The Omega Children - The Vahn and the Bold Extraction: The Omega Children, #2

By Shane A. Mason

As Melaleuca and her cousins are thrust deeper into the cruelty of the Vahn, she must make a decision. Fight back and risk corrupting their power or ignore the suffering around them.

Physically and emotionally bludgeoned by the Vahn, the brutal school of discipline, Melaleuca leads her cousins back to their base to lick their wounds. With Lexington overwhelmed, Ari delving into the power of the land, and Quixote running amok with incessant ideas, plus the "French Resistance," telling them they are the foretold "Marauders," Melaleuca struggles to hold to the non-violent, playing values of their upbringing.

Can she resist her urge to destroy those in power?

Lord Daquan realises they have the power source he has sought for 30 years and sets about plotting their downfall, and the ruling powers of the land carry on trying to break them. When in a final desperate attempt to shatter Melaleuca and her cousin's will, they are entered into a deadly contest, Melaleuca is torn between fighting back or fleeing.

If she flees, the downtrodden that have waited for the Marauders to rescue them will be condemned to a lifetime of brutality.

The Omega Children – The Vahn and the Bold Extraction is the second book in a YA semi-fantasy, action-adventure series featuring subterfuges, secret passages, costumes of power, strange beings, and a madman hell-bent on revenge.

If you like hard to put down, fast-paced mysteries, with engaging plot twists revealed only as the characters discover them, and a complex storyline, then you will love Shane A. Mason's compelling Omega Children Series.

BUY YOUR COPY of The Omega Children – The Vahn and the Bold Extraction NOW!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shane A. Mason
• Release date: Apr 20, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386105527

Book preview

Chapter 1

(Continued from The Return of the Marauders)

From underneath the old dilapidated building, two small figures sprinted like mad toward them. Green painted cardboard boxes covered their bodies and heads. One of them spoke in a squeaky voice.

‘Hurry up.’

With crude knives they hacked at the ropes and the belts, bursting the cousins free. The cousins’ bodies flopped forward, hitting the ground, jarring them awake. They gasped huge lung fills of air, gulping it down like food.

A young male voice hurried them, desperation evident in their panicking tones.

‘No time to get your breath. Speed. Hurry, before anyone comes.’

Melaleuca felt hands tugging at her, though could not move her legs.

Got to check the others.

Ari struggled to his feet, stood, fighting his legs to stay standing.

‘Wait...wait...can’t move...hardly.’

He fell to the ground again.

The child tugged on Melaleuca’s and Lexington’s arm, and they moaned back at their would-be rescuer.

‘No time. Must hurry or we will be caught. Come on hurry,’ said the boy.

One of the rescuers reached in and pulled a small hip flask out of his box, forcing the liquid into the Melaleuca’s mouth. It rushed in as if a stampede of wild, liquid, horses carried a heat wave behind it. It surged into her body and on into her brain, like two large fly swats smacking her into alertness.

‘Give it to the others,’ she said.

Ari drunk it and stood, his vision slightly clearer, shaking his head, though his lips still hurt and his face smarted with sunburn. Before he could speak, the cardboard-boxed kids hauled the others up, shoving them with urgency across the field. They led them into a dank, narrow alley of the old building.

One of their rescuers knocked three times on a grate and a small face appeared at it, asking a question.

‘Password?’

‘It’s me.’

The small face pressed up hard against the grate.

‘You have to say the password.’

‘Backwards fly.’

The child inside pulled the grate opened. One by one they squeezed through it until they stood on damp, musty ground underneath the floor of the old building. Cobwebbed and filled with the smell of dust, small shards of light leaked through the cracks here and there illuminating hundreds of old concrete piles, some bent, some broken.

Once through Melaleuca called, ‘Stop.’

The three boys, two in cardboard, and one clad in a combination of sackcloth and longs, halted. The dim innards and their haziness meant making out the fine features on their rescuers faces was nigh on impossible.

Melaleuca ignored them, faced her cousins, and spoke with a dry, strained voice.

‘Lex, are you okay?’

Lexington leant on wall around the grate.

‘I think so. Just so thirsty. I need to sit.’

Ari helped her to the ground. Melaleuca asked their rescuers.

‘Do you have water?’

One of them nodded and dashed off.

Melaleuca grabbed Quixote by the shoulders. As the leader she needed to check on them all.

I hope his nutty spirit is strong.

‘Quixote?’

