She was looking at him, he could see her in the lights, and he didn't know what she was looking for. He didn't know what to say, he just stared. He'd seen many things in his short life, many beautiful things both natural and purely fabricated, but he'd never seen anything like this. This was something you had to work and struggle and fight to find.
The sound of the water drowned out the other sounds of the forest and all that was left was the silence. The solitude of being alone with her miles away from his family and his van and his life. The only people in the world. It was an almost out-of-body experience as he followed her down the treacherous rocky path to sit beside the turning water before it fell into the waterfall. She stepped over the puddles that gathered and spun and stagnated in the starlight before moving on to join the current again. Finally, she came to rest on a ledge of stone, sitting and dangling her feet into the gently moving creek. Usually, Albert would be nervous, awkward, or at least confused as to what he should do, but ‘should’ seemed to be a meaningless word. The idea that there was any custom to follow or proper expectation for a situation so strange seemed ridiculous. He sat down beside her on the rock, partially because he wanted to but partially because what else was he going to do? Walk back?
He looked at the current that swirled in unfamiliar, unexpected shapes. He removed his damp shoe and sock, then he removed his dry shoe and sock. The girl didn’t say anything when, holding his breath, he put his feet in the water as well. He expected it to be cold, but he didn’t expect the brisk feeling to be pleasant on his feet after walking so far. He gasped lightly through his teeth at the sensation but the numbing feeling mixed with the ticklish sensation of the water currents moving across his skin. It was like the breeze but more substantial, he could feel it more clearly.
He didn’t know how long they sat there and stared into the water, how it reflected the moon and the stars and the silence. Time didn’t seem real either, in this portal outside of life. He watched the swirling water until his eyes lost focus and it all began to blur into streams of reflected light and hues of black and navy. He almost didn’t want to talk. Afraid of breaking the fragile, spider-web-like world they’d crossed into through that forest where it rested in thin strands above the reality. Still, he had questions, and he wanted to say something to her after coming so far in the middle of the night.
“I can see why you like it here.” He started, clearing his throat at the way his voice cracked with wonder and disuse. “What was that hole with the water all about?” He asked finally. He wasn’t the one to ask questions for fear he’d look stupid, but fear couldn’t find them when they were this alone.
“I was making a potion, to strengthen my resolve against Fallon.” She answered. Albert thought back to the game, the teenager she'd embarrassed without fear or mercy. Was that him? She didn’t sound bitter, maybe bitterness couldn’t find them here either.
“You didn’t actually drink it, did you?” He felt a little sick at the thought, but she just laughed.
“I’ll never tell.” Her mirth was only nurtured by his disapproving grimace. He remembered she sat in the dirt and added plants to a puddle she’d made. She stirred the brew clockwise with a discarded stick and muttered something he couldn’t hear.
“Is that what you were muttering about?” He asked. She looked at him quizzically as if she didn’t understand. “You were saying something but I couldn’t hear you over the game.” He explained. She shook her head, leaning forward so he could see her reflection in the water.
“I was singing, actually,” She said very quietly. She didn’t sound embarrassed, but she sounded like it was private. Something she wouldn’t readily share if he asked her during the day, in the real world.
“What were you singing?”
“My brewing song. I read it in a book a long time ago, I made up the melody myself.” She said, but she didn’t volunteer any more information. He looked at the water in silence again, listening to it crash infinitely on the rocks and pools of the waterfall below.
“What was the book called?”
“I don’t remember.” She threw a flat stone across the water and it bounced once before sinking. “I didn’t read the whole thing…once in a while I’ll go to the town and visit the library.” She revealed, “ And I’ll read page twenty-six of as many books as I can. It was in one of those books.”
Dodge.
“That’s…a fun hobby,” Albert responded, examining the shale for flat stones of his own. He supposed all of her hobbies were weird. “How did it go?” He asked, not thinking about what he was asking until the question was already out. She didn’t seem bothered by the request, but she did hesitate. Unsure if she wanted to share it. Finally, she turned to him and looked him in the eye. She looked at him like she could read his every thought, hear every word he’d spoken to her ghost that night. She looked at him like she could become him if she only looked hard enough, and she looked hard enough to make him believe it too. When she looked away Albert felt raw and embarrassed that he’d thought that from just a stare alone, but nonetheless, she seemed to find what she wanted.
She tucked her hair behind her ear and swirled her finger in the water, clockwise, as she sang.
“Distant see, the blinding light.
Persistently, the flame invites.
Resisting pain, to reunite.
I never feel the burn,
and know I will return.”
“In the valley, rest your head.
And take a tally of the dead.
Who lie beneath the mountains’ stead.
Who lie among the ferns,
and know I will return.”
The tune was low and sad, and scary. He felt the night grow ominous for only the moments before she finished the song. He felt how dark and wild the world around them was, and how no one knew where they were.
Then she looked at him again, and he felt ok. She was probably the scariest thing out there, anyway.
