DISCLAIMER: I do not earn any form of legal tinder from this story

.oOo.

Chapter III

A Grief Too Hard to Bear

Somebody make me feel alive,

and Shatter me.

~Lizzy Hale

.oOo.

The next morning I woke up to Darcy gently shaking me. Despite the fact that it was still pitch black outside, I got up very easily and was fully awake before I realized it. Which was weird because I'm impossible to get up in the morning.

Darcy climbed down the ladder to the ground floor while I changed into the dress from the previous day. Though, it was only when I was descending the latter that I realized the dress had a split up both sides of the dress. Presumably for easier running. But the problem was that it came up so far that the bottom hem of my underwear could be seen. It would be easily hidden by the folds of the skirt but I didn't want to be indecent, especially in a place I didn't know anything about. Having made my decision I grabbed my clothes off of the drying rack and apon seeing no one was in the house, except for Darcy, I started to change. But Darcy wouldn't have any of it so I just slipped on my pants under my dress. I certainly didn't want to anger the people that had taken me in.

I then took the rest of my clothes, my t-shirt and my sweatshirt, folded them, and tossed them back up into the loft along with my sneaker which Darcy would not let me wear at all.

After we ate breakfast Darcy took me by the hand and led me outside. She called out a greeting to her mother who was attending the garden, then picked up a basket full of dried herbs. She motioned me to follow her so I did. We walked through the dirt streets completely barefoot and soon came to a small market square. Darcy immediately went to one of the tables and set up shop. She meticulously set out her herbs then started to call out for customers.

At this point I had no idea what to do what so ever. So I began to wander around a bit in my boredom, and on my walk I realized that I was taller, or these people suddenly shrunk from yesterday's height. I also noticed that my sight and hearing had greatly improved, even though I already had twenty-twenty vision and near perfect hearing. If I concentrated I could literally hear every conversation in the square. Which, to be honest, was starting to give me a headache. So in that revelation I decided to walk down to the docks to relieve the pounding in my ears.

As I walked the sounds of the busy market quieted behind me, and my head ceased its slight throbbing.

Many people looked at me like they had done the day before but more in curiosity, although suspicion still veiled their eyes.

Trying my best to ignore the stares, I looked around and I came to realize that this village wasn't as small as I thought it was. But it's still considered small even compared to the small towns in America. It was quaint, but dirty and old.

I continued walking down the street and finally came to the lake. I must have come slightly to the side of the docks because there were no such structures here. Just a pebbly shore with clear water lapping at the bank.

I walked down onto the shore and looked out onto the lake. I could see almost everything from here.

'But how am I able to?'

That question made me lower my eyes and as I did I saw a little gray leather bound book that had washed up on the shore.

I gasped in disbelief.

It was my journal!

I hurried over and snatched it up. Most of the pages were soaked but the pencil drawings and entries weren't smudged, and best of all the pencil was still in its place on the inside of the cover.

I smiled as I flipped through the pages, but stopped short when I came to where I had put the pictures of Mom and Dad, and Will, Lewis, and Michael. My heart fell and my smile faded as I saw their happy faces. The faces I will never see again.

I sank to the ground silently shedding tears. I closed the journal and held it tight to my chest. The blunt pebbles dug into my knees but I didn't care. I knelt there for what seemed like hours trying to force my emotions back into the bottle where I had crammed them before.

It was like this that Darcy found me. I heard her rushed steps as she ran over to me. I felt her hand as she laid it on my shoulder. I quickly wiped away my tears and stood, still clutching my leather bound treasure.

She asked me something, but I didn't understand. After I didn't respond she quit her fussing and led me back to the market where she sat me down on a crate behind her table.

I leaned against the wall and stared into space trying so hard to get my emotions under control. That feat took about a half an hour in the least, but once I trusted my voice to talk and not crack I left the journal on the crate stood and walked over to Darcy. I then started asking what things were called by pointing to them to get the rest of my emotions under control. I decided to focus on learning the new language instead of whimpering about my grief. 'I can grieve later.' I reasoned. 'I need to focus on what's important.'

Darcy was happy to comply and told me everything that I could shake a finger at, quite literally. I focused so much on remembering everything she taught that I could speak simple sentences by the end of two hours. But now that I've thought of it, it's extremely disconcerting at how I learned so much in such a short time. Especially since my Spanish teacher implied that I was the butt of the class. Needless to say, Spanish hated my guts, but this language and I are connecting in so many ways.

I can tell Darcy thinks she's a really good teacher at how she never stops telling me things. I wondered how old she is, so I asked.

"How old you?" I pointed at her.

"Fifteen." she replied.

