A/N: So basically, I've already written half this story on my computer, but just haven't got round to posting any of it. College life is crazy.... ^.^
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Chapter Two
I THOUGHT I KNEW WHERE SHE MIGHT BE. I STEPPED INTO THE twilight of the clearing, the air thick and heavy around me. Tiny buzzing gnats floated around, catching the dying, yellow light every so often.
My feet crunched over the brittle, dead leaf litter as I walked into the middle of the clearing.
Disappointment is a heavy burden, a demanding mistress.
I inhaled slowly, letting my eyes slip shut, images flashing before my closed lids. She was there, walking through the clearing towards me, hand outstretched. She was wearing her elfish grin, the one that lifted the seriousness of the moment.
My eyes flashed open.
She wasn’t there. But of course she wasn’t. At the moment, she was only a fabrication of my imagination and that’s all she would be until I found her.
This clearing had been our favourite place, our favourite hideout. We would hide from the world until we got bored or the world around us sobered.
I walked across the clearing and looked down over a short ledge. Beneath my feet was a bank and a river that ran orange-brown with the clay from the hills. I grabbed hold of a tree branch and leant out over the ledge as far as I could. My feet slipped on the pine needles a little, but I held on and closed my eyes, letting the rushing water fill my ears.
‘What are you doing?’
My eyes flew open and the shock tensed every muscle in my body. So much so, that I let go of the tree branch and tumbled down the ledge. The momentum was so strong, I carried on stumbling and skidding until I was half lying in the river. I groaned, resting my spinning head on the muddy rocks. I didn’t even care who had spoken. It wasn’t Kelsie, I knew that much.
I heard the crunch of wet pebbles a moment later and I cracked open an eye.
A girl I recognised from my biology class was crouched by my head, her hair hanging over her face and obscuring the sky.
Her lips parted as if to speak, but she didn’t have any words.
‘What do you want?’ I mumbled, making no attempt to move. The water was seeping through my clothes, into my shoes, but the numb sensation was compelling.
Again, her mouth opened to speak, but she just gaped. Then, finally;
‘You’re gonna get pneumonia lying in a river like that,’ she said, her eyes casting over my spread-eagled body.
‘I. Know,’ I grunted, my face still smashed into the mud.
Without a word, she hooked her hands under my armpits and tried to haul me to my feet. Quickly realising she wasn’t strong enough, I stood up myself.
A tiny frown mark appeared between her eyebrows. I looked up to the bank where I fell from and saw a flaxen-haired boy and a black Labrador.
‘That’s my brother,’ the girl said, flicking her hair over her shoulder. It was the same, pale gold colour. ‘He wanted to know what you were doing.’
I glanced back to the girl, then back to the boy on the bank. He stared down at me with narrow brown eyes. I turned to the girl and saw his eyes embedded in her face. The familiarity was gnawing at a corner of my mind.
‘What’s your name again?’ I asked.
‘I’m Janica and that is Leopold; he likes to be called Leo,’ she answered. When I just stared at her, finally remembering the quietly spoken girl from the front row, she spoke again. ‘And the dog is Jorg.’
‘Right,’ I muttered, nodding my head.
‘We’re not German. We’re Austrian. Our mother is anyway.’
Once again, I nodded.
‘What were you doing?’ she asked for the second time.
‘I was…getting in touch with nature,’ I mumbled, not quite knowing myself what I’d been doing.
Janica turned to Leo and rattled off a sharp sentence in what I could only assume was Austrian. He and the dog disappeared, hidden by the ledge.
‘Did you drive here?’ Janica turned back to me.
‘Yes,’ I breathed, still a little dazed by her arrival. What was she doing here?
‘Car in the car park?’
‘Yes,’ I breathed again.
‘Come on then,’ she said briskly and took my arm. She began to lead me back through the woods, back towards the car park.
‘Why…why are you doing this?’ I asked, my voice hoarse.
‘You’ll get pneumonia,’ she said simply. ‘I’ll drive you back, it’s okay.’
I shook my arm out of her grasp. ‘I can get myself back home,’ I said.
Janica looked at me for a long while, as if sizing me up. Her eyes flickered down to my sodden shoes and back up to my face.
She shrugged. ‘Okay.’ Her voice was very quiet, her pale face luminous. Then she turned and left, stalking back into the forest.
I stayed where I was for a moment, thinking back over her strange intervention. I carried on back to the parking lot.
BACK IN MY CAR, I REALISED HOW COLD I WAS. I LOCKED THE doorsand smashed the heating up to full blast, wrapping my arms around my knees as the shivers began. They racked down my body and I ground my teeth in an effort to stop them chattering. The dull roar of the heating filled my ears until I was oblivious to the wind outside, playing in the trees and my thoughts inside, rattling around my empty head.
