Wow, posting two chapters in one day, isn't that amazing?
Chapter Four
Elsa woke with a start, heart pounding. She was breathing hard, as though she had just been running from some monster … but she had been running from a monster.
She sat up quickly, looking around her bedroom with confusion at the front of her mind. It was lit with the glow of the streetlamp that was still making the dim orange puddle of light on her floor, but somehow, she had gotten into her pajamas and tucked under the covers. From the lightening sky she could see outside, morning was well on it’s way, she’d been asleep for hours.
Elsa shook her head, this was all too confusing. How had she gotten back to her bed? The last thing she could remember was … suddenly, she felt very tired. After all, I haven’t really been asleep. I don’t think … With that thought in mind, she was very suddenly asleep.
“Elsa, wake up! It’s nearly ten.”
She could hear the voice and feel the nudging, but Elsa’s eyes felt as though someone had placed weights on them when she was sleeping. Slowly, she managed to pry her eyes open, only for her to have them close again more quickly then she could have a mind to stop them.
“Get up!” she felt the poke again, “I’m going grocery shopping, and you’re going to come with me. We’re leaving in an hour.” She heard the footsteps move towards the door, then pause. “Hurry!” her mother called before closing the bedroom door behind her.
Elsa groaned and rolled over to face the window. Why was she so tired? Then the memories came flooding back to her so quickly, she felt slightly dazed when they had all arrived. The spider, Zeya, whom December had sent to fetch her. Fetch me to where? She wondered, blinking and staring out the window, which a cool morning breeze was blowing through. She had never really gotten to find out. Then there were the twins, who had been rather strange, and the strange bird-snake creature which, as she recalled, was bright yellow.
What a strange dream. Elsa thought, sitting up and running her fingers through her hair that had become tangled from sleep, looking again out the open window. Open window? If she was remembering correctly, the window had been closed when she had entered the bedroom the night before. “But I opened it to talk to that lovely spider.” She said aloud, swinging her legs out of bed and hurrying over to the window. If the strange dream had not been a dream at all … there it was! A half-fished spider’s web, moving gently in the breeze and hanging between two branches that a small humming spider had hung from the night before.
“How very strange.” Elsa mused out loud, turning from the window and proceeding to get dressed.
When she came down the stairs not long after, she could hear Mum moving about in the kitchen, and wondered whether to tell her about the wonderful adventure she had gone on the night before. She had the strong desire to tell someone about it. It was the kind of impossible thing that she couldn’t just keep to herself.
“I met a spider.” She said casually, strolling into the kitchen and picking a banana from the top of the fruits basket on the table, but eyed the green pear thoughtfully, thinking of the black one she had seen in Marriot the night before. “Last night, her name was Zeya and December sent her.”
“I see,” Mum replied with a nod, Elsa looked over to see her busy peeling some potatoes and seemed to be listening. Encouraged that she had so far not called her either crazy or simply imaginative, she continued.
“She took me to this marvelous city called Marriot, it had a white train that looked like it was flying, except it was really just on a track. And you should have seen the carriages there. They rode on this huge wheels that looked like they were going to break at any moment because they were so thin, but really, they didn’t even wobble.”
“Uh-huh.” Came the acknowledgement from the sink. Elsa took a thoughtful bite out of the banana, swallowing before continuing with great enthusiasm. “There was a three-headed elephant, but it was very small. I wish I would have bought it, but I don’t know what kind of money they would use there. I wouldn’t think it would be the same as ours. But then as I was walking, I met these twins. They were quite frightening at first, but I think they were nice. Even if a little irritating.”
“Yes, I see. Would you mind handing me two more potatoes, dear?”
Elsa nodded and after dropping the peel in the trash can reached over and plucked two more potatoes from the bag at her mother’s feet. It was only when she was handing them to her that she realized Mum had been listening, but not believing it at all. “Did I mentioned I climbed out of my bedroom window?” she added cautiously, rather just to see if her mother really had been listening.
“No, but there was something about a spider? And December?” Mum looked up, “Who is this December anyways?”
“Oh, he’s just the juggler I met in the field on the way home from school last night.” Elsa replied, not even really thinking about what she was saying. Suddenly, she felt as though she wasn’t in the kitchen at all, but back in a twilit field, looking at the strange silhouette of a juggler with a top-hat. “He was lovely, and very handsome. He walked me home, that’s why I was late. Although he did go on about things, he said the stars weren’t really –“
“You let a stranger walk you home last night?” the potato her mother had been peeling hit the bottom of the sink with a dull thud, and she turned to Elsa with her lips drawn together in a close line. She was holding the potato peeler in a fashion that told Elsa she should probably take a step back, as it was about to be brandished at her.
It was.
“I knew I shouldn’t be letting you come home by yourself! You should be walking with James from down the street! He’s a rather podgy boy, but at least you wouldn’t been alone then.” The potato peeler was being waved quite violently under Elsa’s nose. “This juggler,” she spat out the word with such scorn you would have thought she was talking about an escaped convict. “could have kidnapped you. Or worse! And you even showed him where you live! We should call the police! Have him arrested!”
Elsa felt like her mother take a very long time to finish, and then knew that she never should have mentioned her fascinating dream or not-dream that she had had. “I’ll be waiting outside.” She said loudly, over her mother’s loud lecturing and slipped out of the kitchen and into the hallway, slipping on a pair of sneakers and stepping out onto the porch as quickly as she could. Even managing to close the door behind her before Mum had paused to take a breath.
