2: New Lands
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An elderly woman who was clad in a tall maroon dress, black slippers, and glasses attached to colorful beads which draped around her neck was standing before them. She seemed just in shock as they were, her mouth even dropping open when her eyes swept over the girls and locked on Forrest.
"Peter?"
"No, ah, I'm not Peter." Forrest assured her.
"Peter Raeburn." The lady said. "No relation there?"
Peter Raeburn, Sylvia thought, that's a name I had heard only scarcely in the past nineteen years.
"Our grandfather." Forrest said.
The woman grinned, as if she had just won the lottery. "You have that look. Come, we should chat, but not out here. You never know who is listening."
The woman gave a sour eye to the stones, trees, and the nearby river which weaved through the woods.
Sylvia didn't see anyone lurking in the vicinity, but the woman seemed to be on guard. She didn't know if the woman was just that paranoid or if there really was a danger. It would have been wise to just return to their world through the door that was still ajar, as if beckoning the siblings to come back, but each of them were craving to know more about this land.
They really shouldn't trust a stranger, but with the four of them together, how badly could this go? And if this woman knew their grandfather...
Peter Raeburn. Sylvia had only been able to gather a handful of facts about him over her twenty-three years of life. He was a carpenter, ran a farm for a while, and he liked peanuts. Sylvia wished she knew more about the guy, but after his death when she was four, his name became taboo.
Sylvia had no memories of him, but two distinct ones surrounding his death were singed into her mind. She remembered sitting in the kitchen and thinking how cruel it was that her mother was baking chocolate chip cookies and wouldn't even let her have one once they came out.
"They're for Grandad." Her mother had explained as she scraped the cookies into a tupperware dish and sent them off with her father. He was visiting Grandad in the hospital that night, and though Sylvia begged to come along, her mother only scooped Sylvia into her arms and they waved as her father left the driveway.
At the funeral, Sylvia knew that he was dead and there was no bringing him back, but she was too young to understand why the adults seemed so sad and somber. She spent most of the funeral in the basement of the church playing with her siblings and older cousins.
Her family acknowledged that he had lived and died, but the dash between those dates was never spoken about. The few times that anyone did mention his name, another family member quickly changed the topic. It took Sylvia until she was sixteen before she even learned the cause of his death was a staph infection, not a shoulder infection from a prior surgery as she initially thought based on the few times she overheard her aunts and uncles mention Peter, or even a tumor as Meadow had suggested.
"My home is your home, as is any kin to Peter." The woman said, grandly gesturing to the cabin she had led the children to, only about a mile from where they had left the door.
Sylvia hardly remembered walking there, she was too caught up in her own thoughts. The siblings said their gratitude as the women unlocked the cabin door.
She was fiddling with the keys when another thought occurred to her. "Dear me, I never introduced myself! My name is Isadorie Sailsbury."
The door flew open and the children all stepped into her humble abode and sat on the couch in her living room.
"It's nice to meet you, Isadorie." Meadow was the first to speak. "I'm Meadow. These are my younger sisters Sylvia and Brynlee, and brother Forrest."
The siblings waved at Isadorie.
"Pardon me for asking, but what is this place?" Sylvia enquired.
"You mean to tell me you've never been to Wynovia before? Peter's grandchildren have never-"
"I'm afraid not."
"Wynovia is the home country of, well, I suppose some would call fairytales, fey, folklore, anything else that sounds fancy and begins with the letter 'f,' 's,' and-"
Isadorie stood from her chair. "Hold that thought. I have a treat for you, kiddos!"
"Oh, no, really we shouldn't stay for long-" Meadow said, but Isadorie went into another room and returned a minute later with chocolate candies in a dish. She set them on the coffee table in the middle of the couches.
"Please, have some candy. I made too much for little 'ole me to stomach." Isadorie said.
"So you knew our grandfather?" Brynlee asked the question they had all been waiting to have answered.
The siblings waited with baited breath. Would she continue to be as open to answering this question as their last, or would she close off like their family did at the mention of Peter?
"We were friends, long ago." Isadorie gave a reminiscent smile, but slowly fell into a less mellow one. "Then he left for a while, but he told me you would come! That he did, your grandfather! Before he was slain."
Sylvia's eyes widened as she looked to her sisters and brother as the word lingered in the air. Had they heard right? Slain, as in... Sylvia's ears were ringing and her breath caught for a moment.
"Slain? As in- '' Meadow tried to intervene, but Isadorie's demeanor suddenly changed.
Her smile faded away completely and she snapped her head to the window. Outside the cabin, men dressed in silver armor atop horses approached. "They come."
"Who's coming?" Sylvia asked, but Isadorie didn't respond.
"Go, out the backway!" Isadorie was shooing the siblings, her hands flying as if swatting at bugs. "Go through the woods, but don't cling too near any of the trees. The wood nymphs have been touchy as of late."
Isadorie closed the back door gently, but it was clear the audience was over. As scatterbrained as Isadorie was, the siblings had to trust her. She had seemed genuinely kind and afraid for their safety. And the way she spoke about their grandfather, as if they were long time friends, only made them want to believe her sincerity more.
"Should we stay?" Brynlee asked.
"And do what?" Meadow responded. "We know nothing of this land or what those men are here for. If they find us, it could just make matters worse."
With that, the four took off into the woods. They did their best to retrace their steps and eventually the door came back into view. Meadow pried it open and the siblings reentered their own world.
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