Fifteen? And running a stand? Not to mention taking care of an eighteen year old who has no idea what's going on. What kind of culture am I in right now?

"How old are you?" she asked while simultaneously correcting my speech.

I wasn't sure how to say eighteen so I held up all of my fingers first, then eight of them. She seemed to understand but looked a little confused. She said something afterwards, "Are you..." but I couldn't understand the last word.

"I do not understand." I said using the phrase she had taught me earlier.

She then pointed to her ring finger, "Are you..."

Married! She's asking if I'm married? I shook my head no and showed her my bare ring finger. She humphed with the confused expression still on her face but quickly brushed it aside and turned to deal with a customer.

It was then that I noticed an elderly lady pushing her cart along, except the cart was stuck. I looked closer to see her trying to get the wheel out of a rut but failing every time. I looked around to see if anyone else was going to help her, but when no one did, I quickly left Darcy and walked over to her and tapped her shoulder, "I help you."

She looked at me suspiciously for a moment before nodding gratefully and stepping away from the cart. I then positioned myself behind it and lifted up the cart's two back wheels by the handles and pushed it out of the rut with little trouble at all.

The woman thanked me and bowed. I wasn't sure what to do so I said, "You are welcome." and bowed as well. She smiled at me and continued on her way.

I walked back to Darcy's stand to find her smiling at me. "You did a good thing." she said simply.

I smiled back, "I did what I thought was right." and she nodded.

Soon after I realized that the people were looking at me with kind eyes instead of suspicion. Darcy's customers would smile at me and so would passersby; I in turn, smiled back at them.

I stayed with Darcy at the stand until the afternoon came in where we packed up shop and walked back to the house. There Darcy reorganized the left-over herbs in a small shed beside the house. She then took me out into an orchard where we picked sokwappha, which was apparently a fruit, until our baskets were filled. Back at the house she stored the fruit in the same building as the herbs and took me inside where I helped make supper.

All throughout the day I had held onto my journal. Now sitting on my bed made of hay, I looked at its cover as it lay in my lap.

"What is that?" Darcy asked from across the loft.

I didn't know how to say journal so I motioned her to come over and showed her one of my favorite drawings, "I made this." It was kind of a self portrait in a way but I thought it looked nothing like me, although, Michael would say different.

I didn't hear Darcy's exclamation of awe in my saddened state. It was only when she pulled out my brothers' picture that I snapped out of my trance and quickly took the picture from her and closed the book around it. I subconsciously hugged it to my chest and stared at the floor in front of me.

I could tell she was a little hurt by my actions, but it quickly wore off. She smiled at me and patted my shoulder before returning to her bed. She said good night and blew out her candle after I replied.

I heard her lay down and after a few minutes her breathing slowed as she fell asleep. After I was sure she was asleep I slowly began to relax my hold on the journal and ran my hand over the smooth leather.

I felt the stinging threat of tears in my eyes as I thought of my brothers, 'If only I had done something. They would still be alive.' I felt a wet tear slide down my cheek, 'Why did this have to happen? Why did they have to die? Why didn't I do anything to stop it? It's my fault they're dead.' I laid down on the bed and hugged the journal once more, 'It's all my fault. I could have done something, but I didn't.'

'It's all my fault.' my mind chanted as I fell asleep. But as I fell into the embrace of darkness it began to morph into something different.

"It's all your fault." I heard William say.

I opened my eyes and saw him standing in front of me. His face was dripping with blood from his bullet wound. He stared at me with dead eyes as I looked back up in utter fear and sadness.

"This is your fault. You could have warned me! You could have saved me, but you didn't." he said while looming closer. His face became angry, "Why didn't you save me?"

"I don't know!" I cried back, "I'm sorry!"

"You're sorry?" Lewis and Michael appeared from behind William, both had inflamed burns on their faces and arms. "I spoke to you over the phone. You had the perfect chance to warn me! And yet you didn't. Yeah, you should be sorry."

"Why, Ella?" Michael said, "I thought you loved us. Why did you betray us like that?"

I fell to my knees and sobbed into my hands, "I don't know. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry!" was all that I could muster up to say.

I felt William shaking my shoulders, "You're selfish! You ran away and left us to die. You're no better than the Communists that took our country."

"Elanor! Elanor!" I heard Darcy say.

I sat up in bed in a cold sweat and sat there with tears still streaming down my face while Darcy tried to get me to calm down.

"Elanor, what happened?" she said concerned.

I looked out the window and saw that it was morning again.

She asked me again and I pushed her hands away with a, "I am alright."

I then looked at my journal which was lying beside my bed.

"No, you are not." Darcy persisted.

