Mia
I woke up to the sounds of the boys talking in low tones. I stretched, looked around the tent and realized that I was the only one left in there. I picked my phone and checked the time and saw that it was ten in the morning. I gasped and jumped out of bed, hissing with anger and self-loathing. We had planned to wake up by eight so we could get an early start on the journey, now I had drawn us back by two hours. Those annoying wolves. Why didn’t they wake me up when they rose from bed?
“The princess is awake.” Jack grinned as I stepped out of the tent.
I blushed, not because of the title he had called me but because I saw that they had done a lot of things while I was asleep. It seemed like they had all washed their faces and brushed their teeth even though they still had the same cloth on and had also made breakfast.
“Why didn’t you wake me up?” I glared at them.
“What do you think?” Jack grinned.
“I swear I’m going to kill you if you say something cheesy.” I growled at him.
He laughed. “You were looking so peaceful and beautiful that we couldn’t bear to wake you up.”
I rolled my eyes and snorted. “I don’t you not to say cheesy things to me.”
“Sleeping beauty, what are you going to do about it?”
“Let me get a hold of you.” I growled at him.
“Catch me if you can.” He started running around.
“I will.” I said, chasing after him.
Of course, I couldn’t catch him. He was faster than I was but it was fun. I didn’t think that I was going to have fun this way but it felt good.
“Let’s have breakfast and move. Mia, go clean yourself up.” Quinn said.
I glanced at Quinn and rolled my eyes. He was always a spoilsport.
Jack noticed my expression and chuckled. “Don’t worry. We will have our fun some other time. We will get back at him for this.”
Quinn snorted. “Don’t indulge her, Jack. Go now, Mia. John, fold up the tents.”
“Yes, dad.” I mocked Quinn and walked away from their midst. I moved to a spot to brush my teeth but I could still hear them.
“She seems to be in a good mood today.” John grinned.
“Of course.” Jack grinned. “Giving a lady compliments every morning helps with the moods. Come on, bros. Don’t you know anything at all? You should all learn from me.” He said with a flair.
Quinn snorted and shook his head. “I’m sure that she is trying to be positive and shake off the memories of what she suffered yesterday from her mind.”
John nodded. “I agree with Quinn. Mia is someone like that. She doesn’t like being weak and would strive to push away yesterday unfortunate incidents from her mind as soon as she can.”
Jack sighed. “You guys are impossible. I’m telling you it’s the compliments. How did you become my brothers?”
“Ask nature.” John retorted.
The brothers laughed and I also did. It was funny to hear them argue about what made my mood better. I wanted to tell them the theory I agreed with but it wasn’t going to help them.
I agreed with Quinn. I didn’t want to focus on yesterday events and had already decided that I would not today.
I also agreed with Jack. His cheesy words had brought out the playful side of me; I wouldn’t have chased him all around if not for that.
I was done with all I needed to do and joined them. We had a hurried breakfast, none of us talked as we ate so we could be done on time.
Quinn brought out the map and by his estimation, we were meant to get out of the echoing forest in the next three hours and get to the Sea of Death. Hopefully, we would cross it within an hour and get to the island before dusk.
That was a good plan to me and we all moved forward. We got to the sea and I couldn’t help but be amazed when we saw the magnitude. It was huge and I wondered who named it a sea. That was enough water to last three kingdoms for years.
There was no ship or anything that we could use to cross to the other side. Even the other side seemed like we could use thirty minutes to cross to it. I wondered how we were going to get to the other side.
I shivered behind Quinn when I saw the bones and teeth floating on it. That had to be the bones of those who had tried to cross the sea but hadn’t survived.
I hoped that our bones wouldn’t be joining theirs at the end of the day. I couldn’t imagine how Albert had done his research and found this place. From the look of the bones and teeth, their owners hadn’t died recently. The sea would be happy to have our bodies as fresh batch of meals after having not had anything in what seemed like years.
“How are we going to cross this huge expanse of water?” John asked.
