(You can tell I'm running out of good title ideas, can't you? Ah, just a
note: There's going to be some characters in this that you won't recognize
(ie. Matthew). Now, they're not just completely made up and irrelevant to
the story, they're actually... let's say, possibilities, to be in any HM
game. Bear with me, their identities will be explained more in later
chapters. Oh, and much thanks to my peeps at the HM Guild for letting me
use these characters! And for the rest of you, send in those reviews! And
yes, I'm now accepting unsigned reviews!)
As they ran, Miro and Matthew were trying to be as silent as possible, which was difficult since it was around evening and small objects that could trip people were plentiful in the path. After the fifty-third trip- fall-and-hurt-yourself between the two, they decide to call it a night and set up a small, makeshift camp beside the path, in the cover of the trees.
"Anything for food?" Matthew asks.
"Don't you have some for yourself?" Miro replies. "I thought you would've."
"Well, I do, but it's bracken and grasses mostly. I didn't have much time to raid the pantry back at my place."
"Well, what was there that you could've taken?" Miro asks.
"...Bracken and grasses." Matthew says, sighing. "My mom's a nature freak. Dad can sneak a steak in once in a while, but it tastes a bit off after he's smuggled it in his shirt."
"Eugh..." Miro says, gagging. "I would've guessed it would. Anyway, I have some crops I snagged from the fridge and... Hey, where'd it..." He looks around through his rucksack for the missing food item. Perhaps he had dropped it. "Where's..." He sees it next to a tree: a chocolate bar. He wonders how it got there, but shrugs it off and approaches it. It moves away from him, though. Miro persues, followed by Matthew. The bar leads them away from the path, between trees, through bushes, until it finally stops at the base of what looked like a huge pile of chocolate, highlighted by a nearby campfire. Mouths watering, Miro and Matthew slowly approach their newfound treasure. After a second, though, Miro stops, going out of his hypnosis. Matthew moves past him, ignoring that Miro stopped. Miro thinks for a minute about how this kind of phenomenon could possibly happen, and suddenly realizes something.
"Matthew, stop! It's a tra-" But it was too late. A random assortment of spears, arrows, and rocks flew at Matthew. Fortunately, all of them missed but a few rocks against random soft areas of his body. This was quite enough, though, and he fell backwards to the ground. As he was looking up, he saw something.
"Miro... Up there, in the trees!" He says weakly. Miro looked up, ready to fight. He sees two shadowy figures standing perfectly balanced on a tree branch. Both of them had pink hair, so they were either female or extremely confused, but one was dyed and had red streaks going down it. Miro couldn't determine much else about them.
"I told you we'd find him here." The one with pure pink hair said. "And look, he has a friend, too."
"Who?" The other one asks. "That one?"
"Yes, the red-haired little man. Red-haired... Wait a minute..." The person jumps from the branch and onto the pile of chocolate. Her face was still concealed by the shadow of the fire, but Miro could now determine that she was female. She wore ebony capris and had a star chain around her wrist, along with a dog-tag necklace. She also wore a pure black tee shirt with a pink trim, along with what Miro thought he saw to be a small pink heart on the right shoulder. He could only see it because the fire was crackling in that direction.
"Hmm... oh, it's Miro!" She says in an enthusiasm that sounded slightly sarcastic. "How have you been?"
"Who are you?" Miro asks, still in a fighting stance.
"Relax. I'm sure you remember me. You met me back when you met this moron, remember?" She says, pointing to Matthew.
"Hey!" Matthew says angrily, slowly getting up. "I'm no mor-!"
With the click of a button, Matthew is caught up in a net below him and suspended in the air by it. The girl on the pile of chocolate simply throws the switch she had just used away, ignoring Matthew's protests. This is when Miro noticed something. She wore gloves, which were absolutely the same as his, only a shade of pink. Her name suddenly snaps in his mind.
"Ricca!" He says. The girl sways her head so that the fire could show her face. Miro knew for sure now. It was Ricca, another person he had met before from out of town. She was also Miro's age, and held an almost Kate- like evil attitude towards him.
"Glad you remember." Ricca says. "But you're not the one we're after. You can go."
"Okay." Miro says, shrugging and turning around.
"HEY!" Matthew yells from the net. "NO YOU CAN'T! GET BACK HERE!"
"Why?" Miro asks, stopping.
"Because, uhh... She still has your chocolate bar!"
