9 - SECRETS AND DISCOVERIES

Their friendship on firmer footing, Ana and Raven went on as they always had. The only difference was, each of them felt that a significant change had occurred. Things were the same, but yet, they weren't. It was almost like the sameness was just an illusion, a hazy cover for what was really going on underneath: the truth, the bare-bones reality.

In a sense, each of them was pretending for the sake of the other.

Raven was pretending that he did not feel anything more than friendship for Ana, because he thought that she did not and would not ever care for him in any other way. For her part, Ana was pretending that she was perfectly content with nothing ever changing. The truth was, she longed for change, but not if that meant losing Raven.

So time went on, but it did not get any easier.

Events larger than the both of them would soon crack the fragile shell of the illusion, but not before they were both tested in ways that they never could have imagined.


Ana turned her head slightly so that she could peek at Raven out of the corner of her eye. He was slightly hidden by clumps of grass, though he was only about a foot away. He was softly whistling a wandering tune, low and quiet. They both were lying on their backs, watching clouds float past in a dreamy blue sky.

She turned her head an inch further, only to catch him doing the same thing to her; in fact, his actions almost mirrored her own. Both were flat on their backs, but both had their heads cocked slightly, peering sneakily at the other. He stopped whistling. There was an aura of utter awkwardness that surrounded them for a moment, and they both felt it, but it was part of the reality that they were ignoring. He raised his eyebrows at her, and then they both started smiling, she in a sheepish way. At this, he burst out laughing. The weird moment had passed as quickly as it had come. She reached out her arm and shoved him, which made him roll to the side a little, still laughing.

"You're hopeless," she said, smiling. "Once you get started, there's no stopping you."

"I can't help it. Laughter only causes more laughter, you know. It's contagious."

She turned her head to really look at him. His face was red, and as soon as he caught her eye he burst into a fresh round.

Gladys's voice came shouting at them faintly from the path near the cottage. "Quiet out there! I can hear you two from a mile away!"

Ana sat up, squinting in the direction of the old woman's voice. She could just barely make

out the stooped figure, a gray blot in the distance.

"I have an errand to run! You had better finish that chopping before I get back, young lady, or else!"

Sure enough, Ana could make out a basket on Gladys's arm. She was probably taking one of her concoctions to a client. The villagers paid her well for her various tinctures and ointments, which were widely known for their effectiveness for all manner of ailments.

Ana waved one arm to let Gladys know that she had heard, then plopped down in the grass again with a little huff.

"I don't know what you're so put out about. I'm the one who's been doing most of the chopping, anyway," Raven reminded her.

Ana stuck out her tongue at him. Chopping wood was her least favorite chore. She was incredibly clumsy with the axe. She always tried to get Raven to complete the task for her. He usually complied with grace, especially when she bribed him with little cakes. She baked them for just such a purpose; they were his favorite. He always took three or four and stuffed them in his pockets.

He produced one just at that moment, seemingly from mid-air, and proceeded to eat it in two bites.

"I wonder, do you come here for my excellent company or my excellent baking?" Ana teased.

"Why, the baking, of course."

Ana's hand swiped at the air near his head, missing it by inches as he ducked, smirking impishly.

"So violent! Now, Ana, is that any way for a lady to behave?" His face took on an expression of mock sternness, his lips pinched and his eyebrows drawn up.

Now she was the one to laugh, burying her head between her knees to stifle the sound.

Shaking his head and chuckling, Raven wiped his hands down his shirt-front, ridding them of any stray crumbs, and then flipped over, resting on his elbows. He pulled a little wooden whistle from his pocket, turning it in his hands before putting it to his mouth and playing a few notes. He turned to Ana, and the notes changed into her favorite little tune.

She watched him, sobering. The music sounded like the sad warbling of a little bird. "What made you come up with that one?" she interrupted.

He stopped playing. "What do you mean?"

She flushed. When he looked at her like that, intense and still, she felt suddenly self-conscious. "I mean... it's so sad and lovely... what were you thinking of, when you made it up?"

