Lost Without Direction 1st Chapter.

Chapter 1.

I stormed towards my door, stomping as hard as I could to show my anger. “I am sorry,” I yelled at the door “That I can’t always make your silly times!” Once again I hadn’t made it for dinner at six o’ clock, and the usual argument was on, why couldn’t I?
“You have to respect the rules and times I set!” Came through the door. Rosalie, my adoptive mom, I think, was getting just a little mad at me, not really mad, yet, but tired of arguing.
“But six o’ clock?! I’m seventeen! Can’t I just come home whenever I want, and reheat the food?!” She’d adopted me when I was little over two years old, she didn’t want a big family, all she wanted was to get to be a mom. And so she got me. We lived in the centrum of Edinburgh, in an ordinary apartment, no big fuss, except for maybe the musicians who lived beneath us and played on all sorts of instruments till, at least, 10 pm.
“No I want us to eat together like mother and daughter!” “Urgh!” In my eyes she was my mother so I never argued with her when she said such stuff. “Fine! Okay! Can I just please take a shower, sit and watch some TV and go to bed, without the yelling?!” Ever since I was around fifteen and she’d been forty-seven, we’d begun arguing a lot. My explanation, she was having a midlife-crisis and blamed it on me. Of course it wasn’t entirely her fault, I could’ve been better too. But feeling different and incomplete had made me pull back a little from everyone except my two best friends. Katie and Diana had been there since always, or since first grade anyway. They were my only friends, and the only people, not counting Rosalie, that I trusted.
“Okay, but think about it in the future!” She always said that in the end of an argument, it was her way of saying that it was over for now. All day I’d been with Katie, and since I took off when their dinner was ready, I was home at seven. Yeah, an hour too late. Again. But, I mean, it wasn’t even late! Seriously, seven! Oh well, I let it go. I just wanted to take a shower. And letting the hot water run over me and ease my muscles I just tried to relax and forget about the silly fight. I let a tear escape my eye because of all the mental pressure I was feeling lately, but the water quickly took it away and replaced it with a stream of its own.
“Tea, Adora?” Asked Rosalie coming into the living room “Do you even have to ask?” I answered her back with a smile. It was a habit of ours, drinking tea before bed.

