Chapter 4

Starlight hidden in her eyes

The sun's warmth flows freely from her heart

The universe's secrets are hers to unlock

She wants to share it with you and me

Could the Gods keep any harm from coming to her

For she deserves better

She deserves today, tomorrow and eternity

Not for herself

But for existence

Don't you see?

"Christopher?"

"Yeah, Sarah." Christopher says, as he is sitting there making another arrow.

"Did you feel that?" Sarah asks while she is sitting there wearing her deer-hide dress that goes down two marks pass her knees, and is sewing what will be her thick winter leggings. Her long blonde hair is disheveled, but her beautiful brown eyes shine bright.

"I didn't feel anything, Sarah. What did it feel like?"

"It was as if the world was trying to speak to me."

Now normally Christopher would have shrugged such a thing off, but seeing Sarah's progressive connection with all things he takes note.

As the days wear on Sarah tells him she can feel it again and again. Christopher's military destined mind takes it as an omen, and he steps up his patrols. It doesn't help that the animals are becoming more agitated and skittish.

"When I got back from an early morning sweep of the immediate area, Sarah told me that the trees were trying to tell her something, but that she could not understand them."

The normal choir of birdsong that surrounds their home has become one of nervousness and warning.

It is about four o'clock in the morning when the warning signs come to light. Christopher wakes to find Sarah already sitting up.

She tells Christopher, "Shh, listen." It sounds like thunder off in the distance, and then all of a sudden the ground starts to shake violently.

"Earthquake!" Christopher gathers Sarah up in his arms and goes just outside the cave.

"Don't forget our friends." Sarah is talking about the animals left inside the cave.

Christopher sits Sarah down and goes in and chases everybody out. Even though the cave itself does not collapse, there is a pile of small boulders that come tumbling down and hits him on the left shoulder and the side of the head. He falls under the initial impact and Christopher hears Sarah scream out. He pushes the rubble off him and goes and grabs Sarah again.

Being left handed, he tries to pick her up with that arm first, but grimaces in pain and sits her back down only to pick her back up with his right arm. It is dark out. The only light is coming from a small fire they keep burning through the night, with a torch right next to it just in case one of them has to go outside. Even that light is dimmed as dust bellows out of the cave from the minor rock fall.

There is one last hard jolt, and for a moment the world is silent, and then building up slowly a rumbling starts. It becomes deafening and the land starts to shake again. At first small rocks start to fall into the courtyard, and then with one giant explosion of dust and rock an avalanche comes down from the very mountaintop that their cave is a part of.

"It was hard to breathe, and I had to keep fighting with Sarah because she was more worried about her animal friends than she was about herself. Finally a boulder the size of a small cottage came down and hit the pile of rock that had collected in front of us. It hit the pile and ricocheted towards us. I dove back into the cave with Sarah in my arms. Sarah got a few scratches on her arms and face, but I came down on my ribs and had my breath knocked out of me.

"We could still hear rocks falling off in the distance all around us, but even that eventually came to an end. We were sitting on the floor of the cave holding each other when Sarah ran her hand across the side of my head and pulled it back soaked in blood."

"Oh, Christopher, you're hurt."

"I'm okay. I'll be okay. Is that what you have been sensing?"

"I guess so. I still have so much to learn of the languages of the world."

Once Christopher is semi sure no more earthquakes are to follow anytime soon, he goes and lies down and allows Sarah to wash his wounds with water. Once daylight breaks and the dust has long since cleared away, Sarah goes outside to see if any of her friends have been hurt.

She comes back in holding the lifeless body of her pet ferret she named Wheel in both hands. Christopher struggles to get up and takes the ferret in one hand and holds her shaking hand in the other. They walk out around the huge boulder and the big pile of small and medium boulders to find a decent burial place for Wheel. She chooses the very eastern corner of her flower garden.

They bury him as deep as the ground will allow, and Sarah says some very pretty words over the grave. "To my friend Wheel, you have been returned to mother creation, and I hope your journey is a spectacular one. You shared of yourself with no thought of repayment in mind. Thank you, and I'm sure our energies will meet again. Goodbye my friend." she says the last part crying, as she can no longer hold it in.

Through out the next week, as she takes care of Christopher, she also works continuously on a head stone for her fallen friend.

There is a continuous line of aftershocks at irregular intervals. Christopher starts to think that maybe they should leave this area.

"Sarah, like me, also had thoughts to someday go down into the world and try to make another life, but she also did not want to leave her friends."

The injury to Christopher's head was superficial, and his shoulder got better every day, but it was his ribs that gave him the hardest time. Visually all there was were bruises, but any effort to lift anything was excruciating pain.

"But as time is known to do, with the help of a beautiful little girl, of course, all my wounds healed."

Much of Sarah's garden had been buried, but she manages to pull out enough food to survive on until her brother is healthy enough to go hunting again. Plus, to the amazement of Christopher, Sarah restarts their fire and keeps some form of it going all the time. Christopher is most impressed, for it is never a sure thing to start a fire in the wild.

Every day more and more animals begin to reappear. Before a month has passed things are mostly back to normal. They have been able to move all but the biggest boulders so they can reclaim their courtyard.

"Actually, the way the big boulder ended up laying gave a little camouflage to our entrance to the cave. Our home."

Christopher knows this high in the mountains that winter will come early. He figures there can't be more than another month or a month in a half at the most before the heavy snows start to fall.

"I had a very difficult decision to make, and it was necessary to make it soon. Either I would have to start collecting more supplies now to survive the rough mountain winter, or if we were going to leave, it should be very soon because we'd have to find another place and get supplies for there."

Christopher talks it over at great lengths with Sarah, "Sarah, we have made a good home here, but hard times are ahead of us. We must decide if we want to go lower or work to survive the rough winter here this high up. What do you think, baby sister?"

Sarah thinks about it for a second and then says, "I want to stay here. This is our home and I want to stay with our friends." And then as she is so adept at doing, she points out to Christopher, "Plus, even if there are more earthquakes, most of the loose boulders have already fallen, so won't this be a safer area?"

Christopher isn't always a hundred percent sure about her reasoning, but he gives in and in truth she, and he guesses even he, has worked so hard at not only enduring what they have been through but to flourish despite of it.

Now that his ribs are feeling better and he can easily pull his bow back again, he starts going out on hunting trips two or three times a week. Sarah becomes very adept at jerking the meat so it will last a long time. Sure, soon enough they are going to have plenty of snow to keep things cold, which also makes things last longer, but Christopher will not take the risk. They will work at the problems from every possible angle, and that way they are sure to survive.

Again on one of Christopher's further out hunting expeditions he sees several patrols of enemy soldiers off in the far distance. There are several groups that are at least a hundred strong each, and then there are another dozen smaller groups of about five to ten members moving in and out of the terrain.

"I'm sure what I had done to get us safely here made the enemy mad, but I couldn't believe they would continue to send these kinds of forces to find just two kids."