CHAPTER 22
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I had to stand on my toes to reach the door knocker on the manor.

Knock. Knock. Knock. That should do it, I thought, and waited… The door opened with a squeak eerily similar to the screams of a dying goat. Nobody stood inside awaiting me, everyone was probably asleep, and perhaps the door was automatic like Edelfelt’s. The manor’s interior was a lot less scary than I had expected. My muddy boots left marks on the light floor planks.

“Hello?” I said. The door shutting behind me was the only response I got.

The manor had an H-layout, with the four story tower being in the dead center. I tiptoed up the spiraling staircase, running my hand along the naturally uneven tree-branch railing. The hole in the middle of the spiral grew the further I ascended. Candles on antlers bunched together into chandeliers, provided warm, yellow lightning the entire way. They were hung in a chain from the ceiling, down through the spiral hole. I thought it’d be most logical to check the tower first. Maybe my sister was locked up like that princess I once read about; Rapunzel.

The spiral staircase ended on the third floor, statues of knights in full armor lined the hall stretching from one end of the manor to the other. I looked up at the ceiling to find a way into the tower. A chain hung down from from a hatch, tried to reach it by jumping. My middle finger touched the end of the chain, but couldn’t grab it. Needed something to stand on, something to reach the chain. I headed over to the nearest knight, he held a polearm that had caught my interest because of the curved, hook-like piece of metal extending out of its side below the pointy tip. I swung the VRC onto my shoulder and I pulled the polearm out of the knight’s hand.

Oops. The entire statue fell over, and crashed into the ground. The armor broke apart as if I had pushed an entire kitchen pot rack over. There was no way it hadn’t awoken the entire manor. Rushed back to the hatch and extended the polearm, took some fiddling before I got it through one of the chain holes. I pulled the chain, opening the hatch. Down came a ladder, which slammed the floor so hard it indented the wooden planks. Now they definitely knew of my presence.

I climbed the ladder, and peeked over the hatch opening. Finally. Maria, fast asleep in a corner of the room, still in that white dress from Haraldstown. I threw myself onto her, hugging her, holding her hand, sobbing and saying: “Maria.. I missed you so, so much.. You’re okay now, I’m here for you.. We’re going home, to mother.”

“Leah..?” She half opened her eyes, seeming very tired.

“Yes, it’s me.. I found you,” I said, “did they hurt you..?” I’d never let go of her again, ever.

“No.. I’ve just been picking a whole lot of bananas with some kind men,” she told me.

Except, she didn’t. The room contained a telescope, maps of stars, and balls orbiting an electric lightbulb that was probably supposed to represent the solar system. There was no sign of life except myself, no Maria in sight.. I felt my heart sink, and my body getting weak, like I was about to faint. Tried to keep my hopes up. The manor was big, maybe her room was elsewhere. I climbed back down the ladder with heavy steps. My boots clacked onto the floor as I jumped off the bottom of the ladder.

“You lost, little girl?” a deep voice asked behind me. I took the VRC off my shoulder and swung around, hitting the person with a deep voice in the head with its stock.

“Aw, what the hell did you do that for?!” the voice roared at me, I had knocked off his nightcap.

“WHERE THE FUCK IS MY SISTER?!” I screamed off the top of my lungs.

“How the hell am I supposed to know??” He had been hit hard enough that some blood ran down his face, he wiped it off with his hand.

“What’s your name??”

“Joe Barth!”

I shot him in the foot.

“WHAT THE FUUUUUUCK!” Joe skipped around on the food he hadn’t been shot in.

“You bought a girl in Haraldstown, that girl happens to be my sister,” I growled, “if you want to wake up tomorrow, you give her to me.”

“Woah, woah, woah. Harald buys my bananas, in exchange for MO-NEY, that’s all the business I have with him. I think his auction is pretty messed up!”

I shot Joe in his other foot, he fell backwards onto his ass.

“Don’t try to bullshit me, I saw your name in the sales records!” I yelled.

Joe wagged from side to side in pain: “ASK HIM YOURSELF! HE’S STAYING HERE FOR THE NIGHT WHILE WE’RE DISCUSSING NEW TRADE TERMS!”