I picked up the journal and shoved it under my bed. I don't need it reminding me of the past. I don't need my clothes reminding me either, so out of sight they went.

I turned away from the bed and began to change into my dress and pants. When I had changed I was about to go down the ladder when Darcy stopped me, "Elanor..."

But I didn't give her a chance to finish, "Leave me alone, Darcy." I said before brushing her hand away from my shoulder again. I climbed down the ladder and waited for Darcy to join me.

She sighed and came down and helped me make breakfast. We then went out to the market except this time she had me carry a basket of the sokwappha that we had picked the day before.

The day came and went much like yesterday. I helped her with the stand then we went out into the field and picked fruit, came back to the house, ate supper, and went to bed.

I didn't have another nightmare for which I was grateful but no matter how much I tossed and turned I still felt the uncomfortable bulge of my journal beneath me.

This cycle continued for a few more days and my mental stability increasingly got worse. Just a few days later i was hardly talking to anyone even though I had almost fully perfected the language by then. I would always just smile and wave, but behind those fake emotions I felt dead inside. A part of me knew what I was doing to myself but I didn't know how to fix it. Even my health began to decline dramatically. The nightmares, though not as bad as the first still haunted my dreams on a regular basis.

And my clothes. The single most depressing thing that I had were taunting me from their place in the loft. My journal was safe as long as I couldn't see it but I had no where to hide my clothes from sight. I thought that if I was gong to get over my past they needed to go, or at least the t-shirt which William had given to me. So one after noon while Darcy's back was turned I took the shirt and almost successfully threw it into the kitchen furnace. Darcy had turned around at the exact moment when I let it go.

Seeing what i was doing she snatched it out of the air and faced me, "What are you doing?"

"I'm burning my shirt." I said while trying to retrieve it from her, which was fruitless.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because I don't like it." I said as I stopped trying to get it back. She raised her eyebrow at me wanting a better explanation. I sighed, "I want to get rid of it because it reminds me of my past."

She snorted, "Well you shouldn't just burn perfectly good clothing. I'll tell you what I'll do if you really want to get rid of it." She smoothed the shirt out on the table before folding it, "I have to go back into the market this afternoon with some fruit for a customer who couldn't be there this morning. I can take this tunic and sell it for you to the merchants that are passing through. It'll be out of your sight and you'll get something out of it too."

I thought about it, "Why can't I sell it?"

She smiled, "Because you haven't yet perfected your bargaining skills. I can get it at a higher price than you."

I shrugged, "Alright."

"Now you stay here with supper and I'll be back in a few minutes. Mother should come home before I do so don't worry about a thing." she patted my shoulder and headed out of the front door my shirt in hand.

'Good riddance.' I though of the shirt.

I turned back to the soup on the stove and began stirring it, 'Why is it always soup?'

Cardia came in soon after Darcy left just like she said, and helped me with the soup.

Conversation was limited between us. She would just ask for things and I would go and get them, but this time it was different.

We were awkwardly standing in front of the soup pot when she suddenly said, "You know you can tell us anything."

I looked at her confused and yet knowing exactly what she meant, "I don't know what you mean."

"I've seen how you act. You're hiding your grief. Of whom or what I don't know, but you can't bottle up your emotions. You'll only get worse. I know from experience." Cardia is in no way a soft woman and to hear her say something so kindly was a slight shock.

But I remained silent about her words.

And just like that she snapped out of her kindness, "Ignore me then. If you want to do yourself harm then go right ahead. Supper's ready. Go out and call Kelvin and see if Darcy is back yet."

I did what she asked and immediately met Darcy as i went out the front door. She walked past me and hurried up to the loft with a small cloth pouch firmly clasped in her hand. I shrugged her off and fetched Kelvin who was working out in the garden beside the house.

Supper was quiet like it always was and I helped clean dishes afterwards just like I always did, but as soon as we were finished Darcy grabbed onto my hand and nearly pulled me all the way up the ladder to the loft.

I rushed after her and when I finally got to the top and sat down on my bed she thrust the pouch into my lap. She then put a finger to her lips, "Be quiet when you open it."

I did as she said and one silver piece and five coppers slid out of the bag and onto my lap. It was money I knew that but I wasn't sure how much it actually was/ I looked up at Darcy who was beside herself with excitement.

She looked at me with a grin on her face, "I went up to the merchant and he said it was the finest tunic that he'd ever seen. He was only going to give me ten coppers but I saw how much he wanted for it and raised the price from that to a silver and five coppers! I've never held so much money in my life!" she frantically whispered then grew serious, "But you can't tell anyone that you have it. That would make you a target. Not even Mother and Father."

