Begin to Hope

After traveling for an insanely long time in Farley's rubbish car, the three of us were extremely cranky. Orlando complained of body aches, I was tired and thirsty and wanted out of the car, and Farley just couldn't take all of the noise we were making. We were almost all fed up by the time we reached our destination.

The three of us stumbled out of the car and looked around, blinking in the sunlight.

"This is where you hid the necklace?" I asked stupidly.

We were in the middle of a large, flowery field. It was exactly as one might picture it; a few lone willow trees, but otherwise nothing could be see in any direction but weeds for miles and miles. Small clumps of wildflowers grew in patches all over the fields; the scent of them wafted over to us in the slight breeze. It was overall, very picturesque.

"It's really beautiful here, isn't it?" Farley said, sighing happily. I eyed him like he was crazy and he straightened up and recovered.

"I mean--I thought no one would ever find the necklace if I hid it under a willow tree here in this field. Who would ever think to look here, in the first place?"

"Where are we, anyway?" Orlando asked, yawning, showing off the fact that he hadn't been paying attention to where Farley was driving.

"We're in southeast Germany. But I shan't say anymore, because maybe I don't want either of you to know the exact location." He waggled his eyebrows up and down, as if to show us that he could be secretive.

I exchanged glances with Orlando, and I realized we were thinking the exact same thing: Farley is an idiot.

"Anyway, where is it?"

He looked around the field, breathing in the fresh spring air deeply. "Go get a shovel out of the trunk of the car, will you, Kerry?"

I looked at him hesitantly, but he motioned for me to go forward and I went to the back of the car and popped the trunk, taking out three shovels. I clumsily managed to gain hold of all three of them, close the trunk, and stumble back to Farley and Orlando.

"Okay. Grab a shovel. We're off to find the spot where I hid it!"

I narrowed my eyes at him as I hoisted the smallest shovel over my shoulder. "You don't remember where you hid the necklace?"

"Well, it was--under a willow tree."

"Farley, there are a dozen willow trees in this field. And it stretches on for miles. It could be any of these."

"No, this willow tree distinctly had a lot of branches."

I glanced around at the few trees billowing in the wind. They all seemed to have the same amount of branches to them.

"They all look the same." Orlando glanced around, looking confused. He looked at Farley, expecting him to point out the correct tree.

"Well--er--I think it's this one." He pointed to the nearest tree and picked up his shovel and strutted toward it.

Orlando leaned over to whisper in my ear, "I have a feeling this is going to take forever."

I started to giggle but Farley quieted me with a yell from up ahead.

"No talking! Follow me!"

We reluctantly followed after him with our shovels in tow. By the time we reached the tree Farley was already on his knees, digging through the ground with his hands. He was getting the wet dirt from the last rain all over his clothes, leaving muddy handprints on his shirt and pants.

"What are you doing? Why don't you use a shovel? You're getting all dirty!" I tried to hand him a shovel but he pushed it away.

"I don't need that!"

"How far down did you dig?" Orlando asked, kneeling beside Farley.

"Six feet, mayhap? I don't know. I didn't count!" He yelled, flinging dirtclods haphazardly over each shoulder.

"Watch where you're throwing those!" I ducked to avoid a large rock being heaved at me.

He muttered an apology as he continued chucking them backwards. I stepped in front of them, beside the tree as Orlando joined Farley, making a mess of themselves.

"I don't think you're going to get six feet under digging with your hands."

Neither of them replied.

"This is ridiculous." I tried to ration with them. "You're both stupid."

Farley tried to throw a rock at me but I jumped back.

"Farley!"

"Help us dig." Orlando said, scratching at a large rock that was half-buried.

"I don't want to get dirty."

"Use a shovel." Orlando suggested.

"No! You'll hurt the necklace! ...If it's still here." Farley leaned back on his knees to scratch his face with his right hand, leaving a black imprint.

"You didn't put the necklace in like a box or something?"

"There was no time! Now keep digging."

I didn't move, but continued to watch them for some time as they made almost no progress. The dirt was all wet and it kept sliding back down into the hole, causing the two to curse uncontrollably.

"What are we doing? This is stupid!" Farley whipped out his wand and silently conjured up a nonverbal spell, causing all of the dirt in the hole to move by itself to another spot about four feet away. He kept concentrating, and the dirt kept moving away, until after about three minutes of this he finally stopped.

He wiped a bead of sweat off of his forehead, looking down into the hole, which had grown quite large. "The necklace should be right here, now." He reached down the hole, nearly losing his balance, and scraped around with his fingernails.

He muttered something under his breathe, and Orlando and I exchanged glances again.

Finally Farley stood back up, triumphant.

"I found it!" He held up the necklace, which was now covered in brown dirt.

"Ugh, that is disgusting."

He examined it thoroughly, looking it up and down completely. "It looks fine to me." He put the necklace on over his head.

"Jinx me," he said to Orlando.

Orlando looked at me. I nodded at him to go ahead.

He shrugged and raised his wand.

"Rictusempra!"

And as we had expected, nothing happened.

Farley took the necklace off, content that everything here was alright.

"And we're off to go back home!" He dropped the necklace in the hole, picked up his unused shovel, and headed back toward the car.

"But--aren't we going to bury it again?" I asked, watching him walk away.

He waved his wand over his shoulder and the dirt shifted to fill the hole.

"That's all we're going to do? Shouldn't we take the necklace home with us?"

"No!" His shout was muffled, as he was standing by the car, his head buried in the trunk.

