Chapter the Nineteenth

Gerbi walked out of her lonely little cottage on her lonely little beach. She held a sack full of lunch’s leftover bread that she often liked to feed to the birds.
She shuffled across the sand and over to the shoreline, letting the birds chirp at her and hover over her. She smiled weakly and tossed bits of bread out to them, which they caught with their beaks. “It’s rather sad, really, having only you birds as my friends,” Gerbi said grimly, throwing out the last crumbs from the sack.
Gerbi sighed and walked across the shoreline. She squinted as she saw to lumps of wet sand at the seashore. She shuffled awkwardly towards it. Awful peculiar to see things like that not washed away already. Once Gerbi was closer, she gasped. “Goodness! It’s people!” she cried aloud.
She rushed as fast as her old legs could carry her heavy body to them. It was a pretty blonde girl and a lanky brown headed boy. They both lay limply on the wet sand. Gerbi’s eyes welled up. What if they were dead?
Gerbi pressed her hand to the girl’s belly. She breathed, but just barely. She did the same to the boy. He breathed too! Gerbi rejoiced somewhat, but then was saddened. How could she drag them all the way to her cottage?
Gerbi’s lip twisted, as it always did when she was deep in thought. “Aha!” she said, shooting one finger up in the air. She scurried off to her cottage, then went around back. She looked around the tiny, cluttered backyard.
“Where is it, where is it….” Gerbi muttered. Then she saw it: an old, rotting wooden wheelbarrow. “Should be strong enough to hold them, if I take them one at a time, that is,” she mused, grasping the handles and pulling it out from all the various rubbish.
Once she managed to get it out from the backyard, Gerbi hurried along to the shore. “Hmm,” she mumbled once she was standing beside the girl and boy. “How shall I lift them?”
She bent over and pulled on the girl’s limp arm. Gerbi realized with surprise that the girl was reasonably light considering how tall she appeared to be. Gerbi just barely managed to get her into the wheelbarrow, and hoped that it would hold up for her.
Gerbi (with much effort) pushed the wheelbarrow up to the front deck and set (or more so dumped) the girl onto it. She still did not awaken. “Hmm,” murmured Gerbi, stroking her chin before heading back to get the boy.
The boy was much more difficult to get onto the wheelbarrow. It was beginning to dim outside before she got him into the wheelbarrow. And pushing him was also very difficult. It was dark outside before she got him on the deck too. But she managed, and that was all that mattered.
Gerbi was able to get the two inside and one on each musty old couch. She covered them each with moth eaten blankets and smiled to herself. “I saved to lives today,” she thought happily.
Gerbi headed off to bed, feeling glad. “I’ll have company once these children are better,” she thought once she was lying down. “Maybe they’ll stay forever, and I’ll never have to be lonely again!” And so she went to sleep with these greedy thoughts.

Iraella awoke. Her eyes opened and she saw Mabon lying on an old couch across from her. “Not again!” she sighed. She was quite tired of this “waking up not where you should be” thing.
Iraella winced as she pushed herself up into a seated position. Goodness, her shoulder hurt! Iraella pushed off her blanket and through the pain and walked across and shook Mabon. “Wake up! Wake up!” she hissed close into his ear. He groaned and shifted around to look at her.
His eyes widened and he looked around at his surroundings. Iraella straightened up away from his face. Then he smiled. “So this is what you felt like, eh?” he said. Iraella nodded, rolling her eyes. “Pretty much,” she said. You wouldn’t have been able to tell by her nonchalant tone, but she was actually pretty impressed that Mabon hadn’t started panicking yet.
“Where are we anyway?” asked Mabon, sitting up and kicking off his raggedy blanket.
Iraella shrugged. “I’m not sure, but we’d best leave.”
“Should we leave a note for whoever saved us?”
“What makes you think someone saved us?”
Mabon spread his arm out to the side. “We’re in a cottage!” he said.
Iraella ignored that. “I don’t think so. I think we should leave right now. Or at least go outside to see if we recognize where we are,” she said. Mabon agreed and the headed out the door, Iraella wincing from her shoulder.
They stepped outside onto the rotting deck and found a lovely little beach. Its sand was the brightest that Iraella had ever seen. Even Mabon seemed impressed. Birds immediately flocked around their heads and chirped at them. Iraella giggled for the first time in a while, wishing she had some bread crumbs to feed them. Mabon shooed the birds away, and Iraella scolded him. They bickered for a while, but that would be much to dull to put on paper.
“Come on!” cried Iraella, her spirits suddenly up. She ignored the sharp pain in her shoulder and ran out and let her toes touch the sea water. She looked back at Mabon, who was still back on the deck. She motioned for him to come with her good hand.
