Faithless Memories

Heartbreaking Decisions

Chapter 8

By the time spring finally rolled around again, Zack was taller than Kris, and it only added fuel to his taunting whenever she felt like stopping early. Because he was always there to push her along and was so enthusiastic in watching and emulating her with the staff, by the middle of spring, they were sparring together. Some of the villagers had even started coming to watch them on days they knew they would be sparring. It became something of a small gathering for the older children. It worried Kris at first, but every parent she spoke to brushed it off with a smile. They all agreed that it was something that kept the children occupied and out of trouble, so they didn't see any harm in it. She still flatly refused to teach anyone other than Zack, though. That didn't mean that she didn't occasionally find one or more of them playing around with long sticks. When she did, she would remind them that it was dangerous, but she wasn't too hard on them.

By the time Zack's fourteenth birthday came around, he was already five inches taller than Kris. The fact that he still had more to go annoyed her, but only because he took full advantage of the switch in who was taller. It made their sparring matches more interesting as well since he had a longer reach. She found that she constantly had to build on what she could remember to account for the difference too. It meant that she was learning new things as well, which kept things interesting for them both.

She still hadn't remembered anything outside of training. The only difference was that the nightmare kept plaguing her. It wasn't every night, but if they had a hard day or Zack got hurt, it almost inevitably led to her having a restless night. After the first few times, Zack just gave in and crawled into bed with her. It never failed that his presence worked to keep them at bay. Neither of them mentioned it to anyone else, though. It wasn't that either of them were bothered by it, but Kris still refused to tell Zack what they were about, and he knew if she couldn't tell him, then there was no way she could talk about it with anyone else. It became their unspoken agreement.

When his birthday came up, Kris took the day off to help Sarah decorate for the small party they had planned and with baking the cake. She was nowhere near the cook that Sarah was, but she had been helping long enough that she wasn't bad. Between the two of them, they had everything ready by the time the small group of boys came barreling into the house. A couple of them gave Kris shy smiles as they jostled each other to find space to sit. She was oblivious to them, which gave Zack tons of ammunition to tease them with later. He already had plans to use it with Kris as well, but he had to wait for the right time. Today wasn't that day.

Once they were all settled, Sarah and Kris served them all. It was amazing to see how fast it disappeared. The youngest of them was almost thirteen, so they all ate like the growing boys they were. They couldn't keep still even while they ate, so as soon as they were finished, Sarah shooed them out of the house. Kris smiled when Zack paused long enough to give his mother a kiss on the cheek before he followed them. She stayed behind and helped with the clean-up. No matter how well behaved they were indoors, it never failed that the mess seemed to multiply exponentially when it was Zack's friends over.

By the time everything was clean, the sun had already started to go down, and Zack was already headed back in. Kris was surprised that he wasn't grinning. He looked happy enough, but he didn't show the boundless enthusiasm she had come to expect from her brother, especially since it was his birthday. She caught him giving them all contemplative looks and vowed that she would ask him as soon as they were alone. She knew if he wanted to talk to his parents about it, he wouldn't have hesitated.

Luckily, she didn't have long to wait. As soon as they headed to bed, she grabbed him and gave him her best 'I know something's up' look. "So, spill it. What has you so twisted that you couldn't even enjoy your birthday?"