"Oh, right." Miro says, remembering and turning around to face Ricca again. "Id like that back, by the way."
"Seems fair." The person in the tree says. "The chocolate bar for Matthew. How's that sound?"
"Deal." Miro says. Matthew looked like he was about to kill Miro.
"YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME HERE!" He protests. Miro had already taken the chocolate bar and was walking away, but as he walked he spoke.
"What exactly is the problem, Matt? You've been captured by two pink-haired girls with... interesting... outlines, we could say. I'm not seeing a downside here."
Suddenly, the person on the tree jumped off and landed directly in front of Miro. Miro was right about her being a girl, as well. From what Miro could see, she wore a shirt that was red on top, blue on the bottom, with a white trim, and also a star in the middle.
"Interesting?" She says, looking at Miro with angry sapphire eyes. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Interesting, as in likeable, as in 'opposite of cold', as in ho-"
"Miro."
"What?"
"I'M YOUR COUSIN!" She yells before slamming him in the chin with a severe uppercut, sending him above the treeline. Ricca stepped aside as Miro landed directly on the pile of chocolate. He remained there for a moment.
"Wait..." He says finally. "I have a cousin?"
"She's your distant cousin." Matthew says. "You have the same great- grandpa. Your parents were cousins. Tough to explain."
"How did you know that?" Miro asks.
"Because," Matthew says, sighing. "She's the one I'm trying to get away from."
"Well, good job with that." Miro says sarcastically.
"Good enough, anyway." The girl says, stepping onto the pile, and Miro, and staring at Matthew eye-to eye. "So, are you coming home or not?"
"No chance! Not yet!" Matthew says, struggling at the ropes. "I still want to explore more! I've spent too much of my time in that deadbeat, do- nothing little town!"
"Hmm... okay." The girl says. "You and your friend can keep going, but Ricca and I are coming with you."
"What?!" Miro exclaims, still being stood on by the girl but able to breathe enough to protest. "I'm not letting fashion-trash doorknobs slow me down! I can't let you waste my time!"
"Miro, quiet!" Matthew says, suddenly turning sides and being defensive for their captors. "They won't slow us down, especially not Anna!"
"Anna?" Miro says, looking up to the one standing on him. "I remember that name... Oh, hey, you are my cousin!"
"Duh." Anna says.
"I haven't seen you in years, how're you doing?" Miro says.
"Don't act nice just because you don't want me stepping on you."
"Actually..." Matthew says. "He might want you to stay stepping on him. I mean, the small shirt with the stomach showing is enough, but the mini- skirt is..."
Anna realized what he meant, and quickly stepped off of Miro, but not before delivering a flat stomp on his face.
"Oooowwww..." Miro groaned. "I wasn't looking, dammit, she's my cousin!"
Jack was lying down on his bed, looking up at the ceiling. He wasn't sleeping, he was lying over the covers horizontally, letting his feet stay on the floor. He had run out of things to do, and didn't dare move much at the risk of Nami getting angrier than she already was at him.
Nami herself had just finished packing her bag completely full, and walked over to Jack. Jack flinched and held his breath nervously, but Nami merely sat down next to him on the bed.
"Jack, do you remember the day we got married?" She asks.
"Wait, let me think... oh, oh yeah, when they had that cake all ready, that really big one that tasted like sawdust since it was left over from Galen and Nina's wedding."
Nami sighs. "Yes, but did we care?"
"No..."
"And why not?"
"'Cause I was already full from all of that rice they threw at us in the beginning."
"...You ate the rice? Is that what you were doing with that soya sauce- ugh... never mind, why else?"
"Umm... I don't know... I usually would've flipped out if something like that happened... Though, it might've had something to do with a weird feeling I had whenever I'd look at you."
"Oh? What feeling was that?"
"I'm not sure... Remorse, disgust, fear- OWW! What was that for?"
"IT WAS LOVE!"
"What, the feeling or you hitting me just now?"
"The feeling! You didn't care about the cake because:" Nami says, waiting for Jack to finish the question.
"Because... I... cared more about you?"
"Right. And do you remember what you said to me?"
"...No. Oh, wait, you mean the thing when I said-"
"Yes, when you said 'Nami, if we ever have a child, I'll never let him out of my sight, and I'll absolutely never let him skip town until he's a full adult.'"
