Chapter 3

The Necklace

Relena spent many hours around the kitchens and servants, always the cheerful girl willing to lend a hand. She soon noticed that one servant girl was always in charge of bringing meals to Jymon when he was too busy to eat with the rest of the castle dwellers. She soon learned that the girl would leave every evening at seven to deliver the meal, and would always return promptly after a half an hour.

One day Relena worked up the nerve to go with the servant. Noticing that the girl had more than enough to carry, Relena offered her a hand. The girl gladly accepted and the two started off to Jymon's residence. The young servant babbled on and on and Relena had trouble keeping track of which turn they took and which passage they were entering. She felt confident enough however to be able to find her way back again.

After several minutes of seeming directionless wandering through the castle's dank halls the two came to a small wall hanging. The girl carefully balanced the tray of food against the wall with one hand, and with the other flipped a switch behind the tapestry. On the other side of the hall a door slowly grated open. The girl told Relena to wait in the passageway while she took the food in. Relena waited obediently then left with the girl to travel back to the kitchens. Relena had trouble not grinning with wicked delight. She had found it!

Before Relena could retrieve her necklace though, she had to prepare for her escape. Hanging around the kitchens all day had given her all the food supply she would need for several days. Each day she would slip bits of preserved food into her pockets and then deposit it in her room under her bed when she had the chance. Relena decided that she would also need some sort of weapon. This she took from the kitchens as well. It was a dull knife that she had noticed gathering dust under the table. Relena quickly confiscated it as well and spent her nights sharpening it on the rough stones of her bedroom wall. Clothing wasn't a problem because as a princess Relena had all of the garments she needed. The problem was that she couldn't decide which piece of clothing she would take with her. She had many beautiful dresses that were very dear to her. In the end she decided on the cotton dress and leather cape that she wore when on her "adventures."

After a week of gathering these necessary items, Relena finally turned her attention to the necklace. Relena thought about the necklace almost every day and found herself feeling incomplete without its weight around her neck. She knew that she wouldn't be able to get it before she was completely ready to go. She didn't want Jymon noticing it was gone because he would know exactly who had taken it.

Relena could never quite figure out why the necklace meant so much to her, besides the fact that it had been her grandmother's. In fact, it had been in the family for as long as anyone could remember. It wasn't exactly what Relena would call pretty. It was a simple silver chain with a flat black rock attacked at the end. It was the kind of rock that the stable boys liked to use to skip rocks on the pond. The small stone had no ornamentation besides that it was a perfect circle. Relena supposed that she liked it because she was told that at her birth her grandmother had placed in around her neck and it had glowed bright emerald green. Relena liked that story because she figured it had something to do with her gift.

Relena was fascinated with her gift. She loved it mostly because her parents were anything but happy about it. They had warned her as a child never to use her gift because it was evil. She had been punished severely when she had used it. However harsh the punishment though, Relena couldn't stop herself from toying with it once in a while.

Relena had of course heard the old stories of the evil sorcerers. Her grandmother had spent many a rainy night recanting the adventure of the evil beings and the brave holder of the power of Isis. Relena loved hearing these stories especially because of her gift. It made her feel somehow connected to the long ago people of fairy tales.

When Relena was born the old stories became much more than simply old tales to frighten young people. It had suddenly turned to stark reality as the skies became cloudy overhead and the fields refused to produce hardly anything edible. The sunlight that did occasionally filter through in Relena's part of the world and nourish the sickly plants was harsh and cruel, more often than not killing those very plants. The shadows that it cast were dark and mocking. Relena however seemed not to notice these things. She had grown up with those conditions and to her it was perfectly normal.

When Relena was little and had been scolded for using her gift, her grandmother would take her in her arms and told her another story of long ago. For a while Relena had not seen the connection between the stories and why she couldn't use her gift. It wasn't until she was older that she understood. People were afraid. So afraid in fact that they didn't tolerate anyone with the gift. Relena felt hurt and cheated by this treatment. She was not evil and would certainly never use her gift to hurt people but seldom would anyone choose to listen to someone who was "different."

Relena's parent's could not understand why Relena refused to listen to them and used her gift openly in public. Didn't she know that she could be killed for such and action? If Relena didn't feel the threat of being discovered, her parents did. They too were deeply afraid of the darkening skies and changing times. They had lived in a time before the world had been changed and now were terrified. No one wanted the world to become the way it had been two hundred years ago. Even if no one wanted the darkness to return, there was no way for them to stop it. Everyday the skies became blacker and the storms increased. The acid rain fell at least once a week, killing anything left in the open. The landscape became charred and lifeless and the people shuddered with fear. The world was changing and Relena seemed to ignore it all.