When he could see again, he was actually staring at the sky. The white cloudy sky with no sun was still bright enough to make his head hurt as he felt the ground beneath him. The leaves itched on his calves and arms, and the sticks poked at his skin. His stomach rolled when he tried to turn over and he found he couldn’t breathe properly. He didn’t remember much from the recovery of what had happened. He remembered his mom yelling distant profanities at another adult. He remembered being cleaned up and talked to by Jim, the man who’d introduced them to the rest of the commune on their first day. He asked Albert about the ‘fight’ since there had apparently been a fight. He had no information other than how it supposedly started.
He learned later from Fred what had happened. He’d apparently punched Fallon in the jaw, bruising him a bit but not doing much outside that. Fallon, however, had apparently kneed Albert in the gut and kicked him until the nearest adult chaperone made him stop. Albert didn’t mean to get into a fight, he wasn’t the fighting type. It was strange for him to pick a fight and even stranger to be unable to remember losing. He didn’t know why but he would do many strange things for that girl.
If she heard about what happened, she didn’t say anything when she met him by the bonfire that night. He followed her to the waterfall again, watching her and trying to guess what she was thinking. He talked to her about lots of things as they skipped flat shards of shale across the water's surface. He told her about some of the things he’d been telling her in his head, but still kept some to himself. He told her about the fight, and she told him the youngest mouse knows not to pick fights with the owl.
Whatever that meant.
He followed her under the tree's roots that hung from the continuing cliff above them, brushing aside the dangling dusty tendrils and pushing forward as they walked along the bank of the creek. He stopped when she stopped, only steps away from a gruesome scene a way up the creek from where they’d started.
She stood still and stared at the bones of the largest bird Albert had ever seen up close. He could see from the remaining feathers and structure of the beak that it was a bird, but that was all that was left to identify it to the ten-year-old boy. The bones glinted wetly from the water in the lights above them and the insects that gathered were unafraid, like a single mass in the animal's carcass. The small furry creatures that fought over the feathers and bones were what made his skin crawl so viscerally he finally had to take a step back.
“That’s disgusting.” He hissed, wrinkling his nose. The rodents immediately scattered at the sound, taking whatever discarded bits of the bird they could in their little jaws as they hopped away over the stones.
“It’s odd…” The girl remarked, not nearly as affected by the scene. “Usually fish wash up for the rats, I wonder how it died.” She noted aloud as she continued her approach without care.
“What are you doing?” He asked, following behind her anyway as she knelt beside the bones of the animal.
“I was trying not to scare them, they’re just eating.” She said, more sad than scolding. Albert found himself grimacing at the sentiment, however sweet.
“They’re just rats.” He remarked. “They’re nasty.”
“They’re misunderstood.” She declared defiantly, taking a piece of driftwood from the creek as it passed. “Wanna poke it?”
“Yes.”
She handed him the stick, explaining that rats were scavengers who lived in the nighttime, just as naturally as humans were omnivores who lived in the day. It was normal to them. He found himself less afraid of the bird, and the rats.
“Herons represent knowledge and independence.” She explained, stroking the remaining feathers gently with the back of her hand. “This one probably should’ve had more of those things.” Albert wanted to ask what ‘independence’ meant, but he was distracted by the small bone buried in the sand between the stones. He pulled it out and examined it in the light. He’d never seen a bone quite that shape, not in real life or cartoons. It was like a perfectly rounded letter Y.
“What’s this?” He asked, not really expecting her to know, but she always seemed to surprise him.
“That’s a wishbone.” She said, reaching for it excitedly. “Like you break on Thanksgiving.”
“Break it?” He asked. He knew about Thanksgiving, but he’d never broken any bones for it.
“Mhm, here.” She held the Y upside down by one of its prongs, offering for him to take the other one. “We both make a wish and then we pull, whoever gets the bigger half gets their wish.” She explained. He looked at the bone for a moment, gently taking the other end of the wishbone.
