I sat straight up, and banged my head on the low beam. Voice shouted. Looking around, nothing seemed familiar. I was so groggy it took me a moment to realize I'd actually escaped.
A woman screeched somewhere beyond the bedroom door. "You and your friends have to get out. It's not safe for us to keep you for much longer!"
"But we just need another day." A voice I recognized as Maybel's begged.
"No! You've got three hours and you have to leave."
I jumped out of the bed and followed the voices into the dining room. Maybel stood with a middle-aged woman so red-faced she looked like a tomato.
"What's going on here?" I asked. "Why are we here?"
Maybel retreated to the corner, where she sat and waited in silence.
Suddenly, I heard stomping down the stairs and Alvinne and Leiz burst through the dining room door. Maybel got up to get Leiz a chair.
The woman looked at each of us and explained. "This is my house. We have done everything we can to help you, but it's too dangerous for us if you stay here. My husband will show you where the supplies are."
We looked at each other, stunned. We just escaped the hospital, and Leiz could barely walk.
"Where are we supposed to go?" Maybel whined, on the verge of tears.
The woman got up and rummaged through a drawer. She slapped a long piece of paper on the table and shrugged. "Pick wherever you want, just be gone before I get back."
Alvinne waited until the woman had left the room to open up the map. We gathered around it and stared at it blankly. Alvinne ran a finger across the map, murmuring city names, when she stopped.
"I know this town!"
I gaped at her in disbelief, turned and looked at the equally confused Leiz and Maybel. "When was the last time you were outside the hospital?"
A look of resentment hung on Alvinne's face as she rummaged through her backpack, which was still covered in mud and grime. Pulling out a black leather book, she started to flip the yellowed pages with such swift motion that I feared the folios would rip in half.
"I read it somewhere, I am sure of it…" Alvinne muttered in a barely audible whisper. Her brows furrowed in concentration, and once in a while she would shake her head.
"You know, it's okay if you don't remember everything correctly, especially something written in a book." I broke the silence after a minute of being preoccupied with the rufflings of papers.
"We should just," Leiz was starting to speak when Alvinne squealed in excitement.
"Here it is, here it is!" She shoved the book under my nose.
"Urbo de Renaskiĝo. City of Rebirth." I read out loud, while peering down at the crumpled map. The same words appeared in the right-hand corner. "I guess we could go there?"
"Unless you have a better idea." Alvinne shrugged and tossed me the book.
I started flipping through the pages, thinking I'd learn a bit more about this city, when I came across a surprise of my own. "Hannah gave you this book?"
"Yeah, why?"
I flipped the book around to show her. "This is the necklace from my dream."
Alvinne snatched the book out of my hands and scanned the pages. "No way! This is the royal necklace of Urbo de Renaskiĝo. It's legendary!"
"Legendary?"
"Yeah, Look!" Alvinne read directly from the book, "According to legend, the necklace has been worn by more than one-hundred generations of kings descending from the first ever magical family of Urbo de Renaskiĝo. It is said to make anyone's powers increase one-hundred fold just by wearing it."
"Whoa, that's cool." Leiz grabbed the book from my hands.
I snatched it back, irritated. "This is serious. I had a dream about this necklace and I felt like I may have seen someone I knew in it."
"Well, I guess we're going there then." Alvinne piped in.
"I don't want to go anywhere near something like that," Maybel said.
"That's exactly where we're going," I told the group. "I've got to find it."
The woman of the house stomped back in. She shewed us out into the back of the property where a storage shed filled with everything from boots and jackets to sleeping bags and canned food waited. Four backpacks had been set out. My energy had returned and I packed my bag fast. Everyone else followed suit and we headed out to say goodbye when my ears started ringing.
I stopped. "Don't move!"
"Shut up," Alvinne slugged me in the shoulder. "Let's just tell the old lady we're done and get out of here."
"I mean it! Don't. Move!"
The ground started to shake, then heave. A scent of something I could only place as firecrackers pricked at my nose. We backed up and just as I went to close the barn door, the house exploded five-hundred yards ahead of us. The horses saddled in the barn behind us panicked and kicked their stalls open, taking off down the road.
"Run!" I shouted.
We sprinted out the back door of the barn after them and ran until our lungs couldn't take in any more air. Leiz had even kept up, amazing since his injuries were so bad and fresh. I knew we'd survived more than an accident. Someone had just killed those people, and it was probably because of us.