‘Yeah. Thirsty too.’

With sunburnt and chapped lips, and deep rope marks across their arms, Ari, Melaleuca and Quixote managed to stay standing, though Lexington started sobbing. Both Melaleuca and Ari knelt beside her, stroking her back.

Slopping water from a bucket, the child rescuer returned and gave it to them. They took deep drinks and splashed their faces. One of the children stared at Lexington, bewildered by her appearance. They reached out and tilted the bucket backwards to stop the speed of water gulping.

‘Drink slow. Too fast will hurt your tummy.’

The water strengthened Lexington, replenishing her inner person. She composed herself, drying her tears. One of the boys pointed at Lexington’s eyes.

‘What was she doing?’

The itching started again and unable to resist it Lexington started scratching. Ari and Quixote followed suit. By the time Melaleuca joined the scratching, she started splashing water on herself, while pondering the boy’s question; her eyes slowly coming into focus.

‘Doing?’ Melaleuca asked.

‘Those noises she made.’

‘She was crying. What did you think she was doing?’

The three rescuing children shrugged their shoulders.

‘We have never seen a person cry like that.’

‘I can believe it. Thank you, anyway, for your help. Where are we and who are you?’

‘Come,’ the three boys said in unison.

They weaved through a maze of foundation piles, winding deeper into the building’s gloomy underbelly, until the sparse light petered out to grey fuzziness. At a dark, dead, end, one of them tapped out a secret code and another door opened. Light flooded out, as they stared into a candle-lit den.

‘Have you got them?’ asked an excited older voice.

‘Yes. Let us in.’

The older boy ushered them into a large underfloor room, lined with hundreds of flattened cardboard boxes. The cousins eyes adjusted fully to the light and now focused properly again.

The older boy smiled, displaying warped teeth. They matched his face of hard angles; a nose bent sideways, a chin poking in the other direction, with uneven eye sockets.

‘Welcome to the Wolf’s Lair, headquarters of the French Resistance, home of the Gorks. My name is Con.’

The strangled tone of his voice matched his features. He beamed with pride as if he accomplished some great feat though a quizzical hint of worry buckled his features even more.

‘Well not all the Gorks. Some are not with us. Yet.’

One of the boys lifted his cardboard helmet off revealing his deformity, a missing nose. He pushed a pot of water to Lexington.

‘Here drink. You still need more.’

All the cousins drank more water, though the skin on their arms itched where the hairy rope lashed them tight. It reminded them of how itchy the sackcloth was and soon they were scratching all over.

Con pointed to the boy with the missing nose.

‘This is Revile.’

Con pointed to the second cardboard-clad child.

‘This is Stench.’

Stench pulled his cardboard helmet off, revealing no neck. His head sat, plopped hard, on to his shoulders. To see to the side he needed to turn his whole body.

‘And lastly this is Dunk,’ Con said.

Dunk smiled at them, his harelip and cleft palate now obvious.

Con tapped his own chest.

‘I am the commander of the French Resistance and these are my troops.’

Melaleuca, Ari, Quixote and Lexington exchanged glances, still scratching their bodies, unsure what to make of them.

Lexington’s scratching slowed as she took in the news.

‘French resistance? Like in World War Two?’

Con shuffled backwards and sat on an old chair.

‘Yes. We will resist our vicious overlords.’

‘You do realise the Wolf's Lair was where the leader of the people whom the French Resistance fought, hid,’ Lexington said.

Con raised his eyebrows, impressed.

‘You truly are the ones come to free us. See troops, they have heard of the real French Resistance.’

His deformed crew nodded at him in the half-lit candlelight. At first glance their horrid appearances repulsed Melaleuca, yet their genuine want needed more investigation.

‘Free you from what? You hardly look captive,’ Melaleuca said.

Con’s head drooped forward and ingrained shame radiated off him.

‘We are Gorks, the lowest ranked people here, treated like scum, destined to become dirt-mongers, cleaners, because we are born deformed.’

Quixote hopped on one leg and hid an arm behind his back, imitating those he saw this morning.

‘Like all those other kids who have arms and eyes missing?’

Revile drew a huge, whistling breath in through his missing nose.

‘If only. They were hurt during the tests. We Gorks were deformed at birth and are not allowed to sit the tests.’

Lexington scratched as the itchiness grew; especially where the ropes lashed her arms and legs.

‘From what I have seen that is not a bad thing.’

