Chapter two – The visitor
There she sat with curls in her hair. Blonde curls, gleaming and bouncing as she sat, sat still like a cat waiting for its master. She blinked once, twice, three times and a tall, dark mysterious man with a cloak longer than a tree tightly wrapped around his broad shoulders. He stood a while before nodding his head at her and speaking in a quiet yet booming voice.
"I guess it is done then. You have completed the first stage of the task?"
She sat pleasantly upright as he spoke and replied calmly "Yes Sir. Moorx has looked through the mist twice to make sure that we have completed the task accurately."
"Good." He said this with a sound of delight. "As I thought, you do all work well together. We shall expect great things from you!"
"But Sir!" Now she was standing to protest, but she still had to crane her neck to speak to him as he was far taller than her. "We may work well together but you said yourself that we are useless without the Key or the Walker. And we don't even work well without the Sensor!"
"Calm down young Heja, there is nothing to fear. I have been watching the Walker for some time now and I feel that she is finally ready to learn her true meaning; she is now old enough to take her place in the Order."
"And what about the Key and the Sensor?"
"In good time, in good time! Finding the last two is another quest for you three, but for that we need the Walker. But, like I say, all in good time."
Heja seemed reassured at this point and with a deep sigh of relief and sat back down. After a few moments silence the tall man gazed to the night sky and took a long silver object from one of the many pockets of his cloak. He held it up to the sky and pushed a button on the side to make a sudden bright flash and passed the object to Heja.
"All the information for the second stage is on here. Use it at night on the next full moon, do not let anyone other than the Order see what it contains and only you will be able to reach the information. Good luck."
With that he turned in a flash and disappeared into the mist of nowhere. Heja studied the object carefully, wondering silently to herself "But how do I use it?"
A herd of school children washed through the streets of Kaleido, pushing and shoving their way to school. The juniors scrambled towards a small white building surrounded by acres of grassland, some trees and three greenish blue ponds. The intermediates headed towards a large red and white building situated in acres of grass and woodland, with a 6km wide lake standing behind it. The tinies were accompanied to a series of huts in an area full of climbing frames and other playing equipment, and a simple clear blue paddling pool.
The city suddenly went deaf as the last screaming child entered through double doors. Parents breathed a sigh of relief as they made their way home or to their jobs. Kaleido sang a song of a peaceful morning, with the birds chatting in the trees.
In the Intermediate School sat a young girl with jet black curls, ice-blue eyes and skin as pale as the clouds. She sat silently listening to her music teacher, Mr. Andrews, carefully noting every word coming out of his mouth.
"So who can tell me the meaning or 'Fortissimo'? Perhaps you, Lizzy?" he asked her.
The pale faced girl proudly stood up and replied in her tuneful voice "Fortissimo means 'very loud' sir." Then she gently sat back in her seat.
"Excellent! You've been paying attention I see."
A secret smile extended across Lizzy's sweet, innocent face. She loved it when a teacher praised her as it didn't happen very often. She was a very quiet girl who kept herself to herself, and was almost invisible as she was hard to notice. She seemed to be a favourite of Mr. Andrews. He liked the sort of people who didn't boast about their magnificent brains.
"Now then," he concluded, "I see we have three minutes so before we go I'll give out your homework."
A whisper of groans circled the room at the word 'homework', but nobody complained as the consequences were harsh. These consequences included cleaning the rubbish after school, washing the grubby dishes after the lunch rush and more cringing things. Of course there were the less harsh punishments such as detentions and extra homework, but the harsh ones seemed to do the trick of making less kids misbehave. Lizzy had only ever had one detention, but that was because he somehow managed to make her science experiment fly across the room causing a huge explosion of chemicals, which then disappeared into thin air. The teacher didn't believe that she hadn't actually done anything to make it do so, yet he couldn't quite work out how she would have managed to make it vanish, so he let her off with a small punishment.