I rolled my eyes: “It’s like you’re asking me to hurt you.. I know Harald is dead.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call me dead,” a voice I had heard before said, one I thought I’d never have to hear again. A cocked gun was put to the side of my head: “You see, branches happen to be very good at dampening a fall.” I turned my head a little, and could see him in the corner of my eye, a cast around his neck, and bandages all over, but I recognized him; Harald Lowell.

“I just want Maria..” I said, “please…”

This Joe Barth takes interest in nothing but coins for his bananas. What he told you is true,” Harald replied.

“Then where is my sister?!”

“It doesn’t matter now, does it? You’re coming back to Haraldstown. McDowell has missed you very much, I tried to refund him due to the thirty-day money-back guarantee, but he wouldn’t let me.”

“No..” Joe said under his breath.

“Huh? What’s that?” Harald asked him.

“I just- I mean, is that really a good idea? She’ll end up escaping again, and that’ll cause more inconveniences for you, isn’t it better that she just stays here and, uh, picks bananas to repay for what she did to me?”

“Oh Joe.. You aren’t interfering in my business matters, are you?” Harald sighed, “let me take her with me and I’ll double the weekly banana shipments. I’ll even pay 50% more per banana!”

Joe held his tongue and fiddled with his hands.

“Too good of an offer to resist?” Harald wondered.

Joe looked down at his thumbs which he had pressed together and was wagging back and forth.

“Take her..” Joe said, money had gotten the best of him.

“Glad we could come to an agreement,” Harald replied, “I’ll send someone over with the contract as soon as I get back to my newly renovated office.”

He ripped the VRC out of my hands, grabbed me by my hair, and forcefully brought me with him down the spiral stairs.

“Where have you been all this time?!” Harald sent me tumbling onto the floor when we got to the bottom of the stairs.

“dOeSn’T mAtTeR nOw, DoEs It?” I mocked him.

His eyes had turned black. I was kicked in the ribs, my lungs felt like they stopped working.

“ARE YOU REALLY GOING TO SPEAK TO ME THAT WAY AFTER ALL YOU DID YOU WORTHLESS LITTLE BITCH?!” Harald screamed in my ear. It rang long after he had finished.

Couldn’t respond. All my focus was dedicated to trying to breathe.

He pulled the front door open, and dragged me up from the ground by my hair. Surprised it didn’t rip right off my scalp.

Harald tossed me out the door, I rolled in the mud outside. The rain had far from calmed down. Thunder roared as he picked me up, once again and led me towards the gate. Mike and the others caught sight of us and raised their weapons. Harald pushed my back to his chest, putting his gun under my chin.

“TRY ANYTHING AND I’LL BLOW HER BRAINS OUT!” he yelled at them.

A flash of lightning allowed Mike to catch a glimpse of Harald.

“Leah.. You said-” Mike was interrupted.

“That I was dead?!” Harald laughed, “Oh Mike, I don’t go down that easy, you filthy gardener!”

“Let her go and we’ll let you walk out of this!”

“You helped destroy my beautiful town, didn’t you? Filthy fucking rat! I’m the one with the upper hand here, so you’re going to let us leave, and if you ever set foot in Haraldstown again, I’ll have Leah killed before you have time to do anything about it. That’s a promise!”

I took action, used my right arm to elbow Harald in his gut, threw my head backwards, and pushed the barrel of his gun away from me. The muzzle flash left a dark spot in my field of view, and the bang muted the sound of rain and thunder. Moved my hand up my right leg, then shot the brass pistol straight up into the sky. It left black soot in Harald’s face, blinding him.

“AAAAAH MY EYES!!” he let me go to rub his eyes.

I dashed towards the gate, giving Emily a clear shot, I trusted her aim more than Mike’s. A red flare lit up the sky. Emily’s flintlock pistols went off, one after the other. Squeezed through the gate, the rain must’ve lubed it up because it was much swifter this time. I jumped into Mike’s arms crying. Perhaps I was glad I was safe, or maybe I was devastated because Maria was still missing. Looked back at Harald, he laid face down in the mud, gun in one hand, and the VRC beside him. The airship broke through the clouds, and the ladder swayed violently in the wind. Mike set me down and caught ahold of it. The lower part’s plank steps, bit off by Nessie, had been replaced with ropes. I was the first to climb up.

“How did it go?” Grimmington asked when I got over the railing onto deck.

“She wasn’t there…” I told him.

“What do you mean? You sounded pretty certain Mr. Barth had her.”

