Ollie MacQuoid and the Journey To Rubius

Chapter Three

The few days Ollie was supposed to spend with the Sallows quickly became a week, then two, then three. With every passing day, Ollie felt a little less eager to go back to his own family, and the times when the beaten-up radio in the corner would mention his name bothered him less and less. By the time a month had passed, Ollie was practically a Sallow himself. The Sallows didn't own a telephone (though barely anyone did), so Agnus, Elora's mother, wrote out a letter to Ollie's father saying that Ollie would be staying with them until he came to get him. Though the prospect of Ollie going back home made him want to cry, he was determined to enjoy his weeks with this new, strange family as the letter made its way through the slow journey back to his home.

His month with the Sallows was interesting, to say the least. Ollie, as it turned out, knew much less about water spirits than he had previously thought, and he learnt many things while staying. He learnt that water spirits were not, in fact, part of the Elf family — they descended from a branch of ancient wizards who only practiced water magic. The same was to be said about fire spirits, too. His father had always said, in a sort of demeaning tone, that the spirits that worked in his home were no more than 'lowly spirits' and, without anyone telling him differently, Ollie had believed it.

Ollie found it slightly embarrassing to have been so quick to belittle the water spirits, for they were much more powerful than he'd thought. Elora, who was only three months younger than him, could make waves in her water glass and push all of her soup to the sides of her bowl, leaving the chunks of beef in the centre like a little brown island. Calladin's abilities were even more spectacular. He could water travel, which Ollie didn't totally understand, but still found it pretty cool. One of Ollie's favourite things to watch was Calladin balancing atop the shallow waves like an acrobat, using the force of his own powers to keep his feet floating. Sometimes he'd falter, or Elora would hide on the balcony and start messing with the waves, and he'd go crashing down, clothes and all, and reappear a moment later, soaked from head to toe and clearly unamused.

Ollie knew Calladin didn't like him much. He understood why, too, and that made it all the worse. What he didn't understand is why he wanted Calladin to like him so. He could have just as easily ignored him, as he had no issue with the rest of the family, but something in him felt drawn to keep striving for his approval. He just could not pinpoint the troublesome piece of his mind that wouldn't let the issue go.

"Ollie?"

Ollie broke from his trance. Elora stood in the doorway, holding a thick book under one arm and a wooden bowl under the other. "My mum made seaweed before dinner. Do you want some?"

Elora was always hesitant to offer him food. During his first week with them, the shrimp they'd cooked for dinner one night caused a massive allergic reaction and made him sick at the table. Thoroughly humiliated, he had flat out refused to eat for a day or two before Agnus was able to coax some breakfast into him. Nothing embarrassing had happened since, but he couldn't help but be wary.

Ollie nodded; the seaweed smelt quite delicious. Pleased, Elora came and sat herself down on the floor beside him, placing the bowl between her book and his. As she flipped it open and produced a half-drawn map pressed between its pages, Ollie quickly grew uninterested in the book he was reading — an old copy of Creatures of the Nation: A Guide Through the Second Abaryssian War — and watched her draw. It was the quietest he'd ever seen her.

"What're you drawing?" He asked curiously. The map, which looked to be one of a city, wasn't at all familiar.

"Junfray Mok." She answered simply.

"Where's that?"

"Epoch."

"Where's that?"

Elora flipped to another page — a faded map of their little planet — and pointed to a small country far on the East coast. "Upper Uuvroya. It's one of the places I want to travel to when I'm grown up."