Mary pulled the sheets over a now softly snoring Jonathan. She smiled. He looks so peaceful.

They had finished their dinner and she had helped Orlando in sorting through their luggage and piled up their clothes and other accessories by the side of their hay beds. It was easier to manage if they were carried in smaller units.

Grace yawned from her side and patted her shoulder as Mary lied down.

"They seem nice," Mary said, her back to Grace.

Grace seemed to ponder over the statement for longer than Mary would have expected. "They are quite secretive. I would have to say that. Still, they have shown politeness and now that we know those guards- the only hostile ones we came across, aren't related to these people and work mostly on and of their masters' volition, we can relax as they are tasked to protect the village. The old men however...I don't know what to say about them. They are hard to figure out."

"They are very creepy," Mary said, giving out a chuckle without humour.

"Definitely." Grace grunted.

"But that guy, Horatio. And Agnes and Mary. They seem genuinely nice. I think we can be good friends!" Mary looked at Grace from over her shoulder. She was frowning and Mary could not quite understand why. They were nice people! We had misunderstood their intentions and that's why we thought they had tricked and trapped us. So why is Grace still hesitating to believe in them?

"I don't know, Mary... It's still a bit too early to judge them I'd say. And...I don't like how direct that Anabel girl is. She is a bit too assertive. She is still a stranger to all of us and only has had a brief encounter with Jonathan before, yet she acts like she's known him for so long."

"Why, are you jealous?"

Mary saw Grace getting flustered, her face contorting in denial. She grinned.

"Why jealous? I'm a bit mad you can say. She's overtly trying to assert dominance upon my friend by doing things I should do, trying to get closer by force."

"My, you are jealous." Mary giggled softly.

"Hey, I said-" Grace stopped talking all of a sudden.

"What?" Mary turned over, but right then her ears picked up some noise. Voices. "Is something happening outside?"

"Sounds like it."

"Should we go, take a look?"

Grace was silent for a while. "Uhh, yes. But let's keep our distance. We don't want to get involved into anything again."

"I understand." Mary nodded.

They got up slowly. Beatrice and Orlando were sleeping together soundly. On the other side was Jonathan.

"Make sure not to wake them up," Grace murmured as she put on her slippers and quietly walked towards the barn doors. At night with the lanterns put out, the place seemed like a dark cave inside a hill. Mary quickly followed behind Grace and advanced ahead her.

"Ugh, Grace. These doors creak like hell!" she cautioned before opening them.

"Right, I remember."

For a moment they looked around for some solution, then spotted something.

"I think that is a door. It must be for smaller animals to pass." Mary pointed at one of the two smaller doors on each of the two large doors, near the bottom. Their wooden planks stuck out.

They tried to open it by undoing the latch. These did not sound so awful. And so, carefully, they passed through it and out the other side.

Mary felt the cool breeze on her face and immediately rubbed her hands. "It's cold here. But the air is so fresh."

"I think the noise came from there." Grace looked to her right. From here, a few other huts were visible, but mostly through the tall trees that lay in their path. "Come on." She pulled Mary up a rock and walked quietly but briskly through the shades, their path uphill at a minuscule slant. The sky peaking through the gaps of the tall trees was dark blue, almost black and stars came out- dazzling their brilliance in the void.

"There!" Mary saw small lights hover up and down in front of them that seemed to go a beeline throughout their left side. They were torches.

"Something's definitely amiss," Grace said, her eyes looking sharply in the direction, a flaring conviction dancing on her brows.

"Please, please, I'm begging you! Grant me an audience with them. This is urgent! Why even bind me and drag me all the way up here? I have done nothing wrong."

Mary froze in her place. Her eyes opened so wide, the wind pricked it with its cold touch, drying the sheen of water that was ever-present on them. It stung, and she quickly shut them close, letting lose a few drops from the corners of her eyes. But they were not tears of grief or happiness.