"Oh, yeah! I remember tha- ...oops..." Jack says, realizing what she meant. "Well, those were different times, times have changed now, I mean, look," He sits up and looks around. He was looking for something that had changed over the past 15 years. "Look at, uhh... the house!"
"What about the house?" Nami asks.
"It's ... bigger." Jack claims.
"Oh, of course, that makes perfect sense!" Nami says sarcastically. "It's okay that you let Miro go out on his own, even though you said that you wouldn't, because the house is bigger."
"Uhh... exactly!" Jack says, nodding in agreement. Nami rolls her eyes and shoves a pillow into Jack's face, forcing him down on the bed.
"Get some sleep." She orders. "We have a long walk ahead of us."
Back at the campfire-and-chocolate-pile-in-the-forest, Miro was now standing, holding his bruised face while Matthew remained in the net, paitently waiting for someone to cut him loose.
"Well, I suppose we can camp out here for the night." Miro says. "It's nearly midnight, and I know that neither Matthew or I are in any condition to keep going."
"Fine," Ricca says. "We'll camp out here for now, set out again at seven, stop at noon for lunch and-"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, there." Miro interrupts. "Since when were you the head of this operation? I have to do this, I'm being chased and the people chasing me are closer than the ones chasing Matthew. Well, besides you two... Hey, why were you chasing him, anyway?"
"Should we tell him?" Ricca asks, looking over to Anna, who was spending her time prodding the trapped Matthew with a stick, as Matthew did his best to ignore it.
"Sure, it wouldn't hurt." Anna says, shrugging, putting the stick down, and leaning against the net. "Should I, or do you want to?"
"We'll take turns." Ricca says. "I'll start. It all began when Matthew skipped town a few days ago. I myself wasn't worried, but Anna here was nearly blubbering."
"Was not!" Anna says angrily. "But I did want to know where he went. So I packed up my things and got ready to go look for him. But there was one problem; he's the best sneak that I know, he could cover his trail easily. I needed help, so I went to the most conniving, skilled tracker I knew. But he asked for money, so instead I went to..."
"Me." Ricca says proudly. "And I did my job, I found Matthew using nothing but my brain."
"Wow, it's amazing how you could find him with such limited resources!" Miro says. Matthew laughs slightly, but both are hit upside the head and immediately shut up.
"Anyway," Ricca continues. "I knew how childish people like Matthew think, and so I... 'collected' some chocolate from the market and piled it up right here. I then baited you with Miro's chocolate and the rest is history."
"And now..." Anna says. "I can tell you all something."
"What?" Miro and Matthew ask.
"Well, since we're not going back to town, I know a place we can go." Anna begins.
"We're listening." Miro says.
"I remember, when I was just little, my Dad told me about a place far away from anywhere. He had gotten lost when he moved and wandered around for days until he came to a... well, I can't remember what it was, but from there he had shelter, he could resupply, and he could tell where the town was. I can't remember how he could do that, either..."
"Well, can you remember where it is?" Matthew asks.
"Umm... no."
The rest of the group fell over backwards and sighed. Miro was the first to speak again.
"Are you sure you don't remember? Is there a clue? A map? Something?"
"Well..." Anna says, thinking. "I do remember my Dad saying something really mysterious about the location. 'The road to what I speak of, is engraved in the family lineage.'"
"Lineage?" Matthew says, confused. Miro shuts his eyes in thought for a minute.
"Well... What does the family all have in common? I see no resemblance between the two of us, Anna, so what could he mean...?"
"I don't know." Anna says, shrugging.
"Well, we can sleep on it." Ricca says. "Maybe we can figure it out tomorrow."
"Agreed." Miro says, yawning. "Besides, I'm dead tired."
They all laid out their sleeping mats and then laid themselves out on them. Well, all but one.
"Umm, is anyone letting me out of this?" Matthew asks.
"Nah," Ricca says.
"Think of it like this," Miro explains. "You're the only one here who gets a hammock."
"It's a pretty cramped hammock..." Matthew says. "But... okay, whatever. At least I won't have bugs crawling all over me."
"Bugs, no. Bats, absolutely." Anna says, laughing slightly at the sudden expression on Matthew's face.
"Just shut up and go to sleep." Ricca says. "Oh, and don't let the bed bugs... or whatever, bite."
