I had to admit that I was disappointed when there was no loud bang or sudden puffs of smoke as we unwrapped the mysterious package. Instead, there was just a simple black box underneath the brown paper.

"Ominous," I remarked as I reached down and looked the box over. It was a simple box with a clasp of the same colour holding the top part shut. "I'm sure that they know that though."

"If they're edgy enough to abandon a package at the door of a wandering inn, then I think that's covered." Sarphi joined me on the floor before quickly grabbing the box and undoing the clasp.

"Sarphi!" Aknon scolded with wide eyes, reaching forward to take the box back. "There could've been something inside it, or someone for that matter."

Sarphi shrugged and turned the box upside down, revealing items which I recognised, but it took me a few minutes to remember where from.

"Is that your rattle?" I asked with a snicker as I pointed to the black cylinder which lay at her feet. "Because it looks pretty identical."

"I can't be," Sarphi denied as she reached down and picked it up.

"Okay, stop picking them up," Aknon interrupted, putting his hand over Sarphi's and making her put the rattle down. The rattle fell to the floor with a familiar noise. "These can't be our baby toys."

"Our?" I questioned as I looked at the other three items and snorted with laughter. Alongside Sarphi's cylinder baby rattle, were two other objects which were also familiar and full of memories for me. It was like I had stored them at the back of the cupboard and forgotten about them until I was cleaning and was flooded with my childhood. "Senka," I said with a grin as I reached down and picked up my old doll.

Her name was Senka, and I think it suited her very well. She was a ragdoll, with beautiful wool hair and button eyes, but all of her features were made from black material. It meant that she would be able to sit in the corner of the room and not be noticed, blending in with the shadows.

"Acer, I literally just told Sarphi not to pick them up," Aknon said with a grunt before his eyes moved to the last object. To me, it was a freaky book with blank pages full of black paper. But he was obsessed with it as a baby. I remember him just lying on his stomach and staring at it. "We know who these are from, don't we?"

We were silent for a few moments. We all knew who had sent the package now, but it wasn't clear whether or not this was good news. I assumed that my siblings had the same thought as me, that it was our old babysitter who had sent us these objects from our past. But I didn't know if they were still alive. Their entire being was fuzzy in my memory, like charcoal had been smudged.

"It doesn't matter." I shook my head, holding Senka to my chest. "We're keeping them. There must be a reason why they were sent here."

"Maybe it was someone threatening us?" Sarphi suggested, always finding a reason to go against what I said. "If they knew where we came from and where we grew up, that stuff could be used against us."

"Really? I'm not sure." Aknon sighed and reached down, picking up his small baby book, flipping through what was seemingly blank black pages. "I'd say that the only person who could be threatened with something like that is our mother."

I nodded. "And do we really care if she suffers?"

"Nope," Sarphi replied enthusiastically. "Right, I'm going to continue getting ready. Then we can get breakfast and head out."

Aknon and I mumbled our agreement, and I left the room, ordering breakfast so that we could get out of here quicker.

The village might've been small, but it was loud. It was also in a completely different area to what it had been the night before. We should've expected that, but what was a surprise was where we were.

"We're meant to be in the opposite direction," Aknon raged as he looked around, his hands balled into fists. "Why didn't I think of this last night? The village was coming towards us. I should've known that it would lead us back to where we were."

"We're not back to where we were," Sarphi argued. "We're even further away." She clearly didn't have as much emotional loss as Aknon and I.

I admit that I thought that Aknon was overreacting. We'd travelled for four years and planned our journey for another three. The loss of time wasn't too annoying to me, but the annoying thing was that we'd have to walk a longer distance. I really didn't like walking; I was so tired of the action I'd do cartwheels for miles to avoid it.

"Instead of wasting time fuming here, we can go to the store and then go on our way," I said as I put a hand on Aknon's shoulder and led him away from the corner of the village, where he had been glaring at the planes in front of us.

"What's on our list today?" Aknon grumbled. He knew better than to argue, especially when I actually moved him away from something.

"Food, another water holder, and I need a belt loop fixing, so probably sewing supplies?" I answered. "And Aknon needs to visit the apothecary if they have one."

"I do?" Aknon questioned with a frown, but his expression turned to one of understanding after a while as he sighed. "I do."

"Maybe we should get a compass," Sarphi joked lightly as she moved over to my side. She always hated the apothecary. "Then we'll know if we magically change direction in the middle of the night."

"Don't," Aknon warned as he began walking away. "Meet back here."

"Wait, don't meet back here?" Sarphi retorted with a giggle. "Where should we meet then?"

I gave a small chuckle and patted her head between her horns. "Leave him, he'll be better after a breather."

"You mean he'll be better with some time away from us," Sarphi corrected. "I don't understand him."

"You don't have to," I replied as my hand moved to her shoulder and I hugged her close to me as we began to walk to the single store of the village. "We just have to love him, even if he makes it difficult. We're not leaving him anytime soon."

"We could trade him for a cat?"

"We could convince him to turn into a cat."

And so, the two of us continued to joke as we got supplies for the next leg of your journey.

"Do you come here often?" I asked a rather wild-looking man, with a smirk on my face and a gleam of mischief in my eyes. I found the irony funny, because I was actually after an answer to the question, instead of mindlessly flirting my way out of trouble.

"Twice a year, if that," the man responded, pouring a glass of lemonade for me. The man was an orc, which surprised me more than anything so far today. Orcs weren't at all known for settling down. Granted, is it settling down if the village moved? Orcs usually stayed in their strongholds with their clans, but Mesh was only a half-orc, seemingly like a lot of the other creatures here. I found it fascinating that there didn't seem to be a single creature with two parents of the same species." I stayed here three year."

"Why?" Sarphi asked innocently, even though I could understand why it would come off as very rude to a stranger.

But Mesh didn't seem to think of it this way. Instead, he gave a loud laugh and patted her shoulder, which caused her to wobble. "I like travel," he said with a grin. "I share words of gods; I travel and have nice food and friends."

"Sounds like a good life," I replied with a small smile as I leaned against the table. "Have you noticed anything strange about the place?"

"Strange?" Mesh looked as though he had never heard of the word before, or maybe he was in disbelief that anyone would ever think of this place as strange. "It's a wandering village, what isn't strange?"

I laughed and nodded. "You have a point there my friend." I gave him a quick wink before looking around. "You haven't seen our brother, have you?" I asked after a while. "He pretty much looks like me. Difficult to forget."

Mesh shook his head, the arrows which were in his hair nearly hitting me in the face. "You two are the first of you two I've seen." He chuckled slightly after he said that. "Village is safe, brother will be fine."

I was about to respond, but the devil appeared. Not literally, although he does look rather devilish. "Guys, I know where we're going." Aknon appeared behind us and grabbed us by the backs of our clothes. "Say goodbye."

"Bye!" I said in a startled squeak as I was pulled backward so hard I struggled to keep up. "What do you mean you know where we're going? We know that already."

"I know how to get there." Aknon pulled on my jacket tighter. "I read it in my book."