"Mary." Grace looked at her, uncomprehending of what was happening.

"How..." Mary's voice quivered in disbelief. "How did he make it all the way up here? How did he know? Why..."

Grace clasped her shoulders from behind, catching her and giving her warmth before she lost control over herself.

"Mary! We must go see him."

"They won't hurt him, would they?" she said in such a frail voice, one almost alien to herself.

"They did the mistake with us. They won't do it a second time. Plus, I think he has already uttered our names in their presence. That ought to make them believe."

Mary nodded, then slowly walked, but not for long. She was running before Grace could reach her. "Mary!"

"Walter!" She ran so fast, the pebbles shot out her side, the leaves crunched in agony, and the twigs broke as if in response to the tidal wave of emotions deep within her.

The boy bound by ropes turned around and collapsed to the ground upon seeing her, tears immediately spurting out his eyes as he screamed, "Mary!"

She fell on top of him with such force, the both lay on top of each other on the ground, each crying in their union.

"Why?" Mary sniffed. "Why are you here? How did you follow us?" Mary did not expect to see him here. This was absurd. She was crying in happiness now. After the horrors she had been witness to, the familiar face of his best friend brought her such solace that it was no longer possible for her to contain all the things she was feeling inside.

"Mary, I am so glad you are alright," he was still sobbing.

"What is it, Walter?" She wiped the tears from his eye with her thumb.

"Mary," he began, his eyes unable to look straight at her, "we have lost everything. Everything..." He wept. "But...but I am so glad I still have you. I have nothing left but you now."

"Hey, what... Come on, Walter. What has happened to you?!"

"Mary our village is no more!" He screamed. "No more... It burned to the ground. We no longer have a place to live."

All life inside Mary's eyes left her in that single moment. She felt like an empty shell.

Walter continued to weep, but Mary was just...blank. "Was it them? The villagers that threatened us earlier? Did they-"

"No. No...it was not them, but much worse. Much, much worse. It was an event I had never before seen. An attack I could never have imagined. I don't know what got their temper but..."

"Who...who did this?!" Mary shouted. She no longer noticed anything in the world except Walter's tear-stained face. The guards and people around her, who she knew were there, just seemed to have vanished from her comprehension in those very moments. All her focus was now directed to the words that escaped Walter's lips.

"Mary...it was a divine interference. An attack by the Sky Gods!"

And then Mary broke down, completely. She slid and fell off his chest and into the dirt, crying helplessly, her fist banging the the ground, then clasping and tearing the grass.

"I was in the cliffs. Upon Martha's bidding, I was taking the goats on a stroll, when I saw it happen. I watched it all unfold right before my eyes after I took shelter in the cave.

"The sky grew dark, malignant with its swirling shapes. It was ashy and black and... horrifying. Then there appeared balls of light. I mistook them for stars for only a moment until they shot for our village, a few grazing the rocks above me, but none directly in the line of my cave." His voice now shook with emotion as he mourned the cursed hour.

"Everything inflammable on the village was set on fire as the balls crashed into it with ungodly force. I managed to spot the others running towards the huts, for the shelter underneath. A few...died of the attacks. Mostly ki...ds." He hiccuped. "But I don't think many died. They all made it to the huts in time, mostly. But, our farms, livestock...all were taken by the attack. The huts didn't burn down, being made of stone, but everything else...just dissipated into the air, embers leaving dust in its wake.

"I wept in the cliffs till the madness was over. And then, I knew nothing else. Only one thing was at the forefront of my mind: I had to inform you all before you came back, because...you can't go home when no home awaits you. We'd starve before long if we stay there any longer. We have no carts to travel, but only yours." He sniffed and rubbed his eyes. "You can understand what is to be done now, Mary. What's our only option."

"Yeah..." Mary said in a broken voice, as she hauled her body up slowly, and faced the crowd that had gathered around. "We need to bring them all here, if we are to survive."