I nodded, glad I wasn’t the only one thinking of that. I would have felt ashamed of my mortality if I was the only one who thought of the water as huge. It wasn’t like we could swim it and we couldn’t go back. The exit back to our world was on the island and even asides that, Albert was at home trusting us to get the dark wizard and set him free. We couldn’t afford to give up. We had to find a way to cross.
Jack looked around, his eyes focused on the water. “What if we find a raft which can support our weight and get us across the sea? We can make a paddle as well and cross with it. Do you see how calm the sea is? What can happen to us?”
“There has to be a reason death is attached to its name and all these bones are lying around. I don’t believe that the sea is as calm as it looks.” John argued.
“Have you noticed anything out of the ordinary since we have been here? There has not even been a ripple on its surface. It’s a stagnant water body and can be crossed. The others could have died because they fell into it and the water is poisonous to the skin and lungs. They could also have drowned because they were bad swimmers. Who knew? We only have to build our raft to be as strong as we can and try our best not to get inside the water.”
“Yes, we do.” Quinn sighed. “We have a bad swimmer with us.” He said, glancing at me.
I blushed, knowing he was referring to the incident where I had almost gotten myself dead when I fell into the pool at that party the other day. That had been the incident that had made Albert know of what they had done.
I was glad that I wouldn’t have to be their weakness this time. I was tired of always being the one that slowed them down on this journey or the one they were always worried of.
I couldn’t hide the smile that spread on my face as I spoke. “I can swim. Don’t worry about me.”
“You can?” They all turned to me with surprise.
“But…” Jack began, his confusion evident on his face.
I nodded. “I learnt after that incident. I didn’t want a repeat of being helpless, not being able to save myself and rebuked because of something that I should have known of.”
“Good. It’s good that you can swim.” Quinn nodded. “We don’t have to worry about you but we hope that no one falls into the water.”
“We won’t. We will build a raft that can support all of us, together with our loads.” Jack said with confidence.
His confidence was contagious and I hoped that he wasn’t just being arrogant. I really hoped that his plans worked. We wouldn’t even be able to regret not listening to John’s caution if we become bones soon. Regardless of what we all felt, Jack was right. I didn’t see any other way of getting to the other side.
Even if we were all good swimmers and the sea wasn’t toxic, we would faint while swimming through it. It expanded wide and would take hours to swim.
Moreover, we couldn’t swim with our bags with us as heavy as they were. We would have to ditch them to swim and that was a stupid idea. Of what use was it if we got safely to the other side of the sea and then starved to death?
“That has to be one hefty raft.” John sighed. “Do you know how much we all weigh?”
“Then we have to make it strong by using as much wood as we can.” Jack replied, undeterred by John’s negativity.
“Where do we find wood? Do we have to get back to the echoing forest?”
Oh no! I groaned. We couldn’t. We had gotten here in three hours. Taking a walk back was scary to me. Moreover, I didn’t think it would be easy to get woods in that forest without consequences.
Even if we did, it wasn’t going to be easy walking back here with the raft. I shudder at the thought of how much longer that would be.
“Look around you. There are broken woods. The dead ones here had also tried to cross over with a boat.”
“But hadn’t made it.” John sighed. “I think that we should be careful.”
“Enough of this, John. Jack is right. We would have to build a stronger raft to cross over. That is our only option. Stop opposing Jack’s idea unless you have a better one. We would all like to hear it.”
John went silent. Quinn smirked. “I thought as much.”
“I’m sorry.” John apologized.
Jack nodded. “No problem. I am guessing that there is a forest nearby that the others had gotten trees from without having to go back to that dreadful and far echoing forest. We can get our trees from there.”
As Jack had said, we saw a forest not too far from the sea after walking for twenty minutes. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought that Jack had been here before. I was used to him being naughty and troubling me that his show of intelligence was unexpected. I was surprised and impressed at the new side of him I saw.
I loved this side of him. I admitted to myself that his naughty, teasing side wasn’t so bad after all as well.
We saw a huge expanse of trees and smiled at one another, glad that we would be able to get all we needed.
“I’m glad I brought more than enough chains and ropes.” Quinn smiled.
“Me too.” John agreed.
With the number of trees that we would need to make the raft, it wasn’t likely that we were going to cross the sea today.