Chapter 5 – Soleil Corona
I hated her! I hated, loathed, despised, abhorred and detested her. The fact of the matter was that Miss Animus was a bitch, and I for one I could not stand her. I marched out of that classroom with my head held high. Despite what others may say and whatever rumours will undoubtedly circulate, I wanted to leave. I did everything off my own back. I stormed out of the room straight up the stone corridor and into the garden. The garden that allowed everything to coincide.
I didn’t bother sitting on one of the oak benches, instead I sat on a windowsill of one of the stained glass windows, and wept. The shards of glass of honeysuckle yellow and warm orange made a sun burning brightly. The glass moved too with a lava effect with a clear blue background, pure and almost white. The sill was made of yellow glass and was solid like a diamond. Crunched into a little ball, I wept on the sill of day, under the glass suns rays.
“Miss Corona, right?” A voice came to my ears, it was deep and considerate and a little foreign to me. I raised my head and through a mess of candyfloss hair I saw a most beautiful face. Bright, innocent blue eyes smiled compassionately at me and his ginger hair was ruffled perfectly. People sometimes joke that gingers have no souls; well I saw a lovely soul in this ginger being. I would never let that on though.
“Yeah. Who are you?” I asked pulling myself into a seated position upon the glass shelf.
“Mr. Greer, but please call me Edward Greer,” He smiled. I smirked, the idea of calling a teacher by their first name made me laugh.
“Can I call you Eddie?” I asked.
“No,” He had that teacher voice on.
“Well why can I call you Edward?”
“Well, everyone has a lesson in purely their element yes?” I nodded in response, “ and of course there has never been another holder of day yes?” I nodded again, “But I have studied the book work of the element and also I am gifted with the movement of the planets, the sun is a planet, so I fit the bill. There for you get one to one tuition with me six times a week.”
“Ahh, so your like a personal tutor,” It was his turn to nod now.
We smiled at this newly acquired friendship for a few minutes and then, just as we were about to speak once more, we were interrupted.
“Oi oi!” shouted a spunky Camden. This was how we greeted each other. It was something I picked up from when I lived in Newcastle. Boys used to shout it when I was walking down the street or they would whistle. I guessed it was a way of saying hello, and it was easier then whistling at my friends.
“Oi oi,” I replied, Eddie did not seem to impressed with our greeting, “Oh sorry, I mean, good morning miss Camden,” I sarcastically said then flung him a teasing look. “Camden, this is Eddie Greer, my personal tutor. He’s an air … person too.”
“Well to you Miss Brush, its Mr. Greer,” He grinned charmingly and pecked her hand.
“Why can’t I call you Eddie?” She asked delicately.
“Well, you’ll get me for flying classes and we couldn’t have people thinking I treat you differently could we?” Camden just smiled in a girly manor in return. “ Soleil,” he started, “Meet me in room 23 of the air tower for fourth lesson,” and with that he left. His walk was casual and carefree.
“Wow! He’s hot,” I breathed.
“Soleil, focus I have something to tell you,” Camden’s voice was strict. He twisted through the long grass of the garden as though it was effortless, like he was the breeze itself.
“But look at his butt, it’s perfect.”
“Okay, Soleil I’ll give you that, but please try and pay attention.”
Camden perched herself on the sill next to me and pulled her navy blazer tightly around herself and a frosty breeze rubbed itself against us.
“I have to talk to you about Delilah,” She was painfully serious.
“Really? Delilah, what’s wrong with her?” I dumbly asked.
“I don’t know but something is. That thing happened yesterday when she flung you through the window yes, well she should be equal to you and obviously she’s not. Then, last night, I woke up in the middle of the night and the room was glowing. I followed the light to find a pale Delilah, with white iris’s surrounded by ghost’s, I guess, bringing them back to life and I have no clue why.”
The story Camden told was a little harrowing. She was right, I hadn’t noticed it but something was wrong with our friend. Delilah was obviously to deluded to see for herself. It was my duty, as her immortal opposite, to be there when she needed me.
“We have to get to the bottom of this,” I declared.
“Yes! But how?” Camden replied.
“I don’t know, leave it with me, I’ll find away.”
“Thank you!” Shouted Camden, and the tension in her body faded a little. She fell into ease and her muscles fell away.
Fluttering breezily away, Camden left me, just sat, stumped upon the sill unsure what my plan of action was. Then it hit me, there was only one possible person who might be able to help me… so I headed to the air tower.
The tower of air was quite simply magical. The rosy-brushed tower shimmered under the new sun and the warm wood door was bliss. There was a stained glass window of fuchsia pink depicting a scene of blustering leaves in the doors cut out. I opened it. A staircase of creamy stone lead up the pink passage. It had a deep berry carpet snaking through the centre of the stairs and the walls were licked in a slightly pink tone. I could smell something sweet; sweeter then candyfloss but it wasn’t familiar. I could taste it in my breath as it danced around me up the light drenched staircase. My heels clipped and clopped up the staircase and eventually I reached an opening. Unsurprisingly, it was pink.
