The Final Days of Springborough

“Brynn?” J.J. had to ask, “Who’s Jimmy?”

Brynn stood in silence, in absolute stunned silence, as Jimmy stood in probably an exact emotional reflection, both of them staring at the other as J.J. stared from his sister’s face back to space where nothing and no one, as far as he was concerned, stood. Brynn offered no further explanation, as she couldn’t believe how close she was to imagining what Jimmy looked like.

He was tall and skinny, around thirty years of age, dressed in dressed down armor (leather instead of steel) with long brown hair, a brown beard, and the same soulful eyes that she pictured while walking away on just this morning’s hunt. Just as Kyrstin’s grandma, the ex-Queen’s, had been- his eyes looked alive, where the rest of him was see-through. It didn’t matter, for Brynn could see him clear as day, and she couldn’t feel the storm or the weather around them that had seemed so distracting before.

“Jage… It’s Jimmy…” Was all she could mutter.

Jimmy stepped closer to her, as if offering her a better look at him, and the closer he got to Jage, the closer he got to his bone in her brother’s pocket, which seemed to make his vision more solid to her. She smiled, her eyes filling with tears, and he smiled back, his eyes thanking her just to be seen. He nodded at her, at his friend for so long where they only seemed to share their thoughts on the wind, and now, for the first time, able to lay eyes on each other. Brynn, absent-mindedly, reached down and grasped J.J.’s hand, who, for the most part, stood unaware of what was happening. To Jage, his sister, under the duress of being alone, and of the long hike down to the docks, had finally cracked her sanity, and was entering a sort of shock.

“Brynn, sister dear, I think it’s time we got you home.”

“Yes, home. You’re right,” and without looking at Jage, but addressing the air, Brynn looked off and said, “Let us go home, shall we?”

Jimmy nodded, smiled, and nodded again.

As they began to walk toward the hut, Jimmy’s expression started to change. He became fearful of everything around them. Yet to speak a word, he simply communicated with facial expressions, which made Brynn glad that she could finally see him. How much did he convey through body language before that she had missed? Now, he was reaching out to grab them, to hold them back, but upon second thought, was trying to propel them forward. The ghost couldn’t make up his mind.

“Speak!” Brynn shouted, scaring Jage. “What is wrong with you?”

“Brynn?” Jage questioned.

“We’re in danger,” Jimmy let out, and Brynn recognized his voice. It was him. It was her only friend.

“Danger of what?”

“Brynn, you’re frightening me,” J.J. stammered, unsure of the last time he had been this confused and afraid.

“The spirits in the storm, they are not friendly. They have come from a dark place, and they know we are alone, that we are without guardians. They know your parents are-“

“Brynn, will you tell me what is going on with you?” Jonathon James shouted, cutting off a person who he didn’t know existed, and suddenly Brynn turned on him with an anger she didn’t know she had-

“I will explain everything to you when I can, Jage! But, right now, I must listen to Jimmy. He’s trying to warn us about something.”

“Who’s Jimmy?!” Jage asked, incredulous because there really was not a soul in sight. His sight, at least.

“He died.”

“Who died?”

“Jimmy!”

“Jimmy died? Who are you talking to, then?”

“Jimmy!”

“Who died?”

“Yes, Jimmy’s dead, his spirit is right there, and I’m talking to him.”

“You’re talking to a man who died named Jimmy?”

And, with the sudden clarity that comes from being tired of your current situation, Brynn realized that the argument she was having with her brother was totally not understandable. Communing with the dead was absurd. She just had been doing it so long that for her, it seemed comprehensible. But, the way she proved herself to Princess Kyrstin was to tell her something only she would know if she had been talking with the deceased Queen, Jimmy and her brother held no such connection.

Except for…

“The bone in your pocket, that’s Jimmy’s bone. That’s a finger bone.”

“How did you-?” J.J. had forgotten about the bone himself. He reached into his pocket and pulled it out. He held it in his open palm, rain soaking the hard gray object in his hand. “This is Jimmy’s bone?”

“I’ll explain everything to you later, brother, but yes, Jimmy had fallen off the cliff by our hut. He is tied to his bones, so he couldn’t leave the area. That is, until you came around and took his finger, and now he is able to travel, but only where you go, with that.”

Jonathon James stood there, his brain firing thousands of thoughts that he couldn’t quite grasp as he looked down at Jimmy’s finger bone in his hand. He couldn’t see this spirit that his sister was talking about, but he trusted her to think that she wasn’t completely crazy, that this Jimmy was there. Because if she had just made him up, she would not have known about this bone Jage had found on the rocks. Was there more? Had to be, the former Captain thought to himself, If I had looked deeper into the water, if I had looked around harder, I would have found this man’s whole skeleton. Which made sense to him after the fact. Someone didn’t just lose their finger on the rocks, but rather their whole body.