He looked down at the little instrument in his hands. The light wood had darkened from being handled so often. There were tiny, intricate carvings of trees and mountains along its side. Two tiny owls were carved there, too, perched in a minuscule tree.

"I don't know," he said softly. "I guess my parents."

Ana sighed. She knew how he was feeling all too well.

"This is all I had with me when Barton found me. The clothes I was wearing, and this whistle in my pocket."

"I know."

"It's all I have of that other life, that world that I can't even remember."

"Have you ever thought that, just maybe, it could be a clue about where you're from?"

"Yes, though it hasn't done me any good. Unfortunately, there isn't any inscription or writing on it at all. Just these forests and mountains, and as far as I know, they could be depicting this country, where we are right now."

Ana sat up, scooting closer to him. She held out her hand, and he dropped the whistle into her palm. He had let her handle it many times before. The little carvings were very familiar to her, but she re-examined them anyway. She held the whistle up to her face. "Maybe these owls have some significance." She touched their little forms with her index finger. They were less than half the size of her nail. Whoever had carved them had been very adept with their knife.

"Believe me, I've thought about this more than almost anything else. I've considered every meaning possible. The truth of it is, one tiny whistle is not enough to give me any inkling as to why I was left alone in the forest." He held out his hand, and she gave him back the instrument.

She frowned at him for a second. "At least you have a memento, a token. At least you know you came from somewhere else. I don't have anything."

He scrambled up from where he lay on his stomach, moving to sit next to her with his knees drawn up. He looked at her for a second, then pushed his shoulder into hers. It was his way of saying, I know. I'm sorry. She felt slightly comforted, which was his intention. They both were silent for awhile, thinking.

"You know," he spoke suddenly, "what if there was something? Have you ever asked?"

She only looked at him incredulously.

"I'm serious. You know Gladys. Maybe there was something, and she just never thought to tell you," Raven said, eagerness seeping into his voice. He got excited so easily.

"Are we thinking of the same person, here? This is Gladys we're talking of, not some sweet old lady who took me in out of the goodness of her heart. She was practically forced to raise me. Anyway, Gladys doesn't care about me that way; she doesn't tell me anything, but she doesn't withhold anything from me either. If I need to know, even if it might hurt me, she tells me."

"That's what I'm saying, though. Need to know. You wouldn't necessarily need to know that you were left with some little object from your other life. You were just a baby, after all."

Ana frowned. "I honestly... I never even considered..."

Raven jumped to his feet. He held out his hand to Ana, who stared up at him as if he was crazy.

"Come on. We're going to do a little snooping."

She stayed seated. He reached down, impatiently grabbing her hand and pulling her up.

"Raven, we can't! Do you know how long I would have to sleep in the shed if she caught us?"

"Relax. We won't get caught. She practically just left; she'll be gone for awhile. Come on." He marched through the grass toward the cottage, determined. Ana stood still, helplessly watching. Raven turned around, motioning for her to hurry up.

She glanced nervously at the forest, and then back at him. He started pantomiming a chicken, flapping his elbows.

She glared at him, and then marched past him resolutely toward the cottage. Laughing to himself, he followed her.


"I told you, Raven, there isn't anything."

Raven looked up from where he was crouched in a corner, dust smudged on his face. He looked perplexed.

"I can't explain it, but I have a feeling. There's something here, I know it."

Ana sighed, sitting heavily on a wooden bench near the window. They had been looking for well over half an hour. Considering the cottage had only two rooms and the small loft where Ana slept, there weren't many places to look, let alone keep secrets hidden.

"I think we should just give up before Gladys returns and we're caught red-handed."

Raven didn't answer, and instead knelt down to run his hands over the floorboards.

"What are you doing?"

"Barton has a secret hiding-place under some floorboards in his shop. Maybe the spot isn't quite as original as he thought?"