(There we are. Oh and note: The person named Anna in this is not the Anna of Friends of Mineral Town (Mary's mother), but you should already know that if you read even one word of the description. Just so there's no confusion about that. (I bet 98% of you didn't even know there was an Anna in FoMT before I mentioned it, but I'm just being safe here.) And remember, anonyamous reviews are now allowed!)
As they ran, Miro and Matthew were trying to be as silent as possible, which was difficult since it was around evening and small objects that could trip people were plentiful in the path. After the fifty-third trip- fall-and-hurt-yourself between the two, they decide to call it a night and set up a small, makeshift camp beside the path, in the cover of the trees.
"Anything for food?" Matthew asks.
"Don't you have some for yourself?" Miro replies. "I thought you would've."
"Well, I do, but it's bracken and grasses mostly. I didn't have much time to raid the pantry back at my place."
"Well, what was there that you could've taken?" Miro asks.
"...Bracken and grasses." Matthew says, sighing. "My mom's a nature freak. Dad can sneak a steak in once in a while, but it tastes a bit off after he's smuggled it in his shirt."
"Eugh..." Miro says, gagging. "I would've guessed it would. Anyway, I have some crops I snagged from the fridge and... Hey, where'd it..." He looks around through his rucksack for the missing food item. Perhaps he had dropped it. "Where's..." He sees it next to a tree: a chocolate bar. He wonders how it got there, but shrugs it off and approaches it. It moves away from him, though. Miro persues, followed by Matthew. The bar leads them away from the path, between trees, through bushes, until it finally stops at the base of what looked like a huge pile of chocolate, highlighted by a nearby campfire. Mouths watering, Miro and Matthew slowly approach their newfound treasure. After a second, though, Miro stops, going out of his hypnosis. Matthew moves past him, ignoring that Miro stopped. Miro thinks for a minute about how this kind of phenomenon could possibly happen, and suddenly realizes something.
"Matthew, stop! It's a tra-" But it was too late. A random assortment of spears, arrows, and rocks flew at Matthew. Fortunately, all of them missed but a few rocks against random soft areas of his body. This was quite enough, though, and he fell backwards to the ground. As he was looking up, he saw something.
"Miro... Up there, in the trees!" He says weakly. Miro looked up, ready to fight. He sees two shadowy figures standing perfectly balanced on a tree branch. Both of them had pink hair, so they were either female or extremely confused, but one was dyed and had red streaks going down it. Miro couldn't determine much else about them.
"I told you we'd find him here." The one with pure pink hair said. "And look, he has a friend, too."
"Who?" The other one asks. "That one?"
"Yes, the red-haired little man. Red-haired... Wait a minute..." The person jumps from the branch and onto the pile of chocolate. Her face was still concealed by the shadow of the fire, but Miro could now determine that she was female. She wore ebony capris and had a star chain around her wrist, along with a dog-tag necklace. She also wore a pure black tee shirt with a pink trim, along with what Miro thought he saw to be a small pink heart on the right shoulder. He could only see it because the fire was crackling in that direction.
"Hmm... oh, it's Miro!" She says in an enthusiasm that sounded slightly sarcastic. "How have you been?"
"Who are you?" Miro asks, still in a fighting stance.
"Relax. I'm sure you remember me. You met me back when you met this moron, remember?" She says, pointing to Matthew.
"Hey!" Matthew says angrily, slowly getting up. "I'm no mor-!"
With the click of a button, Matthew is caught up in a net below him and suspended in the air by it. The girl on the pile of chocolate simply throws the switch she had just used away, ignoring Matthew's protests. This is when Miro noticed something. She wore gloves, which were absolutely the same as his, only a shade of pink. Her name suddenly snaps in his mind.
"Ricca!" He says. The girl sways her head so that the fire could show her face. Miro knew for sure now. It was Ricca, another person he had met before from out of town. She was also Miro's age, and held an almost Kate- like evil attitude towards him.
"Glad you remember." Ricca says. "But you're not the one we're after. You can go."
"Okay." Miro says, shrugging and turning around.
"HEY!" Matthew yells from the net. "NO YOU CAN'T! GET BACK HERE!"
"Why?" Miro asks, stopping.
"Because, uhh... She still has your chocolate bar!"
"Oh, right." Miro says, remembering and turning around to face Ricca again. "Id like that back, by the way."
"Seems fair." The person in the tree says. "The chocolate bar for Matthew. How's that sound?"
