The Queen of the Elves

Chapter 4

Caroline opened her eyes and saw Mason crouching next to her. He had his hand on her shoulder, but he wasn't looking at her. She heard a hiss and a screech. She saw they were still on the roof of the school and she realized she was still stuck. She wondered what had happened that she had passed out and just now woken up. It was almost like she had fallen asleep and she was waking up to a sunny morning, except the light was now completely gone and darkness was everywhere. The last thing she remembered was looking at Richie. Did that have something to do with it? She tried not to move in an attempt to remain unnoticed by Mason.

Mason was peering over the wall that they were hiding behind watching as Richie argued with the Messenger and Bernard cowered behind him. Mason understood how Bernard felt: the Messenger wasn't just scary he was nightmarish. Mason was glad that Caroline was still "asleep", he didn't know how she would react if she saw the Messenger. He would rather let her remain in the dark about this particular creature. He glanced over at her and noticed her looking at his hand.

He looked closer, trying to see her eyes. If she was awake then they were in trouble. He pulled on her shoulder a little. He needed to see that her eyes were still dazed over. She didn't move.

"Caroline." he whispered silently under his breath.

She didn't move.

He jerked her a little harder and she flinched.

"Caroline, its okay. Richie's gone, but you can't make a sound. Bernard's over there," he lied, "We need to wait until he's gone."

She didn't move. He looked at her for a moment. Maybe she was still out of it. He still couldn't see her eyes in the dark. Maybe what he thought was a flinch was really just reflexes. He decided that must be what it was and turned back to Richie.

"No Messenger." Richie was saying in elfin, "we have her, but we can't give her to you. Sir, she might die of fright if she even saw you. I think that this is a satisfactory solution. We will personally make the exchange and see Lord Bellum back safely. If we fail you can hunt us down and we will accept our consequence."

"Richie!" Bernard hissed.

A smile crept across the messenger's face and he slowly nodded, "Ah, of course. That will be satisfactory."

With that he turned and walked towards the edge of the roof. That was when Caroline decided to jerk free of Mason's grasp and take one look over the edge. That was all she had time to do before Mason had her again, this time with a hand over her mouth and his other arm pinning her behind the wall and out of sight. He froze then and held his breath. Not a sound came from the other side of the wall, and they didn't make any sound on their side of the wall. Finally Mason slowly let out his breath and looked down at Caroline.

She was staring up at him in horror. Unblinking and hardly breathing. She was trembling and he could sense her fear. She had seen the Messenger. He could tell. He sighed in annoyance, and peaked over the wall. The Messenger had left and Richie and Bernard were calming their breathing. Mason looked back to Caroline, then slowly let her up. She curled into a ball and didn't move.

"Come on Caroline." Mason whispered, "It's not that bad."

She didn't move.

"Mason? Everything okay?" Richie called.

"I don't know. Caroline woke up and got away from me. I think she saw the messenger. She won't talk to me." Mason shrugged, bending over to try to see into Caroline's face.

"Crap." Richie grumbled and came over to the two of them, "Caroline," he whispered soothingly, "Everything's okay. We're right here with you. No one is going to force you to do anything you don't want to, you can stay right where you are for as long as you like. But you need to talk to me. I need to know that you are okay. Please talk to me."