Chapter 3

Isabel was staying late in work, because she had to catch her deadline. When she was leaving, she glanced the clock and thought, that she had still time to drive to stables to ride with Carlo. She would have liked to go to old-home to see her grandmother, but she knew that the visiting time was just over. She would have liked to ask more about the dreams, and about the voice, which she heard last night for the first time. Just when she was leaving her office, her mobile chirped, and she was a little surprised, when she saw that it was her mother who was calling. She had never been so close with her. She was always a daddy's girl, although her father died when she was five. But even that didn't make her and her mother closer. But it got Isabel and her grandmother, her father's mother, even closer than they were before. Isabel always enjoyed talking with her grandmother about what was happening around the world.

Isabel sighed and answered.

"Hey, mom."

"Isabel, where are you?" Her mothers voice sounded somehow strange.

"I'm just leaving from work."

"I have bad news. Isabel, your grandmother..." Her mother didn't finish the sentence and Isabel thought that she heard sobbing. She got worried.

"What about grandma?" She asked.

"She passed away two hours ago." Her mother answered quietly.

Isabel thought first that she was joking, but it hit her very fast that her mother was serious, her grandmother had died.

"But... How? Yesterday when I saw her, she was doing fine..."

"They aren't sure yet, but they think that it was a heart attact." Her mother explained.

"But there wasn't anything wrong in her heart..." Isabel didn't know what to say, she had lost the person, she loved most in the world.

"These things can be unexpected." Her mother said. "Are you coming tomorrow to see me and talk about burial arrangements?"

"Yeah. Bye mom." Isabel said, because she felt like she couldn't speak anymore.

"Bye."

When Isabel had closed her mobile she sat to the couch on her office and cried. Now she had lost the only person, who she could talk about everything and she really wanted to ask more about the dreams, what her grandmother had had, when she was at her age. About 30 minutes later, Isabel felt that she was calm enough to drive and went to her car. She drove straight home and called from there to Sarah and asked her ride with Carlo. Then Isabel just at at her livingroom in darkness thinking what she would do next. Her dreams still bothered her, and that voice she had heard gave her a little uneasy feeling. She had noticed that some of the things she had read about King Arhur and his Knights, really happened in her dreams and Arthur and knights seemed to be like she had read. Tristan was the silent scout, Lancelot was Arthur's closest man, Galahad was the humorist of the group, Bors knew how to take care of cuts and wounds.

Isabel missed already her grandmother and felt like there was so much things to say to her, but she never could do that. At least her dreams were such a thing, which she would have to sort out by herself now, Sarah wouldn't be any help, altought she knew about the dreams, she didn't know everything.

Isabel felt herself tired and although she didn't think that she would get any sleep, she went to bed. She thought about her grandmother and reminded herself that she would have to call her boss on next morning and ask a couple of days off due a tragedy in a family, then she was suddently asleep.

Isabel stood on the front yard of some kind of Inn in the small village. Then she saw men riding to the yard and knew immediately who they were, when she saw the Cross of Arthur on their cloaks. Actutally she had suspected that she would see King Arthur and his knights. She watched how Arthur, Lancelot and Galahad got inside with the owner of the Inn. Isabel smiled a little for his bowing and blabbering, it seemed like Arthur was very respected at least at this part of Britain. She watched how other knights took care of horses and went then in the house also. Isabel followed how knights shared the bed so that everyone got own bed, and she listened their conversations at the same time. For some reason she avoided on going near Tristan, she was afraid that she would hear the voice again, if she would do that, she was watching him from the distance though. When the knights went to the beer house, which was part of the Inn, Isabel wandered around and listened knights. She smiled a little, when she noticed how the women in that place were acting around the men, she thought that this place wasn't only an Inn, the owner might have some other incomes too. Isabel decided to go closer of the table, where Tristan, Bedivere and Gawain sat, when she saw that one of the women spoke to Tristan. Again she got the feeling, that Tristan saw something where she was standing, or then he sensed something, he was a scout after all. When Tristan stood up and left the table, Isabel planned to follow him, when she heard Bedivere mention his name. She turned back to two men, who still sat by the table.

"Tristan has been acting a bit strangely last days. It seems like something is bothering him. He doesn't want to talk about it, and he has been more quiet than usually."

"If that man has been more quiet than usually, it means same as mute." Gawain answered. "But you are right, something is bothering him."

"Tristan has always been popular among women. Although he has been rarely showing interest to women after that disasterous affair, this is strange behaviour even from him." Bedivere said.

"I think there is someone he thinks." Gawain stated thoughtfully. "Two nights ago I heard him saying a female name in his sleep." Then Isabel got the warm feeling again, and she felt like someone or something didn't want her to hear the end of that sentence.

Isabel woke up in the middle of the night, she felt thirsty and went to get some juice. The rest of the night she was in restless sleep and woke once in a while. Her dream and her grandmother came everytime to her mind, but in the morning when she got up, she felt herself alert. She called to her boss, who gave her couple of days off, when she told that her grandmother had died. She made some other calls and after breakfast she started to plan the day. When she checked her e-mail, she decided to surf on the net for a moment and got lost to pages, where she found an interesting story about King Arthur. When she was reading the story, she saw a name of the clan, which sounded familiar, it was a clan called Bleeth. She just couldn't get her finger on why that name was familiar. Then her grandmothers face came to her mind and she had to take couple of deep breaths to calm down again. Isabel didn't want to cry again, her grandmother wouldn't have wanted her to do that. After Isabel had called her mother, she decided that first she would go to stables to see Carlo. Riding and just being with her horse got usually her forget any other things, which were pressing her mind and now she really needed to forget all her sorrow, even just for couple of hours.

When Isabel got to stables, there was quite peaceful, because it was noon and other horse owners and girls, who were taking care of the horses were still at work or at school. She saw the owner of the stables and spoke with her for a while, before she went to Carlo's box. She brushed and saddled him and when she had led the stallion to the yard, she got to the saddle. She rode by the forest road and admired how beatiful there was, when the trees were covered by snow. After a moment she spurred Carlo on gallop. Then suddently a white owl flew past them almost touching Carlo's head. The stallion startled the bird and got to his backfeet. Isabel had no time react and when she fell down from the saddle, she was thinking that why the owl was there. It was the middle of the day and owls wasn't supposed to be on move on that time of the day. Just when she hit her head to ground, she thought that she heard a voice yelling her name. That wasn't the voice she had heard on her dream, the voice was exactly similar with Tristan's voice, but she thought that it wasn't possible. Then she lost her consciousness, and didn't see how the owl started to shift its shape. Soon the elderly man bent down to her. The man thought that Isabel wasn't ready yet for that, what he was going to do, but he didn't have any other choices after her grandmother had suddently died. The man, who some of the humans knew by the name Merlin, thought that her grandmother could have helped her to understand what was happening, and prepare her someway to things which were going to happen to her. Only now she would have to learn it by the hard way and sooner than Merlin had planned.

"I'm sorry, Isabel." He whispered, when he took the unconscious young woman by the arm and suddently the old man and young woman disappeared.