Elements' Eyes (Book 1: Going-Through)

A Surprise 2.2

Their car was spacious and comfortably warm. Just three years ago they used to travel in an old cramped car that would often skid, which could be more dangerous than hiking. The family combined their efforts and eventually got everything to assemble another car: large, fast, reliable, even looking like a new one. Keernah still couldn't help admiring it, while her parents admired their car and daughter together.

"I didn't consider buying a good automobile in the era of money, and my daughter earned it for me by singing in the era of barter," Keernah's father would say, giving her a guilty look.

But she did not think he was to blame for anything. Virtually no people in the world could have confidently predicted that the universal crisis of resources would hit during their lifetime. After it happened, everyone did what was still possible to do. Keernah sang, her mother treated the sick as well as she could without usual medicines and means of disinfection, and her father could make or repair nearly everything. So, the parents might have done without Keernah's work and still got a car; it was just that it would have taken more time.

But Keernah gladly took a whole middle seat for herself when she was offered to – she had been always annoyed by lack of personal space in her corner, even though she did not need much of it. While her mother preferred the rear seat combined with the trunk where she could even walk back and forth, Keernah only wanted that no one caught her by surprise, approaching her instantly, before she could see the person and get ready. The middle seat seemed a perfect place to her. Flanked by high black headrests, it looked like a cozy mountain valley, where the cold winds did not penetrate.

Keernah was getting comfortable there when her mother woke up again. Her eyes were shining in the headlights' light; she moved closer, squeezing her face between the backs of Keernah's seat, and started whispering something excitedly. Keernah didn't even begin to make out her words, when Dad suddenly called out – he had just turned off the engine for a moment and heard his wife's whisper. Keernah did not understand what he was saying either, but it had sounded a bit resentful. Mom laughed confusedly, stroked Keernah's shoulder and silently moved back. "Ha," her father said, driving out of the yard and toward the road. The snowstorm was dancing around their car.

Keernah pouted a little. Her parents seemed to be enjoying themselves, but she was somewhat tired and couldn't actually feel half as cheerful. There were also a few issues she didn't know how to solve but could not ask for her parents' help under any circumstances, because they were part of some issues. How was she supposed to deal with Mom and Dad's shock after telling them she was going to stay in the mountains?

She didn't really fear for their well-being: they'd almost reached the age when they would be welcome and appreciated almost anywhere, because they were experienced, skillful, and still strong. But they expected least of all that their daughter plans for her future without them. They'd keep asking if they had offended her and wouldn't accept no for an answer. They'd keep asking why she was fine before and wouldn't listen that she had never been fine but couldn't truly realize it. She knew she wouldn't be able to persuade them even if she'd have to tell them about her friendship with ghosts from another world and invisible non-human creatures from this one. Neither would they take seriously the facts about her still loving someone she'd met when she was five and never meeting anyone better.

Was it actually necessary to open up to them? Keernah thought she could just say she wasn't able to get used to people's hostility. The parents would certainly get that: her father always guarded her with his shotgun ready when she performed in front of an audience; and when Keernah was leaving their place to go somewhere, her mother looked at her as if they saw each other for the last time, which was pretty well grounded in reality. The parents realized all the harshness of today's human world; but they had never thought of leaving it behind. For them, there was nothing else.