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For the last few months the same girl had been casually wandering past my house, or abandoned mansion as the local school children call it, bopping her head to the beat of the song, gently humming it to herself as she made her way to her school.
I was mesmerized ever since I first saw her, well, heard her.
It was about eight o'clock in the morning of the very first day of school, or at least that's what I figured out as hoards of noisy, rowdy children would be stampeding by my house. However, after all of the animals had cleared away from the mansion possibly because I played a slight trick on them, opening the door a fraction, was all I did to send them screaming over the hills and away from the 'haunted house'. But when the noise level had returned to peaceful, I climbed back into my ice cold duvet and tried to make myself comfortable on the old, rock-hard mattress that I had, unfortunately, been using for the last several hundred years.
That was when I heard her, she was singing. Her sweet, melodic voice echoed around the house, filling my head with the most beautiful sound I had ever heard. I remember I dashed to the window to get a look at the girl with the angel voice, but I was too late too see her face. When I had reached the window pane and I looked outside, all I could see was her long dirty blonde hair neatly wound up in a fish plat that fell all the way to her waist.
A thick, pale blue sweater hung off her shoulders making it seem that it was winter outside, but her skinny jeans showed the opposite. She wore a pair of battered blue converse, with the laces untied and dragging behind her as she took each step. A brown satchel was hugging her side as the strap was holding on to the opposite shoulder. A wire floated loosely in the air as the extra length of the headphones wasn't useful to the angelic musician that was slowly walking away from me, though I could hardly class that as walking, it was more like floating or gliding.
I ran downstairs, tugging on shoes as I made my way towards the rickety old door that was practically hanging off its hinges. I tried to open it as slowly as possible, hoping that she wouldn't speed up or run away from the scary house with the door the spookily swings open. My plan was to sneak outside, and catch up to her, getting full view of her face in all it's glory.
However, as I guessed, my plan failed, they never worked anyway, but this time it failed, but benefited me greatly. This was the part that was imprinted in my mind, to core of my protectiveness and curiosity about the angel girl; she heard the door creak open and her head whipped around, checking that no one was there.
And just as I guessed; she was perfect. At first sight my eyes were drew to hers. I thought her eyes were bright green, like grass in the summer, or an emerald in the light, but when I slowly worked my way closer to her, they became more blue. Not an ice blue like mine, more like a sapphire blue that's as deep as the ocean that holds mystery and adventure. They were captivating.
And looking into her eyes automatically set a mission in my head. Find out about her; her name, her likes, dislikes, hobbies, just things that makes her who she is. And I figured that it'd be easy since I'm invisible right?
Wrong. As soon as she walked into that school it was like she was a piece of meat and everyone else was a piranha, trying to get to close her. I know beautiful people herd together but I couldn't get anywhere near her without risking people walking into me and wondering what it was. So I had to watch from a distance. I know that sounds really stalkerish but it's really not. I promise.
After a few days of trying to find out things about her from a distance and having no such luck, I had a plan which involved the ye old tales of me.
This was when the fact that I was transparent and anything I touched, with a bit of effort, could become invisible as well, came in handy, a lot.
So after a day of planning and figuring out how I was going to get the bits and pieces to make the plan work; I snuck into a library. Well, technically I didn't sneak in, I strolled in, spent a few minutes browsing in the 'children's fairy tale' sector until I found a book about winter legend's.
After scanning the book til it came to the best section of it all: Mine, I pulled the second piece of scheming equipment out of my pocket. A shard of ice.
Using as much of my power as I could, I ensured that both items where invisible, then stuck the shard of ice on the page where my tales began, I'd say it's the best bookmark you could get, and casually walked back out. Straight past the librarian and the security guards that were half asleep anyway.
Now my plan was all set up, all I had to do was wait outside my house, until the girl walked home, not until the ice melted. Because it won't, its too cold and lets just say I cast a bit of magic for emphasis and awesomeness.
I sat there in silence for a while, watching winter do its daily routine; blow leaves around, snow and just look pretty. After only hearing the rustling of leaves and small animals nibbling away at whatever piece of frozen food they had managed to scavenge, as soon as my ears picked up a energetic beat from a song and that all too perfect heavenly voice; I knew she was here.
I lifted myself up from the snow covered ground, pulling the book up from the patch of snow behind me. I brushed the rest of the clumped snowflakes off the leather biding and watched the mesmerizing specimen walk by me.
I followed behind her, as silently as I could, and tried to slip the book into her bag. After a while of walking behind her and unsuccessfully trying to lift up the flap of her brown satchel, the universe, or guardians, for some reason decided that they were going to help me, and out of the blue: She stopped walking.
