Solcaster

Chapter 2

Ben

"Ben! Wake up!" Theo says.

"What time is it?" I ask. It's still dark outside for Christ's sake. I roll over and startle as I notice Theo, standing over me wide-eyed. He looks like a psycho out of a horror film.

"Dude, I heard something outside your window," he says, "I swear to god I heard something moving out there."

Lulu.

"Don't worry about it. It's just Ellie," I tell him, rolling back over. "She crosses the roof outside my window to sneak out."

I hear nothing for a moment, and then he speaks. I can practically hear his smirk.

"I knew you two were troublemakers, but I never expected little miss "daddy's money" to sneak out. Especially not around here."

He's referring to the fact that the neighborhood we live in is a very wealthy one. Reputation is everything around here, and to get caught sneaking out could ruin anyone's.

"Yeah, well, you don't know much about our social life here," I tell him. At Solcaster, I didn't tell anyone about what my home life was like. I didn't want to start at a new school as the weird kid who didn't have friends back home.

"Do tell," he says. I can hear the curiosity in his voice, but it'll have to wait. I roll back over, get out of bed, and put on my shoes.

"Another night, maybe. I need to see where Lulu's going."

"Lulu?" he asks, cocking his head to the side. "Is that what you all call her?"

Shit. She hates when other people find out about that nickname. She always complains to us that it makes her sound like a baby.

I sigh, before quickly explaining. "Her full name is Eloise, and when I was little, I couldn't say it correctly. So I just called her Lulu, and it stuck."

"Lulu," he says with a grin, "It's cute."

"You absolutely cannot tell her that I told you that," I say, pointing a warning finger at him, "Or that I told you her real name. You can only call her Ellie, or she'll kill me, and then I'll have to kill you."

"Alright, alright," he says, holding his hands up, "I won't tell Lulu that you said anything."

I roll my eyes before turning away. Carefully, I open my window and look to my left. Lulu is sitting in her tree. It's an old sycamore, with thick branches sprawling everywhere. It's her favorite place to read in the summer.

I step out onto the roof, creeping toward the corner where the tree branches meet the house. If she hears me, she doesn't make it known. I suppose my time at Solcaster has improved my ability to sneak.

I get close enough to hear her. She's... crying?

She's on the phone with someone. Who is she on the phone with? The guilt begins to pool in the bottom of my stomach. What kind of person am I that I don't know who my own sister could possibly be talking to?

In my defense, I wasn't allowed to communicate with her. In an attempt to keep the siblings and other family out of harm's way, we have to keep them Nixes.

A Nix, short for Aetherinix, is a person who is unaware of both the Aetherion and our world entirely. To keep them unaware, students aren't allowed to talk to their siblings about what they learn at Solcaster or talk to them at all. Not during the school year at least. The problem is, I think either Theo or I would slip up and say something we shouldn't, and in doing that, we would put Lulu at risk. Therefore, we try to stay away from her as much as we can. It hurts to not be able to talk to her anymore, but it's for her own safety. She doesn't know that, though. She just thinks I left her here, in this place. She probably thinks I just decided to never talk to her again.

"Maia, I wish you were here. He's ignoring me again. I didn't even do anything other than be kind to Theo, so he can't be upset that I was being rude to him this time!"

She's talking about the big fight we had over Christmas break. She was being rude to Theo at dinner, talking about how odd it was that he didn't want to spend Christmas with his own family. We both knew that she was only saying it because she was upset that I'd been ignoring her, but he was bothered all the same. She aimed to hurt, and she succeeded. I shouted at her for ages after she said it. She ended up leaving the table and didn't eat another meal with us until we left. She didn't even go with my parents to drop us off.

I can hear the other girl talking on the phone. It's still odd to be able to do that. We aren't allowed phones at Solcaster, so it's new.

"I'm sorry, Ellie, I wish I was there too. I'll visit at some point this summer, I promise. As for Ben, try to talk to him. Ask him why he's being this way. Maybe he'll shine some light on the situation."

Ellie seems to be trying to compose herself before she answers.

"Yeah, you're right. I'll try if I get the chance. He's just never home anymore, and when he is, he's asleep. I just don't know what I did. We used to be best friends, and now he won't even talk to me."

My guilt thickens. I can feel the tears stinging my eyes. I shouldn't have eavesdropped on her. I turn and walk back to my window, careful not to make a sound. Theo is fast asleep. I quietly get back through the window and shut it. I slip under my blankets and think about this past year. 

God, I'm the worst brother in the world. I've been having fun and making friends, and all the while, Lulu's been going through hell over here. It's not that I didn't miss her. I've just had a lot more to distract me than she has. As I think about the year she's probably had, the tears return. I can't stop myself. I cry, silently weeping into my pillow, for the first time since Christmas break. I don't know how long I cried before I fell asleep, but it was a while.

~~~

I jolt awake, and there's sunshine peeking through my window. As I try to figure out what woke me up, I hear another loud crash coming from downstairs. I quickly jump up and sprint down the stairs. I run to the kitchen to find my father making breakfast.

"What was that noise?" I ask. No one else seems all that worried about it.

"How did you get down here that fast?" Ellie asks, eyes narrowing.

Shit.

"Nevermind. That's Darla trying to lay on the wooden crates outside. She doesn't understand that she's too heavy and they won't support her weight," Ellie explains, sighing as if I'm the odd one for worrying about the loud crash.

Thank God she didn't ask more questions- wait... Darla? Who's Darla?

"Darla is my cow," Ellie explains as if she read my mind. Her face lights up. "Mom and Dad finally agreed to let me get one so that I would stop being depressed after you left in January. She's really sweet! Want to meet her?" she asks.

She's so excited that I can't tell her no. She asks if Theo wants to meet her too. She's trying to make an effort to include him. That much is obvious. What she doesn't know is that Theo loves every animal he's ever met. I tell her that he'd love to, then rush upstairs to wake him up. The second the word cow leaves my mouth, he's up and getting dressed.

She leads us out the back door and to the left corner of our yard, where there's a small barn that wasn't there last time I was here. Sometimes, I feel as though I've become an outsider in my own home. So much has changed, and I haven't been here to witness it.

We all walk into the barn, and sure enough, the second we walk in, a cow is running up to us. She runs right to Lulu, and you can see how well she takes care of her. Darla is a little more weary of me and Theo, but after we feed her some treats, she warms up to us. Theo is ecstatic, grinning and giggling while he pets her.

It's nice to see that Lulu hasn't just been sitting in her room. I'm glad she found things to occupy her time. Hopefully, they'll get her through the rest of her school years.