The Protectors: Book 1 in the Protectors Saga (17 page)

There was a massive chest of drawers against the wall
opposite her bed. It was painted the same silver color as the
wardrobe, and there was a ridiculously large silver framed mirror
resting on it. Even though the chest of drawers took up most of the
wall space, there was hardly anything on it. There was a thick
bristled hairbrush, two glistening sliver daggers with gold hilts,
that looked like they had more been haphazardly discarded than
strategically placed, and a small silver jewelry box with an
etching of a horse on the top of it. Avery opened the jewelry box
and a sad haunting tune filled her room. There was nothing much in
the jewelry box, itself, except a silver bracelet and a few strips
of ribbon. Avery left the box open so that the melody could
continue to play.

As Avery stared down at the sparse items on the
dresser top, she couldn’t help but think back to her dresser on
Earth. It had been so covered with jewelry, and books, makeup,
pictures, stationary, and a dozen other knick-knacks that she had
never ever really been able to see the actual top of the dresser.
If the top of her dresser on Earth had been bad, her actual drawers
had been atrocious. This made Avery curious, so one by one she
opened up the drawers of the silver dresser.

The first drawer she opened contained rolls of white
bandages, a pair of scissors, different sizes of needles, thread,
and a small sharp looking knife. Avery cringed and shut the drawer
quickly. She didn’t even want to think about how many times she had
to use the contents of that drawer. The next drawer clanked and
tinged as she opened it. She looked inside and saw over a dozen
glass vials filled with different colored liquids. Avery picked up
a thin-necked glass vial with a round bottom and a pink liquid
sloshing around inside. For a brief moment she thought it might
have been perfume, but as she pulled the cork out of the top of it,
a distinct medicinal scent hit her nose. The second vial she took
out was squat and round with a lid that screwed on. Inside it was a
green hued gel. Avery unscrewed the lid and again a medicinal
menthol scent was released. Avery tried two more glass bottles, but
both contained medicative liquids.

So far, Avery was not liking what she was seeing,
bandages, healing tonics, needles, boring monochromatic clothes,
and maps that read like a horror novel. Avery wondered what kind of
person she had been to think these things normal.

Avery turned around in a circle, taking in her whole
room. There was nothing personalized anywhere, no pictures, stuffed
animals, books that didn’t have to do with killing monsters, no
diary…nothing. It was as if she had had no personality at all, and
that definitely wasn’t Avery. She decided to try one more drawer
before she wrote herself off as having had been the most boring
person in the world. The drawer was filled with undergarments, all
neatly folded in rows and all white. That was it, she was
thoroughly depressed by the person she use to be. Avery reached in
and scooped up all the perfectly white undergarments into her arms.
She disposed of them in a corner of her room. Avery unzipped one of
her small carry bags that contained all of her undergarments from
Earth. She dumped the contents of the bag into the drawer without
bothering to fold anything. Avery smiled at the purple boy shorts
covered in tiny pink skulls wishing her a happy Monday.

“That’s much more like it.” She told herself aloud,
feeling a sense of relief in making the room slightly more to her
taste.

Avery spent the rest of the evening unpacking her
bags and attempting to turn her room into something she could be
proud to call her own. She placed a few photos of her family and
friends that she had brought with her on her nightstands and nailed
a few to her wall. She had wanted to take down the maps, but
decided against it, knowing they contained valuable information,
horrific, but valuable. Avery made quick work of covering the
dresser with items, jewelry, makeup, and books. She then made room
in the wardrobe for all of her clothes and shoes.