He could still hear the song echoing in the waterfall as they lapsed into silence again. It didn’t echo long enough as the words faded from memory, and he felt himself wondering what they were. They’d been very weird, and very pretty. It wasn’t like any lullaby his mom had sung, but it felt so close.
She stood suddenly, walking along the slippery rocks again on bare feet and Albert wondered if that made it easier or harder to keep balance. He stood as well, not thinking about his own discarded shoes by the creek's edge, not thinking about anything but following her. He didn’t know why it had happened so fast or so strongly, but those questions couldn’t find him there, and he was so clearly certain that he’d follow her anywhere.
He wasn’t caught sneaking back into the van. His mom was fast asleep in the back with the baby in her arms, apparently not having checked on them before lying down. Probably so she didn’t wake them. He snuck back into the van, exhausted from a night of adventure, and infinite things he’d need a lifetime to think about.
He thought of none of it, falling asleep instantly upon getting comfortable.
He went back with her to that waterfall, most nights actually. He didn’t mean to make it something so routine, but he couldn’t help it. He was inexplicably drawn to that place. To that girl.
He was ten years old, and she was nine. She was his only friend on the commune, however against his will it had seemed at first. He followed her around and she showed him all the best places to find lightning-bugs in the evening and tadpoles in the morning. She sat next to him at ‘school’ which was once again very different from what he was used to. The commune’s school was taught by Eleanor and it had different prayers. They said different things and weren’t as harshly enforced. Fred didn’t immediately like the new direction of faith, but he adjusted.
The local kids weren’t receptive to the girl, but she was callous to them so it was difficult to tell who’d actually started the animosity. They weren’t cruel, they mostly just ignored her and she kept to herself. All except for one.
Albert didn’t get the best first impression of Fallon, but the other impressions didn’t make up for the first. He wasn’t mean to Albert, but he seemed to be discouraging him from hanging out with the strange potion girl. He seemed to think he was doing Albert a favor by guiding him away from her and towards more normal children. He even seemed to like Albert, but it was easy to like Albert. He knew better than to ask questions or make demands. He didn’t challenge those around him. Not like she did.
It was a dreadfully hot day in the commune and the sun was nonexistent, hiding behind the clouds and the humidity as the earth steamed below it. Albert was watching from the grass as Fred taught his small friend circle to play kick-the-can. There was no litter in the commune, so they played with one of the wicker balls they’d learned to make in school. Albert was in ‘jail’, but he wasn’t disappointed. The weather and exertion had left him sweaty and in need of a break. Fallon sat a distance away but still beside him, under the shade of the shower building, talking with a slightly older girl. Albert probably wouldn’t have even known about the conversation if it hadn’t been for the subject.
“She’s been chasing me with a worm for, like, an hour.” The girl complained in disgust.
“Ignore it, it’s just a worm.”
“But it’s gross.”
“Of course it is.” Fallon sneered. Albert pursed his lips but didn’t look up. “She’s always gross.”
“I saw her kiss a rat!” The girl squeaked, making an exaggerated face of disgust.
Albert didn’t say anything, but he could feel his pulse rising behind his eyes. A beat, beat, beating that was as soft as the flapping of wings. In time with his heartbeat. He didn’t usually get mad but they were just being stupid. She wasn’t even there to say anything.
Whatever she thought to say would probably devastate them, and that would make them hate her more.
Albert didn’t do anything as they laughed at his friend, he just tried to focus on the game. He’d had a notoriously hard time focusing on things lately, especially when the girl was on his mind. He tried not to think about her soft hand on his or the way her compliment made his night or the way she showed him a place that made everything outside it feel petty and nonexistent. It was impossible to focus on anything else when he heard what Fallon said next.
“I could see it, the rats are her only friends anyway.”
“Are not.”
The two turned to look at him. He hadn’t meant for it to be heard, he hadn’t meant to say it out loud at all.
“Oh yeah?” Fallon goaded, standing up with a little effort and walking over to him.
“Yeah, she’s got friends.”
“Does she?” Fallon looked around in a swinging motion as if daring someone to come forward. “Drop it, Al,”
He hated being called Al.
“No… I’m her friend.” He still tried to sound casual as he refused to look Fallon in the eye. He didn’t care what the teenager thought, but he didn’t want to make a scene either. He knew better than to make demands of strangers.
“Are you? Ok.” he put his hands up mockingly as if he was going to back off. “Sorry tough guy, didn’t mean to insult your boyfriend.”
The anger building behind his eyes like a migraine rushed forward before he knew what was happening. The last thing he saw was Fallon's smug face as Albert stood and turned to finally look at him. His anger seemed to swallow his eyes and he went completely blind. It was red, like the sunlight shining behind closed eyelids, and it burned just the same as well. He didn’t know what was happening and he couldn’t feel anything, but he was too mad to be frightened. He was too mad to feel anything else.
Comments (0)
See all