Elemental: Chapter Five, Part 5

Once he was gone, the children began their games again. Walking closer to the cabin he had disappeared into, I pretended to observe the children playing in their separate groups, but I was really trying to figure out how to bring the inside conversation to me without it being too obvious. I wanted to fulfill Drei’s expectations of me and prevent any trouble below—I had already noticed the difference between those with stronger powers and those with weaker, I wasn't sure that would be a problem since they seemed to play well together. However, I had a feeling the vampires were talking about me.

The thought of treating the air like a rope and pulling the conversation to me came suddenly and ingeniously. Taking immediate action on the idea, splitting my concentration—okay, so I was less concerned with watching over the kids—the first trickling of conversation reached my ears.

“—needed protection,” Drei was saying.

Another voice piped in, supporting him; “She is an air elemental, and might be the one of which Gloria dreamt.”

A feminine voice fought back; “She lost control, Drei. Even this far away the news stations were broadcasting the story.”

“Lori has a point,” a masculine voice agreed. “Even if it is reported as mere gossip, bounty hunters never leave anything alone.”

“On top of that,” someone—more than likely Valetta—added, “she ran away. They will interpret it as guilt.”

“Or,” Drei argued, “they will view it as a quest for her mother, disbelieving her father when he admitted she was reported dead.”

“You planted that on purpose,” an angry voice rose up.

Drei wore a smirk in his voice as he said, “As a scapegoat. I knew we needed one—for her safety.”

“And what of everyone else’s safety?” a new voice demanded.

“Yes, what of everyone else?” Lori questioned, her voice level though still livid. “You would risk the entire operation on a child we cannot even verify is the right one?”

“Trust—”

The conversation broke away as a mud ball hit my arm and splattered across my shirt. A fight had broken out between the two groups of children, leaving a discombobulation of mud in their wake.

I ran into the chaos, yelling at them to stop, demanding what was going on. It took them a moment, but eventually they separated into their groups, shooting daring glances across the distance between them. Though I had never babysat or had any siblings to practice on, some undiscovered maternal or sisterly instinct came over me. “One from each of you. Who started the fight?”

The groups vomited forth a person each. A girl with long, fair hair and bright blue eyes dug a foot into the mud, standing before her counterparts of water elementals, clots of mud caught in her locks and smeared across her dress. The earth elementals relented a tanned boy with shaggy, chocolate hair and cinnamon eyes, soaked through, looking like a drowned hamster.

“What happened?” I asked gently, not wanting them to feel as though they were in enough trouble to keep quiet.

Each pointed furiously at the other, shouting their side of the story in a collision of words that made no sense at all.

“Stop!” I yelled to be heard over them, quickly feeling a headache coming on. Their eyes fell to the ground again, taking in the soggy messes they had become. “You start,” I suggested, turning towards the boy. “Start with your name.”

“Danny,” he said softly. Then his head jerked up violently as he pointed cruelly at the girl, screaming, “She started it. She wouldn’t leave us alone and was ruining all of our castles and sculptures!”

Immediately she reacted with her own screeching, the words lost in his furious volley of response.

“Cut it out!” I screamed, this time failing to be heard in the rising raucous quickly engulfing all of them. For a moment, I stood despaired, uncertain what to do. Mud began flying again and a large pat of it slapped me in the cheek, ending my indecision. “ENOUGH!” I shrieked, sending mini gales in each direction, further separating them but efficiently silencing both parties. I suddenly felt as if I were caught up in an ugly political debate or a loveless version of Romeo and Juliet. That feeling definitely wasn’t helping my growing headache.

“You,” I exhaled, turning to the girl. “Speak.” I quickly turned again to the earth elementals and glared, daring them to renew the fighting.

“I’m Michelle,” she pouted. “Nothing would have happened if their stupid dirt had stayed over there and hadn’t gotten into our water.” Michelle turned her face up toward mine, a pleading look for sympathy in her aquamarine gems. “Water gets so heavy with dirt in it, and then it isn’t any fun because it’s not pretty or clear.”

“And air is heavy with arguing when little—” I paused, not wanting to call them snots or anything excessively inappropriate. “—children are not playing well together.”

All of their heads ducked down, and I felt slightly like the bad guy in a fairytale. But they needed to shape up, really. There was no reason they had to even separate. This was almost worse than Drei’s assumption they teased the kids with weaker abilities; it almost broke my heart seeing no one get along.

I bit my lip, unsure where to go from here, the surge of sisterly instinct dissipating. “Go change into something clean and then come back. We’re going to do something to get you all together.” The start of a plan was on the tip of my mind. I hoped sending them off for a short while would give me enough time to lure it out and develop it into something more complete.