Abruptly as well, I nearly walked straight into her. She stopped walking and she crouched down. I arranged myself so that I could see what was happening; she was tying her shoelace. I don't know why I thought it'd be something more interesting. I then went back to my original position beside her and crouched as well, so that I was level with her.
As quickly and quietly as I could, I opened up her smooth leather bag and slipped the thick bound book in the midst of her belongings before sealing the bag closed again, and double checking so it wouldn't open up and cause any suspicion since it was buttoned.
The next thing I did might sound a touch weird but I assure you, those were not my intentions; I followed her home. However, I wouldn't really call it following as I was walking right next to her, but I just wanted to make sure that she got the book safely in her house, and hopefully was going to read it. That was when it got weird.
But you know what they say: People do stupid things in the name of love.
When we reached her house, I did the most stupid thing I had done in years, even worse than when I made it snow in summer and it all just melted and lots of places were submerged in water. Yes, worse than that; I followed her inside the house.
I know I said it didn't get weird, but at the time I thought I wasn't being weird, I thought of myself more like a guardian angel than a stalker that follows people into houses. But she probably wouldn't have thought of it the same way I did, which makes me glad that I'm invisible when no one believes.
As she walked into the house, she scuffled her shoes on the welcome mat, unplugged her white earphones and said "Hello," to her parents, I'm suspecting.
She then drops her bag next to the pile of coats near the entrance and jogs upstairs. I groaned internally; I forgot that she didn't know about the plan because it was going really smoothly, and then she just had to go run up the stairs and not check her bag for any mystical objects.
Why would anyone do that? I said in my head.
And for a moment I was sure that I had said it out loud as when I said it, she whipped her face around and started coming back down the stairs. I just stood there in utter terror; what the hell was I meant to do?
But as I was in panic mode I did nothing. I just stood there like a statue, not moving and almost forgetting to breath, as she reached the bottom set of stairs, as I thought she was about to walk straight into me; she sat down on the bottom step and pulled her bag on to her knee. She unzipped the bag, and I swear, if I was sat down, I would be on the edge of my seat.
When she opened her bag, she quickly pulled out a boring, green school work book and started zipping up the bag again. At this point I remember I was tempted to just open up the door and walk out of there, leaving her in utter shock and what had just happened, but when I turned around and was about to exit, I heard the zipping noise again.
My head whipped around so fast I thought it was going to unscrew itself from my neck and fly away.
She unzipped the bag and pulled out the tangled string of earphones and shuffled around her bag until she effortlessly dropped them in. Just as she was about to zip up the bag again, I saw confusion flood into her ocean blue orbs as her pale hands grasped the creased leather that held the old worn book together.
She lifted it up out of the bag slowly, looking around to see if any of her family members had placed the book in there but seeing that no one was there, she looked at the book, front on.
Her eyes scanned the front of the book and my eyes scanned her face simultaneously, hoping that she would be intrigued and read the book, and the book helped with that. 'The Tales of the Legends' was written in cursive across the front, covering most of the brown bindings with its golden writing, and the parts of the cover that wasn't written on was in cased in small drawings that represented the tales inside, and I was in the middle of it all. Me and a stick. I don't know why people think I would carry a stick but that really doesn't matter, what does matter is that I made my way into a book about legends.
But getting back to the story, the plan had obviously worked as she seemed curious about the tales that were wrapped up inside the book, and her hand trailed up the binding and along the top until it reached the freezing cold icicle that was frozen in place. I watched as she flipped open the pages till she reached the one that the shard of ice had positioned itself, and on the page there were two things.
My name, and my silhouette.
Along with that stupid stick as well. I swear, that stick is more famous than me. I know I said it didn't bother me but there are thousands of sticks and only one creator of snow days and all things winter, I should get the most credit.
She took a long, hard look at the picture on the page before closing the book and pulling it into her chest as she walked back up the stairs.
And as any - strange, stalker-like - person would do, I went up after her. Slowly. Trying not to make the stairs squeak underneath me and rouse any suspicion that she was getting robbed and stop the possibility that she could charge out with a baseball bat and run into the invisible object that is me.
After about five minutes or so I had reached the top of the stairs without making any noise. Now this was the part that I thought would be hardest; finding out which room is hers and trying to open the door without any person in the room noticing.
But like I said, my plans never work. Straight across from the stairs was here room. And how did I know? The door was wide open and she was curled up in her bed with the book and the make shift book mark in front of her.
I then did what any, genuinely normal person would do. I took a seat on the couch.
I watched her from my spot for about twenty minutes or so, her eyes flicking across the page, soaking up knowledge about my and my identity. But suddenly I was pulled out of the perfect trance that was watching her be utterly fascinated about me, when she slammed the book shut and jumped up from her bed.
