SciFi and Fantasy Stories: Keeper of the Lost

“Well, what do we have here?”

Jade jerked her head up from where she hunched over, rummaging through the piles of tattered junk. A tall, spindly, old man looked down on her. The cuffs of his sleeves were tattered, and the threads over his knees were so thinned that she could almost see through to the old knobby joints. Numerous locations sported odd-colored threads that held the old outfit together. She couldn’t tell what colors his fabrics were supposed to be, but years of use had worn the wrinkled clothes down to a mottled grey. A wide-brimmed hat covered a graying head and hung down in places were it obviously should have stood out.

She looking into his kind eyes and felt her stomach knot in misery and frustration. “I—I’m looking for something.”

The wrinkles deepened as his smiled widened. “Of course you are, my dear. There is no way to enter my domain if you’re not,” he commented as he extended his hand for her to take. “Come. I’ll be your guide, but first I’ll be your host. You like tea, don’t you?”

Jade looked at his long fingers, unsure whether she should trust him. He seemed gentle, but everyone had ulterior motives. Even this seemingly-kind old man could have sinister reasons for ‘helping’ her. No one was compassionate without reason. However, he did claim dominion over this strange world. If she refused, her situation could take a worse turn.

Her dirty hand reached out to grasp his, and he pulled her to unsteady feet. Standing next to the stranger, who was a good two feet taller than she was, she felt small and sullied—despite his ragged apparel. He hooked her small hand in the crook of his arm and started off, taking small steps so her shorter legs could keep up.

As they strolled down the winding path, heaped up on either side by great piles of odds and ends, she stole a glance up at him. In the same moment, his pale, blue eyes moved down to lock with hers. For some reason, she didn’t remember to cast her glance elsewhere and found herself simply looking at him.

“It’s been a while since someone like you has managed to find their way here,” he commented with a smile.

Jade swallowed and furrowed her brow. “Like me?”

“Yes,” he answered. It seemed like he was going to continue, when he suddenly stopped at a small, round table and two chairs. “Here we are!”

He motioned for Jade to take a seat. Rather than argue or push, Jade accepted the twisted chair. She stared at the old tablecloth as her fingers began an absent tracing of the faded blue squares. A small, yellow flower—half wilted—rested in a chipped vase centered between two teacups and saucers. The happy, little objected stared at her in brutal accusation, and she wanted to backhand it from the table.

“Would you prefer a plain tea or a fruit tea?” the old man asked as he glanced over his shoulder at her.

“Plain would be fine,” she murmured, glancing up at him. Her eyes doubled as she watched him reached into the air and pinched at nothing. As his hand moved in a horizontal line before his eyes a small tearing-sound filled the air. Jade watched as he reached into the same space, but his hand and arm up to his elbow disappeared! Her mouth dropped open when his arm reappeared, now holding a dented, metal teapot, shrilling as the steam escaped the small hole in the spout.

When he turned back to look at her, the stranger laughed—loud and freed. He set the pot down at the table next to her cup and took his seat. It was much too small for him, and his elbows and knees stuck out at odd angles making him seem very much like a giant insect.

“Who needs a stove when you have access to a realm as hot as that?” he questioned.

His warm voice jarred Jade out of her surprised stupor. Her head shook as her mouth moved to try and form the wild thoughts that sprinted through her brain. “What are you?” she demanded.

The stranger laughed and reached out to pour her tea. “That is a loaded question, my dear. Perhaps you should start with a more polite inquiry. Cream?”

How could he be so calm? He must realize how disturbed she was. Granted he owed her nothing, and she had come with him willingly. She knew nothing of him, and perhaps he enjoyed her discomfort. That would only be sensible. Well then, he would not see it.

“Please,” she answered, swallowing her frantic thoughts. “Do you have sugar?”

“Ah, there is a polite question,” he answered as he poured her cream. “You look like a one-lump-sorta-girl.”

“Yes.”

She sat in silence while he dropped the small cube into her tea. Her breathing began to slow as she slipped into her numb defenses. If he was going to toy with her, she would not show that it affected her. “What should I call you?”

The old man smiled and stood up—faster than she would have thought he’d be able to. He stooped low, sweeping his floppy hat from his head to hold it over his chest. “I am often called Drift. Welcome to the Land of the Lost. I am the keeper of this realm and have been for ages upon ages.” He straightened, a look of pride flitting across his face.

