Chapter Seventeen

Revaluation

"Are you feeling ill iel?"

Ill? Maybe. I felt light-headed and I couldn't focus on anything. It was amazing that I had made it back at all. Zachary...now that was a name I had not spoken, nor even thought of in...years. His death seemed to be a part of a distant past that was no longer a part of me. A past I had tried so hard to push away. My present and future were with Faerlain, in Gilloth, with Mirlaic, Araviniel, and Elenowen. In Middle Earth...my...my home. My former home...wherever it was, was no longer my home. Only a past place of residence. It had faded from my memory and I felt no desire to bring it back to the front of my mind. In fact, until just about now, I wouldn't of minded in the least forgetting those painful memories of my old home, my dead brother, and of my parents.

But Caden's words had brought it all back, the old farmhouse on the hill...the riding arena with the broken fence...never repaired after Zach's fall...the drawn faces of my parents...the empty paddocks and barns. Every minute detail...every word ever spoken that I had tried so hard to forget. And now it hit me so hard that it made me light-headed and breathless.

"Iel?" Mirlaic rose from her chair and placed a hand on my forehead. "O Elbereth protect us...your cold as ice!"

Was I? I was hardly aware of anything at all...the sound of the fence snapping under my brother's weight...the way his eyes had opened wide as he laid there...still upon the ground...the line of blood sliding down the corner of my mouth...the recollection of me standing there...unable to move or breath. Just...standing there. All the emotions I had kept in check washing over me like a broken dam. I didn't feel sick...just winded. Actually...I didn't feel much of anything...numb. I felt numb.

"To bed with you! I do not know what ails you child, but we shall warm you up right away!"

I wanted to tell her everything, in that brief moment I felt an ache so strong for the matronly affection that my mother had spoiled me with in my youth. The trust I had... the ability to be able to tell her anything...not to fear holding anything back. I wanted to tell her about Zach...about home. She was a healer, maybe she could heal the rift in my heart. The rift that was bit by bit, tearing me to pieces. But my tongue felt like lead and my words would not come out properly.

"Mirlaic..." I mumbled in a feeble attempt, but she silenced me as she helped me to my feet.

"No words now." She said gently.

She slipped off my soiled dress and exchanged it for a nightgown upon entering my room. Sketches lay strewn about on the floor, decorating the wooden planks and also stuck to the walls.

"Come on now, right into bed."

I stumbled onto the warmth of the bed and laid still as Mirlaic drew up the coverd arund my body. She was worried, very worried.

"You will be all right iel." She said tenderly, "You just need some rest."

I looked up at her wearily. "Hannon le Mirlaic." I whispered to her in Sindarin. She smiled softly, bent, kissing my forehead. "You will feel better in the morning and then we will talk."

I didn't head her leave the room, I was unconscious even as she stood and removed her comforting presence from my body. And I was lost to all things.

"Do you think things will always be this way?" I asked him as we sat outside on the hill outside our house, gazing up at the night sky and all the bright stars.

Zach smiled warmly at me, taking my hand and squeezing it gently. "Why not? I wouldn't mind."

"People change Zach." I said quietly, trying to show him my fears in that small sentence.

He understood.

"Vicky, my going to school won't change anything."

I sighed and I could feel him move closer to me. "Hey." He said, turning my face to him. "I will always be there for you, you got that?" He smiled, and I took his cue. He wanted me to smile in return, so I did. Zach hated when I didn't smile...I never knew why.

"Everyone changes...it's a part of growing up."

"Well, it's not a part of me."

I leaned on him, burying my face in his chest, breathing in the familiar smell of denim and horse mixed with the fresh scent of leather. "I love you Zach."

He chuckled, "That's good to know."

"Promise me you won't change?"

As children our parents had home-schooled us, we traveled far too often to settle down anywhere. But now Dad said this was our home, and we'd be staying. So Zach and I would no longer be together, he was to going to High School...the sound of which sounded so very far away.

"I promise."

But he did change. He changed everything. The horses were no longer his pleasure, they were his machines. He rode them, competed in they shows with him. Then he discarded them like one discards an empty bag. He made friends, he got older, he went further out along his new path...and I was left behind. I was now only an annoyance, a necessary part of his world, a world which evolved solely around him. A world in which I was only a 'slave' to beckon and to annoy.

Suddenly he was no longer there when I wanted him. He no longer required my presence. That's when I had gotten Talorta, a gift from my parents. Perhaps they too had sensed the change in my brother and were trying to compensate for it.

I never asked Zach to ride Talorta that day. It was nearly three years after I had gotten him, and Zach had become intoxicated with himself and his own personal gain. And I hated him.

