Dreamwalker's Bride - Chapter 208

Chapter 208: Be a good patient
Healing was slow. And arduous. Ford stared at the ceiling as bitterness seeped deeper into his soul. Never had he had so much time to think.

His life had been work, and sleep. Backbreaking labor, and falling into his bed in exhaustion.

But now, for the first time, he had hours to stare and let his mind wander. He got to experience the rising and setting of the sun, the light and the natural darkness–but not total blackness–of night.

These rhythms, these patterns, were they what the rest of humanity took for granted? When he worked the night shift, he slept all day. When he worked in the day, he never saw sunlight.

He looked at his skin–it was pale. He convinced someone to move his bed next to a window, playing up his heroism to guilt them into it.

The window was too high for him to see anything other than the sky through it, but that was enough to drive a stake into his soul.

The blue seemed impossibly far above for a young man who’d spent more than half his life working underground for twelve hours at a time. Most of his life, he could reach up and touch the rock above his head.

Lying here, quietly, trying to heal, the sky taunted him with its aloofness. Too high and mighty to be reachable by some mine-dwelling scum like him.

Often, he turned away in disgust. The sounds, even, were unfamiliar. The birds in the morning. The absence of echoes when he decided to speak aloud. The gentle voice of some miner’s wife as she sang while she did laundry in her wash bucket outside.

It struck a chord in his heart as he remembered his mother.

He became determined to not set foot in the mines again. It was all he’d known, but now… now he knew what the clouds looked like. The endless combinations of images he could find in them. With the window open, he knew the scents of being up here. The warmth of the sun, and the clear air free of the damp and dust of the mine.

He never wanted to go back.

He had few visitors; the men he’d saved seemed to be taking turns bringing him a portion of their meals. Some brought news of the mines; rumor was that there were strange sounds from below. It was suspected that the ghosts of the dead were haunting the mine after the latest cave-in. Ford rolled his eyes at these reports.

By the fifth day he gave up on Martin’s return. On the seventh day missing, Martin would be officially declared dead and his possessions would pass.

A miner’s possessions went to his nearest relatives. If he had none, they went to the Boss.

Martin had ordered Ford to burn the box. But why?

Reaching over, Ford tugged the bag onto his lap. He found the money purse quickly. Martin had certainly bequeathed him that much.

He set out the coins to pay the doctor, and a little for those that had shared their food with him, and the rest, he put into his pocket.

Martin’s clothes wouldn’t fit him, which was a shame. Ford was often called a runt, but Martin was somehow even shorter. He could have used the extra clothing, but maybe it could be sold, if the mine owner didn’t confiscate it.

That really just left the little box.

Ford picked it up, observing the strange pattern. It was a novelty. A puzzle. There was no obvious lid, and yet there were seams to indicate the box had the capability of opening.

Was it inside it that Martin felt so strongly should be burned?

Ford toyed with the box absently for a time. The doctor came to check on him and left, happily now that he had been paid, and came back shortly to present him with a full crutch, rather than the awkward cane Ford had been using that was little more than a thick tree branch someone had found.

Ford bit back a comment about wishing he’d paid sooner so the doctor would actually give him what he needed. The crutch probably cost good money. At least he had it now.

When the doctor departed once more, Ford went back to the box.

He was tempted to smash it, but wondered if that would damage whatever was within it. At least this would occupy his time until he was able to get up and walk around more.

When the end of the sixth day came, Ford was getting frustrated with the puzzle and anxious about whether the Boss would come to collect Martin’s things the next day. When he’d finally determined just to break the box open and face the aftermath afterward, he realized that one of the corners looked different than the others.

It was flattened slightly, not fully pointed.

He fiddled with it for a few moments, and then positioned the box on the table next to his bed, that corner down. He put one of his fingers on the opposite corner and pressed down.

The box began to uncurl from the center.

Ford snatched his hand back, surprised, and the box snapped back into its original shape. Overcoming his surprise, he tried again. A single piece of paper was inside. Ford snaked his other hand inside and pulled it out.

Ford pursed his lips. It was a map of the neighboring kingdom just across the border. It depicted the location of a cave, oddly. Not a mine.

It even mapped out the cave itself, with the dimensions displayed in the same way a mine was mapped by depth and location. It was by far the largest underground system Ford had ever heard of. At the lowest point, strangely, a tree was drawn with jewels for leaves. Was it a symbol for treasure? Was there some great wealth to be had in this cave? Excitement flooded through Ford’s veins. Where was this cave, exactly??

The cavern’s main entrance appeared to be in the base of a canyon. The nearest identifiable physical landmark was a small town some distance away. He read the name aloud in contemplation.

“Droth.”