Jade noted a wistful look in his eyes as he smiled at her. “I’m Jade,” she offered.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you… Jade.” There was a look on his face seemed to say that he knew something she didn’t.

She couldn’t help but smile a little in return. Her mind told her to continue on her course of distrust and fear, but her heart reached out to him. What if he was really what he seemed? Perhaps not everyone was like those she’d known. After all, he’d indicated she was in some new realm, and it certainly seemed fantastic based on what she’d seen. Perhaps old rules didn’t apply.

He took his seat again and blew in the futile motion of attempting cool the cup of tea.

She took her own cup and wrapped both hands around it as if she was trying to warm them. “So you’re the keep here… Does that mean you know where everything is?”

Drift chuckled. “Oh, I wish it were so,” he sighed. “However, I must say no. Even I cannot know exactly where everything is. I don’t know of anyone or thing that would be able to keep track of every lost thing in every realm since time began.”

“It all comes here?”

“Every little thing,” he answered.

“However…”

She looked up at him. The way he said ‘however’ made her heart leap. Perhaps he would be able to help her after all!

“I know it doesn’t look like it,” he started as he glanced around, “but this place is fairly well organized. I’m sure if you told me what it is, I could help you find it.”

Jade cast her eyes over the landscape and raised an eyebrow. How could he call that organized? As far as she could see in any direction loomed mountains of junk, both strange and ordinary. Perhaps the old man had lost his wits as well as his touch with reality. Then again, what was reality? Jade certainly wasn’t where she remembered sobbing herself to sleep. Maybe she’d lost her wits.

“What have you lost?” Drift called her attention back.

Jade turned back to him and opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came. For a few more moments she was silent, searching for the answer. “I don’t know.”

“Ah…” Drift nodded in realization. “One of those. Follow me, my dear.”

She had little choice but to stand and pad after the gangly old man who moved ever faster though the expanse of litter and dust. “Where are we going?” she called out.

“As we walk, I’m going to ask a few questions. That will help me answer yours.”

Jade raised her eyebrow and shook her head. Whatever.

“Where are you from?”

“Gresta. I live in the capital.”

“How old are you right now?”

“Nineteen.”

“What age do you live in?”

“Huh?”

“What was greatest event to happen in your life—on a national or world-scale?”

Jade locked her jaw together as the dark images leapt to her mind. What business was it of his? How dare he pry into her private life like that? Granted it was a war between kingdoms, but to her, it was more than that. The monstrous acts of both sides had taken those who she loved more than anything in her life.

“Jade?” he prodded.

“The Great War of the Seas,” she snarled to keep from melting into tears.

“So you are still in the Age of Turmoil.” He turned to face her, his abrupt stop almost causing her to crash in to him. His long arm reached out, and he rested his hand on her shoulder. “The wars of that age touch every life. I am sorry that you have lived within it.”

Jade couldn’t help but raise her lip in a sneer. He didn’t know anything. But at the same time, she didn’t open her mouth to rage against him. The tiniest part of her wanted to believe he meant what he said.

As fast as Drift had stopped, he began on his way again, and Jade had to trot to keep up with him.

Before long the pair stopped before a vast field, littered with countless items of every shape and size. Drift stood with both hands extended as if he were showing off a grand feat or prized possession. “Here it is.”

“Here what is?” she asked. There was a little more acid in her tone than she intended, but she didn’t care. Drift needed to know he’d upset her if she was even going to hope that he’d avoid doing it again.

“Why—this is the Field of Gresta, of course. From the Age of Turmoil, if I am exact. We’ll just need to look here. What you’ve lost is sure to be among these treasures.”

“Treasures?” she scoffed. “I see a field of discarded trash—nothing worth anyone’s attention.”

“Tstststs,” he chastised her. “Nothing that comes here is trash. If it is not missed and mourned over, it could never pass into my lands. Everything before you once belonged to, and was cherished, by its owners.”

“Well I guess I’d better start looking,” she murmured as she stepped forward.

The vastness of the field was beyond her imagination, and yet for its size, she noticed very little of it. She knew the steep piles were made of countless things—from swords to little dresses—and yet she did not observe them. How was she supposed to find what was hers if she couldn’t even see what was there?