If Avery had been exhausted before she started
unpacking and redecorating, afterwards she was about ready to
collapse. Before she let herself lay down on the inviting bed Avery
walked over to the two glass doors that led out to the balcony. She
opened the doors up and a cool breeze rushed into the room, blowing
back Avery’s long hair form her face. Avery stepped out onto her
small wooden balcony. The railing was covered in leafy vines with
purple flowers that extended onto the floor of the balcony, up the
tree, and surrounded the glass doorway. Avery let the cool air and
the sweet scent of the flowers wash over her. She looked up at the
sky and saw the moon. It looked almost exactly like Earth’s moon,
except much closer, like a wolf’s moon. The moon was surrounded in
a blanket of a thousand stars, and Avery felt comforted that at
least the night sky remained the same to her eyes. Before she
turned to go inside, Avery leaned over the balcony rail and gazed
across at the rest of the village. There weren’t many villagers
left in the center of town, only a few holding brief conversations
in passing on their way home. It was strange for Avery to see the
lights of the tree houses shining through the trees. It looked
almost as if the inside of the trees were on fire. She could see
images of people walking around inside the houses and could even
make out a figure or two standing out on their balconies. Avery
wondered if any of those people might have been Jade, or any of the
other girls, for that matter.

Avery slammed down on her bed without even bothering
to undress. She turned over on her side and groaned as she stared
out her balcony doors. She had turned the lights off, but hadn’t
bothered to close the curtains, and now she imagined how the
soothing moon shine flooding into her room would eventually turn
into harsh sun rays. Avery contemplated getting up and pulling the
thick purple velvet curtains closed, but when she couldn’t will her
body to move, decided it really didn’t matter that much. The last
thing Avery remembered seeing before drifting off to sleep was a
small firefly buzzing around busily on her balcony.

Chapter
7

“Avery! Avery, it’s time to get up!” Avery’s father’s
voice drifted into her subconscious. It sounded like a hundred
drums being pounded on inside her head.

“Avery!” The voice called again, “You’re supposed to
meet Gumptin and the others in five minutes, get up!”

Avery grunted and turned over in her bed to look out
the balcony doors. She pulled the covers down over her head and saw
that it was still dark outside.

“Guess I really didn’t have to worry about those
curtains after all.” Avery spoke into her pillow and snuggled back
under the cover.

“Avery!” The voice shouted.

“I know!” Avery shouted back, “I’m up!” Avery groaned
grumpily as she realized she was going to have to actually get
up.

She slowly sat up in bed and glanced around the room
with puffy eyes. She thought, disgustedly, how unnatural it was to
get up before the sun had even begun to rise. Avery’s movements
were slow and laborious as she got out of bed and changed her
clothes. She decided to go with a pair of jeans and long sleeve
thermal shirt she brought from Earth.

Avery was still groggy as she descended the stairs,
and she found herself exceedingly grateful for the handrail, as she
almost tripped a few times.

When she did finally manage to make it down the
stairs without tripping and breaking her neck, she saw her father
sitting on the living room couch reading a long piece of parchment.
As Avery approached closer she was able to see the words ‘Havyn
Ledger’ scrolled across the top of it in bold letters, with the
headline, ‘Protectors Return’ written just below it. Avery wasn’t
sure how she felt about being part of a headline.

After grabbing an apple from a bowl on the kitchen
table, Avery proceeded to the front door.

“Bye, honey.” Her dad called to her from his seat on
the couch.

Avery waved her apple filled fist goodbye to him and
walked out the door. The sun was just beginning to peak over the
horizon, lighting up the tall mountain tops to the west. Even
though it still seemed ridiculously early to Avery, a good portion
of the villagers were already up and outside working on their
gardens and crops, or opening up their shops and beginning their
tasks.

As Avery approached the spot where they were all told
to meet she saw Bunny sitting on the side of the well and talking
to Skylar who was balletically dancing around in front of her. From
the looks of it, both of them seemed to have enough energy to
spare, which was a good thing since Avery was having trouble even
mustering enough energy to walk over to meet them.

She spotted Jade walking towards the well from the
other side of the village. Jade was wearing all black, as usual,
with her hair pulled back and her signature stony expression
planted on her face. She had just finished munching on an apple and
threw the core over her back shoulder. When she spotted Avery
making her way over she let a smile escape and picked up her pace
to meet her.

“Good night's sleep?” Jade asked Avery when they
reached the well and Skylar and Bunny.

Avery shook her head, releasing a giant yawn, “Good,
but not nearly long enough.”

