Page 16 of Lost and Bound

I tuck myself into a smaller ball, ready to ride out whatever is going on outside, hidden within the safety of my room. Something that sounds like rolling thunder nears, and I slap my hand over my mouth to stop my scream when there’s a thud on my door.

“Hey, it’s Orion. I wanted to let you know that’s the siren for lockdown. It’s probably a false alarm, but I need you to stay exactly where you are and not go outside. Check your tablet for updates. And no matter what, do not go outside, okay?”

“Okay,” I say through the door.

He speaks without panic in his voice, which I take as a good sign. If he’s not panicking, I don’t need to be either. “I didn’t want you to be freaking out, wondering what’s going on. I promise, Maya, Thales is the safest place to be. See you in the morning.”

I hear him racing away, and a few moments later, it’s followed by the faint sound of a door slamming. Orion made it back to his room.

And any hope of sleep goes with him.

Using the moonlight streaming in from the bathroom window, I go to grab my bag off the desk to have a look at the tablet. Though I wasn’t in the right headspace for anything but sleep before, it’s different now.

As I stand up and reach for the bag Master Maddern gave me at the hospital, something brushes against my hand. I swallow my screech before reassuring myself, I’m just being jittery because of the nightmare and the alarm. Either way, I move slowly, pulling my bag with me as I sit-down with my belongings surrounding me on the bare mattress.

Rummaging through the bag, I pull everything out and lay it on my lap.

Like he and Orion said, there’s a tablet inside and a phone, along with a collection of other supplies I need for studying. The tablet turns on as soon as I touch it. I have no clue what kind of technology they have; all I did was pick it up, and it starts up with a personalized welcome. The light shining off the device isn’t bright enough to read any of the books by, but it makes the shadows in my room disappear.

The glow from the screen gives me the chance to see what I felt before. On my desk, staring me down, is a raven. Like, an actual bird.

The bird caps off a ridiculous run of things that have happened that defy logic. I don’t bother listing them off again. Instead, I turn off the device, wiggle down on the mattress, and turn over to face the wall.

I have to work really hard to stop my racing thoughts, and I only succeed by basically holding my breath until I pass out.

Hours later, I wake again. This time, it’s my awareness that drags me from sleep.

I’m not generally a nervous person. I like to think I’m confident, but not so much that it comes across as being cocky. The fact is that I have relied on myself for years, and as far as I am concerned, I have done a great job continuing on the path my parents showed me was the right one.

The shadows in my room have lost their depth as the new day creeps up the horizon. I close my eyes and try to slow the roiling worries from intensifying; a lot of what I am feeling has to do with what is still to come. Dealing with new situations makes me anxious, which doesn’t mean I can’t cope with change. I just don’t like it. Once I know what I’m dealing with, I’ll be fine, but the void of not knowing what’s coming consumes my mind.

I hear my mom’s encouragement filtering through my mind, urging me to focus and be grateful for what I can control, leaving what I can’t to play out how it was always going to. Simply thinking of her helps.

“I’m thankful I didn’t have any more crazy dreams or nightmares,” I say to myself quietly, my lips barely moving. “Or emergency situations. And I’m hopeful I imagined the other thing. I’ve got this.”

The last of my pep talk relates to the raven.

I sit up and scour the room for any sign of the bird, taking a huge sigh of relief when I don’t find any sign of it.

“It was the medication and my concussion,” I offer up the explanation, and my inner voice agrees.

I shift my focus to other things now that my worries are currently manageable. Pulling down my bags, I unpack everything, laying them out on my bed. It’s a mix of things I grabbed before leaving home the other morning, along with stuff crammed in from the clinic, plus new items from Master Maddern and the lady in the infirmary.

One of the strangest things I find is a small, dark purple velvet bag. I suspect it fell out of the second bag I picked up after climbing the fence, though I’m surprised I still have it. Seriously, I thought whoever took my other bundle would have reclaimed this too.

The drawstring pouch is obviously a coin purse, given the jingling sound it makes as I lift it. Opening it, five gold coins, no bigger than a half dollar, fall out. They’re heavy, and the stamped image of a woman’s face is no queen I’ve seen before. The crown she wears is what makes me think she’s a queen, but at the same time, you know someone is regal without knowing who they are. On the back, a laurel decorates the edges, along with a series of letters and symbols across the rest of the coin. I want to say it’s old, like ancient, but considering I know nothing about the world the others inhabit, a bit presumptuous of me.

I go to put the coins back in the pouch, except there’s still something in there. So I tip the contents into my palm, and another five coins exactly the same tumble out. Dropping the pouch, I check them against the others, and they’re identical. I don’t know how I missed them before. It’s a later problem. Now I need to get ready for breakfast and my first day at Thales.

Lifting the drawstring pouch again, the jangle of coins has me feeling like I’m being punked. This is illogical. I just emptied the bag, and now it’s got something in it again? Tipping the purse, another five coins fall onto my palm. This time, though, I turn the pouch inside out to triple-check, but it’s empty as empty can be. Setting the pouch aside, I collect all the coins and go to put them back inside, but when I lift it, the same thing happens again—five coins fall out.

“I’m losing my mind,” I whisper as I fill the small bag with all the coins that are in my hand. They all slide back inside easily, though oddly, the weight doesn’t increase when I put them back in.

When I’m done, I rest the pouch on my mattress before snatching it back up as quickly as I can, tearing it open and emptying it out. Only five coins tumble out.

As fast as they fall out, I put them back in, then I hide the pouch in the tea chest with the leather bundles, making it a mystery for later.

The other items that were in the purple bag are equally puzzling—a small antique mirror and a posy of dried herbs. Instead of hiding them in my bag, I hop up and put them on my desk. Then I decide I’ve spent enough time on fantastical things and shift my attention to normal, human actions like showering and getting ready.