Flightless- Chapter Four

It was barely past afternoon tea when they arrived at the cottage, but it felt like a million countless years.

Nothing had changed, of course, the cottage was still there. The sun still shone. The grass was still green, the sky was still blue. Bright blue. Everything was still the same.

Except for two things, one important, one not. There was the screeching dragon roaring somewhere in the far off distance, far away somewhat in the towering peaks and mountain tops. But there was another thing, too.

The grave had changed their lives forever. *Forever. Forever.* Their calm, peaceful, easy lives would disappear into thin air, as thin and crisp as autumn oxygen. They would have to fend for themselves- lose too much. They would have to do all the things they had never even dreamed of doing.

It seemed easier now, just go find their parents, stop this prophecy and everything would be saved. But if they thought about it now the hard side began to reveal: Fending for themselves. Trying to figure if their parents were really alive, dead, or what. It wasn’t easy. It made it harder when the grave didn’t even *hint* what the prophecy meant.

All Brynn seemed to read between those small, thin lines was *doom, doom, doom.*

In fact it would have been shouting those words at the end if tombstones could talk. Louder than a gong. It was too obvious. The journey would lead them to their deaths.

But that was why they needed to look out for each other even more. Danger could find any of them, and all they had was themselves, the prophecy, and nothing else.

And it was harder to take the quest if you didn’t know the meaning of it, besides to find them. The time had come. The truth: Their parents were not their parents.

But it still didn’t sink in. But what did was new feelings. Strong feelings. Sharp feelings. *Different* feelings.

Besides that the hurt stung when they thought about the thing they had never thought about, the proof, the signs, the truth had been lying around everywhere, they just didn’t seem to even look at it, or notice it. They were so blind. And because of their closed mind before, they had missed it. And now it hurt. Throbbed. Burned.

And yes, the feelings had now changed, feelings that were rarely felt among them.

Brynn felt more… determined. Indigo had felt the taste of true ambition. Dannie had never been so fearful. They kept it to themselves, stillness, hesitant to approach their home.

Or, what used to be home. What wouldn’t feel like home anymore, only because if they ignored the sign on the grave, they would never sleep.

The urge, the curiosity, the guilt that they had possibly doomed the outside world would have been too much. The realisation they could have been reunited with the parents that were beginning to form their hopes, dreams and daydreams, daydreams of what a real family could be like.

They would be perfect. Perfect, just perfect. They would love them. They would care. Care for them all, care more surely than Grandpa Melvyn had, since he wasn’t part of their real family.

Right?

So many ‘right?’s. So many questions. So many things. Too much to take in.

The beginning… of the end.

Change was in the air. Change was blooming. Change… was beginning to change everything. But before they decided what to do about the pain, the unsureness, the heaviness of knowing that the side of staying with Grandpa would be outvoted, they had to vote. Then tell Grandpa Melvyn about everything- if the answer was yes.

Tell him. There was no way they could, no way he would let them go.

But they were going.

*Sorry, Grandpa,* Brynn thought miserably, letting out a deep sigh as Dannie side-eyed her sympathetically, sympathetic as usual.

But the pain was still there.

They could barely take another step towards the cottage now.

Indigo let out a matching sigh to Brynn’s as they stopped dead, looking up at Dannie expectantly, as he was the one who stopped first.

‘Should we vote first?’ Dannie fretted suddenly, as they began to kick pebbles on the path with their feet as they looked down at their bare toes. ‘I mean, we can’t vote in there, not while our… temporary guardian’s there. I mean, we could, but he’s probably going to lecture us about being late. That would waste our time, wouldn’t it?’

*Temporary guardian. Not ‘Grandpa’, just, ‘temporary guardian.’ I guess Dannie can’t bring himself to say the name. Of course, he’s lied to us. But it's painful, uttering what we used to call him aloud. It reminds me of… when I thought he was ours,* Brynn thought again, closing her eyes, as an unbearable, great wave of thoughts crashed through her heart.

*We will leave a scar now, knowing all those memories we have made were fakes. Worse- we could even be orphans. How could we live knowing we are now homeless and without a family? Wait- we have each other, don’t we? But it still hurts, a lot. At least we don’t know that we’re kinless yet, even if we are homeless. Hopefully not forever, if we find what we are looking for.*

Bynn sighed. ‘It would, kind of.’ That answered Dannie’s question, if going inside the cottage to vote would be a waste of time.

‘Vote? Fine then,’ Indigo sighed, feeling greatly impatient. She had wanted to ask if she could be leader, but the five simple words couldn’t come out of her mouth. It was as if the world doubted her slowly rising power.