The street had a pleasant silence to it compared to the new chaos of inside the house. Sitting down on the porch steps, she watched as a neighborhood tabby cat stalked across the yard, before attempting to pounce on a cocky magpie, but being much too slow. The magpie took off into the air and landed on a branch just out of the house cat’s reach, where he proceeded to squawk out his amusement so all the world could know.
Elsa let her gaze wander around the street, the cawing of the magpie really being the only sound apart from the wind rustling the dead leaves that were scattered across the lawns. There was the dark tempered old man who lived half a dozen houses down the road who was attempting to rake his lawn, but his neat piles kept getting overturned by the wind. She could tell that he had lost his patience by the way her threw down his rake, stomped on it, shook his fist at the sky and stalked back inside.
Smiling to herself, she looked the other way down the quiet street and saw something she really wasn’t expecting.
Firstly, in the particular town that she lived in, there were very few young people. The school she went to was very small, and most of the inhabitants were either very old or very young families. She supposed that the person she was then looking at could be the father of one of those young families, but it was hard to say.
He was leaning against one of the ugly lampposts the length of three houses away from her, looking down at the pavement. His jacket was dusty and a dark brown over his black t-shirt and black cargo pants. From what she could see, his skin was richly tanned, and his hair was as black as his shirt. But there was few other things that she could tell about him.
It seemed odd that someone would stand so idly on such a windy day. If Elsa were to guess, she would say that he was waiting for something, or someone.
Elsa turned, stealing a quick glance over her shoulder just to make sure that her mother wasn’t coming, then got to her feet and started down the street. Hoping not to seem too nosy.
She paused when she had reached the edge of her neighbor’s lawn. She could see now that he really wasn’t looking at ground at all, but staring intently at something he held in his hand. A moment later, she knew what it was.
A lighter.
He was flicking it on and off in an irregular pattern. But it definitely was a pattern, two clicks, then one longer, one short and two long. This repeated over and over, he had done it three times before there was a long pause and he looked up.
Without realizing it, as she watched the flickering flame, she had been slowly moving forwards, until she was hardly more then a dozen feet away from him, and was obviously staring. Now, his gaze was upon her and there was no where for her to scurry off to and act like she hadn’t been curious. Oh blast curiosity! She thought with some irritation, but it was forgotten when she saw the man’s face.
He was around the age that she had guessed, probably somewhere in his mid-thirties. His face looked weather beaten, making him look older, but stronger at the same time. But the thing that was most noticeable was the patch that covered his left eye. The straps of it stretched down the front of his face, over his cheekbone and into his thick, wavy hair while the other went across the right side of his forehead before also becoming hidden. From beneath the black patch she could see a jagged scar protruding, white and shining against his dark skin.
His other eye was dark in color, but seemed to give the impression of a gentle, if solemn personality and lit with some surprise when he saw her standing so close. However, he smiled in a way that made him look younger and less serious. “Oh, hello. I noticed you on your steps, but I didn’t think you would come over. How are you?” He spoke with the air as though he was talking to someone with which he had been acquainted with for some time, which made Elsa feel as though she should know who he was.
“I’m alright,” Elsa replied politely, returning his smile, for she realized that it was quite infectious. “Though Mum is overreacting because I met a juggler. And you?”
The man laughed, “I am just the same, though I don’t have a mother worrying about me at the moment.” A sudden gust of wind rushed down the street with such force, it nearly pushed the man forwards and Elsa was forced to take a step back. “What a wind!” he exclaimed, frowning in the eastwardly direction it had come from. “It will be a bad day for fire”
“I beg your pardon?” Elsa asked, quite perplexed by this comment. “Did you say ‘for fire’?”
“Never mind, dear, never mind.” The man replied, turning back to her and giving a kind smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes, which had turned solemn. There was an awkward moment of silence before Elsa had to speak, “I’m sorry, you’re talking as though you know me. Do I know you?”
The man gave a bark of laughter, and grinned as he spoke. “Sorry, I think I know you from somewhere,” this was said in a manner that made Elsa really think that she should know him. “But I don’t think we’ve ever been introduced, I’m Ptolemy.”
“Oh, I see.” Elsa was sure she had heard that name before sometime very recently. Though it sounded like something she would have heard in Marriot. “I’m Elsa.”
Ptolemy nodded, and looked like he was about to say something when he looked up suddenly and broke into a wide smile, Elsa turned around in surprise to see her mother striding towards them. Mum now had her coat pulled on and her handbag over one shoulder, however, she still looked angry, and her lips were making a very tight line. When she stopped beside Elsa, she was sure that Mum was about to hit Ptolemy over the head with her handbag.
“Good morning, Mrs. Blackwell.” Ptolemy said politely without a moment’s hesitation. “A bit windy, don’t you think? But sunny all the same.” He said this with such friendliness that Elsa saw that for a second, her mother was too taken aback with his politeness to say anything at all.
“Yes, I guess … so … it’s lovely …” she said unsurely, still looking suspiciously at him. “Do I know you?”
“I just moved here, I go to your church.” Ptolemy replied readily, though from the wink that Elsa received from him, she was certain that this was just a suave lie. “I am very pleased to meet you at last.”
“Uh, yes, so am I. Meet. You. I think we’d better be going Elsa, come along. Good day, sir.” And with that abrupt good-bye, Mum seized Elsa’s shoulder and spun her around, hurrying down the street to where their car was sitting on their driveway. Elsa looked back to wave good-bye to Ptolemy, only to find that he was already gone.
Just the story. 