Jage wanted to give the finger back, but he couldn’t. He felt bad holding something that clearly wasn’t his, that was really somebody else’s, a somebody else that was watching him hold it. But he couldn’t rectify the situation in any way. So, he stood there, arm outstretched, palm open, hoping somebody would take the possession from him. Nobody alive or dead did.

“Do you-“ he stammered, holding the finger toward his sister, “Do you want to hold it?”

“No, that’s okay,” Brynn replied. “Put it back in your pocket.”

“But, he’s your friend. You’ve known him longer,” he replied, not making a move to pocketing the bone again.

“It’s okay, you can do it. I refuse to part with you ever again, so wherever you go, he goes, we go.”

Jage thought about. And, then he thought about it again.

“Oh, okay,” J.J. said, putting the bone in the pocket by his knee, no longer the one by his thigh, just feeling really icky about the whole situation now. “Sorry, Jimmy.” He said, not really knowing what, specifically, he was sorry for, but just throwing an apology in the wind, which the spirit silently excepted. “You said he was warning us of danger?”

“Your parents not being around,” Jimmy exploded with, having to hold his tongue for so long as Brynn explained his mere existence to J.J., “is not a coincidence. They aren’t the only parents gone. In fact, anybody who has ever brought a child in this world is gone. They have taken them first.”

“Who?”

“What?” J.J. asked, not hearing anything.

“The spirits in the storm are taking parents,” Brynn explained quickly, ready for the next piece of information.

“What?!” J.J. asked, not comprehending.

“This isn’t just some random storm filled with evil spirits,” Jimmy continued on, “this is a planned attack. They have specific orders to find people that spawned an off spring. Once all that population is taken, they are going to take over the children.”

“Take over? How?”

“I don’t know everything. I’ve been with your brother, but I can hear more than both of you. The conversations are happening all around us. The dead are talking to each other, and they don’t sound very nice. The storm is a means to an end. First the parents, then the children, then everybody else. They keep saying ‘he is coming’. ‘He is coming’! I don’t know what it means.”

“You don’t know who ‘he’ is?”

“Not a clue, although many believe the son of the mightiest god is due for a visit.”

“So, this “he” started the storm?”

“No, something else. A death. ‘She is gone.’ They said. I heard it before the storm, when you had gone hunting. ‘She is gone.’ I thought it was my own thoughts about you going off on your hunt, but it had to be something else. Whoever ‘she’ is was the catalyst to the storm.”

“Whoever ‘he’ is will be the end?”

“End to what?” J.J. asked, only hearing one side of the conversation, he was starting to get annoyed.

“There are evil spirits in the storm,” Brynn began, and suddenly J.J. remembered about the hollow sailor on the forgotten boat. The one who warned him that “they“ were in the upcoming storm. And then he thought of the spirit who clipped him from the ship’s wheel, and of his men who seemed to disappear right before getting to safety.

“Go on.”

“The storm started because a woman disappeared. And the spirits keep saying, from what Jimmy hears, ‘he is coming.’”

“Who’s he?”

“We don’t know. But, that’s what they keep saying- ‘he is coming’, ’he is coming.”

“He is here!” announced a voice none of them knew.

All three of the people standing on the cliffside practically jumped out of their shoes as they turned to see Prince Thomas walking out of the brush toward them, a handful of King’s guards emptying out behind him. His hands were empty, but that didn’t make him appear any less threatening, especially because he was announcing himself as the man who started the storm of evil spirits. Jage, protectively, stepped in front of Brynn who was already grasping for an arrow. Before she could get one out of her quill, though, a knight in steel held a long sword to her throat, the tip poking into her skin.

Another taller guard held a sword to Jage’s throat and the boy raised his hands into the sky. Jimmy stood unguarded, unobserved, and unable to do anything about it.

“And, who are you?” Jage asked, really over meeting new people for the night.

“I should ask you the same thing,” Thomas responded. It had been awhile since they escaped the Village of Fortis and continued on the search for his sister, which lead them to the docks and these two young adults, who appeared to be brother and sister.

“My name is Captain Jonathon James of The Hampton Chase, and this here is my sister, Brynn, formerly of the Village of Fortis, on our quest to find our birth right- The Lost Kingdom of Gambrille.”

Brynn tried to get J.J. to hush up before he could holler out his favorite part, but she was unsuccessful-

“Our father and mother shall be King and Queen of the Gambrille Kingdom, which makes us a Prince and Princess.”

