socks. To her surprise, she found her mother's clothes; a green t shirt, black jeans and some ordinary looking sneakers and a black book with no title.

"Wierd."

"Huh?" Lokeyia asked.

"You know what this book is. I mean no cover, I've never seen it in our house before." ventured Abigail.

"The only way to find out what's it about is to open it."

"Right you are."

Abigail walked over to the stream, where Sara kneeled, gulping down as much water as she could hold.

"You know that water from there might be poisonous?"

"What?!" Sara asked

"Yes." Abigail said grimly "There's this plant called blue green algae. It's very poisonous."

"Oh, I didn't know. I've never left Cirices apart from travelling to Merope for my mother."

"It needs to be purified with iodine."

"I'm so sorry Gail, I didn't know!" exclaimed Sara.

Meanwhile, Magda was fussing over Lokeyia's hair which was a bit hypocritical because Magda's hair wasn't up to the scratch, either. Still, Magda kindly offered to braid Lokeyia's hair, which she didn't reject. Abigail and Lokeyia went hunting and gathering and soon had three handfuls of roots and greens, and two squirrels to show for it. Magda heated up some water and tossed the meat, roots and greens in and they waited. Magda, absent mindedly polished her dagger on her top, Lokeyia sat down and read a book from one of Jade's packs, Abigail and Sara were enjoying themselves, Abigail would shoot an arrow into the tree and Sara would climb up and retrieve it, as practice for her tree climbing skills.