Where the Path Leads-Chapter 2
- By Mary Drake
– Last month, in the first chapter of Where the Path Leads, Emily found herself in trouble in a strange place that resembles the Middle Ages.
https://www.owllightnews.com/where-the-path-leads-chapter-1/
Chapter two goes back to show how Emily arrived in that strange place, by going on a school field trip to a Renaissance Faire where she enters a magical labyrinth, and the medieval suddenly becomes real.
Chapter 2: Problems and Premonitions
It really all started on a Saturday morning when she got up and slipped on her blue velvet costume for the Renaissance Faire.
All she could think about was how much she wanted to forget. Forget how she wasn’t doing well in high school, particularly in algebra, which she was failing. Forget how her best friend Lyn recently seemed more interested in boys than in hanging out with her, especially a boy named Damien Heller who was a bully, though good looking. And forget how her parents had just announced they were separating for a while, however long that might be. That, more than anything, else made her heart squeeze with pain. Why was she suddenly expected to behave like a grown up when just yesterday she had been a kid?
There was no way she could have known what would happen today. As she arranged the silver tiara in her hair, the one patterned after Galadriel’s in Lord of the Rings, she just wished to have enjoy herself, to escape to a simpler time. It would be nice if her own hair was long and blonde like the Lady’s, instead of short and brown, but still the Middle Ages had been grand and romantic. Who knew, maybe some handsome knight would fancy her.
As her mom drove her to school to catch the bus to the Faire, her stomach filled with butterflies. She was nervous, but she felt something else too, at the center of that excitement a calm sense of expectancy, of waiting for something important. Not something like her dad moving out and her having to decide whether to stay at home with her mom or move into an apartment with him. No. This was an altogether different kind of intuition that she hadn’t had before, and a wry inner voice told her that maybe she was growing up in spite of herself.
When they pulled into the parking lot, she flipped down the visor to take a last look at her herself in the mirror and gasped. It was her face staring back but she was wearing a simple grey tunic with a green sash across her chest and a circlet of small white flowers in her hair. Emily felt slightly dizzy and a little nauseous but just took a deep breath.
“I’ll call when I get back,” she said to her mom and leapt out of the car without a backward glance. What was that all about, she wondered? Did it have to do with the change she felt coming? Balderdash, and she smiled at the odd word she recalled from Mr. Endicott’s literature class.
And there he was now, Mr. Endicott, her favorite teacher, who had organized the field trip. He taught English lit and was also passionate about history. Right now, as he checked off names of students getting on the bus, he looked just like a noble man from the Middle Ages, in his blue tights and silver brocade tunic. She smiled self-consciously, thinking they would make a nice couple since their costumes coordinated, then quickly checked to make sure she wasn’t wearing a plain tunic with a green sash.
Lyn was already on the bus in a seat towards the back. Unfortunately, Damien Heller and Preston Alcott were sitting behind her. Emily hesitated, grimacing at Lyn who retorted that she had been there first. She sat down reluctantly.
“Yeah, I think I’ll play the black knight and run some guy through with a sword.” Damien boasted, ready to act out the violence of the Middle Ages.
“Wouldn’t it be cool if you had a real blade and could watch him bleed?” Preston agreed.
Lowering his voice a notch, Damien said, “I’ve got this.”
Preston made a sound of amazement. “How did you . . . ?”
“All part of the costume,” Damien said. “Besides, we have to protect the fair damsels, or at least one of them,” and he pushed his knees hard against the back of the seat.
Emily gave him a dirty look. “Hey!” Lyn cried, but she was half-smiling when she turned around. “Feels like you’re coming right through the seat.”
“Want me to?” Damien shot back, and the two boys sniggered.
Mr. Endicott was up front giving them the usual spiel about no food or drink on the bus and, of course, no smoking or gum chewing.
“And when we get there, cell phones have to be left on the bus,” he said.
Everyone groaned and protested.
He raised his hand for quiet. “It ruins the medieval atmosphere if a phone starts going off during the jousting. This is all about putting yourself back into the time period.”
“Does that mean we get to sword fight with all the knights and ravish the wenches?” Damien piped up.
There was laughter and even Mr. Endicott smiled.
“No. Knights were supposed to be chivalrous, which meant having excellent manners, and their courtly love towards women meant worshipping them from afar.”
“I hope if someone worships me,” Lyn whispered, “he doesn’t stay too far away.”
