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Chapter Two
The usually noisy kitchen, now hung at the present in a subdued silence. Bickering had all but ceased for the moment, as the minds of the staff became preoccupied with one thought. Jens thoughts, however, were entirely different. She kept running over the scene, the day before, when she had fought with the boy. There had been to many questions that had been left unanswered. What had he seen in her? Where did he come from and who was he? He certainly wasn’t normal, that was for sure.
“Jen?” Michael whispered from beside her.
“Yes?”
“What’s the matter? You seem worried, more so then everyonelse and your face has had that look on it ever since you came back last night,”
Jen sighed and nodded.
“I know, I’m sorry Michael, its nothing to worry about, I’ve just been thinking…” Before she could finish the double doors to the kitchen were suddenly flung open and Robert Turner stalked in, his presence silencing the few whispers or muttering’s that could be heard. He was followed shortly by, Maggie who stood to right of him and a strange old woman who approached cautiously and stood on Roberts other side.
At the sight of the old lady everyone’s attention immediately became diverted to her, her looks were so bizarre they could not help but lay there gaze on her. Her ragged face was framed by a mass of long grey tangled hair in which numerously coloured feathers hung from. She was dressed in lengthy, heavy robes dyed maroon and deep purple; her ears had sunken under the weight of two large oval earrings of which appeared to be gold and her hands were occupied with a variety of jewellery that dangled from her wrists and weighted down her fingers. But once more it was the overall appearance that Jen found her gaze focused to the old lady eyes, which and odd creamy white and lacked any pupil. After sometime Jen realised that she must be blind, though she made no action, such as turning her head in the direction of voices, nor clutch at the arm of another, to confirm this.
“As you all known,” Robert said suddenly, reclaiming the attention back on him “Every six months or so we like to pick a new course that might interest the customers or bring us past some new and exciting scenery, of course it is well known that we have a tradition of picking this course with different methods rather then sit around and discuss it, this time we have decided to use a seer, Rose here,” he stopped and gestured at the old lady “has done the honours of predicting us a course that will bring us luck and with hope some good entertainment, we have decided to steer down a fork in the river that heads westwards, and we are hoping that we may catch glimpses of the Crib tribes. Now to the part that concerns you, in the event that this course may cause you inconvenience I ask you to contact your head Maggie and she will discuss the matter with me at the soonest possible moment, thank you for bearing with me, are there any questions,” There was silence. No one spoke for awhile but just as Robert turned to go a voice piped up from amidst the people.
“What about the pirates? I heard there are pirates lingering down that route, what do you have to say about that?” Robert turned slowly, and scanned the heads in the crowd for the person that had spoke. His face had gone a strange colour something that no one had ever seen and he looked like he was torn between anger and the decision to be polite in front of there guest.
“There is no threat what so ever of pirates,” he said finally “ As far as I’ am aware they do not venture in this area, besides if they did, we have a very able crew to man this ship away from danger and a ship that can outstrip any pirate filth that may sail on these waters, we would be able to outrun them into we got to a safe port or our distress signal was picked up, rest assure I would have a military ship out here so fast that the pirates would be locked in a cell before you could say the words Crown Jewel, now I don’t want to hear another word about pirates, if I hear it mentioned the person responsible will be thrown of the ship or worse,” Without another word he stormed out the room leaving the threat heavy in the air.
“Alright then, get back to work,” Maggie shouted. Reluctantly everyone trudged back to there places and began what ever work they had left of. After checking the contents of the food she had been watching, Jen looked back at the spot where the seer still hovered uncertainly.
She watched as the seer started moving through the bodies of people rushing this way and that. The seer moved in a peculiar pattern, after a number of steps she would stop and her nose would wrinkle as she sniffed at the nearest passing person, then move her hands in funny way as if she was warding something of.
However when she had finally hobbled near to where Jen and Michael stood, her reactions were completely different. For a moment she froze, and went completely stiff like a statue, then in sudden jerky movements her body twisted this way and that, and her body moved violently. The only ones to notice this was Jen and Michael, everyone else passed her without surprise as if they couldn’t even see her.
“Should we do something?” Michael asked looking at seer in alarm.
“No, not yet,” Jen said put her hand on Michaels arm to stop him from moving “I think she’ll be fine,” Sure enough the fit stopped as soon as Jen spoke. But with a fierce anger in her eyes the old lady began flinging her arms, more fiercely then previously, as if she was trying to write a symbol in the air by thrashing her arms. She finished promptly and let her arms flop to her sides before moving of into the sea of people that swarmed in the kitchen.
“What was that all about?” Michael asked
“I don’t know but it was certainly strange, I wonder why she acted like that when she came near it us, did you notice it was different to the way she acted to everyone and no one even looked at her when she went passed,”
“Yeah that was odd, but can we please forget it? She’s gone now, and I’m fed up with all this voodoo fortune telling pirate threat thing, besides I think I see Martin coming back, can we please go and get something to eat and talk about anything so long as it isn’t morbid fortunes, “
“Yeah okay,” Jen said sighing “Lets go,”
Jen retired to the dorm sometime later. Climbing into the thin sheets of her bed she looked around to check the room was empty, before taking out a small gold rimmed mirror.
Apart from a faded picture of a tree, with the words moonlight bay mysteriously scribbled on the back, it was the only thing that had been handed down to her from her parents. When she was seven Maggie had passed the artefacts onto her with no explanation but that they were to be given to her as the only sole possessions her parents had left. Ever since she had kept them hidden, and with special caution to the mirror.
Now as she looked closely at the surface a familiar face appeared. However it was not her own which still surprised even after the countless times she had looked upon the mirror. She could remember the first time the face had appeared (and luckily no one had been around at the time) she had been convinced that she had been imagining things.
But then the girl started talking, claiming her name was Emily. Her face resembled at the time, that of a young girl similar in age to Jen, but as Jen had grown so had she. Ever since then Jen had been talking to her, though there had been times when she had doubted that the girl was real and not a figment of her imagination, she daren’t show it to anyone else or try to confirm that the girl was real in any other way. Not even to Michael would she show the mirror. She didn’t like to admit it but she was afraid that the girl wasn’t real, that all along she had been talking to herself.
But that wasn’t all that worried Jen about Emily. Another factor was that Emily never answered personal questions. On the few occasions Jen had brought it up, whether it be how she had got in the mirror or why she was there, Emily would change the subject or not bother to answer the question, so in the end Jen gave up asking.
“Jen?” Emily said breaking through her thoughts “What’s going on? You seem kind of distracted,”
“I’m not exactly sure,” she answered “Its just strange, things have been happening lately,” She thought back to the fight with the boy earlier and the peculiar behaviour of the seer.
“Like what?” Emily asked. Jen recounted the events slowly not missing out a detail while all the while Emily listened patiently. When Jen had done there was short pause before Emily said anything “I knew something like this would happen eventually, it was only a matter of time,”
“Something like what, what are you talking about?” Jen demanded
“Its been small things, I’ve been noticing them last few times I’ve talked to you, your changing, but its not just you, the air around here has intensified, as if it’s paused for something to happen, and trust me, there’s some pretty dodgy things going on at moment, deals,”
“Deals? What do you mean? What exactly is going on? Can you say it without speaking in a riddle?”
 Angel Mechanholy · Tue May 05, 2009 @ 07:37am · 0 Comments |
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