The bell rang for the end of lesson and a rush of teenagers swarmed through doors and infested the canteen, with huge queues forming for lunch. Lizzy quietly walked straight to the lake and sat down under a shady tree. She liked to be alone. Well, she preferred to be alone as she hardly had any friends and the ones she had were an embarrassment to be around. So here she sat, alone under this tree that was gently swaying to and fro in the whispering breeze. She reached into her bag and extracted a box containing two jam sandwiches and a strawberry yoghurt that her mother had packed for her. They didn't get to eat much in her home, as her mother couldn't work due to back problems and her father was on a poorly paid job. Her father could quit his job and get a better one of course, but it was incredibly hard to get a job these days since the fall of the government. Lizzy finished her lunch and was just about to go for a walk when she suddenly found a special treat in her bag from her mother. A chocolate munch bar was neatly wrapped in some paper with a little note attached to it…
Lizzy. Dad worked overtime last week and earned some extra money so I persuaded him to get you a treat. Enjoy darling, because you deserve it! Love Mum.
Lizzy's eyes glowed brightly as she carefully unwrapped the paper to reveal a bar of heavenly chocolate, which she ate delightfully and smiled. The smooth texture ran down her throat, swirling through her stomach like a fluttering butterfly trapped inside her. As she closed her eyes to indulge herself a small voice whispered "She will walk through the mist and complete the Order!"
She jerked suddenly, scanning her surroundings for the voice. "Who's there?" she cried, getting more and more worried every time she turned. She looked left, right, back and left, but still no sign of any intruder so she quickly snatched her things from the floor and ran with every effort she had. She ran and ran until she reached the double doors of the school, swinging on their hinges with a teeth gritting squeak.
"Ah Lizzy!" Mr. Andrews called to her, "I wondered where you had got to. This is Mr. Gabesh, he's here to talk to some of our best students about a once in a lifetime opportunity. I say are you ok Lizzy? You look terribly flushed!"
She stood gaping a while before realising an answer was required and replied "Erm… yes Sir. Yes I'm fine. Just thought I was late for lesson you see, lost track of the time!"
"Late for lesson? But it's only fifteen minutes into lunch! Anyway, Mr. Gabesh wishes to speak to you so I shall leave you to it." With that he walked back to his room to continue with his meal.
As they walked towards the woodland, Lizzy stared at Mr. Gabesh for a while, observing his old, drooping pale face surrounded by a mass of shocking white hair. Around his shoulders he had wrapped an extremely long metallic purple cloak, and he wore a velvet red button shirt with flaring black trousers. The lighting was reflecting against the bright green eyes he possessed, and as he smiled at her he exposed a set of pearly white teeth.
As Lizzy hypothesized about how strange it was for a normal person to be dressed so colourfully, he spoke to her.
"Before we start, I must apologise about my apprentice scaring you like that near the lake! He is incredibly clumsy at times, but he is an excellent worker."
"Ex….excuse..me?"
"Oh I'm terribly sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. I am Epiybu Thomas Gabesh, founder of the Order."
"I'm afraid I don't understand Sir. How do you know about the lake and what Order are you the founder of?"
"Why the Order of the Gautje of course! And I know what happened at the lake because my apprentice is the one who spoke and scared you."
"So you are the founder of the Order of the Gautje, and you're here to tell me about some opportunity? But I thought that the Gautje had been taken over after the fall of the government!"
"Well yes, but that's why I came to talk to you. You see, you are to become part of the Order to save this world from the threat of the Forces. You were born the Walker, Elizabeth Roberts." On his last word, he looked down upon her with a serious look on his face, so serious that she felt cold.
"H….how do you know my name? I don't recall Mr. Andrews telling you my full name, everyone calls me Lizzy!"
"Ah but your parents don't though, do they? I think they prefer your true name, Sohgrie Elizabeth."
At that very moment, the colour in Lizzy's face drained away and she became a greyish colour. She couldn't believe he knew her true name. Nobody called her that but her parents and even they didn't call her that in public, it was too dangerous!