Thomas smirked at this, utterly amused at the young lad’s passion on the subject. Thomas stood a foot taller than Jage, although both had the same light skin, Thomas had more freckles, more muscles, and seemed to be more impressively built. But, J.J. held more confidence in his ability to survive, or simply more ignorance on impending danger, having survived the merciless seas and a shipwreck. Danger didn’t seem very life threatening to Jage where Thomas had been quite sheltered in the castle, and felt danger could be the death of him. Although, Thomas did just survive a kidnapping.

These two boys were naturally growing very brave.

“And who are you?” Brynn asked.

“This here is-“ A tall, stoic guard began, but was immediately cut off by Thomas raising his left hand.

“I can provide my own introductions, Corson,” the young Prince said in a dead flat tone that offered no reassurance he wasn’t offended. “My name is Thomas Allan Lishens, oldest Prince of the Springborough Lishens, Knight of the Kings guard.”

The two looked at the Prince, but did not automatically move to genuflect or curtsy in his presence. How far away from the castle, was he? Did these people not know of the Springborough royalty?

“You should bow before a Prince,” Corson stated, emphatically.

“I should say the same to you,” J.J. replied, catching Brynn off guard.

“Jage,” Brynn stammered. When J.J. looked back at his sister, she had already begun to curtsy. He looked at her, shocked, but the deed was done, and there was no reason to fight it. He bowed himself.

“Your majesty,” the young Captain said, clearly not happy about it.

At that moment, as the two bowed before him and he took his eyes off theirs to better scan their clothes, something did catch Thomas’ eye. A twinkle down by the ground. At first, he took it as rain water glistening with the lightening, but this was different. This seemed to call to him. And while he couldn’t discern why, his brain told him to hold his gaze there, at Brynn’s ankle, until his mind could compute what he was looking at. When he figured it out, he couldn’t stop but to push past J.J. and grab Brynn by the shirt.

“Where’s my sister?!” Thomas hollered.

“What?” Brynn stammered.

J.J. had already burst into action, screaming for the Prince to let go of his sister. It took three guards to pull Jage from Thomas, and hold him back, but not even having swords pulled on him would stop him. The guards couldn’t help but to nick J.J. all over as he struggled against the tips of their blades, forcing the young boy to bleed as Jage tried to push past them to get to his sister’s aide. But the men were too strong for him. They grasped his biceps and held him down. He shouted for her.

“Brynn!”

“Where is my sister, the Princess?” Thomas ordered.

“I don’t know!”

“Kyrstin!” Thomas shouted, matching Jage’s own shouts for his sister.

“I don’t know!”

That was all Brynn could shout as she didn’t know where Kyrstin was. It had been awhile since they parted ways. And she also didn’t know why Thomas had suddenly pounced on her. And she didn’t know what was in the storm, or where her parents were, or where they were exactly in accordance to a map. Brynn hardly knew anything at the moment, so she simply stated the fact-

“I don’t know!”

Thomas reached down, grabbing the anklet, and ripping it from Brynn’s skin. He held it in front of her face.

“You have her anklet!”

“She gave that to me.”

“She would never!”

Everybody watched as Thomas continued to grab Brynn, throwing her off balance by jerking her back and forth in the mud. They got closer to the rocks, closer to the raging sea. At any moment, Thomas could throw her into the waves. Jimmy stood helpless, the guards waited for an order while keeping J.J. down who was fit to be tied.

“She did!”

“Liar!”

Thomas turned toward Corson who had seen the Prince’s anger before.

“Corson! A sword!”

But, the couple-second turn of the Prince was all Brynn needed to grab an arrow from her quill and load her bow. When Prince Thomas turned around to make sure she was still in place, he found himself staring directly into the tip of an arrowhead that was not the width of two fingers from his eye. In fact, he couldn’t see Brynn’s face because of the arrow, and he couldn’t see her body from the rain water that dripped from the shale tip of it. He stood there, dead to rights, his sister’s anklet clutched in his hand.

“She gave that to me when I saved her from a bear,” Brynn stated. “The last time I saw her, she said that she was going back out to find it. It had something she needed, she said. She gave me the anklet, and said to return it to her at the castle, and she would give me something in exchange. I have no cause for jewelry, Prince Thomas. Take it if you wish.”

Thomas looked down at the anklet, back at the guards who would take the two young people’s lives if he wished it, but not before this archer took his, probably. He thought about his options, and quickly decided. He cocked his head to the side to be able to look Brynn in the eyes.

“If Princess Kyrstin wants you to return the anklet to her at the castle, then lets go to the castle.”