She threw the quilt behind her and dashed out of the room the quickest I've ever seen a human move, and before I could blink she was back in the room, her hair flying everywhere as she dove back onto the bed with a pencil and a pad of paper in her hands.
I sat there confused as she scrambled back underneath the covers and started drawing. I had the suppress the urge to laugh as when she concentrated, she crumpled up her face and stuck her tongue out. If I had a camera, I assure you I would have taken a picture and it would have went viral.
After spending a while trying to re-enact her facial expression, she stopped pulling it and held the drawing pad away from her, admiring her work. She then swiftly ripped the paper away from the bindings and started on a new drawing, or whatever she was concentrating on.
Being the curious person I am, I slid off the couch and walked silently towards the side of her bed, hoping to get a better look at the art work, and when it came into view I nearly lost my breath. I hardly ever get to see myself or my reflection as there is nothing there, but looking at the piece of paper it was like looking into a black and white mirror. The resemblance was immaculate.
I knew then that the plan had worked, she had believed and I had to get out. One; because I might start to become slightly visible, or two; I might cry at how good it felt to look at myself again and I think she'd be scared if the air magically started crying and making sniffle noises.
I turned to face the door, but on the opposite side of the bed there was a window, fully open and I could easily fit in it. So, being the idiot I am, I crawled slowly to the other side of the room and climbed onto the window pane. I dangled my legs over the ledge and looked down.
I remember making some snide comment in my head about how it's not the furthest I've ever jumped off a building from, but that was wiped out of my head when I jumped. I fell when I landed, but being suave I didn't fall, I turned it in to a commando roll that would have been truly cool if people could have seen it.
I then set off towards home, but I took the long way where no one knew that there was a path so I could make leaves float and makes shapes in the snow. Let my imagination and skills run wild. I could kick up the leaves and no one would wonder what happened. I could whistle a tune and no one could hear.
It was perfect for me.
All the way home I was deep in thought. Not about the beautiful girl, but about how she drew me. It was as if she had seen me before, or could still see me, but being that deep in thought and walking invisibly nearly made me walk into two things. The first one wasn't that bad, but was a tiny bit embarrassing. A tree. And the second one was due to my pure stupidity. A person.
Luckily, I didn't walk into the person, I managed to dodge them, but unfortunately, I did walk into the tree.
I was genuinely surprised that someone else had found the path but when they started going on about how they were lost and were going to be late for dinner, that just gave me some live entertainment for the walk.
As soon as the entertainers took off in a direction I didn't need to walk my mind wandered back to my plan, and how I would need to see if it worked by going into the school and seeing if my name was being spoken and passed along. And before long, after thinking of all the opportunities that could emerge, I reached the rickety old door.
I literally tapped the old door and it flew open, making a deafening noise as it swung. When I stepped inside, a chilling gust of wind ran through the house, shutting the door for me. I walked up the unsteady stairs and dragged myself into my room and onto my bed.
I pulled up the cardboard-like sheets over my body and let my mind run around all the events of the day until I fell into a slumber.
The next morning, I woke up refreshed with a ready made plan in my head; Go to school and see if people are talking about me and sharing my tales.
So that's what I did, I went off to school. I jumped out the back window, so I didn't cause havoc or have curious people walking through my house, and then blended in with the crowd. And what I found out is that teenagers cannot walk in a straight line, or even a pattern. Some even have difficulty with walking forwards.
Basketballs, footballs and rugby balls were flying everywhere and I felt like I was in a dodge ball match, I couldn't let them hit me otherwise the ball would have bounced off an invisible surface, and that would be hard for anyone to explain.
Luckily, after a few minutes of that torture they went off to the field that was next to the school, and almost bigger than the school, and I continued to follow the quieter crowd who were heading to the benches and seats under a gazebo.
When I stepped inside the gazebo hut I automatically lent in at the wall, so that no one would accidentally walk into me, unless they walked into walls. I scanned the heated area for the girl, but I couldn't see her, and just as I was about to sneak out I heard 'Jack Frost' being whispered about and I walked to where the noise was coming from; a huge crowd of people.
A huge crowd of people, with the girl, and my book, in the middle of it all.
She was reading out my tales and my name was being talked about at every table, I stayed in my position against the wall going unseen.
Until someone saw me. "Who's that?" A girl who was sat just outside of the crowd shouted and pointed towards me. Being the dope that I am, I turned around. That was until I realized I was stood on a wall, and the girl was really pointing at me.
So I ran, sprinted, literally flew out of there. People tried chasing me but some patches of ice took care of that. Just before I was out of ear shot I heard a few people mumbling the words ghost, spirit and Jack Frost.
My plan worked.