When they got off the bus, it was like being transported back in time. Everywhere, nobles and peasants, jesters, gypsies, even magical folk mingled along the muddy paths someone had thoughtfully covered with straw; the scent of woodsmoke wafted in the cool spring air. A grey wizard in a tall pointed hat strolled past with his walking staff. A burly man with blackened hands, wearing a leather shirt and leggings led a shire horse through the crowd. Everyone made way, admiring the huge dappled grey animal with feathered hooves. They heard him say he had to shoe him for the afternoon tournament.
“How cool is this?” Lyn breathed, straightening her shoulders and pulling down the scooped neck of her costume.
Just then, Damien pushed into them from behind, sending Emily stumbling forward. She grabbed Lyn’s arm to keep from falling on the damp ground.
“Oh, sorry,” he said, offhandedly. “Didn’t see anyone standing there.”
“It’s just the history geek,” Preston gibed.
“No wonder I didn’t see her. She’s nobody. But you,” he eyed Lyn’s cleavage, “are somebody. Why don’t you ditch the geek and hang out with us?” Damien tossed a lock of his white blonde hair out of his eyes.
Too bad he really was good looking. “C’mon Lyn,” she said, taking her friend’s hand, “let’s see the Faire.” They wandered off towards a couple playing Scarborough Faire on a flute and dulcimer, then moved into the crowd making its way down the main thoroughfare. Hawkers were calling their wares: cold mead, warm bread, combs and other hair decorations, scarves to give your knight as a token, swords and scabbards, even tiny lizards touted as miniature dragons.
Her mouth watered at the smell of meat sizzling over a huge open-air pit. And she smelled something else, something sharp and invigorating, which she would later learn was burning sage from the herbarium. Underlying it all was an earthy scent like she’d once smelled at a horse barn, probably hay and straw, mud and manure.
So, this was how the Middle Ages had been, she thought, a thrill running through her. Girls her age didn’t have to do algebra, just go to Faires to buy trinkets, be entertained, maybe find romance. So immersed was she in the weaving of her own fantasy that the hand on her arm came as a surprise.
Beside her stood a diminutive woman dressed like a gypsy, in a long skirt and fringed shawl with coal-black hair that hadn’t seen a brush in many days. She peered up at Emily with glittering dark eyes that seemed able to pierce her thoughts.
“Would milady like her fortune read?” Without waiting for an answer, she took Emily’s hand in her arthritic one, stroked each of her fingers pensively, then studied her palm, waiting a long moment before speaking.
Lyn giggled nervously. “Can you see who she’ll marry?”
Emily frowned at Lyn, feeling her palm grow sweaty.
“Oh . . . I can see much more than that.” The gypsy’s beaded necklaces and bracelets jangled. “Is that what you want to know?” she looked keenly at her.
“Just, whatever you see,” Emily said, hoping the old woman couldn’t really divine her feelings.
Looking down again, the gypsy wrinkled her brow in concentration.
“I see a young woman who is lost, wandering. It seems like she’s in trouble. Or maybe it’s just that she doesn’t yet know the power within her to determine her direction.”
“Huh?” Lyn said.
Emily shook her head at her.
The gypsy traced two lines on Emily’s palm.
“In most people,” she said, “these two lines are one. This is the dominant lifeline, but you also have an alternate path which is bound to affect the other.”
Suddenly dizzy again, filled with a mixture of apprehension and excitement, Emily closed her eyes, and the bustle of the Faire fell away. Maybe that other path represented the change she had sensed earlier in the car. As if from a long way off, she heard her own hollow voice ask the gypsy, “What . . . should I do?”
The tiny woman squeezed her bony fingers around Emily’s hand, pursing her heavily lipsticked red mouth and scrutinizing her.
Certainly, her thoughts were laid bare.
“It’s confusing, my lady, but there’s really only one thing to do. Go forward right into it.”
“Into what?” said her literal-minded friend. “I thought you were just going to tell her who she would marry.”
The gypsy shrugged, causing her crocheted shawl to slip down off one bony shoulder, revealing the tattoo of a tree snaking up her arm, but she continued holding Emily’s hand. “Just remember,” the gypsy said, “that sometimes you will get lost before you find yourself.”
Her vague words sounded like a horoscope in Teen Diva. Emily continued feeling a little dizzy and breathless and wondered if she was coming down with something. Politely, she removed her hand from the gypsy’s and followed Lyn towards a place where you were supposed to get lost—a labyrinth.