“Wanna do it?” He asked reluctantly, not sure if this was regular superstition or commune-witch-mud-potion superstition. She laughed at his hesitation.
“I’ve got my wish if you do, on three?”
He thought about it for a moment. What would he wish for? He’d wished to one day see the world. He’d wished to live on the road. But the wishes felt hollow with the thought of something new to consider. Something he’d found that made him reluctant to wish to leave the strange forest community. He’d found someone who made him wish the world would disappear so it was just them. He’d always wanted to see the world, but so quickly, so frighteningly quickly, he’d found someone he wanted to see it with.
“One…” He started the countdown, and she smiled.
“Two…” She joined him now and he gripped his end of the bone firmly, determined to get his wish.
“Three!” They both shouted and pulled in opposite directions as hard as they could. The frail bone snapped and Albert fell backward with the force he’d put into the game. He fumbled on his knees, slipping backward into the water. He felt his head submerge in pitch-black before he jumped up in shock. The cold soaked his skin and bones like the picked corpse of a bird laid bare on a creekbed. He scrambled a few feet forward onto the bank again to the madly laughing girl he’d followed there, glaring at her for finding his struggle amusing. She was much farther away, having also been thrown backward with her effort, and there was sand on her face. She calmed her laughter before shrugging off her puffy green coat, giving it to him.
“Don’t help me, I’m fine.” He spat, shivering slightly.
“Help is something you give anyone who needs it.” She said, continuing to insist with her outstretched coat. “I wouldn’t give my coat to just anyone.” He stared at his knees for a moment, shivering one more time before reluctantly accepting the coat.
“Fine.”
“Also,” She held out her hand, a broken piece of bone in her small palm. Albert realized his own piece was still clutched in his hand and he slowly uncoiled his fingers from around it. In his hand sat the other half of the wishbone, the middle part still attached to the section he’d held when they pulled.
He’d gotten the bigger half.
He felt a smile rise on his face despite himself. It wasn’t like he believed in wishes or superstitions, but if it was true, he had won, and he would get his wish.
“What’d you wish for?” She asked, settling in the dirt to watch the creek again.
“I can’t tell you or it won’t happen.” He rolled his eyes as he wrapped the coat around himself to keep the wind out.
“Embarrassed?”
“No, It's common sense.”
“What if I tell you mine first?” She offered, elbowing him lightly. He didn’t say anything, and it wasn’t a disagreement. “I wished to see the world.” She said, and Albert felt his face become hot again. Must’ve been in frustration, like it had been last time.
“That’s cool.”
“You?” She pressed, and he closed his eyes. He wasn’t superstitious and he wasn’t embarrassed. He just didn’t want to tell her cause she might judge him, that was completely different. It wasn’t fear either. He sighed when his justifications yielded nothing, looking at her and finding her looking back. She could see through his embarrassment and his hiding with that stare, and she had no judgment.
“I wished to only have you with me wherever I go.” He said very quietly, already mortified that the words were out. He had just resolved not to tell her. What was wrong with him? What was it about this stupid waterfall that made him into an idiot with no idea how to not say stuff? He stiffened in fear and denial of what had just happened, glancing at her nervously out of the corner of his eye.
She was bright red.
“Ok…” She said and cut off quickly. Like she was going to say more but it got stuck on the way out. She was flushed from her hairline to her neck. She put her hand over his where it was gripping the coat she’d lent him and squeezed it gently. She let go quickly and stood up, visibly shaking the awkwardness out of her hair and walking back up to the deer trail that would take them to the commune. Albert stood to follow her, rubbing the hand she touched as though he could still feel the contact.
“Well, Albert Oliver Felix,” She spoke to him as she walked, turning to look through him again and he quickly cast his glance at the ground to avoid the same struggle he kept having with her stare. “You’re not afraid of the dark, I think you’re actually quite brave.” She praised him. He felt his hands clenched into fists and his heart beat harder in personal validation.