Ana froze. A sudden memory came back to her. She was a little girl, maybe seven or eight. Gladys was in her tiny bedroom. The door was open a crack, and Ana had been peeking through, spying. She had watched as her guardian moved aside the rickety bed and reached for a notch in one of the boards on the floor. It had lifted up, revealing a small hole. Gladys had stuffed her hand inside. In her excitement at discovering a secret, Ana had leaned into the door, and it creaked loudly as it moved half an inch. She had flinched as Gladys whipped around, discovering her there. She had been punished soundly for that, and had never dared to set foot in Gladys's room again.

"Raven." Her voice echoed her shock. What were the odds?

He looked up at her. She spoke wonderingly. "I know where to look."


Raven moved the bed aside, which was easy enough, as there were no other pieces of furniture in the room. What proved to be harder was finding the notch for the right board. The cottage itself was extremely old, and the floor wasn't in good shape. There were many notches and knots and warped spots in the wood, and soon both Ana and Raven were on their hands and knees, searching. The light was dimming with the setting sun, and both felt that their time was almost up.

Finally, Ana found a notch that she could just slip her index finger under. She pulled up, and the wood gave.

"Raven!"

He immediately scrambled to her side, helping her jimmy the wood out of its place in the floor when it got stuck.

The hole underneath was small, but there were various items inside of it: a small cloth bag tied with string, a little leather-bound book, a jar with some kind of strange, sticky substance inside of it, and, just barely visible at the bottom, a little bit of what looked like a bundle of cloth.

Ana carefully pulled out each item, setting them on the floor between herself and Raven. She didn't need to further inspect the cloth bag to know what was inside of it: money. She had seen Gladys with it earlier, herself. She set it aside without a second glance. She pulled out the jar next, gingerly handing it to Raven, making a face. He held it up to his eyes to get a better look, sniffing at the lid. He quickly put it down, wrinkling his nose. The book was next. Ana wiped the cover with her sleeve, revealing its true color under the dust: forest green. She flipped through it, discovering that it was also printed with green ink. Unfortunately, it was in some kind of language that she had never seen before. She handed it to Raven.

"Ana, look at this!"

He had flipped open the little book to a random page, and on this page was a strange illustration. A beautiful woman stood in the center of a crowd of people, a light radiating from her and around her. The people in the picture were shielding their eyes.

"I wish I knew what language this is," Ana said, pointing at the caption under the illustration. The characters were strange; none of them looked remotely like the alphabet, nor the alphabets of any of the more common languages.

"It's too bad we can't study it further. Gladys would know if it was missing, wouldn't she?"

"Are you kidding? We have to put everything back exactly as we found it. She'll know we were snooping around if there is even a particle of dust out of place. In fact..." She took the book back from Raven, and, using her fingers, re-smudged the cover with dust.

"There," she said, satisfied. Raven only shook his head at her with bemusement.

Finally, Ana plucked the last item from the bottom of the hole: the bundle of cloth. At first glance, it appeared to be just a bunch of rags, but Ana rubbed the material between her fingers experimentally.

"Raven, feel how soft this is! It doesn't feel like ordinary home-spun."

"Definitely not; look how closely woven the fibers are. What color would you say this is?"

"I can't really tell; it's too filthy from being in that dusty hole."

"Is it all one piece? Here, help me spread it out..."

Together, they unfolded the cloth, which was indeed very dirty from where it had been exposed to the dust and dirt of the hole, but as they spread it out, they noticed that the center, which had been folded in on itself, was in very good shape. In fact...

"Look! It's lavender. It almost looks like new in that spot. Wait, what's this-?"

Raven fingered the cloth, squinting at something. Ana joined him. They both smoothed it, removing the wrinkles that had obscured what was embroidered in the center in swirling script:

E. R.

"Ana... I think this is a blanket. An expensive blanket. And I think... I think these are initials." He touched the intricate letters, marked out in slightly darker lavender thread than the soft, heavy cloth. "It's not just any kind of blanket, though."

Ana looked up at him, and his expression was excited.

"It looks like a baby blanket."