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We didn’t end up making it to my house that night (though Lark made a valiant effort) he was so hungry and sleep deprived that it made him even more clumsy than usual. I decided that we should stop after Lark fell down and didn’t get up. At first I waited for him to get up, then after a few moments I began to wonder why he wasn’t moving. I crouched down and shook his shoulder; Lark cracked open a bloodshot eye and looked in my direction “you know… I think that you should go on home to your siblings and I’ll meet you there tomorrow, I seem to have prior arrangements with the ground” I seriously considered it for a second, but then dismissed the idea. Jenny’s health had been holding up rather well the past few weeks and Nicki was fine.
I raised an eyebrow “and when the people who are tracking you come across you, lying defenseless and unconscious on the ground, pray tell what happens then?” Lark giggled in a fashion that only the certifiably insane and very tired are capable of “I shall use the duck as a distraction while I escape” …oh god…I sighed. “You’re delirious” I told him and he snorted at me. I turned around and scanned the area for a flat spot that would provide cover for us where we could rest. Hmmmm…trees, rocks, bushes, more trees, duck, large rock, even more trees-…wait a second! I stared, incredulous. The duck stared back at me suspiciously.
I ended up carrying Lark over to a safe spot I found for us to sleep, the duck watched me the entire time and in the morning it was still there. “What the hell?” I waved my arms at it wildly “Shoo” I told it. The Duck glared at me indignantly then sat down and began to preen it’s self “it’s been following me for a while now” Lark yawned, spine crackling as he stretched “I don’t know where it came from and it won’t go away” he walked over to the duck and sat down next to it, the duck turned around and bit at him savagely. “holy crap!” Lark screeched scooting away from it “how did it find you?” I asked “I didn’t see it when you were running, and the whole time we were walking yesterday”. Lark snickered “maybe it’s a magic duck” I sighed rolling my eyes and smacked him in the back of the head “Because that makes sense” he scowled at me “what’s your brilliant idea then?” I smirked “oh you know how it goes, birds of a feather flock together”.
Now it was his turn to whack me in the back of the head, or try to at least. I was a head taller than he was, so when I stood up straight he couldn’t reach the top of my head. I dodged him and laughed at his fury of being thwarted and he in turn kicked me violently in the shin “Ow, you brat!” I yelled at him as he ran and hid behind the duck, although at a safe enough distance that if the duck flew into a rage he could take cover behind a large rock. Arguing like this with him, I felt reminiscent of when I was 12, Lark and I would quarrel childishly about who would go first, who got the last piece of cake or who was faster (which was me by the way). It made me wonder bitterly why he left so abruptly. I resolved to make sure he told me once we reached my home “There must be some relation” I muttered crossly rubbing my leg “you both have the same bad temperament” Lark grinned and stuck his tongue out at me. Suddenly the duck stood up and let out this weird mechanical chirping sound. It became eerily silent, like an abrupt implosion of stillness.
Nothing moved, no birds, rustling or other background noises that you hear in the woods were present Lark glanced at me worriedly and I looked back. Nether of us budged. The air around us wavered uncertainly for a moment and then it was over, whatever ‘it’ was. The duck sat back down and proceeded to preen its feathers once again Lark and I eyed it dubiously. Lark skirted around the duck to where I was standing, giving it a wide birth as he went “ok…that was really weird” he said, I nodded in agreement “lets get to my house” Lark trotted ahead of me out of the small clearing where we had slept and stopped. “Matt...Have you moved since I saw you last?” he asked me “no…why?” He hesitated “because I could have sworn that you lived further away” I walked towards where he had halted “yeah I do, my house should be another half-” I paused, my home stood in front of us. Lark and I turned simultaneously to look behind us, the duck and the area that we had stayed the night at was no longer there. All that was there were a grassy area and a worn dirt path leading into the forest like there had always been. We turned back to the house, thankfully it was still there. There was only one thing to say in a situation like this, Lark said it “The hell?” I walked down the path to the front door, the wild flowers around the door that Jenny had begged Lark and I to plant with her when we were younger had been crushed.
Lark walked up next to me “I remember when we planted those, Jenny promised to bake us a cake if we would help her transplant them from behind the house” I walked to the door and pushed on it, it opened slightly without me turning the handle I locked the door before I left...and I told her not to go outside until I came back…“Jenny?” I called out, stopping. All of a sudden I didn’t want to go inside; Lark looked at me funny “what? Do you guys have some sort of secret knock you have to do before you can go in?” he pushed the door open wide “Jenny! Hey where are you kid?” he called walking in I followed closely behind him.
