A Heart Unbroken [Book One]

Bequeathed a Quest ~ Louis

"Nothing?"

"Nothing, Louis, and if your next question is if I have checked everywhere, I am in the process of doing so," Lilly replied dryly. Through my tears, I glared at her.

"But there has to be something!" I cried. "He couldn't just leave us with nothing!"

"Louis, Father did not expect to die. No matter how many times I told him, he would not believe that he could overwork himself." She returned to looking through the papers on my father's desk.

Near the end, my father worked twenty-four hours a day. Lilly was right to tell him to chill. As far as either of us could figure, he had a heart attack while working, and he died on the spot. Lilly studied anatomy and medicine from books that my father owned, so her "guess" was much more educated than mine.

"Can I help?" I asked.

"No. Your mind is clouded by your feelings towards Father's death. In order for you to be of any help to me, you would need to set aside your feelings."

I watched her look through the papers, totally unaffected. I'm not ashamed to say that I am a man of tears, and my tears only increased at the sight of my feeling-less sister. "I...I need a minute."

I hurried to my father's room, falling on his bed upon my entrance. I'm sure Lilly heard my sobbing, considering every room in our "house" was separated by mere curtains. We've lived in a sector of the Rocky Mountains since Lilly and I were eight. We bounced from cave to cave, occasionally making our own. Once I asked my father what we were running from. He told me to "take note, because one day I would need it." I took note, but I still have no idea why I would need it.

I decided that taking a look around my father's room wouldn't hurt, since Lilly hadn't checked there yet. I looked through his sheets, through his stone-carved shelves, and I ran my hand along his walls. One area had been sharpened to a point, and I cut my hand as I swiped it across. I observed the pointed area, and found that if I pulled...

"Lilly! Lilly, come here!"

"Have you found something?" she asked, calmly pushing back the curtain and stepping into the room.

"Look!" I had opened what seemed like a safe, and inside was a small folded piece of paper. On further examination, however, I realized it was a folded napkin.

"This was hidden in here?" Lilly asked.

"Yeah! This is it, I know it!" I pulled the napkin out of the compartment. I slowly unfolded it and looked at the familiar writing that was my father's. Remembering him, my eyes brimmed with tears.

"Give me the paper," Lilly commanded as a tear dripped onto the napkin. Her voice always seemed to have an imperative, monotonous tone. "Your tears will smudge the letters."

As her eyes scanned the napkin in the glowing light of the torch, she seemed to be thinking.

"What does it say?" I asked.

"'Dearest Children, the fate of the world is in your hands now. Your uncle will know what to do.'"

I love my father, but sometimes he confused me. His last words to us were written on a napkin with a pen that was running out of ink. The second sentence was obviously a wish for us to find our uncle, my father's only brother; that would be easy to do. But the first sentence was a puzzle.

"What does it mean, Lilly?" I asked. Now, I may seem like a helpless puppy, asking my sister for direction and being sappy, but Lilly has devoted her days to hours of studies and training. She believed firmly in both physical and mental strength.

"I do not know, Louis. You knew Father much better than I. It does make sense that he was stressed, though. It seems that he had placed himself under the belief that he was destined to save the world."

"To save it from what?"

"The most logical solution would be from whatever we have been running from all these years. However, that leaves us no closer to a solid answer."

"Then we need to see Uncle Phil! He'll be able to tell us!"

"Louis, we have no idea where Uncle-" She placed her forefinger on her bottom lip, thinking. "Actually, I believe I came across something that might help us. Follow me."

We walked back to our father's study, and she flipped through some of the papers she had previously searched. She gingerly pulled an old, torn piece from the pile. She held it close to her face and read, "Brother," then listed a set of coordinates.

"Do you know what those coordinates mean?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied, walking to the map hanging on the wall. She traced her finger along the Rocky Mountains, and finally stopped on a point that was northwest of where we were. "They are in Wyoming."

"Are you sure? It looks like an old paper," I frowned. I hated disagreeing with Lilly. Not because she would get mad or anything, but because she was always right. I never seemed to figure out that I couldn't win.

She held the paper up to the torchlight and pointed to a line of numbers in the corner that seemed to appear in the light. "It is written in ink that can only be seen in light," she said. "It is dated from three days ago."

"So we're going then?"

"Well, it was our father's instructions, and being disobedient would really have no benefit."

"Then we can see Uncle Phil and Hanan?"

"Yes. I will make a list of all we need, and while I map the route, you can put everything in our backpacks."

She pulled out a pen and paper, and began writing her list.