Jade was just about to turn to Drift and complain that they would never find what she was searching for—even if she knew what it was—when something caught her eye. Near the narrow path, a small wrinkled image poked out from beneath an old, tarnished silver cup.

She reached out and tugged on the photo. Her mouth dropped as she recognized the people frozen within. Laughing faces of joy jeered at her and her loneliness. But even as her teeth ground in anger, she remembered the day. That had been a good day—before the day.

“Did you find something?” Drift called as he approached from behind.

“No,” she answered, dropping the photo back among the lost.

Jade continued on, encouraged by the find of the photo. The chances of finding something that she’d lost were slim, and yet she’d already done it once. Her heart fell as she realized the chances of it happening more than once were worse still. However…

“Isn’t this you?”

Jade turned to find that Drift had picked up the photo she’d dropped. Her eyes widened in anger as she snatched the photo out of his loose grip. “Yes,” she snapped. She shoved the image into one of her inner pockets and turned to go.

“Who are the others?”

She froze. She had no desire to answer, but again, she feared repercussions of his unknown anger. “My brother and my sister.”

He didn’t press for more, and she wouldn’t offer.

The odd pair searched the hills of debris for a long time after without finding anything. Drift would follow along behind and Jade would wander in frustration and desperation.

“Oh, this is a lovely little poppet.”

Jade turned back to see what Drift was talking about. In his spindly hands he held a ragged doll—limp and lifeless. The dress was torn and the face was dirty, but the sight of it made Jade’s breath stop.

“Rosalie,” she whispered and she extended her hand to take the doll. “I lost her when I was still a little girl.” She rubbed her thumb over the worn, little face where the threading that made the blue eye was pulling out. “Mother promised to fix that for me,” she mumbled to herself.

Drift smiled down on her as his hand rested on her should. “Is that what you came to me in search of?”

Jade’s head shook, though she didn’t remove her eye from her precious doll—the last thing her father had given her before the early days of war called him away from his family—away to his death.

“No.”

“Then we should keep searching, yes?” Drift recommended.

Jade made a show of pushing her hair back so she could wipe her eyes without the strange old man noticing. “I suppose.”

It wasn’t long before Jade’s eyes drifted over a heap of shiny pieces of jewelry and books, both new and tattered. One piece of silver caught her attention. Jade dropped to her knees and reached out to pick it up.

“I thought you said that nothing came here that wasn’t missed or mourned.”

Drift approached and looked down on her with a sad smile. “I did, and that’s truth.”

Jade ground her teeth in rage and close her angry fist around useless trinket. “I didn’t lose this—or mourn it. I threw the wretched piece of trash away.”

“Oh, Jade…” His voice held more disappointment than she had ever heard directed towards her.

Drift reached out and tugged on the delicate chain creeping out from between her fingers. She didn’t offer up much resistance when he claimed the object. The strange individual gripped his shirt-sleeve in his hand and began to rub away the grime.

“You may not have missed it here…” He reached out and pressed the end of his long finger against her forehead. “But you’ve mourned the loss of your faith here everyday since you discarded this. Do you not remember the peace and the comfort you used to hold knowing you were cared for by those who directed your life?”

“They abandoned us,” she raged, turning on him. “They sunk my nation into a war that consumed our world. They condemned my father, my mother, my siblings, and my betrothed to death.”

Drift shook his head and tucked the silver medallion in his pocked. “Then this is not what you came in search of?”

“No,” she hissed.

“Then we should continue, yes?”

Jade lurched to her feet as a wave of nausea swelled over her. Throwing away the medallion of protection had been one thing—actively voicing the denial of her faith was another. “I suppose.”

The two pressed further into the field of the lost as Jade began to sink lower in her despair. She would never find what she had lost and she would remain stuck in her insanity forever. At least Drift wasn’t so bad—yet.

“Drift, what is this?” For the first time, she didn’t care that the strange individual could see her emotion. Looking at the pile before her was nothing short of breathtaking, terrifying, and wonderful. She could not comprehend how anyone could lose something of the likes before her—wouldn’t they hold such treasure tighter than life?

“Ah, this…” His voice was tight and sorrowful as he stopped next to her. “We have reached the center of the field of lost for this place and period.”