"But we came all this way and that's all we're going to do?"

"What else is there to do?" Orlando asked, lifting his own shovel to his shoulder and heading off.

"Exactly!" Farley yelled, standing up quickly and hitting his head on the trunk of the car. "No more for else to do. Get in the car, Kerry."

I glanced around the field once more, just to be sure that nobody had followed us here. All I could see was weeds in all directions, and nothing else stirred.

Except for.. what was that in the distance?

"Farley." I said, still looking at the moving figures advancing on us. "What's that?" I pointed in the distance at what looked like an entire caravan of sorts, that consisted of at best twenty or thirty men.

He closed the trunk and looked up at the direction in which I was pointing. "Oh... shit!"

"Get in the car, get in the car!" He started shrieking. He ran around to the driver's side and threw open the door and jumped inside, closing and locking it behind him.

"But what is it?" I screamed. "Should I get the necklace?"

"No! Leave it! Leave it! Get in the car!"

"But we can't leave the necklace!"

"GET IN THE CAR!"

Following his orders but wondering if I was doing the right thing, I ran to the car as fast as I could, leaving the shovel on the ground.

I hopped in and slammed the door shut behind me. Farley pressed his foot on the gas, hard, and we were off just in time, as the caravan of men stormed into the spot we had just been sitting in.

We flew into the air, just trying to get out of the area, while I looked back.

"Who are they? Death Eaters?" Orlando asked, stretching in his seat, trying to get a good look of the men below.

"They have to be. But fuck! How could they have known we were here?" Farley slammed his fist onto the dashboard as he swore.

"Someone must have tipped them off."

"Or they followed us here. We should have been more careful!" Farley gripped the steering wheel tightly in both hands, his knuckles turning white.

"What if they follow us?" I looked back again to see them talking in a circle. "What if they have brooms?"

"We'll have to lose them," Farley replied determinedly. He veered the steering wheel sharply to the left and we all hung on to the right side as he slid the car bumpily into the clouds, losing sight of the ground below. The wind whipped past us as we sped through the clouds, gaining much needed space between us and the men.

We traveled for a good amount of time, before I realized that we were nowhere near Bristol.

"Where are we?" I asked, peering out the window to no avail. We were still high above the clouds and there was nothing to either side of us that wasn't pure white cloud.

"I don't know."

"Shouldn't we be going home?"

"No! We have to lose them first."

"But what if they weren't following us? What if they weren't even bad?"

He rolled his eyes at my stupidity. "What else would they be doing there, in that large field, other than trying to catch us?"

"I don't know. Maybe they were land developers."

Orlando laughed at my suggestion but Farley ignored me and kept driving.

After about another hour dark had fallen and we began to worry what the others were saying.

"They'll be able to take care of themselves for a night, don't you think?"

"But what if they go looking for us, or something?"

"They wouldn't be that foolish. They don't have a clue where to look, and they wouldn't go running on a wild goose chase!"

I shrugged. "A few of them might..." I replied, thinking of Klaus.

He didn't reply.

An hour later and we still hadn't reached our destination, wherever that was.

I was about to fall asleep, until I noticed out of the corner of my eye something speeding toward us. I turned toward it, now fully alert, and was shocked to find that they had indeed followed us.

"Farley--move!"

"What? What is it?"

"They've found us!"

"This is not good, not good."

"I know."

"No, I mean--we're almost out of gas. We have just enough to land."

"We can't land! They'll find us!"

"There's a forest up ahead." Orlando said calmly, pointing through the windshield to a small patch of trees. "Try and land there."

Farley veered right and within a minute we were just about to land.

"Okay, this is the plan," he started to say as he prepared to crash land us roughly. "We're all going to jump out of the car and run in different directions. Keep running. Don't stop for anything. If one of us gets left behind, well, then that's that."

I stared at Farley in shock. "Shouldn't we stick together? That seems too cruel!"

"No! We have to run in different directions, that way they won't be able to catch all of us in one shot."

I turned away from Farley, thinking that I wouldn't leave either of them behind, even if my life depended on it.

Especially not Orlando.

With a loud cry, Farley hit the break roughly and the car crashed to the ground, making a huge squealing noise as it slid across the forest floor. I screamed and ducked below the seats as the car finally slid sideways into a tree.

"Go! Go! Go!" Farley was screaming, but the door and window on the right side of the car had caved in and the glass had all smashed in, littering the seat and floor with it. The right side of my body was covered in glass and had started to bleed, but before I could cry out for either one of them, they were gone. Ignoring the surging pain in my body, I moved to the left side of the car and weakly pushed the door open and hobbled out. I almost toppled out, my right leg was so weak. I looked down at it and noticed a huge slice of glass had lodged itself right above my Achilles tendon.

I gave a cry and bent over and ripped out the piece of glass, knowing I wouldn't be able to walk with it in there otherwise. Putting all my weight on my other leg, I managed to limp my way over to the nearest patch of trees and throw myself down behind the largest of them, in extreme pain the entire way.

I quieted myself down by shoving my fist in my mouth, trying not to make much noise as I peered around one of the trees in time to see the men touch down from the sky and walked over to the car and examine it.

There were about twenty of them, all dressed in dark robes and carrying their wands out in front of them. They were talking in low whispers and I couldn't hear a thing they said.
I realized I was shaking like a leaf and I took several deep breathes, trying to calm myself down. I hoped that Farley and Orlando had gotten far enough away, at least, even if I hadn't.