"Ok..." I said as I put the coins back in the pouch and hid it under the edge of the mattress, "How much are they worth?"

She gasped in disbelief then whisper yelled, "How much are they worth! They could buy enough food for a family of three to last them for almost half a year!"

"Oh..." I said.

"What are you going to do with it?" she tilted her head.

I shrugged, "I don't know."

"Well in any case you should get some sleep. I noticed you've been dragging a little lately." she said concerned.

I smiled as I got up to change, "I'll be fine."

"I hope so." she whispered.

'Me too.' I thought.

After we both changed we got into bed and I fell asleep to the nightmares that had plagued me for the past week now.

I knew I wasn't fine. But I wasn't about to admit it. At least not yet.

The next day ran like normal except I was feeling more depressed than usual. I didn't even try to mask my emotions. I was so tired of the nightmares, tired of my life, tired of everything.

A thought began to run through my mind all day long. 'Why did my country have to be taken over? Why did those stupid Communists have to do this to me.' In truth I hated them. By the afternoon I was so angry at my country, the Communists, and even my brothers for what I had gone through.

Darcy and I were picking fruit when she noticed my sudden change in mood. She set down her basket and faced me, "What's wrong, Elanor?"

"Nothing. I'm fined." I said through gritted teeth.

"No, you're not!" she said before jerking me around to face her.

I knocked off her arms, my temper flaring, "I said I'm fine! Leave me alone! I don't need you mothering me! You're not helping at all." As soon as I said it I could tell that I had hurt her. The shock of seeing her face fall jerked me out of my anger.

I dropped my basket and put my head in my hands, "Darcy, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to say that. I don't want to be mad at you. You've been so kind to me. I'm sorry."

But she didn't have any mercy on me what so ever, but it turned out to be exactly what I needed, "If you're really sorry, you'll tell me what's wrong."

I began to cry into my hands and she immediately guided me down to sit on the ground beside her.

She rubbed my back and toned down her voice, "You can tell me anything. You know that right?"

I nodded in my tears then removed my hands and stared at the ground.

"Take all the time you need." she said softly.

I took a shuttering breath and decided to get it over with, "My country was split up by war. And my brothers were all killed." I choked up, "I saw William get shot right in front of me. My parents sent me away to find a better life, but all I want are my brothers. It's my fault they died, but I didn't do anything to save them. It's my fault..."

Darcy cut me off, "No it's not. So quit saying it is."

I looked at her through my tears, "And what do you know?"

"Plenty." came her frowning answer. "War has plagued this land for years. My own brother was drafted into the army. The last time I saw him was over five years ago."

I lowered my eyes but she continued, "I don't know if he's alive or dead and that kills me every day. But I have to move on with life. If I see him one more time or if I never see his freckled face in this life again, is well with me." She pulled my face up by my chin and I saw her tear stained eyes, "Believe me when I tell you, I know exactly what you're going through. The important thing we need to do is keep smiling, because that's exactly what my brother wants for me and your brothers want the same for you."

"But how can I just let them go?" I cried.

"You'll never let them go as long as you hold their memory. But what you need to do right now is accept that they are gone and move on with your life."

I put my head into my hands, "I can't. It hurts too much!"

I felt her arms wrap around me and I relaxed into her hold, "I know. I know. But it's going to be alright. Just let it all out."

That afternoon in the small orchard I told her everything and she just held me there not interrupting just holding me and giving me exactly what I needed. What I had missed for so long.

Love and compassion.

After I had cried myself out I felt like I had relieved a load off of my shoulders and I felt happier than I had in days. My grief still weighed on my shoulders but it no longer was dragging me through the depths of despair. We returned to the house late but when Cardia saw that I was better she quit her fussing. I laughed more that night than I had in a while and with the help of Darcy, even had the courage to tell Kelvin and Cardia what had happened to me. They were sympathetic but grateful that I had confided in them.

After supper I went up to the loft and lay down to sleep, and for the first night in what seemed like a thousand years, my dreams were calm and placid. That night instead of seeing the haunting image of William's death playing over and over in my head, I was lying in a field of grass with a sea of stars above. I sighed a smile as a cool spring breeze drifted over my face. I closed my eyes in peace and faintly heard a whispered verse floating in the air.

Where once was darkness
There will be light
Where once was weakness
There will be might
A new nation will be raised
And the traitor shall be praised.

oOoOoOo

Really long chapter this time but i didn't want to split it up into two parts so you're welcome. i hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for reading!

P.S. The new POVs book of this story is out. I's called "A New Point of View" and you can find it on my profile. I hope you enjoy it!