“I hear that.” Jade agreed with her, “Gumptin’s out
of his tiny mind if he thinks we’re going to keep meeting him at
freaking dawn.”

Bunny turned her head and looked over at Jade from
her perch on the well, “It’s really not that bad.” She told Jade,
“If you think about it, we’re supposed to be soldiers, and soldiers
are supposed to get up and train early every day. Maybe you should
thank Gumptin for wanting to give us the proper training time to
keep us alive, instead of complaining about him.”

Avery couldn’t stop herself from letting a guffaw
escape her mouth. She didn’t know if it was seeing Jade first thing
in the morning or just being on another planet, but it was one of
the first times she had ever seen Bunny chastise Jade, and she
couldn’t help but love it.

“Listen, band geek,” Jade told Bunny, getting almost
directly in her face, “we’re not all used to getting up at the ass
crack of dawn. So don’t give me any of your five cent comments,
alright?”

Bunny shrugged her shoulders dismissively and turned
her head away from Jade. Jade walked over and stood next to Avery,
letting her body language tell Avery exactly what she thought about
having to spend multiple hours every day training around Bunny.

Sasha sauntered over to them a few moments later. She
wasn’t exactly on time, and as Avery looked over her perfectly done
hair, lightly painted face, and matching sneakers and work out
outfit, Avery knew why. Perfection took time, and Sasha looked
nothing less than perfect even when she was about to get all
sweaty. Avery wondered how many days of training sessions it would
take for Sasha to stop caring about how good she looked. She
assumed the lack of male admirers would drastically cut the time in
half.

Thinking about Sasha’s tardiness made Avery question
aloud, “Where the hell is Gumptin?”

All the girls began to look around, and then, as if
on cue, Gumptin appeared from behind a large shrub at the edge of
the forest, “I am right here.” He shouted loudly, startling Skylar
enough that she jumped back and almost knocked Bunny down the well
she was sitting on.

“Don’t ever do that again!” Avery yelled at Gumptin,
grabbing her heart from the fright of having him pop out of
nowhere.

Jade, who would never admit she had been startled,
but who was, none the less, grabbing tightly a hold of Avery’s arm,
snapped at him, “Stupid elf…where have you been?! If we can be here
on time, you damn well better be!”

Gumptin walked up to them, dragging behind him a
brown leather sack about twice the size of him, “First of all, and
for the very last time,” he addressed Jade, “I am a gnome, not an
elf
! Second, only two of you lay-a-bout’s were here on time,
Bunny and Skylar. You and Avery were approximately five minutes
past due, and Sasha was a weighty ten minutes late.”

“Whatever,” Jade replied, too tired to argue, “can we
just get on with it?”

Gumptin motioned for them to follow him, but before
they left he pointed to the brown sack he had been dragging, “You
carry that.” He told Jade.

“What?!” Jade asked, taken aback, “Why me?!”

“Consider it as part of your training, which
officially starts now.” Gumptin turned around and started to walk
towards the forest, intent on ignoring any retort Jade was going to
give, “You are a Protector; you have the strength of ten men Jade.
It is hardly a major inconvenience. Just pick it up and follow
me.”

Jade looked towards Avery, and Avery nodded her head
to tell Jade to just do as she was told. Jade picked up the sack
and slung it over her shoulder with hardly any effort. Of course,
that didn’t stop her from grumbling heatedly to herself as she
followed Gumptin and the others towards the forest’s border.

Gumptin led them down a small nameless dirt path deep
into the woods. For a little nothing path it seemed fairly used.
There was no undergrowth or overhanging tree limbs and bushes. They
walked for a quarter of a mile until they reached the end of the
path. It had led them to a large clearing the size of a baseball
field. Short yellow-green grass covered the clearing and towering
thick trunked trees surrounded it. To Avery, the trees seemed to
form a barrier between the clearing and the rest of the outside
world. The ground was soft beneath Avery’s feet. The loose dark
soil was soft and pillowy, not anything like the hard compact dirt
road that had led them there. The air inside the clearing seemed
somehow crisper than the air outside of it. It felt as if the whole
place crackled with electricity.