Elements' Eyes (Book 1: Going-Through)

A Surprise 1.4

"That won't work. She lives in a place where I can't live. She grew up there and she's fine with it, but I may break all my bones before I learn to be as careful as she is. Or I'll starve, because it's hard to find food there."

"Then she should live near you!"

"Why would she leave her home and live near me? I wouldn't actually want her to. My place of living isn't very nice. Why do you think we need to live next to each other, anyway? It's a shame she's so far, of course, but I'm not sure it has to be changed."

"It has. You said you were an adult, but adults should live together with their friends. Children live with their parents because they're little, but they make friends to leave their parents and then go to live with the friends they've made."

"Why?" Keernah was amazed and a little ashamed. She'd never had thought about it.

"Because it's better for them. Dad told me that."

"I see. Are you going to leave your parents too when you grow up?"

"Dad said I would. I didn't want to and I said so, but then my sister came in from the yard. She isn't an adult, but she's always making friends and playing in the street when she's not at school. And she plays with her friends in school too and the teachers scold her. Dad never scolds her for that, and he tells me it's good, because she likes her friends and will like them even more when she grows up. And I'll be like her, but I'm too little yet."

He peered up at Keernah's face, as if expecting her to agree, but it was as blank as a white pebble beach all around him.

"You're probably not an adult yet if you can't live with your friends," Keat concluded calmly. He was quite happy about it, because most adults who were not his relatives liked to tell boring things or ask him to stand still for no reason.

"Well, you said yourself that girls like me go to school at your place." Keernah reminded, pursing her lips. She would like to see the adults who could live in the heart of the mountains. Her friend was not a human but a ceald.

"Can you put spells?" Keat asked all of a sudden. He might have thought it could help Keernah to live closer to her friend or to grow up quicker. "The teacher and her husband can. Didn't she teach you?"

"No, she only taught me to sing. Do you think you want to listen?"

Actually Keernah decided the boy was certain to ask her about that if she didn't offer it first; and would be certain to refuse if she did offer first, for it wasn't him who came up with it. But this child wasn't too easy to see through.

"Yes, I do!" he answered curiously.

Overall, Keernah didn't mind getting sick and expressing her dark mood by that; but that had to happen secretly, unnoticeably, without her help. And singing out in the cold seemed an apparent suicide to her. Could she try doing that with a scarf over her mouth? That didn't seem possible. Not knowing what to do, scared Keernah pulled her hat down over her eyes. The boy watched her with great interest, believing that was a necessary preparation.

"I should have honestly said I was in a hurry and let Keat go to those friends of his," Keernah thought angrily. But she knew their acquaintance would probably have ended there. Although Keernah was at least ten years older than most of her little friends, they liked to walk with her, because she didn't behave like anyone that old: she didn't ask silly questions, didn't lecture what was right and wrong and also never tried to get rid of the children as soon as possible. However, it would be necessary sometimes, and Keernah always knew how to do it wisely so that no child got her true reasons to leave. But somehow she could not do it today.