Lyla Brynn's Arc

Chapter 1 of 6

Lyla pressed her mother's worn dress to her nose and breathed in. The smell was almost gone now. She wore the dress every day because it was the last piece of her mother she had left. A man had stolen Lyla and her brother and sister from their home weeks ago. He locked them in a sagging shack deep in a swamp, far from any town. Lyla had promised herself one thing. She would get out and find her mother. Henry sat in the corner, scratching at the holes in his pants. He was eleven and smaller than the others. "The door's nailed shut," he said. "I already tried." Clara stood at the broken window, staring at the brown water outside. She was fifteen and the oldest. She had kept them alive by giving them her share of food. "The man rows out every morning," Clara said. "He's gone now. This is our only chance." Lyla crossed to the window. The glass was gone. Only a few rotten boards blocked the gap. She gripped one and pulled. It cracked. She pulled again, and it snapped free. "Help me," she said. Clara grabbed the next board. Together they tore it loose. Henry worked beside them, his thin hands bleeding on the splinters. One by one the boards came away until the hole was wide enough. "I'll go first," Clara said. She climbed through and dropped into the shallow water. It reached her knees. She held up her arms. "Henry, now." Henry squeezed through. Lyla lowered him down to Clara. Then she climbed out herself, careful not to tear her mother's dress on the broken wood. Her boots sank into the mud. They waded away from the shack. The water was dark and cold. Bugs sang in the reeds. Clara led them toward a line of trees on higher ground. Then Henry stopped. "Clara. Which way is home?" Clara turned in a slow circle. Swamp stretched in every direction. There was no road. There was no sign of where the man had taken them. Every direction looked the same. "I don't know," Clara said quietly. Lyla looked back. The shack sat small and dark behind them. They had gotten out. But now they were lost in a swamp with no food, no path, and no idea where their mother waited. A bird screamed somewhere in the trees. Lyla took Henry's hand and held it tight. "We keep moving," she said. "We find her. That's all that matters." They pushed forward into the water, leaving the shack behind. The way home was gone. But so were the walls that held them.