He had been jumping Talorta in the arena for hours, showing off for his friends.

The jump had been too high, the fence to close, he hadn't timed it right. Had been too reckless to be careful. The distance too short, but he spurred Talorta on and Talorta hadn't been able to make it. His back legs drug the jump down, propelling him forward, right into the oak fence. Talorta had screamed a high pitched whinny as he struggled to get up. But Zach had uttered no sound. He was strangely silent and still, but still yet I had not been able to grasp what had happened, my mind in a numb shock.

Even as his friend gathered around, I couldn't bring myself to go over. I stood there, and I couldn't help but think as his sightless eyes looked up to the sky, was how he had broken his promise. And that I would never forgive him for dying as long as I lived. There had been too many things left unsaid, too many hurts left unhealed. And I knew I would hate and love him until the day I died.

The next Spring had brought a painful type of healing. My parents, horrified at my brother's death, threw their careers in the equestrian world down the drain. One by one their magnificent horses left our farm, leaving the land with an emptiness that was hard to fathom. But I wouldn't let them take Talorta. Crippled, and half blind after the death of my brother, he was useless except to me. I became closer to Talorta then ever before as step by step I realized a change in my parents as well.

They were scared of me.

Scared of what would happen if I too died at the mercy of an animal. The pain they would have to go through if they lost me as well. And it tore them apart. My mother became distant, shying easily from answering my questions and generally avoiding speaking to me altogether. My father became violent, snapping at small mistakes and magnifying them. He wanted Talorta dead, and I would not let him have him. My horse, my friend. They loved me in a strange way, affectionate, yes...but I could see their fear written plainly on their faces whenever they looked at me.

I think Talorta knew my needs, the ache in my heart over Zach's death, an event that was never discussed in my household. As I grew older, I ventured out further into the countryside surrounding our abandoned farm in search of a comfort to ease the pain of his passing, a passing that I had never accepted nor understood. And though I could not heal the terrible pain which plagued my heart, I instead chose to ignore it. And soon, Zach's death was only a fading memory I had pushed into the back of my mind. The pain silenced by sharp commands.

And my parent's fear of me...only a faint impression on my new, empty existence.

I woke up the next morning with the sun shining brightly into my room through the windows. Have you ever experience the sensation of waking up to such a beautiful day that you know everything else has to be all right? Well, that was exactly how I felt. I didn't want to recall the stream, Zach, the day before, or anything remotely related to Caden. I belonged here now, in some strange misplaced way, this place was now my home. And Caden was trying to uproot that feeling from beneath me.

I determined then that I would not go to see him again.

Any impulse I had to tell Mirlaic of Zach died by noon. I dunno, it was hard to...to talk about him...out loud. To speak his name, when for so long I had tried only to forget it. So I waited and was silent on the matter. Any frivolous notions I had of tossing Caden out of my mind however were not as easy. And it was with slow understanding I realized that it was not because I did not want to have the old man dig up more painful memories, it was because I was terrified of seeing him again. I was scared.

I rode Talorta as usual that day, this time however I avoided the stream and instead rode to the eastern borders of Gilloth. There was not much forest in that direction and Mirlaic had once told me that the toad itself led out of Mirkwood into the wilderness beyond. Gilloth was the closest village to the rest of the world, and yet were also secluded, too far north from the palace to attract much attention. The old highway, though traffic had increased due to the war, was our only link to others farther away.

I rode out far along the road, my mind ebbing into a flood of past discarded memories as Talorta plodded on in silence. It was strange that they should come back all at once, now. And as I rode on, I began to question the recent events which had resulted in this cascade of thought. How had Caden known of Zach? I mean, I loved Gilloth and everything in it. Yet how could I be sure it was real? Was I dreaming? Maybe. Was I in a mental institution somewhere? It was possible. Maybe Gilloth and Middle Earth did not exist at all. Maybe Faerlain was only a figment of my imagination. Yet if they were not real places...how had Caden entered into my fantasy? For I felt more alive and alone now then ever before.

None of this was making sense at all.

Talorta stopped suddenly, causing me to break my train of thought. I blinked, taking in the initial surprise of not knowing exactly where I was. Talorta's ears were pricked forward, a sign that he was alert and waiting for me to check out what he had seen. I followed his intent gaze, and my breathing constricted painfully as I did so.

"Zach?" I asked in shock, but even as I looked upon him, standing tall and rigid in the road before me, his youthful face aged, fading into another. And there, in the same place where the vision of my dead brother, was Caden.

I can see a few brows raising. Who the heck is Caden you all ask? YOU SHALL SEE! MWUHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

TO BE CONTINUED...