5 Mystery

Brightise looked at the remains of her house in dread. It had taken her hours to leave the school. She just couldn't accept that Morral was not coming back. Eventually, Paula had taken her and Clober and led them back home to salvage whatever they could from their burned cottage.

Brightise didn't want to go in, but she had to.

Paula put a hand on her shoulder. "Let me go in instead," she said.

Brightise shook her head.

She took a look at her younger sister, who had been silent all the way there, and then turned towards the house and steeled herself before going in.

There was nothing but burned furniture inside. Brightise went through the rooms one by one, looking at their ruined possessions. Their clothes, bedsheets, the few books they had, and all the wooden kitchen utensils had been turned into ashes.

Paula followed her inside cautiously.

"Stay back," she told Gren and a few farmers who had helped put out the fire.

Gren didn't listen to her. He entered the house right after them, looking around him frantically. They were all searching desperately for the same thing: some kind of clue about why Morral was gone.

Brightise knew they wouldn't find any. The Fire Demon hadn't gone there to take her sister. This had been a typical, old-fashioned raid. The surprised look on the demon's hideous face before he had left with Morral proved as much.

"What happened?" Gren whispered in bewilderment.

"I don't know," Brightise whispered back. It felt strange to speak any louder.

Paula shook her head and pointed to something on the kitchen table. It was a pile of ashes different from the gray ashes all their belongings had been reduced to. Those ashes were bright red.

"Do you want the good news or the bad news first?" Paula asked.

"Tell me," Brightise demanded.

"These are cursed ashes from Granza, the Land of Fire. The Fire Demons leave them behind when they visit. There is a pile like that in every house they burned in Paldagor."

Gren gasped in terror.

"What are the good news?" Brightise asked.

"No one else is missing from the village. And Morral is still alive."

Brightise looked at Paula steadily. She knew the woman wouldn't lie to her, but she couldn't let herself hope yet.

"How do you know that?"

"Did you see a body anywhere?"

"That doesn't mean the demon didn't take her to kill her off quietly somewhere else."

"He didn't," Paula insisted.

"How can you be sure?" Brightise croaked. She was close to tears and she wanted some solid proof that her sister was still alive. Nothing short of that could comfort her.

Paula looked pointedly at Clober, who hadn't said a word yet. "That is a conversation for another time," she told Brightise. That time was most likely after Clober's bedtime.

Relief flooded Brightise's body. There was a chance that Morral was not dead. She wouldn't have to tell Clober their sister had died, she wouldn't have to bury her, she wouldn't have to live without her.

Brightise suddenly straightened up. Gren looked as relieved as she was, but Paula's expression was still grim.

"Why would the Fire Demons take Morral?" Brightise asked in a low voice.

Paula sighed before she answered, "Because they always come for what is theirs."

Before Brightise could ask her what she meant, Clober walked up to her and hugged her around the waist.

Brightise hugged her back tightly.

"Where did Morral go?"

No one answered her.

Clobber lifted her head from Brightise's stomach and looked at the grown-ups around her. Gren was staring at the floor with a blank expression, while Paula was still staring thoughtfully at the red ashes on the table.

"Is she hurt?" Clober asked tearfully.

"No," Brightise said. "No, she was alright when she left," she consoled her sister while trying to convince herself that this was not a lie.

Clober seemed to believe her. Her little sister looked sadly at the destroyed furniture inside the house. "My bed is gone. Where will I sleep?"

Brightise didn't know what to say. She hadn't thought about that. She hadn't thought about anything beyond finding Morral.

"Don't you worry about that," Paula told Clober. "You're staying at my house tonight."

Brightise looked at her gratefully. She wasn't just thankful for her hospitality or about the fact that she had shielded Clober from the truth.

She was looking forward to staying at Paula's house for a different reason: She had a lot of questions and she knew Paula would be able to give her some answers.