I found room 23 after about ten minutes of walking around and around in circles and looking as lost as a puppy. I tapped the door with great care and the silence filled the moment.
“Mr. Greer?” I delicately asked, pushing the door open.
“Soleil, come in I don’t have a class,” His lush voice smiled and he raised his head from the mountain of work that swamped his desk.
“Oh, well I wasn’t to know.”
I crossed the room with out the usual skip in my step and perched myself upon the table in front of his desk.
“So what do you want trouble?” He asked guessing I was up to something. Initially, I thought that it was weird that after one convosation he had me sussed out, and then I remembered that he had spent years studying what I would be like.
“What if, for instance, I wanted to find out something about night? Something about nights power, where would I go to do that?”
“You would, in the instance, go to the obsolete grave,” He informed me winking.
“And if I wanted to find this obsolete grave, in the instance, where would I go?”
“Soleil what are you playing at?” He seamed a little annoyed at me.
I looked at him, still for a moment, wide-eyed and a little unsure how to answer.
“ I can’t really tell you.” I breathed finally, “you see, I’m worried about Delilah, Eddie, but I can’t tell you more then that. You see it takes a lot for me trust somebody. I never trust anyone when I’ve only just met them; no-ones ever had the right warmth. And maybe, one day, if I ever do meet someone who I trust instantly then to him or her I’ll make a promise. I never make promises either.”
“You don’t trust me?” he asked disappointed.
“It’s not that I don’t at all, just not enough. You have to tell where to go though,” I begged of him.
“Okay I will. Then maybe you’ll trust me the way you should.”
He gave me a map from his desk of creamy toned papers. And sent me off to find the obsolete grave. I weaved through a dark damp side street of the town and the sun hid behind a grey cloud. The cloud began to weep. The alleys lead to me to some cornfields and a thick gravel road that ripped through it.
The caramel dead corn were barley stumps in the thick grey rain. I was sodden wet and honestly I didn’t care. I passed 5 large white mansions, which were very contradictory to the scene that they was immersed in and through my damp pink hair that whirled my face I managed to find the steps.
The steps were thick planks of soaked driftwood that were stacked upon the grey gravel. They were slippy and sludgy and in black stiletto’s they were not easy to walk on. Never the less I stumbled up them and I reached the top of the grey hill.
The mist curtained all. Grey and purple foggy swirls flowed around me. The grass was a midnight blue and the sun was no longer there.
I heard their voices they rushed through my head. The drum! The drum pounded in my head in a loud eerie manor. It filled me and from nowhere it was over powering as the ghostly voices sung.
“Loud,
Loud,
Sweet,
Hot” Their demonic voices wisped.
It pushed me to the floor with an invisible hand and as I felt grass brush my stomach and I crawled the mud attempted to find freedom. The voices harmonised in that bizarre way that Delilah’s voice did sometimes and I felt as though my head weighed a tone. I could not see.
“Taste the water,
Run to the water,” They sung once more. I was fearful.
A mercury moat lay in front of me. It’s rippling waters, ice. Though it seams mad I did as the voices, which now roared in my head, told me to do. They banished all thought and I needed some sort of escape.
I dragged my self to my unstable feet and sickly feel into the river. The muscles in my body froze. My heart dying, and my bones felt frosty. It was taking over. The drum sped stealing all life. I wasn’t being dramatic, for once. I couldn’t muster the strength to flap my arms. The mercury water filled my mouth, it’s taste toxic. Swimming was impossible. This was it. I hadn’t even lived here a day and I dying and I couldn’t do anything. I let the drum eat me whole. The voices oozed joy.
Through my numbness, I felt a hand.
Silence.
Maybe the reaper had taken me, or maybe god. Maybe I was thankful, or maybe I was woeful. I couldn’t tell. All I knew was that the drumming had stopped as violently as it had started. I took a breath. I tasted the icy mist once more. I opened my eyes and the purple mist was all I could see.
“Bella signora,” it whisked through the mist and was like was chocolate for my ears.
I let a cough escape my lips. “per favore, bella signora” the delicious voice begged again. The voice was Italian, I recognized that signora meant lady.
“me salvaste” I rasped in my Spanish tongue. I felt a presence dive back from me and the air it left cradled me.
Arms created scarves to hold me. They were warm and wonderful and they felt natural. Through the mist, I finally saw a face. A face once sandy gold, with eyes dripping in a mocha shade. His thick dark hair swiping his face and even crinkled in worry I saw perfection.
“You saved me,” I repeated again in my native voice. His eyes looked lovingly into mine and he had this warmth. It was natural and homely to be locked into his arms.
“What else was I to do?” I was thankful that he saw no other choice.