Going to bed that night, for me, wasn’t really going to bed. I’d lain for a couple of hours, turning over thoughts of what made me feel different, and I was still a little upset about Rosalie not letting the subject of time go. About the ‘different’ part, I came to the conclusion that it was because of the fact that I still dreamed of something (Anything!) supernatural to happen, and I felt sure that was also why I felt so incomplete. Childish about the supernatural thing, but it was something I’d always dreamed of and needed.
So thinking I needed to get out a bit, I silently got dressed, slipped on my boots, left a note (in case Rosalie would wake up and go bananas) on my bed, and slipped out the door. By that time it was almost 4 am and the sun was starting to rise. I found it reasonable to go to the mountain ‘Arthur’s seat’ so of course that was what I did.
Arthur’s seat didn’t have a little forest as I would have preferred, but it did have some trees, some bushes and plants, and it would set me into motion if I wanted to get to the top. I started walking up a well known path, and got lost in the fresh air and the rising sun shining on the leaves. I walked higher and cleared my head of all thoughts not related to what I was doing at the present. But still as I stopped for a rest and sat down enjoying the view, something in me pulled in the direction to my left and back. And there was the sound like someone gurgling too. Until now I hadn’t thought much of it, because I knew there was a little stream nearby, but now with the pulling feeling I let my mind fill with thoughts again.
Actually the gurgling sound sounded kinda like someone screaming underwater, but wasn’t that kind of ridiculous? Five in the morning, and someone sticking their face down into a foot deep water and screaming? No, that didn’t sound like anybody sane, but I decided to check it out, ‘cause who knew? Maybe someone was in trouble or something. So I hurried a bit to the stream, just in case, and found it quickly. The stream ran between some grass and flowers and I over to stand by it.
But no person was there, no one. The screams had stopped and I stood there looking down in the water, where there was only my shimmering image.
And suddenly my own mirror image was gone and instead was a woman, probably about 40 years old or so, with black hair that went to her mid-back and sparkling-with-joy big blue eyes, was looking (down/up?) on me. And she was yelling something that didn’t, at all, make sense. She was yelling “IT’S HER! IT’S HER! SHE CAME! OH, MY BABY-GIRL IS BACK!” Oh, and excuse me please, but WTF?! What was this? Was I, like, hallucinating? It just seemed so real.
And then lots of people joined her joyous shouts of someone coming back. But back to what? I had no damn idea, and surely it couldn’t be me they were talking about, right?
Right then I made eye-contact with the woman who was yelling her head off about her “Baby-girl”, and it was just about then that I felt a longing to join them on that side of the mirror/reflection/world/water (Whateverthehell you’d call it). A strong longing. Like maybe that would be where I belonged.
Was I going CRAZY?! What was I thinking! That…..reflection of another world wasn’t even real. It couldn’t be. It was just some kind of….. Some kind of what? What could it be? Shit, I had no idea, I was coming up blank. But could I really be going crazy? Was that it? No it was real. Because of course I had to check that the water was actually water.
It was water. But as soon as my whole hand was in, the woman mirrored my actions as if reaching for me. It appeared she was, ‘cause soon I could feel her hand. Whatthefuck?!! I started to pull my hand out, but before I could, she grasped my hand and pulled, not giving me time to try and yank my hand free. She was stronger than she looked. She pulled hard enough so that I was diving head-first into what I thought had only been a foot deep water. Well it wasn’t, because as soon as my head was under, it was like I was spinning trough a tunnel. Spinning and spinning through a black tunnel, and at the end of the tunnel was, the woman. And then a man that I had first seen now. He was in his forty’s,too, and grey hairs were appearing in the black. He had grey eyes and a strong jaw. Something about the way he held himself reminded me a little of a panther.
And I was still rushing up to them. Was this a dream? Or was it the supernatural adventure I dreamed of? Because if it was I wasn’t complaining, except maybe I hadn’t thought it would 5 am in the morning on a Sunday.
But my thoughts ended then. I popped out of the tunnel and into some forest.
I had shut my eyes when I had been close to the end, so I just kept my eyes shut and listened to the people around me. I could feel all of them staring at me, and I could hear several of them talking about me. Hmm…okay well I wasn’t hurt, that I could feel. I could also feel that I was lying on a soft carpet of thick grass. Then I heard a man’s-voice saying loudly “MOVE!” and the sound of shuffling feet.
And then, still holding my eyes closed, a soft voice brushed my face, saying “Baby-girl are you ok?”
Slowly I opened my eyes, blinking like crazy to steady my vision. And when I didn’t see blur anymore, I found I was looking into the woman’s face. Up-close, like this, I could see her much better. Her long black straight hair were hanging like a curtain around her face and her big blue eyes had a kinda “sun” around her pupil, right now her eyes looked worried. She had high cheekbones and smile-lines around her eyes. Her skin was young, unblemished and unwrinkled, so she didn’t look that old, but there was a kind of wisdom in her eyes that said she was older than she appeared. When she saw I had opened my eyes, she gave me a warm smile and said once more “Are you ok?”
“Yeah” I croaked. Urgh my throat was dry! Which was kind of weird since I’d just been through a stream of water. It hurt to speak. But she heard me and nodded continuing to smile and study me. “Can you stand?” she asked. I managed an “mmhmm” but she looked like she had her doubts, she helped me up. And the world swam. I stumbled a little over my feet and quickly grabbed for the woman’s arm. When the world steadied and I didn’t feel like I was going to introduce my butt to the ground once more, I took a look around.
Forest, trees, and nothing else. It was growing really close, so the only light you got was from above. This looked a lot like some of the big, big forests you saw on TV. Only the trees here were both taller and thicker. Really amazing ‘cause I’d thought the ones on TV were big, but no, it wasn’t near this.

“Where am I?” my voice, and probably my face, mirrored my confusion. The woman understood and told me “Well don’t you know? You’re home, don’t you feel it?” well I felt something, like now I was whole and I wasn’t before, was that it? “Who are you?” I said. At this her brows narrowed as if she didn’t understand the question. Then, totally taking me by surprise, she said “Well I’m your mother of course!”
No, I didn’t have a mother. Well, yeah Rosalie, but not a REAL mother. But why shouldn’t she be? No-one had ever known anything about the woman that supposedly had put me on the foster-home’s step, with only a note with my name, and left. Nobody knew her, no name, nothing. Well she did actually look a little like me (or I guess it would be ME that looked like HER then). Damn!! This was confusing as hell. I had through a stream to another place where some woman, which name didn’t even know, thought I was her baby-girl, her daughter. And all I had wanted that morning was some peace from thoughts. This was the strangest thing that had ever happened to me.

But maybe I should just go with these people. Yes, that’s what I would do, see what happened next. Maybe this was my supernatural adventure, and if I didn't go with them, I’d never get to have another go, right?
“Okay….. But I wanna know” I stopped to look around, and she nodded encouragingly to me, “Where EXACTLY am I?” She looked at me and then said “You are home. You are back in Codonia”. I stared at her in disbelief; cause was that really a name? I mean it sounded beautiful but I had never heard of it. It couldn’t be true, but she really was serious. “C.O.D.O.N.I.A” she spelled it for me, probably thinking I needed a little help from the dumbfounded expression on my face. “Okay, yeah I got it. Just….How can this be?” I almost cried out the last part and I really sounded like I was on the verge of being hysterical, which I, unfortunately, was.
I couldn’t take all this on a Sunday morning!
“We will explain it all, when we get you back to the castle” she said, her eyes were sparkling with joy. Then she turned around and began walking, obliviously expecting me to follow, so I followed. The little circle of people, which had gathered around us, parted so that we could get through, then they, too, followed her lead.