AMARYLLIS (Two Years Ago - Part Three)

“Move fast! Taste the breeze! Feel the sun! Think what the day will bring! But if you don’t…I’ll CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!”

The children groaned where they lay wedged side by side on the tent floor.

I was stood by the entrance clapping as loudly as I could and singing the words to the song I made up when I first became head child.

After a minute of my non-stop clapping-and-singing the children woke and made their way outside the tent to stand at the foot of the road we would follow down to the river.

I was the last to make my way out of the tent because every child needed to be accounted for; there were forty-nine in total.

When I left the tent I found the throng of children whispering excitedly.

Cauliflower was approaching from the road ahead and there was someone short struggling to keep up with his long strides.

That someone was a child with light-brown skin, tight curly black hair, a broad nose, and girlishly thick lips.

When Cauliflower and the boy reached us, the boy’s cute face looked up at me with wonder because, I could only assume, he had never seen anyone whose eyes matched his so closely.

Cauliflower placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder, “Everyone, this is Chicory. He’s just turned six which means he’s one of you now.”

A boy called Ash raised his hand to speak.

“What?” said Cauliflower.

“Why’s his skin all muddy like that?” said Ash.

“He’s got Outlander blood,” said Cauliflower, “And there’s Sakurian in him too.”

Cauliflower let out a cheerful sigh and slapped Chicory hard enough on the back to send him staggering forward.

“Amaryllis’s head child,” said Cauliflower to Chicory, “Do whatever she tells you.”

A smile held tight on Cauliflower’s face; he reached inside his tattered coat and retrieved a flask, drank from it, and headed back the way he came without a parting goodbye.

The grey which held fast at the start of the morning was replaced by blue sky. By the time I led the children down to the river bright sunlight danced like silver atop the quick-running water. Quietly the children waded into the river to wash.

Minutes later I saw Chicory occupying a patch of sandy bank on the other side of the river. A handful of children surrounded him and were pressing the tips of their noses flat and others pulled the corners of their eyes tight.

I might have told the children to leave him alone but if their teasing bothered him in any way he didn’t show it.

A loud splash from behind me caught my attention.

Two boys were fighting like wild cats. The other children caught sight of their brawl and began to form a crowd around them.

“Stop!” I shouted, wading across the water to where they were.

I reached one of the boys whose name was Oakley and I held onto him and tried pulling him away from the other boy. Oakley was too big and strong for me to have a chance of moving him in the heat of a fight.

A punch from the other boy landed against my cheek sending me falling back into the river.

Two pairs of hands pulled me out moments after the water had begun to push inside my nose and mouth.

I dribbled a mouthful of water onto myself and felt the warm breeze become cold against my wet skin. The hands which held me let go.

“I’m so sorry, Amaryllis!” said Laurel, the other boy who had punched me.

“Yeah, we’re sorry!” said Oakley.

“Why were you fighting?” I said before blowing the water out of my nose.

Laurel pointed to Oakley, “He said he liked Willow, but I like Willow.”

Among the children that were stood dripping wet on the bank Willow inched into view with her arms folded and a cross look on her face.

“I didn’t tell them to fight,” she said, moodily.

Laurel’s face reddened to the shade of a tomato and he broke into a sob, earning an unimpressed look from Willow, and a guilty one from Oakley.

The fight over, the children gathered on the bank and at my urging set off along a thin path; I remained behind stood at the top of the bank. I poked my right cheek where the punch had landed and felt pain mixed with numbness. Thanks to Laurel and Oakley fighting over Willow I was the one who had to endure a harsh bruise on my cheek, on top of the cut that was already on the inside of my mouth and the continual hurt in my neck thanks to Birch wrestling me down to the ground two nights previous .

I let my tongue search the inside of my mouth and a stony crunch followed. I spat onto my palm and saw I had lost a tooth which was lightly soaked in saliva and blood.

A rush of emotion welled up in my chest and tears threatened to escape my eyes.

“No, no, stop,” I mumbled to myself, “Stop it now.”

Managing to hold back any further tears I threw the tooth into the river and then hurried after the children that had disappeared along the forest path.

Rootwork was a forty minute walk from the river so long as the children kept a steady pace. After we walked for ten minutes I concerned myself with another survey of the children; forty-seven…forty-eight…forty-nine. Although they were all accounted for I felt a strangely urgent need to count again. Again I affirmed there were forty-nine children, excluding myself, in total; but still there was a nagging thought that my count was off.

“Forty-nine?” I said aloud as I walked.

“F-Fifty,” said Rowan, who was close to my right shivering; he was one of the tallest children and quite gangly, so the cold bothered him more.

“No,” I said, “It’s always been forty-nine.”

“What a-a-bout the b-brown boy?”

His question hit harder than the punch I’d received in the river; I stopped walking and raised my hands to bring everyone else to a stop.

“Rowan I want you to make sure all the children get to Rootwork on time and together. You’re in charge, okay? I’m going back for Chicory.”

“But-” said Rowan, suddenly very alarmed as he shook his head, “Please don’t put me in ch-charge! Pl-please!”

Rowan wasn’t just upset that he might be given my responsibilities for a short while, he was terrified.

“Okay! Okay! Fine!” I said, looking over my shoulder for another child I could trust.

“Willow!” I said, finding her stood beside Oakley at the edge of the throng of children.

“Yes?” she said, panic already in her eyes because she like the other children had overheard me asking Rowan for help.

“I need you to make sure all the children get to Rootwork on time, can you do that?”

“N-no…” she mumbled before looking off into the forest and hiding half her face behind her silver-grey hair.

Giving up on her being of any help I sought someone else.

“Birch?” I said, finding him on the other side of the throng stood with a handful of his friends; he didn’t answer me, but just looked back with fear in his eyes.

“Won’t any of you help me?” I said, looking from one child to another, all of whom remained silent and worried.

“Fine!” I shouted, “All of you stay right here!”

I ran as fast as I could back to the river.

Chicory wasn’t sat on the bank where I had last seen him.

“Chicory?!” I shouted breathlessly, looking all about me.

I waded into the water and searched for a brown shape somewhere in it.

Please keep him safe! I thought, pleading with something bigger than me, as if something unseen were listening to my every thought. Please help me! I pleaded in my thoughts, please!

Something tugged my shirt; I looked behind me and saw it was a small brown hand. Somehow, just like that, Chicory was stood just to the side of me up to his chest in the river.

I took my chance and grabbed him, as if he might be a trick of the light shining against the water and might have disappeared in an instant.

“Where were you?” I said after letting him go and leading him out of the river.

Chicory looked up at me but said nothing.

“Answer me!” I said, taking hold of his wrist and holding it hard enough to make him give a small cry of pain, but again he didn’t answer.

Because so much time had been wasted I jogged with Chicory struggling to keep up with me on the way back to the children. My biggest fear was that one or more of the children might have thought it was a good opportunity to try and run away. But everything was fine when Chicory and I reached them breathless from having jogged – only pausing at sparing intervals – back to where all of them were gathered and waiting for us.

Looking at them made me feel sick.