Chapter 10
Kita squinted her eyes at the rays of sunlight that had made it through the leaves of the trees. It was bright, it was warm, and it was keeping her awake. She rolled over, trying to hide her face from the sunlight, but it she couldn't get comfortable. As she lay on the hard stone of the shrine's floor, she wondered how she had gotten comfortable in the first place. She looked over to Meilin who was curled up in a sleeping bag, and thought about getting her own from their pile of stuff, but then decided against it.
Kita rose and stared around her. The small village was no different than it was the evening before when she had first stumbled upon it. At first, Kita had thought her dream to just be make believe, but then she thought about the one she had last night, and the one the night before. They seemed connected somehow, but if they were just make believe, it was all coincidence, wasn't it?
"Kita, how long have you been awake?" Meilin rolled over and called to the city girl.
"Not long, did you sleep all right?" Kita couldn't help but be nice to the girl, she hadn't banged on, or kicked down any doors yet this morning. Kita heard rustling in the bushed behind her and jumped ten feet in the air and screamed.
Meilin smiled as Kita ran back into the shrine. "Relax, Kita, it's only Zima." Meilin pushed past Kita and walked out to greet the darkly clad butler in the middle of the ring of ruined buildings. "How did you find us here, and how come you're here, Zima?"
"Miss Funaho thought I should go check up on you and bring home which ever of you killed the other first," Zima grinned darkly. "Although, seeing as you are both still alive, I guess I should just drop off the breakfast Funaho sent me with and be on my way."
Meilin took the plate from him and smiled. "Auntie does care!" Meilin ran back to the shrine and showed Kita the food before running out back to Zima. "How did you find us?"
Zima stared at Meilin without answering. If it wasn't for his dark shades, Meilin would see him rolling his eyes at her for her constant questions. In fact, he thought, Funaho really cared less that you girls were out here. I just figured that neither of you knew how to cook, and as it turns out, I was right. "Ah, it sure is beautiful outside, fresh air, plenty of trees, history, ghosts, bears." Zima smiled at the squeak that issued from Kita at the word bear. "Oh yes, Miss Kita, bears. They do eat people, you know, you might want to watch out." He slid his shades down his nose a little bit, gave Meilin a 'try not to kill each other until tomorrow morning' look, and headed back off into the trees.
"What's the big idea with him? He acts like part of the family instead of a servant. Did you hear the way he just called Miss Li Funaho?" Kita cautiously left the safety of the shrine and joined Meilin in the clearing.
"He practically is a member of the family. For as long as I have known, members of his family have worked for my family, we don't really remember why anymore, I think it had to do with someone killing someone a long time ago, but im not too sure. I guess somewhere down the line, my family stopped treating his like servants and they kinda became members of the family."
How touching, Kita thought sarcastically as she quickly ate her food. She had decided that she wanted to get out of these ruins as quickly as they could that morning. She would tough out the wilderness for the night if she had to.
"Aunt Li told me about this place a while back, she said that supposedly there were ruins in the forest, but no one had ever really found them. What luck for us to stumble upon them purely by accident." Meilin poked at the cold ashes of the fire, then scraped them off of the steps and onto the grass around the steps. "Supposedly the creek that flows through the grounds of the manor is not too far from here. Although, I do find it odd that when people looked for this place that they just didn't follow the creek for a while. Today I think we should go to the creek, and follow it back here to see how hard it really is to find this place on purpose."
After breakfast, the girls took their belongings with them and left the ruins to look for the creek. They found the creek around midday, the waters were clear, and the creek was about ten feet wide in some areas. The water looked no deeper than three or four feet, so the girls decided to take a dip, since it was getting rather hot outside.
"The water feels great, I'm so glad we finally found it!" Meilin scooped up a handful of water and poured it over her face. The girls had decided to leave their shirts and jeans by the banks so they would have some dry clothes to put on when they were done, and had decided that their underwear would suffice as bathing suits for the time being.
Kita floated in the water for a little while, while Meilin splashed around. More than once she splashed water at Kita who responded with holding the bouncy young woman's head under water, and made her promise not to splash her anymore. However, she did splash her more, no matter how many times she promised, she did it again anyways. After about the third time, Kita began to laugh. It was a stifled chuckle at first, but then gradually, her smile broadened, and she laughed for real. It had been a long time since she had laughed, and it felt good, odd at first, but good overall. For a while, there was silence between the girls, they knew they were warming up to each other, but it was slightly awkward for them both, a couple of days prior to this, they were bickering and breaking down doors.