Ari pointed at the trousers the Gorks wore; normal, grey, slacks.

‘Is that why you have normal boots on and no kneeless trousers?’

‘Correct,’ Con said.

Con eyed Lexington up and down, and did the same to Melaleuca, his fascination with them bordering on the creepy.

‘You are both so...so...so...your skin and eyes...it’s...nice...’

Both the girls blushed. All the Gork boys joined Con, staring at them dew eyed. Ari and Quixote rolled their eyes around, and Quixote put his fingers in his mouth, making the I’m-going-to-be-sick sign. Melaleuca offered the Gorks her best tucked-in-lip smile. Their ogling eyes made her uneasy; though she divined their motive was without guile.

‘We are different,’ Melaleuca said.

Con reached out, touching Melaleuca’s straight, raven-colored hair.

‘What are your names?’

As the cousins told them, the Gorks could not help but touch the girls’ skin and hair. Seeing them still itching, Stench pulled a large paper bag from a broken shelf and handed it to them.

‘Here use this. It will stop the itching a little.’

Quixote grabbed at it, though Ari grabbed his hand, asking. ‘What is it?’

Revile dropped his noseless faced into the bag and drew a breath in.

‘It’s Declaiming Mud mixed with peppermint.’

Stench pulled the bag away from Revile and pushing and pulling ensued over who was to give it to the cousins. Stench’s neckless head and shoulders meant his trapezium muscles were overdeveloped and he easily bested Revile. Stench held the bag out to the cousins.

Lexington sniffed it.

‘Ewwwww. It stinks.’

Revile pushed in front of Stench.

‘Declaiming Mud removes sweet odours. The peppermint will stop the itching, but if you are caught with it on, then you get punished for not being able to discipline yourself. The Declaiming Mud takes the smell away.’

Lexington sniffed it again.

‘Where does it come from?’

Much the chagrin of Stench, Revile scooped a handful out.

‘It oozes up through the earth in all sorts of places. Here put some on.’

Quixote took the handful from Revile, slapping it on his body, instant relief showing on his face. All the cousins dug in, smearing it everywhere.

Ari ran his nose up and down his arm, screwing his face up.

‘Doesn’t the smell affect you?’

Not to be outdone, Dunk smiled, his hare-lip exposing his upper gums and he blasted out a well-learnt idiom.

‘Anything unpleasant that can be tolerated makes you stronger and more disciplined.’

With the itching gone, a sense of calm fell over Ari.

‘I’m not sure I fully understand. No one will tell us anything.’

Con lifted himself off his chair – doing so in an awkward movement.

‘That’s where we come in. We are prepared. We were expecting you.’

Melaleuca held her arms out wide. She enjoyed the non-itching, but the smell was awful. The smell was horrid, but for Lexington the itching was worse. She pulled off her sackcloth Vahn uniform and her undergarments, and naked, rubbed the mud all over her, instant relief crossing her face.

The Gorks stared at her naked form as if she were the first human to undress in front of them. Lexington ignored them, only to glad to have some relief. As she pulled her clothes back on, her natural curiosity returned in full force.

‘Really? Exactly what do you do as the French Resistance?’

Con explained that a year ago they found a tattered, old book. It told of the French Resistance and how they fought off their captors without being seen or captured. As few books were allowed in New Wakefield, they knew it was a sign they were to form an underground resistance and keep an eye out for when it would be time to rise up. They said there were signs about lately.

‘The Kockoroc has been spotted,’ Con said.

There’s that word again, thought Melaleuca.

‘The cock? What is a cock o rock?’

Con reached behind the chair, producing a quill and paper, and wrote it down, handing it to them.

‘The Kockoroc is a giant eagle that is supposed to indicate great change.’

Quixote squawked as if he were a bird.

‘Our giant eagle is called a Kockoroc.’

Melaleuca elbowed him.

Con’s eyes lit up at Quixote’s words, nodding as if he already knew about their eagle.

Dunk punched the air with pathetic fighting gestures.

‘And best of all, some Marauders turned up and attacked the borstal a few days ago. Giant men and women Marauders.’

All the Gorks grinned at the mention of the fracas. Dunk shouted out, filled with bravado.

‘And that is chiefly what we are for, the return of the Marauders.’

The Gorks made trumpeting noises, heralding an arrival. They burst into noise and shouted.

‘Long live the Marauders.’