“Maybe there’s another Joe Barth in the valley, I don’t know..”

Like a sail, my dress almost blew me off the ground. I held onto the railing to not fly away. Mike, followed by Emily, Connor, Fu, Ri, and Abo climbed onto the deck one by one. Grimmington brought the airship higher up, we drifted away from the Manor. Peg-leg reached the top of the ladder and climbed aboard.

Mike came to me with a lowered gaze: “I’m so sorry.. It seemed so logical that it’d be this Joe, with his close ties to Harald and all…”

“We’re back where we started, aren’t we?” I said, “all the shit we went through.. For what?”

“I quite enjoyed this adventure, if I could say so myself,” Grimmington said.

“Oh, good for you.. There’s only one problem with that, Maria is still missing! Do you know-” I took a breath, “do you know what they could’ve done to her by now..?”

“I guess you’re right, perhaps it’s better to call it a day. It’s not like she’d recover from such a traumatic experience.”

I wanted to hit him so, so bad, but didn’t.

“No! We’ll keep looking, start asking around, maybe someone can help us find the correct Barth,” Mike said.

“For how long?” Grimmington asked, “how long until we abandon the search? When we run out of money? When we all end up like Bò, or worse?”

“We won’t die, and some odd jobs here’n’there can provide us with an income to keep going.”

“Let’s return home and think about this, we need to devise a new plan anyways.”

Turbulence shook the airship as it passed through the angry clouds. The humidity lessened, and I could see the moon again. Rather calming seeing the purple flickers in the fluffy clouds.

“Oh, you brought one of those onto my airship,” Grimmington had just now noticed Abo.

“Wat do yo meen?” Abo asked.

“I’ve heard your kind has been targeting the weak, robbing carriages driven by elders, beating up young men going on about their day, and behaving like animals around women.”

“Dat is not me. I do honast werk.”

“Sure you do, but for every good negro there are at least a hundred bad ones, and do we really want to take the risk? Think of the children!”

“Come on, where are you getting those numbers from?” I interrupted, “Father always told me to ‘treat others the way you want to be treated.’ You haven’t even talked to this guy for two minutes, and he’s the reason we found Barth’s manor!”

“I told you where it was, you would’ve found it anyway.”

Grimmington was losing my respect, rapidly.

“I’m sorry for this,” I told Abo, “can we drop you off at Bananatown?”

“It is oke Lea. I’m used to dis, but ye, Bananatown is faain.” Abo said.

Grimmington looked out over the whirling clouds, and steered us towards a circular spot that had formed; a hole in the fluff.

“Looks like Bananatown is in the eye of this hurricane here, I’ll get as close as I can,” Grimmington said.

“Can’t we just wait it out? It doesn’t sound very safe,” Mike asked.

“No, no, I’d like to get this over with. Is that okay with you, Amu, was it?”

“It’s Abo. Wi caan do it noow.”

Grimmington smirked in a way that made me question whether or not he had Abo’s best intentions in mind. The starry sky got smaller as the eye engulfed us. Soon my vision was pitch black. Grimmington lit an electric torch and pointed it at where the rope ladder hung: “We should be a few meters above the ocean right by Bananatown. I don’t want to get too close for obvious reasons.”

One side of the circular cloud wall moved in on us, my hair started swaying lightly again.

“Yo want mee to jump?” Abo wondered.

“Yes, quick now before we get caught in the hurricane.”

“Goodba’ Lea, I hop yo fand ya sista.” Abo climbed over the railing.

“Hope your family is okay in the storm,” I said, putting the hair flying in my face behind my ear. Abo’s head disappeared below the side of the ship.

“Leah, will you let me know when he jumps so I can get us out of here?” Grimmington asked, blinding me with his light.

I put my hands on the railing, and leaned over. Abo was halfway down the ladder. It swung side to side. A powerful gust of wind pushed me. My hands slipped off the wet wood. I tipped over the railing. 

“LEAAAH!!!” I heard Mike scream.

My stomach smashed into Abo’s bald head, causing him to lose his grip.

We both fell, more than a few meters. Sucked into the wall of clouds, I spun around. It no longer felt like I was travelling downwards, more horizontally. Eventually something wet and cold scraped against my skin, slowing me down, Harald was right. I landed on a snowy slope.

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