Elements' Eyes (Book 1: Going-Through)

A Surprise 1.1

18 years later  

Keernah was caught in the snow all of a sudden. The morning did not seem all that cold, and the gray clouds were certainly lighter than the day before. The pavement slipped under her feet, but that used to promise the first snow only a couple weeks later if not a month. The carefree girl quickly walked along the empty street just smiling when she would lose her balance on the ice and danced a bit so as not to fall. It was real fun with her good skill; but in the end, Keernah dropped her bag with the notes for the lesson. And when she crouched and began looking through them, on occasion, a few snowflakes fell on the ground just in front of her.

Keernah did not instantly realize what that meant. She stared uncomprehendingly at the snowflakes falling one after another on her bag and melting at once. The wind rose and tossed up the snow that was still in the air. Keernah looked up after it so quickly that a little boy, who was silently watching her, became startled and dashed away, but then curiosity got the better of him.

After all, he spent a lot of his courage to have walked that far and finally met a ghost. His friends had told him that it lived in the middle of the sea and would go out on a deserted shore, but he had not really believed them. And here was the ghost! Like he had heard, it looked like a very young auntie with long dark hair, and she was not transparent at all, more like a human than a ghost. Only her eyes were so sparkling and strange, not the ones most people had. But he had seen wild cats in a zoo, and they had similar eyes – green burning ones, filled with something weird and a little scary, as if the cats could see things no one else could and were ready to use all their teeth and claws to catch it. And the ghost clearly could see something there, in the sky...

But this wild ghost would not harm him, although he was a small boy and could not run very fast. Friends had told him it could only pass through objects and people and could see, hear, and speak. And also sing. It would fly to the music teacher who lived in the house on the far end of the seashore: it had to be her who taught the ghost to sing.

After all, the teacher was an evil witch who pretended to be kind. Adults did not see the ghost, but she did, although she was many years old, probably nearly as old as Grannie. But she did not look like that. All witches looked young and lived far away from people. Also, she was not afraid of the sea, because she knew how to put a spell on it. Or her husband knew – Mom said he studied it. Maybe he told the sea a secret word, and it became obedient like a trained puppy.

Did they teach the ghost to put spells too? Could they actually have it instead of a cat? Would it meow back if one called it like everyone called cats? Children said the ghost asked questions and told all sorts of interesting things, but hardly anyone thought of calling it like a cat.

Meanwhile, Keernah paid no attention to the boy and glared unblinkingly at the sky, at the actual winter snowfall. It was still quiet and gentle, and the snow melted once it reached the pavement; but the Mogham's inspectors would not fail to notice it. Were they even blind, the snowfall was not a random child of a frozen autumn cloud. That season was irrevocably over: another kind of clouds was piling up in the sky now. They darkened just before Keernah's eyes, and the wind grew stronger. In the evening, a long snowstorm would start, and by that time all the townspeople should have left the city.

And Keernah had thought she'd have had two more weeks at least, so she hadn't looked for a difficult task to distract herself during another boring winter. Snowflakes blinded her eyes, but she didn't feel them in her horror and couldn't blink. The stupid failure was entirely her fault. Winter came a little earlier every next year, but Keernah had found out long ago how to cope with boredom and melancholy when she could not even go for a walk. She would find a painstaking work or activity she wouldn't even begin to consider during other seasons; but in winter it would miraculously turn into the greatest fun she could imagine.