Dreamwalker's Bride - Chapter 226

Chapter 226: Burning goals
Ford’s crutch clattered to the floor as he dove towards the fire, but he was too late. He landed in a heap for the second time in ten minutes, earning the stares of everyone in the room.

“Oh, dear!” Grandma fussed at him. “Let us help you up and get you to a chair.”

“No,” Ford’s voice hardened. He put his hands forward and pushed up from the floor, grabbing his crutch and using it to awkwardly get to his feet. He would refuse the help of anyone instrumental in robbing him of his life’s great fortune.

These people pretended charity, but they wanted most of all to keep him in his place. To keep him poor and lowly and beneath them. They would be just kind enough to soothe their own consciences, and nothing more.

Other than that, they were just as selfish as every other person on earth.

And he hated them for it.

The children stared at him in shock, and he limped out of the room. Out of the house.

No one followed.

He hadn’t been outdoors much since coming here, mostly due to his limited mobility. He paused on the porch, glaring at the stairs.

Defiantly, he hopped his way down. Each step was jarring. He went around the side of the house, out of the easy sight of those in the front sitting room. He didn’t want to be spied on while he vented his rage at the sky.

He ached, inside and out. Though he still carried much of the map in his memory, he couldn’t trust that alone to get him where he needed to be. The canyons were too intricate to trust that the scale of the map, or what he remembered of it, would lead him to where he needed to go.

He paused. Had Trace been telling the truth about the entrances being collapsed?

The man had seemed perfectly serious. Confident. Not a twitch or a signal that normally accompanied lying.

Maybe he had participated in collapsing it himself to keep others from his treasure! The thought infuriated Ford further, and he continued limping towards what looked like a corral at the back of the house.

There, on an upturned bucket, Mia sat with her elbows on her knees, her face in her hands, shaking violently.

The sight gave him a new feeling. Like a pit in his stomach. He didn’t recognize it, but he knew the vision of her like this was unpleasant.

He paused before he hobbled towards her. As he did, he noticed that she was almost soundless even though the sobs that visibly shook her should be much louder.

“Are you alright?” He asked, though his question, spoken at a normal tone, was almost a whisper. He frowned.

She looked up at him in surprise and bolted to her feet, stepping back as if he might hurt her somehow.

“No.” She spat at him. As if he’d wronged her.

“You’re the one who slammed into me, I’m innocent,” He narrowed his eyes at the implicit accusation in her tone.

“Not that,” She waved her hand in frustration. “Martin.”

“What’s he got to do with this?” Ford was thrown off by the venom in her soft voice as she said the man’s name.

“He was your friend? Your foreman?” Her voice was as quiet as his, as if they were muffled somehow. It was a disconcerting sensation, but he continued talking to her anyway.

“I wouldn’t say friend.” Ford blinked. “But he did save my life.”

“Ha!” She said bitterly.

“What?” He became indignant. Was she accusing him of lying about such a thing?

“He wouldn’t save a life,” She shook her head. “Not a man like him.”

“You didn’t even know who he was a few minutes ago!” Ford declared with exasperation. “And now you’re an expert on his character?”

“He kidnapped me!” She cried, causing Ford to reel back in confusion.

“He what?”

“I remember it now. Not all, but enough. He kidnapped me and my family. Imprisoned us in a cave. Opened and shut the walls so that we were trapped in darkness, in a tiny, windowless enclosure, starving for air until he saw fit to open it for a few minutes to give us some reprieve from the torture.”

“When was this?” Ford blinked in confusion. Martin had been at the mine for several years, at least.

“I was a child,” Mia told him. “Ten years ago, or close enough to it. A little more.”

“And you’re sure it was the same man I spoke of?” Ford shook his head. The foreman had been grumpy and a little reclusive, but nothing about him told Ford that he would abuse children… any worse than allowing them to work in a dangerous mine for starvation pay…

He grew less certain that it must be a different man.

“Did your Martin have the magical power to move rocks? Form cave entrances, and shut them?” Mia’s eyes pooled with a fresh torrent of tears.

“Yes.” Ford answered directly.

“And you think there’s any way that’s a coincidence?” Mia challenged.

“No, I don’t think that’s a coincidence,” Ford admitted. Every magic power was said to be unique. There was no way two men from this country with the same name got the same power. The odds would be astronomical… “Wait. You said he held you captive in a cave?”

“Yes,” Mia swiped her sleeve across her cheek. “A cave at the bottom of a canyon. It was awful.”

Excitement raced through Ford’s blood. He’d been intending to use Mia’s powers to help him find the cave more easily, but if she’d been there before…!

“Was there anything in the cave?” He asked desperately. “Could you find it again?”

That last part was a stupid question, he belatedly realized. If she was looking for it, she could find it. Of course she could, he just had to make her want to do it.

“Why would I want to go to such an awful place again?” She spat the words.

“Because I need you to,” He put his heart into his eyes.