Mabon hesitated. Then he slowly walked out onto the sand with his bare feet. Soon he was standing beside Iraella, sighing as the water lapped at his toes. Iraella danced in a bit further, and Mabon followed in case she should fall and need a bubble.
After a while of play, Iraella remembered the mission at hand. She felt extremely guilty. She had no idea how she could have forgotten! She climbed out of the ocean water, frowning. There was something so uplifting about this nice little beach, and she that concerned her.
As Iraella walked back towards the shack, Mabon called her name. Iraella turned to face him. “What?” she asked faintly. Mabon walked up in front of her. “Wha’ tis wrong?” he asked.
Iraella shrugged. “There’s something odd about this place. I want to leave,” she told him. She rubbed her aching shoulder to calm herself down.
Mabon looked around. “I don’ see anything odd,” he said.
“It just gives me the creeps,” said Iraella. “Let’s leave.”
Mabon shrugged. “If you really wan’ to,” he said, headed back to the ocean. Iraella felt as if her feet were stuck. She wanted to move, but the sand wouldn’t let her.
“Wait!” cried an unfamiliar voice. Iraella saw Mabon’s eyes widen and she turned around. Coming running at them was a heavy little lady. Her eyes were buggy and bloodshot, almost a little wild, and her hair was thin, gray and frizzy. Her skin was pale and wrinkles drooped at her cheeks like a bloodhound’s. She made Iraella want to run just looking at her.
Huffing and puffing, the little woman arrived at Iraella’s side.
“I’m……..Gerbi…….Who are…….You?” she wheezed, leaning her hands on her knees. Iraella glanced quickly at Mabon, who shrugged, his eyes still huge.
“Er, I’m Iraella, and this is Mabon,” Iraella said awkwardly, scooting away from Gerbi a little.
Gerbi straightened and smiled. It was a strange smile, like her lips were too thin and dry to stretch, and her missing teeth didn’t help. “I’m Gerbi. Wait, I already said that!” Gerbi laughed. Or more so cackled. Her eyes grew bigger when she laughed. Iraella forced a smile and a small giggle. Gerbi recovered from her laughing fit and wiped her eyes.
“Um….Well….Er…..Me and my friend had best be going now. Thank you for taking care of us for the night,” Iraella said slowly, stepping towards Mabon.
Gerbi frowned and her eyes filled with tears. “No! Please!” she sobbed, flinging herself at Iraella’s feet. Iraella yelped and jumped away. Gerbi stood and looked at her pitifully. “Please, please stay! I’ve been lonely for nearly forty years. No company but the birds. Please, you and Mabon are what I have been waiting for!”
Iraella looked in the crazy little woman’s eyes and almost gave in, but instead looked away. “No, I’m sorry. We have to go,” she said. Gerbi cried as Iraella rushed towards the petrified Mabon. He immediately made a water bubble around them and they headed under water.
Iraella shuddered. “She was insane,” she said. Mabon nodded solemnly.
“Is everything all right?” Iraella asked. Mabon ran his hand through his hair.
“I’m not sure. I think I’ve seen her before,” Mabon said. Iraella’s brow furrowed. “Hmmm…….I guess she did look a bit like your mother, only not as pretty,” she suggested.
Mabon shrugged. “Perhaps,” he said. And so their sea travel went on for a while when they realized that they didn’t know where they were going.
They agreed (after some quarreling) that they would stop at the next island. After about five days, Iraella finally spotted one.
“There, Mabon!” she said, pointing eagerly to a patch of land. “Bring us above water. I want to see if there are people there.”
Mabon followed her instruction and they saw that there were people there. Many, many people. In fact, the town was lovely and thriving with people riding their horses about and servants running errands for their masters. Iraella sighed contentedly. She sure couldn’t wait to get there. And in all honesty, neither could Mabon. Even he was tired of water travel. He was ready for some real food. Then Iraella pointed out that they didn’t have any money. So they bickered about this for a while, then they decided that they would get jobs until they left.
Iraella was very much against this idea, insisting that they would only be there for a night or two to get instructions, but Mabon said he would rather settle for a while. And so they agreed (in their own special Iraella-Mabon way) on staying there for a week or more.
“Goodness, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to make it through a week! Any more than that and I’ll be dead,” Iraella thought grimly as they walked onto the shores.
“To the bushes,” whispered Mabon. They didn’t want to scare anyone by just walking out of the water like that while staying dry. Iraella followed Mabon to the bright green bushes, and then they walked out and headed along with all the other people.
Iraella couldn’t help but smile at all the bustling activity of this town. It reminded her of Neygren, only about five times busier. Merchants rode on animals that the pair had never seen! Iraella laughed. “It looks like some sort of reptilian camel,” she told Mabon, pointing to a bizarre looking creature.
Mabon grinned and nodded.
“Maybe I could stay here, for just a little bit,” thought Iraella. “Just a little bit.”