Children of the Big Three-Book Two-Quest of Centaurs

Chapter 21 - Eryn

I was just little, playing at a park. My mom sat at a bench nearby, watching as I played. After a while, I noticed a dark haired woman dressed in black come sit next to her. The new woman had a little girl with her, probably my age, who the woman told to go play. The girl, with her mom's dark hair but rather bright clothes, excitedly ran to the playground. 

Seeing me heading to the swings, the girl came up to me.

"Hi! I'm Rachel," she said eagerly, "Can I swing with you?"

Little, shy me nodded and smiled as Rachel cheered in response. We found two swings right next to each other and swung together, trying to get higher than the other. 

There was one point when I wanted my mom to see how high up I was. 

"Mom! Mom!" I called. But when I looked over my shoulder as I was up high, I thought I noticed her hugging the dark haired woman, crying. 

"You're moving again?" Mom asked. 

"I've gotta keep her safe," the woman replied, "And I don't think that camp is the best place for her." 

"You okay?" Rachel asked when she noticed me looking away and slowing down on my swing. 

I looked back at her. "Yeah," I confirmed. And then we continued playing where we left off, little me hoping that I didn't really see my mom crying, and when I looked back that she would be back to normal. 

"Zaylor!" I heard Jace's voice shout, waking me from my dream, "You were supposed to keep watch! Now we've missed our stop!"

Zaylor and I both sat up and looked out the window. Jace was right. Instead of landing in Toronto, our bus went even further up to Barrie. The sign outside our window made that very clear. 

"Oops," she said. 

We all got off the train at this stop and asked the bus stop attendant when the next bus for Toronto would arrive. 

"Probably tonight," he said, "Sorry, kids, that bus just left." 

So we sat on the bench at the bus stop, feeling dejected. 

After a few minutes, Zaylor said, "Well, look on the bright side. Maybe there's a restaurant nearby we can get some food at while we wait." 

My stomach growled. "That might be a good idea," I agreed. 

"Alright, but we can't be too long," Jace said, "We've got a bus to catch." 

We asked the same bus attendant for directions towards the nearest restaurant. 

"Well, if I was you I'd head that way," he pointed to the left, "There are some quality restaurants about two miles down the road." 

Jace didn't look too excited about that. 

"Or," the attendant continued, "You could risk going left. That restaurant's only about half a mile away, but I wouldn't risk my life goin' there for nothin'." 

With Jace deciding he would rather risk our lives at the sketchy restaurant to the left rather than possible miss the next bus, we followed him down the faded path that the attendant pointed us to.  

After some time of walking, we finally came to an old beaten down restaurant. It actually looked abandoned. I could definitely see why that attendant said he wouldn't risk his life going here for anything. In old, rusted letters, with only two out of many bulbs still working, the restaurant was named "M. Peak." 

After we all stopped and stared for a minute, Zaylor said, "Welp! Time to go in." 

Behind Zaylor followed Jace, and I was close behind him.