Young Writers Society

I was going to leave this one with no comment at the beginning, but then I decided that I wanted to use some smilies And I can't do that in the story. AGAIN: unedited, ungrammerized, unspellchecked (well somewhat, I think). However, to all you annoying people who like grammer. who will remain nameless. I LOVE YOU ANYWAY except that you're going to die if you haven't already. Anywho, keep reading, folks.

P.S. I love you.

P.S.S I'm sorry, I had to write that. It's the name of a good movie and my favorite body wash. But yeah, I had something I was going to say .... RIGHT. If you haven't noticed it already, from here on my writing style changes quite a bit since the first chapter. Or I think so, I don't know anyone else's opinion but yeah ... keep reading.

“The strangest people have been around lately, wouldn’t you agree?” Mum’s voice startled Elsa out of her distracted thoughts as she watched a pigeon hop along the sidewalk. She jumped slightly and tried to look like she was listening, as Mrs. Blackwell continued. “First that strange man that followed you home last night, and then that fellow you were talking to this morning.”

“I told you Mum, he wasn’t following me he—“

“There was something odd about him, had you ever seen him before—“ a large trunk trundled past them on the road, drowning out the rest of her mother’s sentence. But Elsa really didn’t mind, she didn’t feel like listening to a whining fit she had heard at least twice during their shopping already.

“Mum, can I get a hot chocolate?’ Elsa interrupted, her eyes had landed on her favorite café, a small, cozy coffee shop that always made her feel more relaxed.

Mum looked up, her expression a ‘no’ before she even spoke. Which gave Elsa enough time to dart across the crosswalk before the pedestrian light began flashing orange. “I’ll meet you at home!” she called back across the street, before hurrying inside the café.

Opening the door, she was hit was the overpoweringly strong smell of coffee and a wave of warmth that struck Elsa as wonderfully inviting compared to the chill that the wind had brought outside. Elsa hurriedly closed the door behind her, the bell hanging from the handle jangled loudly, causing the young woman at the counter to look up. But the rest of the customers barely turned from their book or laptop as it was in some of their cases.

For the number of times she had been there, Elsa had become fairly well acquainted with nearly all of the employees, so she was rather startled that she had no idea who the woman working the till was. Her hair was decidedly scarlet, pulled back in a ponytail from her pale, but pretty face. When she looked up, Elsa saw that her eyes were an imposing blue, hard and sarcastic looking, all in all, she made the girl feel quite small.

“Yes?” she asked, popping a large pink bubble of gum.

“I, um, would like …” Elsa felt like she had just gotten her tongue frozen and was entirely clueless as to what to say.

“She’ll have a medium hot chocolate, and I’ll have the Chocolate Mint Latte, please.”

“Make that two.”

The girl had been blowing another large pink bubble when she looked up and the bubble deflated at what she saw, Elsa turned around and was surprised to find two boys standing behind her. One of them was leaning on the other’s shoulder, while the boy being leaned upon was smiling at the young woman at the till, who now had a flat bubble hanging from her bottom lip.

The thing that shocked Elsa the most however, was the fact that the boys were perfectly identical. Mirror images of each other, from their straight brown hair to their large brown eyes that reminded her of a dog … or rather, a wolf’s. The only way they could be told apart was that one of their sweaters was a neon blue, while the other was black.

Elsa stared at them, not caring that she might be looking like a fool until the leaning twin in the black sweater gave her a wink and straightened up, as though pretending he hadn’t while the other was accepting the three drinks from the red-haired girl, who seemed a little shell-shocked.

“Here,” the bright blue twin said, handing Elsa a Styrofoam cup, filled over the top with whipping cream. “I put on extra, hope you don’t mind.” He gave her a smile that she couldn’t help but think was quite cute, but it was also strangely familiar in a weird way.

“Um, thanks.” Elsa finally answered, taking the cup and dipping her fingered into the foam.

“Do you have some time, Elsa?” the twin in the black sweater asked, now possessing a white moustache of whipping cream.

“There’s something we need to tell you.” The blue twin finished, looking around in a manner that was quite suspicious as he took a seat at one of the small tables, though this one was the furthest away from any of the other customers and door.

“Do I …?” Elsa started, then as the black twin following his brother’s example and pushing one of the metal chairs aside she remembered why they seemed familiar. They certainly looked different though, without white, blue and red face paint obscuring their faces. They were much younger then she had guessed when they had been standing on the edge of the fountain in Marriot.