Dannie and Brynn stared at her, surprised, mouths hanging open, clearly not acting out their surprise, finally feeling something else for a second besides many bad, mixed emotions that tumbled and swirled and did backflips in her head.

‘Seriously, Dannie, what have you done with the real Indigo?’ Brynn joked, rolling her eyes playfully, while Indigo just looked away, to hide her amused half-smile.

‘Wasn’t me,’ Dannie cooed innocently, shrugging, looking at his feet again and going dim again. ‘So are we going?’

Indigo and Brynn’s smiles faded, and their faces fell like melting clumps of snow set on the stove pan.

‘Yep,’ Indigo and Brynn said together, forcing grins, but hid them again. The grins were too goofy and worried to be real. Indigo didn’t grin though, she just hid her face, her fringe flopping down to cover her expression when she focused on the stony ground like it was the best thing in the world.

Cold hearts, never touching the sun as they walked. Solid thoughts, loud, ear-splitting, blaring in their ears like drums, crashing hearts, souls that hurt and knew it all.

They knew too much, they knew too much.

Curiosity kills the kitten. But it didn’t just end their lives, it bloomed a new one. Either curiosity killed them, or they still had a new life waiting for them at the end of the rainbow.

It was time to see if curiosity killed the kitten… or them.

Then the hardest part of it all came: To tell Grandpa they were going out, most likely forever. *Forever.* The words stung like ice. It was a good thing Grandpa still loved them, not like most characters in books getting sold or thrown out.

But when they knocked on the door, Grandpa Melvyn only opened it slowly, face falling as it met theirs. He knew them just too well. He knew something terrible was going to happen.

None of them looked at him except Indigo, who eyed him challengingly but also looked as if she really wanted to stare at the floor with the others now.

‘Take a seat,’ He ordered, voice silkier than normal, wrinkles deeper. He suddenly looked a thousand times older than her really was. Like a skeleton.

Something must be wrong. Sitting on the couch. They seemed to be in trouble. Deep trouble. But why?

Indigo sat down first, eyeing the door greedily as if secretly plotting to escape, Dannie staring at a corner of the ceiling, Brynn staring, puzzled, at her guardian, who shook his head, muttering to himself and looking away with troubled eyes as he spotted Brynn’s sharp, searing gaze.

‘You three are in big, big trouble,’ He rasped, more distant and faint than loud and angry.

Indigo jumped up, outraged, disbelieving. ‘We did nothing wrong!’ She snarled, whipping her head back to glare at her brother and sister again. ‘Tell us what we did wrong.’

Grandpa Melvyn suddenly looked more outraged than Indigo was, shooting her such a swift and cutting look Brynn thought her sister was going to blow up at any second. But Indigo, of course, was bulletproof.

‘You know well enough what you have done!’ Was all Grandpa screeched, holding out a shaking finger to point at her. Indigo shrugged.

‘Do we? I mean, chill,’ Indigo sighed, brushing herself off self-consciously. She’d never spoken like this to Grandpa before, and she was rude enough that Dannie and Brynn gaped at her, glaring like their life depended on it.

Brynn spoke before Indigo did, taking over before Grandpa’s strawberry red face would turn purple with rage. ‘Please don’t get angry, Grandpa. Indigo Isn’t in a good mood, and you know what that means. Don’t listen to anything she says until she finds her manners and gets rid of her attitude. But for now, Grandpa, um… is it okay to ask why we are in trouble?’ Brynn explained, looking directly into his dull, gray eyes, colour drained with age.

His face softened, as he went wary again. ‘Yes, that’s all right,’ He sighed, looking as if he regretted assembling them together now. Like it was too awkward. Or maybe he couldn’t bring himself to get the words out, if they were that bad.

‘I saw you,’ He whispered after a moment’s silence.

Dannie stared, mute, looking blank.

‘Saw us doing what?’ Brynn said calmly, trying not to gasp. She hoped with all her might he wouldn’t say what she knew he was going to say. The small thing they did. How could he know? How did he know? Why did he know? What did he see them do?

‘I saw you at the grave. You were reading it. You…’ He paused, searching their faces. ‘You know my secret.’

‘It shouldn’t be a secret!’ Dannie burst out, but then sank back as all of them shot him a surprised gance. Dannie never yelled like that, especially not to people. In fact, he had never had. Never. In his life.

‘It has to be,’ Grandpa Melvyn growled. ‘What would you feel if you lived the rest of your life knowing I was only your foster parent? None of those fun memories would have been made, nothing would have been happy.’

