Eternal: Chapter Eleven, Part 1

Chapter Eleven: Unstoppable, Unalterable

Mitchell, Valetta, Drei, and I arrived at the starting location, approximately two and a half miles from the reflecting pool. Even an hour early, there were quite a few people waiting—about forty or so. Nick had left the house a few hours before us to ensure everything was ready, review instructions with his men and women, and then post them at various locations around the start point. They would follow the crowd to the reflecting pool, where they would take predetermined surveillance positions.

The whispers started as we approached. I told myself the whispers had been there before we neared; they weren’t for us and certainly not for me.

But they were all about me; all that I could hear anyway. It was strange. The last time so many people had been whispering about me, I had lost control the day before at school and had an entire school paper dedicated to my freak out. That it was happening again made my heart race and my breath catch. I forced myself to breathe deeply and reminded myself this time the whispers were good.

“Thank you,” a woman said, walking up to me, taking my hands in hers and smiling. Her blonde hair was down, floating around her face in the gentle breeze of the day. “Thank you for fighting to give us normal lives.”

“Thank you for bringing it to our attention,” a dark skinned man with a thick southern accent said, smiling at both of us. “We never would have known what was happening, or that we could even do anything about it, without you.”

“She’s over here, Mommy,” a little girl shouted, tugging on a woman’s hand, her brown hair pulled back and her hazel eyes sparkling. Her mother looked nervous, though her daughter didn’t stop pulling her along. “It’s Leirba, Mommy. I told you she’d be here.”

“Of course, she’s here, darling;” her mother glanced apologetically at me.

Crouching down so I was eye level with the girl, I asked, “What’s your name?”

“Elizabeth,” she said, digging a foot in the ground. “My mommy and I saw you once when you were talking to people and then you were flying and it was so cool!” She looked up at me with large eyes, bouncing on her toes. “And I told her I want a doll of you for my birthday, because if they make dolls of TV people, then you should have a doll, too, right?”

Smiling, sensing Drei trying to hold back a laugh behind me and Valetta swatting his arm, I replied, “I’m not sure how the doll thing works, but if you ask your mommy really nicely, I’ll let you fly for a little bit.”

Gasping, she turned to look up at her mom; “Can I? Oh, pretty pretty pretty please, Mommy? Can I?”

Her mother asked, “Are you sure it’s all right. I wouldn’t want to be a nuisance.”

“It really isn’t a problem if you don’t mind,” I said, still smiling.

Glancing down at Elizabeth, she smiled, nodding. “Sure, sweetie. But don’t whine when she tells you it’s time to stop, okay?”

“I won’t, Mommy, don’t worry.”

Stepping back from the crowd of people around us, Elizabeth followed and asked what she had to do.

Holding out a hand to her, I said, “Don’t let go of my hand, and when I say jump, just jump a little into the air, okay?”

Taking my hand, she nodded energetically. I started up the circle of air beside her, keeping it slow and low to the ground to start. “Okay, jump.” In the second she was off the ground, I slipped the flow of air under her feet and circled it around me slowly, lifting her only about a foot high.

At first, she wobbled forward and backwards, trying to catch her balance. Then she kept glancing between me and her feet, as if trying to understand what was holding her in the air.

“Don’t move too much,” I warned her, “you might lose your footing.” After a while, she was holding her other arm out and waving to her mom, smiling and talking about how cool it was and how jealous her friends were going to be when they found out about it. She was having so much fun I couldn’t help but smile. And yet there was a small pang of sadness as I was reminded that my mom wouldn’t be there. Instead of burying the emotion, I embraced it, channeling it into motivation for what was coming.

When I told her it was time to stop, she didn’t complain. Elizabeth jumped down when I said to and took only a moment to regain her bearings before running to her mom and hugging her fiercely. She couldn’t seem to stop recounting the details and her mom just smiled, laughing with her and listening avidly.

“Thank you,” she said to me before they walked away.

Elizabeth ran back for a second, hugging me around the waist, saying, “Thank you! It was the bestest present ever!” I watched as she ran back to her mom and they joined a group of people they knew.

“A doll?” Drei said into my ear, a smile in his voice. He was struggling not to laugh, his lips twitching slightly in the effort.

“Why is that so funny?” I asked, hitting him lightly on the arm. “I thought it was cute.”

“It was very cute;” he smirked, his fingers smoothing the loose hairs around my face back toward my ponytail. “I just cannot imagine you, my love, as a doll.”

“What? You don’t think I’m cute enough?” I pouted, knowing it wasn’t what he meant at all, but enjoying teasing him.

“Now I never said that;” his lips curled even more. “I find you positively gorgeous.”

“Besides, a doll could never capture your essence,” Valetta added, patting Drei on the shoulder as if to tell him to shush now.

“And it would make you seem more…plastic,” Mitchell added, tapping his chin. “That sounds slightly inane.”

“Because it is?” Valetta offered, hugging him and kissing his cheek.

“I think I know what he meant,” I said, smiling, thinking of what Caroline would say when she heard about it.