Children of the Sky

Children of the Sky Part 2

7

I stopped bothering with sneaking. She knew I was there. But I was still careful to tread lightly. A small crunch of leaves, or a crack of a stick, would ruin the magic.

8

She stopped and sat on a log, then turned to me and motioned for me to sit down too. It was the first time I had seen her eyes. They were a piercing blue, the color of the sky. "Remember the birds, Oscar?" she said softly. Of course I did. How could I forget?

"Why are your eyes like they are?" she asked suddenly.

I was surprised she hadn't asked me already. Usually it was the first thing everybody asked me. Why was my right eye blue with gold flecks and my left eye black with gold flecks? I sighed and recited what I had committed to memory years ago.

"It's a condition called caeloculor syndrome, or sky-eyes. Only a few people have ever had it- Clara Rothingsford, Samuel Night, Natalie Stone, Griffin Scottsburg, Katherine Wooding, and..." I struggled to remember, "...and Itri Kim."

She winced after that last name. " Yes, but why is it caused?"

" Nobody knows, but it may be a mutated or mixed eye gene-"

She cut me off, shaking her head. "No. Haven't you ever wished that it would cool down in the hot summer days, and the next minute it actually has?"

"Once," I said, remembering. "But that was a long time ago. It was a coincidence!"

She told me to try it now, so I did. Nothing happened.

"Come on, you have to actually mean it!" she said impatiently. "You have to-" she struggled for a word- "command the sun to beat down less harshly. So I did. It got colder, and colder, and colder, and colder...

"Stop!" she said, shaking. Her face was white, and was that...fear in her eyes?

I attempted to raise the temperature, and brought it up to about 75 degrees. She stared at me for a long time. Finally she said, "Tomorrow night. Here. 11:45." I nodded. This should be interesting.

9

11:45. I was there for twenty minutes alone, before I decided she wasn't going to come. As I turned to leave, she slipped through the trees into the clearing. "Hello, Oscar," she said, as usual. I was angry. "You're late! I waited twenty minutes in the dark!"

"I wanted to see how long you would wait. If you trusted me."

"Well, I guess I do," I said in an irritated voice. But I really did. There was something about her that made me want to stay, that made me wish for her to come.

She reached for my hand and I took it, sending a tingle up my arm. She led me through the woods to a grassy field. You could see the stars perfectly.

She let go of my hand and lay down on the ground. I followed her example, staring at the sky. "No moon," I murmured.

"I know. It's a new moon. That's why I brought you here today. We don't need the moon-just the stars."

A million questions ran through my mind. Finally, I asked, "What are we doing?"

"Remember what you did with the temperature? You were playing with the sun. Now you're going to play with the stars."