Elemental: Chapter Seven, Part 1

Chapter Seven: The Trees Have Eyes

Part of me felt useless with the children alternating their games to match the warming spring weather, trusting each other to be creative in altering them or creating new ones. There was still the occasional need to resolve a problem or patch up a scraped knee, but they were considerably more independent now. Not to mention much friendlier towards each other from when I’d first arrived.

Nick kept me entertained, a distraction from my former pastime. He would spin fanciful encounters of foreign lands and unconquered mountains crushing him in defeat. I couldn’t be certain what was true, but it was refreshing to laugh again, even if it was only because of faux chivalry.

One particular afternoon, we were lying side by side on the springy new grass, a color to rival Nick’s eyes. The children were running around playing a version of tag that would have had complaints of cheaters had any other group of children been involved. Michelle, Jake, Danny, and Kora judged what was fair and unfair according to the regulations I had set up in the winter. Of course, they had modified it so Nick would be more likely to believe all the tripping and mud slicks were not entirely out of the ordinary.

“What are you thinking about?” Nick questioned quietly. I felt his eyes on me as I followed a puff of cloud passing overhead, pondering briefly what would happen if I tried to change its path.

“Nothing really,” I said, for an instant believing I had seen something in the folds of fluff. Why did unrealistic things jump out at me when my mind was elsewhere? I guessed it happened to everyone, but it seemed so strange that it happened to me, even after I had spent so long practically ignoring things like clouds unless it rained.

“Want to do anything?”

“I don’t know,” I replied, tearing my eyes from the cloud and whatever it was or wasn’t hiding. “You?”

“Well,” he began, an uncharacteristic hesitancy to his voice. In the two weeks he had been here, he hadn’t been hesitant about anything, not even flirting with Lily to obtain some posters for his room. “I want to get to know you.”

Instead of saying anything, I tossed his statement around in my mind a while, wondering if I was willing to let him know me. I was somewhat tempted to laugh, even. No one had ever said they wanted to know me. Most people had just assumed who I was and I had felt compelled to fit that image. I learned to be really good at it, too, which was perhaps the saddest part.

“How?” I sat up to face him.

He followed suit. “Ever play questions?”