“You’re the jesters,” Elsa declared, astonished. “From my dream! How are you here? I thought that …”

“It was just a dream.” The blue twin finished, turning his gaze away from her and onto his drink. For a moment there was silence, and it didn’t take Elsa very long to decide that it would indeed be a very foolish thing to simply walk away when she had just encountered two previously fictional people in a coffee shop.

“So you are real, right?” she asked, sliding into the last available seat and feeling a little shaky. She hastily put her hot chocolate down before she nearly spilled it in the black twin’s lap. “I mean … oh, this is very confusing.”

“Don’t worry, it was for us too,” The twin with the black sweater replied, pushing back a lock of hair from his forehead and giving her a smile which she guessed was supposed to be encouraging, but came out more nervous then anything. “When we first found out.”

“Rienzi,” the blue twin said warningly, looking over a deteriorating pile of white cream at his brother. “Go slowly, he said, if you’ll remember.”

“Right.”

“I’m still not sure what I’m finding out.” Elsa put in.

The twin in black, whose name seemed to be Rienzi, started before his brother had the chance, and received a rather annoyed look for the trouble. “December told all of us last night that he had found a new dreamwalker, but none of us really thought he had.”

“December is awful at detecting dreamwalkers.” The twin in blue added.

“So Oblivion sent his spider to fetch you, and since you got through to Merriot alright, I guess December was right for once.” Rienzi shrugged. “After that, you met us. We didn’t even know that you were the one December had been going on about, but we knew that you were lost. Either you accidently wandered through – as some people your age tend to do – or you were new, so that’s when we more or less kidnapped you.”

“Sorry about that,” the other took over, leaving Rienzi to his latte. “I’m sure it was a frightening thing to be captured by two painted boys, but then with that sekary dive-bombing us, we kind of …”

“Lost you.” Rienzi finished.

They were looking at her like that should have explained things, but Elsa was even more confused then when they began. “What’s a dreamwalker?” was the only thing she could think of to say.

The twins exchanged a glance, “Javier?” Rienzi asked uncertainly, though he seemed to be talking more to his cup then his twin. Only his raised eyebrows signaled the difference.

“Oblivion will explain it all.” The twin – Javier seemed to be his name, though Elsa, in a passing thought, had noted the queerness of both of their names – said with a nod, “And don’t bother asking who Oblivion is,” he added, taking the words directly out of Elsa’s mouth. “You’ll find out tonight.” He had been quite serious, but finished with a broad grin. “This is going to be fun, you’re the first new one they’ve had since the two of us.”

“And that was three years ago.”

“I thought it was four?”

“Maybe it was, I can’t remember.”

They were getting to their feet now, pushing their chairs back and leaving their coffees unfinished.

“Wait!” Elsa exclaimed, also getting to her feet, though much more quickly and nearly knocking the table over.

“You are graceful, aren’t you?” Javier mused rather meanly.

She ignored him, “Why tonight? Is a grasshopper going to come to my window and give me a train ride to Merriot? Or is this Oblivion person going to come himself? What’s a dreamwalker? Can’t you just tell me?”

Rienzi looked quite bewildered, “Oh don’t worry, there aren’t any grasshoppers in Merriot, Oblivion would never send one of those, and December is terrified of insects. Even talking ones.”

“That was sarcasm.” Javier told his brother, rolling his eyes before looking back to Elsa, and she had the distinct feeling that he didn’t like her very much. “Don’t worry, we’ll come and get you. You’re clearly too inexperienced to get to the city on your own.”

“Thanks for your concern,” Elsa muttered, glaring darkly at the twin in blue, “But I could if I wanted to.”

Javier looked as though he was about to suggest that very thing, when Rienzi, still quite confused by Elsa’s sarcasm cut in before a real argument could begin.

“Great, we’ll see you at eleven then?”

“Sure.” She replied, finding it easier to return his light smile as the twins sauntered out of the coffee shop. Even if they had been wearing the same outfit, Elsa was fairly sure that she could have been able to tell them apart. Javier walked with his head high, and really seemed to stroll as though he was the most important person in the world. Rienzi, on the other hand, was much more unassuming, and from just watching their backs, she could see the casual lilt of his shoulders.

It was only when she turned to push her chair out of the way did she by chance happen to catch the look the young woman at the till was directing at the door, where the twins had just exited. The girl’s expression frightened her. It was one of utter loathing, such hatred as Elsa had only ever heard of in stories.