"Kita, what do you think that is over there?" Meilin waded over to Kita and touched her arm.
Kita sat up and looked over to where Meilin was pointing across the creek from where they were. She squinted, at first she didn't see anything, then, the more she watched, she realized she could make out the outline of a large house set up high in the trees. It was exactly like a house, Kita thought, except the wall that should have been nearest to them was missing.
"Come on, Kita, let's go check it out." Meilin said, wading towards the banks to where they left their clothes.
Kita did not protest in the slightest bit and followed Meilin out of the water. The girls gathered up their clothes and other belongings and waded with them held above their heads to the other side of the creek. There they dried off a little bit and dressed to go check out the tree house.
A flight of wooden stairs wound its way around the trunk of the tree all the way up to the door on the underside of the house. Meilin put her foot on the stairs, they were creaky and old, but they looked like they would hold the girls. Meilin mounted the stairs, keeping one of her hands on the trunk of the tree as they climbed. From inside, the house looked a lot smaller than it had from far away. It was completely empty inside, and the floor was covered with dirt and dead leaves. The girls made their way towards the missing wall, thinking that perhaps it had been blown off in a violent storm a long time ago. However, as the girls looked out the open space and around the sides where the missing wall would have connected with the other sides, they realized that there had ever been a wall there.
"Why would you only build a three sided house?" Meilin said aloud to no one in particular.
"I think we should come back here and stay for the night. It's safely away from anything that may want to hurt us on the ground."
Meilin glanced at Kita. "Stiff afraid that something is going to eat us?"
Kita nodded silently. She wasn't exactly worried about anythign eating her this time. She was more worried about Zima sneaking up on them again, and making her think he was ome sort of bear or something. Up in the treehouse, they would be away from anything too dangerous. Besides, Kita thought to herself, the creek is close enough for us to freshen up in the morning.
The girls stayed relatively close to the tree house for the rest of the afternoon. Mostly, the girls talked, like friends would do, and lounged in the creek. Kita smiled knowing that they hadn't bickered at all since that morning. They were warming up to each other, accepting each other's differences. Kita realized she didn't really mind Meilin's bouncing anymore either.
That night was cold, and Kita hugged her sleeping bad tight around her in front of the fire. They had made it on the ground, a safe distance away from the stairs leading up to the tree house. Meilin rubbed her hands together and held them in front of the fire. It wasn't usually this cold, she had admitted earlier. It was summer, and usually in the forest it was refreshingly cool, even at night it didn't ever get too cold until the fall and winter. Kita watched the flames and shook her head. Why is it that I'm always staring into the flames, she though to herself. Am i expecting to find some sort of answers in the flames, is someone going to pop out from the fire and explain my dreams, what they were and why they felt so realistic? She grinned at herself. She would probably scream and run away if something sprang from the flames.
"I'm cold and tired, I think I'm going to go to bed. Goodnight, Kita, I had fun today. We'll probably head home tomorrow."
Kita watched Meilin shuffle with her sleeping bag up the circular stairs and disappear into the hole in the bottom of the tree house floor.
"I have changed, I think, in the short amount of time I have been here," Kita said softly to herself. She could feel a difference in herself the day she came to the manor. She had been feeling new things all week, when Elda spoke to her, she felt at ease, but on edge at the same time, like her fate was being laid out before her. Kita smiled, she had never believed in fortune telling, but this woman had Kita believing some of it. When Miss Li had showed them the secret room in the manor, she had felt such sadness and familiarity being around all the ancient relics stored there. The tombs, she thought about them. The first tomb, the one of the young man, she had felt such sadness, he had never been housed in the tomb, only the clothes he wore whlie fighting was what was left to represent him. The sword, they had used the sword as a decoration on the front of his tomb. She laughed a the thought of that sword being used as a decoration.
"Oh how he fought, and fought with such spirit." she said softly. Kita had completely lost herself in the thoughts that flooded through her. She spoke words that made no sense whatsoever to her mind, but made perfect sense to her heart. The other tomb had been empty of anything material, but she knew who should lie there, she could feel it in her heart and in her bones. "I should have been by his side, forever and always."
