Traitor

By Lucy Avery

“Nothing is ever really lost,” he said, as he held his stone talisman to his chest, a small but perfectly formed replica of his own foot at the age of 4. “People get displaced, and sometimes they go so far into the wilderness they can’t see their way out, but…” He faltered looking down at the ears of corn as they shivered towards us in the breeze. Sidling closer to me so I could feel the chill of the stone between our chests he breathed in my ear, “they’re never really lost. I can feel the energy pulsating through me of all the people I’ve ever met… They want you to think that they’ve left your life, but they haven’t… You’re in their old school photographs, you appear as an extra in their dreams.”

“Does that mean I have to stay out here and miss dinner? If I’d known this was the beginning of a mission, I would’ve brought my parka.”

He grinned. “I thought you wanted answers. I thought you wanted to find him. This is where we start.”

“By digging a hole in Mr Jenson’s corn field?”

“It’s where the energies converge… We’ve got to get underneath soil level, see if one energy overrides the other.”

“And that’s why I had to bring the spoon and not a spade?”

“Correct,” he grinned again. “A spade will confuse the energies too much, it’ll diffuse them… This way they stay more potent…”

“And I miss Spaghetti Bolognese and rhubarb and custard for dessert!”

“We all have to make sacrifices. I thought you understood that?”

I took the spoon from my pocket and rammed it through his hand as he tried to hold me against him too tightly.

“I told you I’m not allowed to be late for dinner again. The mission is off. I don’t care if Rupert’s gone missing! He was the most rubbishyist brother ever!!”

I ran back to the house leaving Edward yelping in pain. I didn’t care if I hurt the only person who had spoken to me in this stinky new village. For all I knew he’d kidnapped Rupert himself and was hiding him in the forest. Just because he could see an aura of sadness around me and wanted to help, it didn’t mean that I wanted his help. I opened the kitchen door quietly and hurried into the bathroom to wash my hands before dinner. I shrieked as I saw the word ‘Traitor’ scrawled across my forehead in blood.

(c) Lucy Avery 2026. All rights reserved

Previously published on storieswithpictures.org