As suddenly as they blurted it out, they shushed themselves back into silence.

Melaleuca shifted about on the spot, glancing at Ari and Lexington for their response. Quixote’s face beamed with pride and before he could be stopped, he started to speak.

‘Do you think ─ ’

Lexington reached out and placed her hand over his mouth.

‘Hush cousin.’

‘Thank you Lex,’ Melaleuca said and turned to Con. ‘We know nothing of the Marauders.’

Melaleuca noted Quixote trusted Con without question. Ari shook his head and Quixote nodded, understanding he should say nothing more.

Con saw this exchange and whipped his eyes amongst his friends.

‘It is no chance you have come to be here. No outsiders have been allowed here for thirty years, not since the Marauders ran wild destroying buildings and killing people. How long have you been in New Wakefield?’

Melaleuca ignored the question.

‘What exactly do you think we are to do?’

‘Free us,’ Con said. ‘How did you get into New Wakefield?’

Melaleuca was grateful for the rescue, but now wanted to leave. Her instincts told her no one at the Vahn could be trusted.

‘We are not the Marauders you speak of.’

Frustrated, Con rapped his knuckles on the arm of the chair, chewed his bottom lip, and puffed his chest out as if to assert some authority. After some thought, he smiled and carried on talking.

‘Maybe you are the Marauders, maybe not. Thirty years ago, for the first time ever, children escaped from New Wakefield to the outside world. Perhaps you are them come back.’

Lexington half laughed and half choked on such an idea.

‘Hmmm. I should think we would look a lot older.’

‘You could be in disguise,’ Revile said.

Quixote tugged at the skin on his face.

‘Pull my skin.’

Revile pinched his cheek and yanked it back and forth.

‘See, just us,’ Quixote said.

‘But we can help you,’ Con said.

Melaleuca shook her head, and Con’s eyes implored her like no other eyes ever had. In them she saw the same hollowed out appearance evident in so many children at the Vahn, though her gut told her to stick with her parent’s instructions.

‘I will talk with the others out of earshot,’ Melaleuca said.

Con nodded, and bade his troops follow him out of the Wolf’s Lair.

Alone, the cousins talked.

‘We are to trust ourselves only,’ Melaleuca said.

‘I think they could be our friends,’ Quixote said.

Ari searched the room with his eyes.

‘We would still be out there if it were not for them.’

Lexington swallowed hard as if she knew her next words would be unpopular.

‘I still...think we should...wait until our parents arrive.’

With a heavy breath in and out, Melaleuca hung her head.

‘We don’t actually know if they are coming, Lex.’

‘All the more reason to leave this place and go find them.’

‘No Lex. It does not feel right.’

Quixote slammed his fist into his other hand.

‘The Gorks need us, and they say so.’

Ari reached over and settled his hands.

‘Do you think by attacking the Borstal we have started something?’ Ari asked Melaleuca.

‘Don’t know....don’t know.’

Lexington threw her hands up in despair.

‘At least let’s find out what they know.’

Melaleuca wished, for once, Lexington would toe the line.

‘Oh for....Lex, we are to trust no one.’

Lexington heaved a daring sigh back at her.

‘Ohh, just listen to them. We can sort what is rubbish and what is truth. Besides I can’t come back to this place.’

Ari rubbed her back.

‘Just to the end of the day. At the mansion, we shall use the bracelets.’

‘For what?’

‘Lexington.’ Melaleuca said. ‘Hold it together. Shut your eyes, imagine, play and pretend in your head. If you must, start mentally clearing yourself.’

‘Fine.’

Melaleuca tilted her head toward the door.

‘We will ask the Gorks for information. I will then tell them that we will go away and think about it. Agreed?’

They all nodded. Melaleuca pushed on the door. The Gorks shuffled inside, and stood waiting to hear the news.

‘We are from the outside world. We are different,’ Melaleuca said. ‘We need to know what you know about the Marauders.’

With an eagerness to enlist their help, Con started expanding on the Marauders in great detail.

‘Thirty years ago pirates, monks, ballerinas, cowboys, jugglers, wrestlers, all sorts, plagued this area with attack after attack, at first roving around making nuisances of themselves, occasionally breaking a few buildings here and there. These mysterious people were dubbed, Marauders. Everyone was at a loss, as the Marauders would vanish again without a trace, like ghosts in the night. The whole area, convinced some plague had come against them, started to blame each other, and despite their strict rigid discipline, started to put each other on trial, until family warred against family.’