“Yeah, I am.” He agreed nonchalantly, as if the acknowledgment wouldn’t live in his identity for the rest of his life. He liked that she used all three of his names, but he wasn’t silly enough to think it wasn’t a hindrance. If there was anyone he didn’t want to have to call him something so long every time, it was her.
“You don’t have to call me Albert Oliver Felix.” He said quietly as she stepped off the rocks of the waterfall and into the tree line.
“What would I call you?” She asked a valid question.
“I dunno,” He said honestly, he’d never breached this with anyone voluntarily. “Lots of people call me ‘Albert’ but I don’t really like it.”
“Well…Albert means ‘noble’ so I don’t think it really fits.” She said thoughtfully.
“Hey.”
“What? You could be I guess but it’s not what best describes you.” She explained. “I don’t know what ‘Oliver’ means, but it sounds like ‘Olive’ so I don’t think so.” She continued. Albert made no comment as he dragged his shoes through the thorns, wrapping the coat tighter around himself to keep it from getting caught. “Your last name is ‘Felix’.” She declared finally.
“Yeah?” He found himself interested in her train of thought on his strange name. “Do you know what that one means?” He asked.
“I do in fact.” She revealed mischievously. “Felix means ‘Lucky’.”
“Lucky?” He repeated, testing the sound and the meaning of it. He glanced at the larger half of the wishbone in his hand, turning it over and wondering.
“Mhm, are you lucky, Felix?” She asked, and he felt himself submerge in an indescribable feeling at being called that name as if it were his first. A name she gave him because she thought he was lucky, and she was his friend, and friends gave each other nicknames. A name he liked the sound of. One that came from her words and her reasons. On this night spent in another world.
It was hearing his own name for the first time.
“Yeah.” He said, unsure if he was even speaking it felt so far away from the sheer amount of things happening inside him. “Yeah, I’m really lucky.”
They walked almost the entire trail back before she spoke up again.
“You should keep that wishbone on you, it’s how the wish works.” She suggested. “I can make you a string for it, I’ve been learning how to braid.”
“Ok.” He agreed. He walked behind her as the sounds of the camp became louder in the shrinking distance. “Are you gonna keep your half even though it…lost?” He wasn’t sure how to phrase it. She just shrugged.
“Yeah I think so, It's a good souvenir, plus I like bones.”
“Of course you do.” He rolled his eyes at her. He didn’t have time to wonder what a ‘souvenir’ was as the deer trail opened into gravel. The orange light from the bonfire spilled into their world and illuminated it to reality. The only thing that remained ethereal in the mortal plane was her as she helped him out of the woods. Dark and strange and uncanny where she stood in the woods as if it were the woods that were visiting her.
“I should go, Mom’s gonna kill me for real this time.” She said, turning to make her way back up the path. A thought occurred to Albert, to Felix, as he watched her leave. A thought he was almost too late to voice.
“What’s your name?” He couldn’t believe he’d never asked, never caught it. He couldn’t help but wonder why she’d never brought it up either with all their conversations about his name. She stopped, not turning back on the path as she answered.
“It’s a…my mom’s a commune lady. You’re gonna laugh if I tell you.” She said, still not ashamed. Almost as if she was warning him.
“Tell me.” That was all he said. He couldn’t imagine anything that would make him laugh at her. He’d thought he’d seen so much, had known so much, but he didn’t know anything about feelings or friends or anything, especially next to the seemingly endless things that she knew of. He didn’t know much but he knew he was only ten, and she was only nine. He knew something he didn’t understand. Something about her. Something about this. A feeling that made him sick and weightless whenever she was around.
He knew he loved her. However much he couldn’t begin to know what that was.
He wanted to know her name too, and she turned around to look at him before she answered. Soft yet impossibly sharp in the night air that froze to him like the creek water. Illuminated by the bonfire behind her and shaded by the pitch-black night that sheltered the small developing friendship they’d planted. Her stare could see through him like a ghost as she answered.
“Locust.”
Woah.
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