"Deal." Miro says. Matthew looked like he was about to kill Miro.
"YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME HERE!" He protests. Miro had already taken the chocolate bar and was walking away, but as he walked he spoke.
"What exactly is the problem, Matt? You've been captured by two pink-haired girls with... interesting... outlines, we could say. I'm not seeing a downside here."
Suddenly, the person on the tree jumped off and landed directly in front of Miro. Miro was right about her being a girl, as well. From what Miro could see, she wore a shirt that was red on top, blue on the bottom, with a white trim, and also a star in the middle.
"Interesting?" She says, looking at Miro with angry sapphire eyes. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Interesting, as in likeable, as in 'opposite of cold', as in ho-"
"Miro."
"What?"
"I'M YOUR COUSIN!" She yells before slamming him in the chin with a severe uppercut, sending him above the treeline. Ricca stepped aside as Miro landed directly on the pile of chocolate. He remained there for a moment.
"Wait..." He says finally. "I have a cousin?"
"She's your distant cousin." Matthew says. "You have the same great- grandpa. Your parents were cousins. Tough to explain."
"How did you know that?" Miro asks.
"Because," Matthew says, sighing. "She's the one I'm trying to get away from."
"Well, good job with that." Miro says sarcastically.
"Good enough, anyway." The girl says, stepping onto the pile, and Miro, and staring at Matthew eye-to eye. "So, are you coming home or not?"
"No chance! Not yet!" Matthew says, struggling at the ropes. "I still want to explore more! I've spent too much of my time in that deadbeat, do- nothing little town!"
"Hmm... okay." The girl says. "You and your friend can keep going, but Ricca and I are coming with you."
"What?!" Miro exclaims, still being stood on by the girl but able to breathe enough to protest. "I'm not letting fashion-trash doorknobs slow me down! I can't let you waste my time!"
"Miro, quiet!" Matthew says, suddenly turning sides and being defensive for their captors. "They won't slow us down, especially not Anna!"
"Anna?" Miro says, looking up to the one standing on him. "I remember that name... Oh, hey, you are my cousin!"
"Duh." Anna says.
"I haven't seen you in years, how're you doing?" Miro says.
"Don't act nice just because you don't want me stepping on you."
"Actually..." Matthew says. "He might want you to stay stepping on him. I mean, the small shirt with the stomach showing is enough, but the mini- skirt is..."
Anna realized what he meant, and quickly stepped off of Miro, but not before delivering a flat stomp on his face.
"Oooowwww..." Miro groaned. "I wasn't looking, dammit, she's my cousin!"
Jack was lying down on his bed, looking up at the ceiling. He wasn't sleeping, he was lying over the covers horizontally, letting his feet stay on the floor. He had run out of things to do, and didn't dare move much at the risk of Nami getting angrier than she already was at him.
Nami herself had just finished packing her bag completely full, and walked over to Jack. Jack flinched and held his breath nervously, but Nami merely sat down next to him on the bed.
"Jack, do you remember the day we got married?" She asks.
"Wait, let me think... oh, oh yeah, when they had that cake all ready, that really big one that tasted like sawdust since it was left over from Galen and Nina's wedding."
Nami sighs. "Yes, but did we care?"
"No..."
"And why not?"
"'Cause I was already full from all of that rice they threw at us in the beginning."
"...You ate the rice? Is that what you were doing with that soya sauce- ugh... never mind, why else?"
"Umm... I don't know... I usually would've flipped out if something like that happened... Though, it might've had something to do with a weird feeling I had whenever I'd look at you."
"Oh? What feeling was that?"
"I'm not sure... Remorse, disgust, fear- OWW! What was that for?"
"IT WAS LOVE!"
"What, the feeling or you hitting me just now?"
"The feeling! You didn't care about the cake because:" Nami says, waiting for Jack to finish the question.
"Because... I... cared more about you?"
"Right. And do you remember what you said to me?"
"...No. Oh, wait, you mean the thing when I said-"
"Yes, when you said 'Nami, if we ever have a child, I'll never let him out of my sight, and I'll absolutely never let him skip town until he's a full adult.'"
"Oh, yeah! I remember tha- ...oops..." Jack says, realizing what she meant. "Well, those were different times, times have changed now, I mean, look," He sits up and looks around. He was looking for something that had changed over the past 15 years. "Look at, uhh... the house!"
"What about the house?" Nami asks.