Con spoke as if he had recited this many times before.

‘The Marauders then started to turn up whenever children were being disciplined or severely mistreated, and so it was then that the Inquisat started to butcher the children of New Wakefield, nailing signs around leaving warnings to the Marauders that unless they stopped and gave themselves up, all the children would one by one be murdered. Some in the town said it was foolish to antagonise them, that they were supernatural and beyond threats.’

‘Then creatures started turning up, weird and wonderful, monstrous beings, unimagined before; dogs with wheels for legs, eagles that swooped with buckets underneath, fish with razor sharp gills gouging legs in rivers, stones erupting out multi-headed ostriches that flailed and shattered objects around them, and trees that hit people when they passed by.’

‘But then worse still came,’ Con continued, speaking slower. ‘It still came. One day in July, all hell broke loose, like the very bowels of hell itself had spewed out onto the earth.’

Con stopped, stared at them and said no more. Quixote’s attention was stuck fast to Con’s words, and the silence drew a response from him.

‘And then what? What happened?’

Stench reached out and twiddled with Lexington’s hair.

‘That’s just it. We don’t know. No one will say exactly what happened.’

‘Who told you all that stuff?’ Melaleuca asked.

Con cast an annoyed glance askance at Stench, clearly wanting to be the only front person for the French Resistance. Con cleared his throat and motioned for Stench to be quiet and carried on the tale.

‘No one. No one tells anyone anything. Only the Overlords know everything, and only then someone gets picked to join them every ten years or so. But we never will. We never can. We are the natural born deformed, we are the Gorks.’

With a gentle push, Lexington moved Stench’s hand away. This information was gold, but, of course, she needed more.

‘So how did you find out? What is your source? And who or what are the Overlords?’

Con tapped his ear.

‘We just listened. Questions are not allowed. The whole town knows about the Marauders, but no one talks about it, not out loud, it is forbidden. In quiet whispers bits of it are passed along, hence we know what we know.’

Con’s source abated Lexington’s excitement a tad.

‘Oh, I see. A myth born thirty years ago, with little basis other than people whispering amongst themselves. Interesting.......though.....where there is smoke there is fire.’

With an idea-lit up face, she faced Melaleuca.

‘This could be a real lead.’

‘Lead?’ Con asked. ‘What lead?’ 

Melaleuca watched as questions popped into Lexington’s mind. Lexington started to rapid fire them at Con.

‘What are those structures on top of all the houses?’

‘What structures?’ Con asked.

‘The metal looking things? Have you not seen them?’

‘Eh, the roof?’

‘Interesting. Have you not noticed that the houses are made of an older material, and are of an older design than what you call a roof?’

Con shook his head.

‘We are told nothing. That’s why we need your help.’

‘How long has the Vahn been here?’

Con shrugged his shoulders. He turned to the other Gorks and asked them. They also shrugged their shoulders.

‘It’s always been here for us.’

‘Don’t you want to know?’

‘We do now,’ Stench said.

‘Who are the overlords?’

Con leapt to answer before the others.

‘New Wakefield has five Overlords. They are the supreme head of our society. They hold the great secrets, the very thing New Wakefield guards from the outside world. But at present there are only three Overlords.’

Lexington turned about, muttering to herself.

‘This does not add up. This building appears no older than a hundred years or maybe two hundred at the maximum. And Harshon said something about her grandparents saying it all changed after World War I, yet that Master Carrion said a thousand year place, but the door we found, so old, so old...’

Melaleuca shoved Ari closer to Lexington. Her rambling verbal thoughts could give away more than she realised. Ari poked Lexington.

‘Ah Lex? Shh.’

Lexington carried on, staring at Ari, miles away calculating facts in her mind.

‘...so that means...hmmm...that means...’

She stamped her foot and made an ‘ohhhh,’ noise.

‘Bother. I don’t know what it means.’

The Gorks’ faces lit up as Lexington babbled on; a fact not lost on Melaleuca. She needed Lexington to shut up right now, so she cut across her.

‘I should think it means that the Vahn was built somewhere between the World War I and these guys being born,’ Melaleuca said.

Lexington paused, and held her head in her hands.

‘Maybe. I don’t know. My head hurts. I need pen and paper and my charts.’

Quixote stepped closer to the door as if he might make a break for it.

‘I am not afraid. I will go and ask someone.’

