My Highway Robbery

Hide Out

Hide out

another chappy (Elaine pictured)

I had backed out, and gosh did my head hurt. A heavy pedal beat blood against the inside of my head. Prickling through my dress the splinters of tree bark dug into my black, and bruisingly tight coils of rope snaked around my torso, my hands, and my feet. My heart kicked into rapid beats as I suddenly became conscious of the predicament I was in. 

I couldn't hear anything but the gentle swaying of the forest canopy and my own heart. Could it be that they had taken what they wanted and just left me? I felt a flicker of hope but could not dare to open my eyes, as a child doesn't so as not to confront the monster that may lurk behind their eyelids and the bedding. Were the highwaymen hiding silently just beyond my closed eyes?

My eyes crept open, my eyelashes curtaining the scene. I was sitting against a tree on the roadside, not even beyond the first row of trees. First I could see nothing but the shades of green, but soon dark lumps became clear and focused into specific objects. My carriage, stripped of everything valuable, down to the stained glass lanterns that hung on the back. The coachman on the opposite side of the road, lying limply facedown in the dirt. My stomach twisted in a knot. Was he dead? I felt the bile rise up in my throat, but kept it down. Now was no time to be weak, they where still here. No one had noticed my waking, and I watched the criminals haul silver door knobs and my most intimate of positions into leather sacks.

"Do we have it all?" Stephen called from the roof of the carriage, where he was prying silver plated luggage racks from the ebony roof.

"I think so" Dick replied, pulled horse saddles firmly over well-bred stallions.

"Then we have to get back to the caves, Dick, they're getting too close. You saw it, the girl recognised us."  

The caves? I had to focus on keeping my breath in slow rises and falls. Every child knew what the caves were, haunted by the ghosts of hung criminals, now it seemed the live ones occupied them too.

"Jacob the Potter will let us know when the next valuable heist comes through, hell, he may even give us the correct one next time" Matt spat.

Dick walked back over to his companions, dark brow furrowed his steps were calculated in concentration, but his words were calmer than his demeanor, "No need for the dramatics Matt, this heist may not be the one we were targeting, but it will feed us for another month," 

"Well I'm sorry to tell you Dick but I didn't take up crime to live off a baker's salary, and this heist was meant to be the haul of a lord."

I bit back tears, Jacob, the traitor. The soul companion of my lonely childhood, and he was the one that told them I was passing through the forest?

...

I was nine and running through town streets as fast as I could with lanky growing legs and a mud covered dress. In my fist, I held a hot fruit bun, hot on my heels for it was Jacob, two years my junior and gaining considerable ground. 

"You'll never take me alive!" I screamed as I darted around the corner skidding on the earthen road. I had reached the church grounds and the wet grass slowed my speed as I tried to regain my balance. There was a cry of victory from the younger child and I was suddenly launched forward by the weight of him. 

"Mercy! Mercy!" I giggled as I shoved him off me. 

"fairs fair, Lainy. Now give me some of that!" He grinned at me through gapped teeth. 

So we sat as we did many afternoons and tore the fruit bun in half, joking and munching.It had been many years since I had talked to him now. When I grew older our rough games and friendly banter had become inappropriate. I became a lady and he became a Potter's apprentice. He even tipped his cap to me  on the street, but I always thought the faint grin he wore meant that we were not yet strangers to one another.