“As lovely as your arms are, I think I can sit up on my own.” He released me and I sat on my knees. For the first time I saw the obsolete grave. It was a slab of pure silver with an ancient language engraved into it, sat upon a rug of midnight grass.
“How did you do that?” I asked a little confused.
“What?” He asked his nose rinsed.
“How did you stop the drum and the voices.” He leapt away from me. I didn’t blame him, if I’d just rescued a girl from drowning in a river and she told me she could hear voices, I too would think she was deranged. Then his mocha eyes grew large in shock or realization, though I’m not sure there’s much difference.
“You’re not… no, you couldn’t be. If you were, you’d never be stupid enough to come here,” He spoke his thoughts.
“What am I not?” I quizzed.
“You… you couldn’t be, Soleil Corona could you?”
“Yes! Yes I am,” I shouted through the silence, “And why would I be stupid to come he,” I cut myself off hid sentence, “Oh,” It hit me the reason for the drum, for the voices. It was because I was me, and being me nearly killed me.
“Exactly, ‘oh’. It’s not safe here for you,”
“Not safe! I can fight for myself you know,” I burst into his sentence.
“You can’t fight the demons!” He shouted and silence ran again.
I inhaled deeply. He was right. He was right in everyway. I hate defeat, but in this case I had to admit I was defeated.
“Who are you? How do you know so much and why are you here?” I asked him.
“ I’m Nero. S. Vupa, I’m Italian, and on Earth I’ve just died. Happy? And I come here save your life, not get my head bitten off for trying to protect you. I had just passed through the obsolete grave and Mary-Ellen told me to look Soleil Corona, with the pink hair. That she’d need protecting. She told me everything, and you should know these things,” Nero told me, and I had great sympathy for him. He was still hurting, breaking inside and it hurt me.
“I’m sorry Nero. Thank you for saving me; I’ve been a bitch to you. Can you forgive me?” I begged.
“I guess I have to.”
There was a strange tension as a cold breeze danced through us.
“Nero,” I pleaded, “What are you gifted in?”
“Night,” He simply breathed. My eyes stretched and I was rather scared by it.
“There’s another of night.”
“There’ll only ever be two, the girl of night and her consort.” Maybe I was being dim, actually it was a fact, I was dim, but I had never heard of a consort.
“What’s a consort?”
“You’re joking, right?”
‘No,” I sulked.
“A consort is a strong male who is gifted to an elements immortal from God to protect her,” he explained kindly.
“So why does Delilah get one and no-one else does,” I roared a little spoilt.
“Because she’s immortal.”
“What!” I was shrill and screamed.
“You didn’t know?” he was amazed.
“Does this look like a girl who knows?” There was pure unharmed silence as we sat and starred and each other. There was that electric connection again. “How? How is she immortal?”
“Because she died,” He said in a simple manor.
“What?” I asked breathless again. I dragged my ropy body to my feet and stumbled once more till I landed in a mangled mess in his strong arms. He took me, kindly under his wing once more and he preached himself nearest the silver mercury moat. I had been trying to make a critical point but my spindly, dead legs had collapsed upon me. I’m a tiny bit knock-kneed, but I’m not going into that now.
My determined hand removed his balanced curved arm that hugged me. “So what if I were to find the highest building in Kenanpation? What if I were to jump from it towards the floor? Would I then too be immortal?” I sternly challenged him. He didn’t quiver, nor did he blush.
“No,” His reply simple.
“What? You’ve lost me!”
“Each of you, each personification has a set death, it’s the only thing that will ever kill you and that one thing will allow you to be immortal. If it’s not exactly the way it’s meant to be, well then your not immortal,” His voice was as cold as his emotionless face, “I don’t know what yours is, but I’m sure it’ll be written down somewhere. It’s basically a waiting game.”
I gravely starred at him. I wished I knew what it was so I could become immortal at that minute.
“Mary-Ellen told you all of this?” I begged for an answer to a different question.
“The whole entirety. Did Mary-Anna not tell you?” He asked in reply.
“Not a fraction,” I bowed my head to the moon dust ground, “I have to some how get the other’s to understand. Telling them will be no good, they simply say “Awh ditzy little Soleil’s got it wrong again” Or “Stop being dramatic Soleil,” I now fumbled my own little rant.
“What if you could somehow show them?” Nero tempted me. My wandering eyes became stationary. This was a interesting thought.
I spent the rest of my day upon the haunted hillside with Nero. In all honesty I was only going to get removed from all my classes for my ‘flamboyant’ blazer anyway so it seamed pointless to even bother turning up. With this in mind, I didn’t. I stayed in the comfort of his protective presence.
And as per usually someone else has beaten me to the puch line. I'm going to save your time a little bit here Smile, re-read polink's and imagine I'd put it insted 
I enjoyed reading this and the little twists you've thrown in are awsome! I can't wait for the next installment.
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