The Last Healer

Chapter 10: Ariella

Chapter 10 Ariella

            The streets were still filled with people and Mother told us that she needed to get to the other side of the square. I stared at the crowd of people in fear, worried that something horrible was going to happen. I pressed myself against Thomas's side.

            "Hey, mom. Why don't I take Ariella where there are less people?" He offered as he slipped a protective arm around me. "You can get the food and such and I can keep Ariella safe, maybe show her around the food vendors?"

            "It might be for the best." Mother sighed and then patted my cheek. "It'll be busy inside and that will only make things worse for you, my dear. At least, out here, if you get overwhelmed, Thomas can take you where there are less people."

            "O-okay." I whispered and Thomas grabbed my hand. I smiled softly and relaxed a little, it was weird and I didn't understand, but I felt safe and comfortable here.

            "What about us?" Natalie demanded.

            "We'll go with mom to help with the baskets." Brittney laughed as she grabbed the basket from Thomas. "Try to behave, mister." She told him and poked him hard on the chest. She waved at me as she grabbed Natalie's hand and walked away, mother leading the way. I giggled slightly and then looked up at Thomas.

            "Well, not that we're alone." He winked and grabbed my hand. "Come on, you." He laughed and pulled me into the crowd. I stayed as close as I could to him and was surprised that no one was actually running into us. They stepped out of the way or Thomas would find a way to go around them.

            We broke through the other side after a few minutes and I looked around. There were still a lot of people around us, but there was a lot more room to walk. The fountain was on my left and there were stall-like things on the other side of the fountain which were swarming with people.

            "Thomas?" I called up to him. He stopped and turned around to give me a questioning look. "What are we going to do now?"

            "Food." He laughed and pulled me towards the stalls. We stopped at one of the outer stalls and there was some kind of fire going on in a metal pot thing with a rack covering it. On the rack was a bunch of things on sticks, things that looked like meat and vegetables. When we finally reached the merchant man, Thomas ordered two of the sticks and paid for them. I nodded my head in thanks and the man smiled as Thomas grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the crowd.

            "W-where are we going?" I asked.

            "To the fountain!" He smirked. I followed him through the crowd, some people even stopped and said hello to Thomas. He nodded and smiled at each of them, even joked around a little. They all seemed to like Thomas, not hate him. So why? Why did the shoemaker dislike him so much? What did he do? I couldn't understand how someone could hate Thomas unless there was something no one else knew about him.

            We finally reached the fountain and I looked at it in confusion. There were about six people, from what I could see, standing around at the bottom of it surrounding a woman who standing above them on some kind of pedestal. Each of them was made of some kind of silver-like metal. Right in front of me was a statue of a man who held a sword in his right hand above his head as well as a shield in his left hand, by his side. A stream of water was spouting out from his sword and the top of the shield. On his left was a woman with long hair and a dress that stopped around the woman's knee. She held a sword in her right hand; the woman held the hilt around her chest and the blade was pointing up with water coming out of the top. On the other side of the man was another woman; she looked exactly the same as the other one, but this had a whip in her hand. Her right arm was raised and the whip was circled above her head with water spilling from the tip. By the woman with the sword was another statue that was slightly blocked from view so that all I could see was a giant bow and an arm. There was another body next to the woman with the whip as well but I couldn't tell what it looked like from where I was standing.