"It's ... bigger." Jack claims.
"Oh, of course, that makes perfect sense!" Nami says sarcastically. "It's okay that you let Miro go out on his own, even though you said that you wouldn't, because the house is bigger."
"Uhh... exactly!" Jack says, nodding in agreement. Nami rolls her eyes and shoves a pillow into Jack's face, forcing him down on the bed.
"Get some sleep." She orders. "We have a long walk ahead of us."
Back at the campfire-and-chocolate-pile-in-the-forest, Miro was now standing, holding his bruised face while Matthew remained in the net, paitently waiting for someone to cut him loose.
"Well, I suppose we can camp out here for the night." Miro says. "It's nearly midnight, and I know that neither Matthew or I are in any condition to keep going."
"Fine," Ricca says. "We'll camp out here for now, set out again at seven, stop at noon for lunch and-"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, there." Miro interrupts. "Since when were you the head of this operation? I have to do this, I'm being chased and the people chasing me are closer than the ones chasing Matthew. Well, besides you two... Hey, why were you chasing him, anyway?"
"Should we tell him?" Ricca asks, looking over to Anna, who was spending her time prodding the trapped Matthew with a stick, as Matthew did his best to ignore it.
"Sure, it wouldn't hurt." Anna says, shrugging, putting the stick down, and leaning against the net. "Should I, or do you want to?"
"We'll take turns." Ricca says. "I'll start. It all began when Matthew skipped town a few days ago. I myself wasn't worried, but Anna here was nearly blubbering."
"Was not!" Anna says angrily. "But I did want to know where he went. So I packed up my things and got ready to go look for him. But there was one problem; he's the best sneak that I know, he could cover his trail easily. I needed help, so I went to the most conniving, skilled tracker I knew. But he asked for money, so instead I went to..."
"Me." Ricca says proudly. "And I did my job, I found Matthew using nothing but my brain."
"Wow, it's amazing how you could find him with such limited resources!" Miro says. Matthew laughs slightly, but both are hit upside the head and immediately shut up.
"Anyway," Ricca continues. "I knew how childish people like Matthew think, and so I... 'collected' some chocolate from the market and piled it up right here. I then baited you with Miro's chocolate and the rest is history."
"And now..." Anna says. "I can tell you all something."
"What?" Miro and Matthew ask.
"Well, since we're not going back to town, I know a place we can go." Anna begins.
"We're listening." Miro says.
"I remember, when I was just little, my Dad told me about a place far away from anywhere. He had gotten lost when he moved and wandered around for days until he came to a... well, I can't remember what it was, but from there he had shelter, he could resupply, and he could tell where the town was. I can't remember how he could do that, either..."
"Well, can you remember where it is?" Matthew asks.
"Umm... no."
The rest of the group fell over backwards and sighed. Miro was the first to speak again.
"Are you sure you don't remember? Is there a clue? A map? Something?"
"Well..." Anna says, thinking. "I do remember my Dad saying something really mysterious about the location. 'The road to what I speak of, is engraved in the family lineage.'"
"Lineage?" Matthew says, confused. Miro shuts his eyes in thought for a minute.
"Well... What does the family all have in common? I see no resemblance between the two of us, Anna, so what could he mean...?"
"I don't know." Anna says, shrugging.
"Well, we can sleep on it." Ricca says. "Maybe we can figure it out tomorrow."
"Agreed." Miro says, yawning. "Besides, I'm dead tired."
They all laid out their sleeping mats and then laid themselves out on them. Well, all but one.
"Umm, is anyone letting me out of this?" Matthew asks.
"Nah," Ricca says.
"Think of it like this," Miro explains. "You're the only one here who gets a hammock."
"It's a pretty cramped hammock..." Matthew says. "But... okay, whatever. At least I won't have bugs crawling all over me."
"Bugs, no. Bats, absolutely." Anna says, laughing slightly at the sudden expression on Matthew's face.
"Just shut up and go to sleep." Ricca says. "Oh, and don't let the bed bugs... or whatever, bite."
(There we are. Oh and note: The person named Anna in this is not the Anna of Friends of Mineral Town (Mary's mother), but you should already know that if you read even one word of the description. Just so there's no confusion about that. (I bet 98% of you didn't even know there was an Anna in FoMT before I mentioned it, but I'm just being safe here.) And remember, anonyamous reviews are now allowed!)