Jade swallowed as tears came to her eyes. The various colored orbs of glittering light tumbled around as if squirrels at play. They surged, and jumped, and pulsed, and showered as they swarmed around each other. Her heart leapt to her throat as her breath caught.

“Drift,” she breathed, “this is why I’m here!”

The Keeper of the Lost glanced down at his guest and offered a warm smile. “I thought as much. Let’s find yours.”

Together, they began to search the surging mountain of the oddities. Determination drove Jade on, even when the objects swirled around—teasing and refusing to be captured for a decent inspection. What were they anyway, and how had she come to lose something she’d never seen?

At long last, after many hours of searching, Drift and Jade met up again with a single of the odd things between them. The blue orb glittered but did not shift or flee like the others had. Jade looked down at it in awe and understanding. The moment she set eyes on it she knew it was hers. That tiny glowing thing had drawn her from her own realm into Drift’s.

“This is yours.” There was no question in Drifts voice, but it gave Jade the permission she need.

“Yes,” she answered as tears flooded her eyes again. She reached out, but the orb leapt away. “No…”

However, Drift was too fast for the object. He leapt to his feet, his long arm reaching out to snatch the illuminated sphere from its flight. He looked down at his clenched fist and began to speak. “Listen here. I am the Keeper of the Lost and you will obey me. Your mistress has come for you, and you are to obey her as you obey me.”

Jade swallowed. Drift’s voice had never seemed so demanding and powerful before, and she was glad for that. If he’d spoken to her like that from the beginning, she might have resisted him in fear and anger.

Drift looked up to Jade and offered his gentle smile as he extended his open hand. The glittering object resting there began to shift in shape from the sphere to a dove to her doll to the faces of those she’d loved and lost then back to the sphere.

The tears raced down her face unbidden and unheeded. “What is this, Drift?” she begged as she turned her eyes up to his kind face.

The old man smiled and knelt down. He rested his free hand on her shoulder and moved to press his other against her chest, just over her heart. “Dearest one, astray and alone, here in the Realm of the Lost, I return that which you have come to me in search of. Your innocence I restore along with your name. Cast off your jaded guise and embrace who you were always supposed to be.”

Jade collapsed in a flood of tears—both sorrowful and joyful. Her peace and her happiness returned when she recalled the name her mother had whispered in song over and over again when she was a child. Aurora, my child of the dawn…

In that moment, Aurora felt herself cleansed and made whole. No longer was she a filthy wanderer in a world she didn’t belong in. Her restored heart allowed her to see herself, Drift, and the Land of the Lost as it all really was. No more did she see an old, awkward man arrayed in tattered, old clothing. He stood straight and tall clothes in finery like she’d never beheld in her life. His eyes were gentle and his face kind—no change there—but they were set in the regal face of a grand and powerful master. She cast her eyes over the land and beheld a world of wonder and treasure just as he’d named it.

“Thank you, Drift!” she cried and she lunged into his arms, unafraid and uninhibited. “I cannot thank you enough.”

“Perhaps you can express your thanks by wearing this again?”

Aurora looked up to see that he’d pulled the medallion from his pocket and dangled it from his fingers. She extended her hand to receive her precious necklace and her eyes returned to his face.

“My brother gave this to me,” she murmured as she fingered it. “He said the Shepherd’s Medallion would protect and guide me if we were ever separated.”

“And did it work?”

She wiped her eyes and smiled. In that moment, she realized who had acted as her guide through the wondrous Land of the Lost. He was the powerful Aldrift—tender shepherd of the lost. “I think it did. Tell me, my Lord Aldrift, does all we’ve lost come to your realm?”

The man smiled in satisfaction. “Every one of them, my dear.” He swept his arm out to display his lands.

She followed his directing to see that, beyond the Hill of Innocence, a group of people stood, watching her with beaming smiles on each face. Her parents… Her siblings… Her beloved… They were all there!

Joy flooded her heart as laughter rang from her throat. Aurora leapt to her feet and bolted to her beloved family.

Lord Aldrift smiled to himself as he watched the joyous reunion. He shook his head and turned to allow his long legs to carry him away. The shepherd stopped and looked down in pity at a small, tear-stained boy, lost and rummaging through some of the treasures.

“Well, what do we have here?”