‘That Isn’t true,’ Indigo mumbled, staring at the wall. ‘I wasn’t always happy, but sometimes I was, happiest in the world. I won’t tell you why I was unhappy all these years, but I knew I had them, you and I was loved. Thinking about it made me happy again. And even having a hard life, happiness can come out of nowhere. Even if you know your parent Isn’t your parent, you can still love them, can’t you? We still love you. Love doesn’t just fade because of one simple message.’

Grandpa opened his mouth, unsure, but then stopped, mouth then forming a new sentence. ‘What message?’

‘The one on the tombstone. It said-’ Dannie began, before Indigo angrily slapped a hand over his mouth and he didn’t do anything to fight against it.

‘There Isn’t a message,’ Brynn fibbed. ‘We don’t want Dannie to say something then you think we’ve lied.’

‘Good comeback,’ Dannie whispered in her ear as Indigo removed her long fingers from his mouth.

Grandpa Melvyn sighed. ‘I know you are right. I love you all, as my sons and daughters. As my own. But I understand nothing will ever be the same…’

‘We know that,’ Brynn blurted, but then lowering her voice to a mumble. ‘But not because you’re our fake parent. We’re leaving. The prophecy has found us, if we are really in it.’

Grandpa Melvyn cringed. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. What prophecy? Why are you leaving.’

‘Classified information,’ Indigo said boredly. ‘Let’s go.’

But as she stood up, Melvyn pinned her down with a deathly stare.

‘You’re not going anywhere,’ He growled, eyes like daggers. ‘Where you are going is here. I can’t have you leave. Its too dangerous. Or are you joking? Dannie, tell me the truth.’

‘We must go,’ He whispered. ‘Please. The world needs us.’

‘The world does not need anyone. It has always been broken. People out in the streets, people with horrible families, people who are trapped in miserable worlds. You can’t fix all that. There’s no way, no law that can stop such outrage. It Isn’t possible, I’m afraid. And if the prophecy said the world would die, it was over exaggerating. So don’t go, I need you here.’

‘You want us here, but we need to be out there, we belong there now. Please, Grandpa,’ Dannie peeped.

Grandpa set his grip off Indigo, and walked swiftly over to lock the bolts in the door, stuffing the key in his pocket. ‘*You three,* are only children. You can’t stop everything, besides, you have no power, you’d get killed, or live a terrible life. Isn’t it better staying here, where Its warm and cozy? Would you rather be out there, scavenging in the wild without any clue of where to go or where you are going? What if it rains? What about night? What if something comes to eat you, or- or…’

‘But we didn’t think about it like that,’ Brynn soothed.

‘Exactly!’ Grandpa Melvyn barked, looking more outraged than he was after Brynn calmed him down.

‘It’s fine,’ Indigo scoffed. ‘Things are easy to figure out. All the time.’

‘It’s not fine. You have to stay here. If you promise not to run off, I’ll let you go,’ Grandpa argued, holding up the keys. ‘And I’ll lock you in your rooms to stop you from allying with the gnomes, if you escape again. I can’t bear to lose you. Just promise me.’

‘We can’t promise that,’ Dannie whispered, looking up at him. ‘We can’t promise a thing. We can only promise that we won’t stop protecting each other, and we promise we won’t stop trying anything, and most of all, we promise you’ll always be in our hearts, grandpa, if we never come back.’

‘We promise,’ Indigo and Brynn echoed.

‘We will protect each other,’ Indigo vowed. ‘We’ll never turn on each other. We’ll always be together.’

‘Always,’ Brynn told him. ‘I know you’ll lock us up. I know that. But you can’t keep us in forever. Don’t forget us.’

‘You aren’t going,’ Grandpa barked, but he sounded to fearful to be sure. Brynn stood up, taking Dannie’s arm, who stood up, puzzled. Indigo opened her mouth to utter something rude, but Brynn quitened her quickly, dragging her up the ladder to the Hayloft on the top floor and let Grandpa lock them in, looking like he didn’t care how weird they were acting.

The Hayloft was full of straw, it was cold and dark inside the roof, with a large window sitting on a platform by the rafters letting wind out into the barn-ish room. Mice and rats played in the straw, while owls flapped around in broad daylight, Old Tom’s face also poking out of the high platform, by the Window-With-No-Glass.

Grandpa was probably expecting them to make beds with the hay and eat the fruit the mice store to rot in the cracks.

But there was a way out.

The window on the almost impossible to reach platform.

It had no glass, no curtains, no blinds, no screen.

You could jump through it.

But then you had to survive the long drop down.