Dunk shuffled forward, serious faced, rolling up his sleeve.

‘I asked once and look.’

The words, ‘Don’t ask, do,’ were carved into his upper arm, the healed scar tissue forming the words.

The sight of it shook Lexington, jarring her out of her questions. She reached out and ran her finger tips over scar tissue.

‘I wish we were here to free you......Do they hurt?’

‘I can feel nothing there. Not even your fingers touching it.’

Con pulled Dunk back.

‘Do not feel sorry for us. We are the Gorks. It is what we expect. We told Dunk off for asking as well. We are the French Resistance. We must stay underground and hidden.’

Ari tried holding it in, but could no longer, and guffawed at them.

‘And tell me. What of your plan. How are you going to overthrow the Overlords? How many troops do you have?’

Con, Revile, Stench, and Dunk stared amongst themselves, offering blank faces to the cousins.

Revile breathed out, making a snorting sound as he did.

‘Just us so far. We have to be careful when recruiting.’

Stench reached for the cousins. As he lifted his arms up to his shoulder height, his neckless head pushed back a few inches so his face pointed slightly upwards toward the roof.

‘Now you are here. You can help us.’

Con and Dunk nodded in agreement.

Melaleuca dashed her eyes amongst her cousins. Ari’s face questioned how effective such a team would be, and Lexington clearly wanted to leave. However the Gorks were a valuable source of information, and despite the flaws in their tiny organisation, they were the first children which could be counted on as some sort of friends.

Con nudged Melaleuca with his elbow.

‘As the Marauders, you could help.’

‘If we were the Marauders, that is,’ Melaleuca said. ‘It is time for us to go.’

She grabbed Lexington, motioning for Ari and Quixote to leave. Desperate hope lined the queer angles of Con’s face and years of suffering fell from his plea. He pawed at Melaleuca’s sackcloth with his skinny, knobbly, hands as if an orphaned cat, afraid it might be left alone again.

‘But wait. You must join us.’

Melaleuca offered him a simpering smile, while moving back from his kneading hands.

‘Let us think on all this. We will talk tomorrow, perhaps.’

‘So you will join us?’ Con asked.

‘Let us ponder. We must, like you, remain unknown.’

Revile, Stench and Dunk, started to pull at each other, playfully celebrating what they thought was a success. 

Dunk brushed his forehead, relieved.

‘Alea Jacta est.’

‘Shhh,’ Con said to Dunk. ‘Not the forbidden tongue.’

Lexington picked up on this.

‘Forbidden. Wait, guys, I want to ─ ’

Melaleuca got behind Lexington, pushing her toward the door.

‘That’s enough for today, Lex. Sort through what we know and come back for more later.’

With one last desperation plea, Con spoke at them with a loudness to his voice as if it might make the cousins suddenly side with them.

‘And what of the Kidnapper?’

The question came of the blue and caught Melaleuca by surprise, halting her.

‘What? What of it?’

Con cast his eyes at the floor, gathering his thoughts.

‘Everyone is a little nervous about the Kidnapper. They say taking children is a bad thing. We think he is working for the Marauders, that he is capturing children and massing an army to march on the Overlords. We want to contact him.’

Lexington’s eyes widened at Melaleuca, as Lexington shook her head. Melaleuca held her hand up. She knew Lexington thought the Gorks were a little crazy and not to be believed or trusted, but without yet telling the others, Melaleuca already decided they needed the French Resistance as their allies.

Melaleuca pushed a hand out toward Con.

‘Let us go and we shall talk soon. You are the commander of the Wolf’s Lair; I am the commander of my team. I have made a decision to leave; now stand aside and all will be well.’

Con stood aside as the cousins left through the door. As they shuffled into the darkness Con poked his head out and whispered, ‘I know who is kidnapping the children.’

Melaleuca stopped and turned around.

Chapter 2 - Innocence risked

––––––––

As they headed across the now empty lawn they caught sight of Harshon walking toward them, beckoning them. As they got closer, Harshon got a whiff of them and screwed her nose up, though did not mention their odor.

‘Quickly. Follow me.’

Lexington held back tears, putting on a brave face. Harshon must have known what they cousins were in for.

‘To what? Another form of torture?’ Lexington asked.

‘Hush, I am sending you home. Hurry. I am risking much. Follow and be quiet.’

She led them toward a long line of trees growing beside the Vahn. Once through them, she stopped, checking behind them