The house was a mess on the inside. The table had been knocked over, and there were shards of broken china on the ground. “Jenny?” Lark called out desperately. I rushed to the bedroom she and I had shared until our parents had died, panic filling my stomach like led, the beds had been torn up and there was a fine layer of feathers on the ground next to a pillow that was ripped open. Jenny’s small white wooden dresser was knocked over and her clothes had been dumped unceremoniously on the floor. Oh god Where are they?! I wondered heart aching unbearably in my chest I called out hoarsely for Nicki. I ran into my room that had up until recently been our parent’s room, his little wood cat toy was lying broken on the ground next to his small bed. Everything in the house was in disarray lying torn or broken. It took me a little under a half hour to hunt franticly through every room, cabinet, and cupboard to finally convince my self that they were gone and from the looks of it some one had taken them.
I wandered bleakly back into the kitchen and sat down heavily on the only unbroken chair in the house and cradled my head in my hands. Lark came in looking worn-down and hopeless “I can’t find them” I whispered brokenly “that’s because they aren’t here Matt” he choked out “come look at the back of the house, I think the people who took them carved something into the wall”.
Give us the key the words had been carved deep into the wood in a jagged style “I don’t understand” I muttered angrily “we don’t own any keys or any thing that’s important enough to be a key” Lark looked pale “I-I think I know w-who took them” he stuttered and I spun around “Who!?” I hissed “and how do you know?” I grabbed his arm in a death grip “tell me Larkspur” I growled coldly “let go” he whispered in a small voice looking scared. I let go of him immediately feeling ashamed “I’m sorry I’m just-” Lark rubbed his arm “worried I know” he said quietly “so am I” I still felt like a jerk “you know why I left?” he asked me and I shook my head “well a few months before I had to …go, papa started talking about a Key. It was gradual at first but after a few weeks it was all he ever talked about any more. He would stay awake at night mumbling to himself about it, The Key this and The Key that. It was like it totally consumed him and then the day came that some…people came to our home asking papa about this Key and while they talked they kept looking at me and asking papa all kinds of questions. A few days after they left papa came into my room really early in the morning and woke me up then started telling me all these things I didn’t understand and he was talking so fast about this Key, it was so confusing. Then he pulled me up out of bed and told me that I had to leave and it wasn’t safe and all these other things” Lark wrung his hands and paced back and forth in front of me “so I had to go, and he told me I couldn’t tell you or any one else because it was so dangerous, I kept asking him why and he wouldn’t tell me and now he’s dead so I cant-”
Lark stopped pacing and griped at his hair with both hands. He was starting to hyperventilate “Lark, take three slow deep breaths for me ok?” I told him, grabbing him by the shoulders “you need to calm down” he breathed shakily for a few minuets “can you keep talking?” I asked him and he nodded “m’ok now, anyways when I left I was ok for a while but then these strange people kept appearing and they had odd… things with them and they kept trying to grab me. One night when they were chasing me I was running and they must have had some one waiting up ahead of me because someone ran out from behind a tree that was in front of me and grabbed me then pressed something against my face that made me dizzy and I must have blacked out because when I woke up I was laying on this cold table in a small white room with all these instruments on metal trays and strange…gears and cogs of all sizes just laying piled up on the counter tops.”
Lark shivered and sat down on the ground “I heard noise out side the room so I grabbed one of the trays and stood next to the door and when the person came in I cracked him in the head with it and ran for the door but it didn’t knock him out only stunned him and threw him off balance onto the counter where he grabbed a scalpel and slashed open my elbow. I grabbed the tray and hit him in the temple that time that finally knocked him out. But then I was bleeding all over the stupid gear covered counter top so I had to cut the sleeve off the guys jacket and use it as a cruddy tourniquet. And then I ran” he finished holding his elbow. I crouched down next to him “let me see the cut” Lark gingerly rolled up his sleeve and I hissed “why didn’t you clean it?” I asked him “I ran into you shortly after I got out of there” he hissed as I untied the strip of cloth and gently pulled the sticky blood drenched fabric away from Larks inflamed elbow “that reminds me, when you saw me why did you run away?” Lark thought for a moment “when I saw you I was really happy at first but then I thought that if I ran to you they would get you too” well that makes sense “come inside we should clean and bandage this” I told him taping his arm lightly.
Lark and I spent the rest of the day cleaning up the house and repairing what could be fixed and putting what couldn’t into a pile to see if it could be made into something else.