Blood Inheritance (ON HOLD)

twenty two: onwards

Hey hey hey! Feeling generous lately... here's another chapter. It's only a little one though. 

I'll try and keep up to date now.... maybe post every 2 weeks? Or every 10 days? or something like that... right now my writer's block has passed, and hopefully it stays away for a while, but we'll see...

Walking was boring. I was starting to miss my phone, which I had lost at some stage, probably when Kai was carrying me. I also missed Ryan. I normally saw his face every day. I found myself smiling whenever I thought about him, and then frowning again when I remembered how far away I was from him.

"Guys?" Fox had stopped from his place ahead. He stared at a pathway on the right that led off from the one we were following. "Mind if I visit an old friend?"

All of us were confused as we followed him down the path. It took almost half an hour, I think, before we finally saw the old cottage.

"Who is this old friend?" Kai queried.

"You'll see," Fox said.

The cottage looked abandoned. It was small and quaint, but the wood was old, and water stained, fraying like old clothes. The wooden window frames were snapped as if someone had broken in, and the door was off its hinges and stood up on the wall next to the doorway.

Fox ignored the house, not concerned by its state of distress, and we followed him around the back. He wandered up to a tree and kneeled down beside it. A little mound of dirt lay in front of him, two metres long and half a metre wide, and covered in rocks.

A grave.

"Sorry," Fox said, glancing at us, "it's just that... a visit is long overdue."

He placed a hand on the rocks.

"Who was it?" Elias asked, squatting next to Fox.

"He looked after me, when I was young. Took me in. He was a seer, like Vireo, but was killed a long time ago. This is where he lived. I lived here a while, too."

I stood a little way off, feeling like an intruder. Kai placed a hand on Elias's shoulder, and made us three walk a little way off.

"Fox probably wants to talk to him, alone." Kai explained to our questioning glances. "Maybe we can have a look in the house."

So, we went through the broken front door, carefully stepping over some smashed bottles. Clay, I think they were made from. Elias ran his hand over a table, looking around curiously.

I studied the cupboard on the other side of the room; its door was almost like wooden blinds, but vertical. I couldn't see in, though, I could only see blackness. I opened it, to reveal a space large enough to step in to. I did so and closed the door on myself. I peered through the gaps in the door, clearly seeing the rest of the room. It was the perfect spot to hide.

I saw Elias standing by a broken window, gazing out, so I joined him.

He was watching Fox, who was talking to the grave.

"Do ghosts exist here?" I whispered to Elias.

"No."

Elias turned, and went into another room. It was a bedroom. The bed itself was thin and looked uncomfortable. One of its legs were broken, so it wasn't sitting right. The only place to put things in were the drawers, but they were pulled open and one lay broken on the floor: all empty.

"There's two bedrooms." Kai said, walking in behind us. "I guess one belonged to Fox and one belonged to... his seer friend."

"Guys?" We all looked back at Fox as he followed us in. He looked around the room, with a haunted gaze. "This was my room." He stared at the drawers. "People have stolen everything, over the years. I didn't have much, anyway. Let's go outside. There's a fruit tree."

Fox pulled the fruit from the tree and handed two to each of us. We sat on the grass and ate in silence. The fruit was sweet, like a plum, but different. Crunchier and tangier.

Fox investigated an old well, only to announce that the water was no good to drink from. He filled up his empty water flask anyway, 'just in case', he said.

I drank a bit of my water, carefully. I had drunk a lot yesterday, much to everyone else's annoyance. They had all said to me 'you've got to save the water! Regulate it! Have a mouthful every now and then, or a sip, don't guzzle it all in one go!'.

Fox's water bottle was empty because early this morning he had used it to cook some sort of moss stuff that 'kept you full for longer', and then he had given me some of his water without even asking.

Kai poured his water into Elias's one, and then filled his up with the well water too. Fox reminded him not to drink it.

"Can..." I looked at my water bottle sadly.

"The water you've got won't fit in mine, Luka." Elias said.

I nodded. I wanted to do something useful, like all of them, but I was too slow.

"You'll learn," Fox said, and I wondered if he could read minds. "Let's keep going. There's another path we can take which won't add much time on to our journey. It's a short cut, actually."

Tell me your thoughts! I'm going to read this whole story over before I start writing again so I can get all the voices back, but so far, how is this feeling? 

Does it make sense? Is it flowing? 

Do you feel like you know the characters? Should I build them up a little more? 

Anyone you want to hear more from?

Any part of this world that is confusing? 

Please ask, because not only will it help you, but it will also help me write this story in a comprehensible way... and will help me understand my babies a little better as well:)

Eli Avery xx