Elements

Chapter 10

It had been a long week. I don't know how I had made it through it.

May's snarky comments sure hadn't helped. Neither had the explosion on Wednesday in Mad science that had singed the ends of my hair on the longer side. And the exhaustion from the private training was overwhelming. We had so far covered ice, fire, electricity, water, wind, rock, and ground. We still had to cover one more element.

However, there had been good things too. All of my classes I had taken to with ease, and the music room was great. It had every instrument I could think of and more, as well as its own recording studio. Anita was there for me the whole time, being the gray friend she was. One thing was for sure, I was lucky I had her.

Thankfully it was the weekend. No school, no private lessons, no homework. It was lunch time, and Anita an I were headed to the cafeteria. I grew a couple of prices of fruit in my hand While Anita got in line. I had remembered something on Tuesday at breakfast when eating a price of bacon: I was a vegetarian. I sat at an empty table and waited for my friend to come back.

I saw her walking towards me, but at the same time, I heard my name from behind me. When I turned to see who it was, I saw an elderly woman approaching me from behind.

"Please, I need to speak to Anita." she said, at the same time Anita said, "what's wrong Ella?" I chose to answer Anita first.

"There's an older woman here who says she's here to see you." I moved to the side so she could see the woman in question.

"Very funny Ella," She said, rolling her eyes. I frowned and turned back to the woman.

"Tell her that I'm sorry and I love her," She said. I relayed the message.

"Who says that? What's her name?" She said jokingly. What was with her?

"Tell her it's Grandma Meriem" I turned to Anita, who was pretending to not have heard anything. so I told her what Meriem had said. Her joking manner vanished.

"That's not funny Ella." She said quietly.

"No it's not." I said as Meriem whispered in my ear what to tell her next. "She says she needs to apologize for your fight.".

"Ella stop! I don't know how you know this, but this isn't funny!" Her violet eyes were filled with tears.

"I'm not joking! She's right here! Don't pretend you can't see her. I suppose you can't see the man behind her either? or the little girl by the trash can?" I said angrily. Why would I lie to her or joke with her about a clearly touchy subject. Doesn't she know me better than that?

Her eyes narrowed. "There's no one there." My eyes widened as I turned to look at the people she claimed didn't exist. They were all staring at me as if I had forgotten the most obvious thing in the world.

"You mean... you can't see them?" And then I got it when one of them walked right through her. They weren't people at all. They were ghosts. "A- Anita, can I... talk to you real quick?" Reluctantly, she stood and we walked out the door.

"What is going on with you? Let me guess, the teenage mutant ninja turtles are coming? You see dead people?" She hurled accusations at me as soon as we were out of the cafeteria.

"Actually, one of those is correct." I explained to her what was happening. Her eyes widened as I spoke. Then she mumbled something under her breath. "What?" I said.

"The death element. You can see them, hear them, probably even control them. But no one else can..." Now it was my turn to stand in shock. Looks like I had two more elements to cover in my private lessons, not one.