IceShine

VII

The next morning, I wake up surprised. Yesterday I didn’t have any nightmares. Well, that’s a first.

When John and I came back yesterday evening, Miranda was in her room. She got really scared of her powers and from what Jason told us, when they put foot into the house, she run to her room and locked her door. Fiona tried getting inside and comforting her, but she wouldn’t open the door. Only when John knocked on her door, did she open up and let him inside. I thought it would be best to let them talk alone. They are in the same position, and have known each other since the day they were born. So, I believed it would be best if I went straight to my room and slept.

I informed Fiona that I wouldn’t be eating dinner, but she had none of it. After she made me eat, I went to my room, put my things in the wardrobe and the desk drawers and went straight to bed, as I was exhausted.

I didn’t hear the alarm clock ringing, so that means, I can sleep a little more. But when I turned around, I was not expecting bumping into something. I slowly open my eyes, and what I see wakes me up for good.

Miranda is curled up under the covers beside me. She’s sleeping peacefully. Then I notice that the area under her eyes is red and swollen. She must have cried the whole night and she couldn’t get any sleep.

As I’m already awake, I’ll go down and make breakfast for everyone. I must thank them somehow for their hospitality. I check the time and I see that it’s 6:30. Okay, one and a half hour before we go to school. I get up carefully, so as not to awake her. She needs sleep, because I can guess that she couldn’t sleep yesterday.

I go inside the bathroom, get ready for the day and go down quietly. Everyone must still be sleeping. When I enter the kitchen, I see Fiona, already making breakfast. She feels my presence, and turns to face me, smiling.

“Good morning, sweetie. Did you sleep well?”

I smile back at her, and go to sit on one of the table stools.

“Good morning. Yes, I slept like a baby. I thought I could make breakfast for everyone, as I woke up earlier, but it didn’t go as planned...”

She laughed.

“Oh sweetie, I always wake up by 6, to make breakfast for everyone.”

“One of these days, I want to make a meal for everyone. As a way to show my appreciation for your hospitality.”

She stops what she’s doing and turns to look at me. She meets my gaze and then sighs. She closes the oven, and comes to sit at the stool next to mine. She takes my hand in hers and looks at me intently.

“Lila, you have to realize that you don’t owe us anything. We care about you, as if you were our own child. We’ve known your parents for, like forever. We don’t do this because we feel responsible, it’s because we care. We care about you. And I’m sure that your parents would have done the same if they were in our shoes.”

She continues to look at me intently. Oh, crap… I’m starting to feel emotional, and I don’t want to cry. She notices this, smiles a beautiful smile, and puts her other hand on my cheek.

“You will never be a burden for us. And you will always see this place as home… We will always be with you.”

I feel a tear slip from my eyes, but she quickly wipes it, before I have the chance to do it myself.

“And if you want to make a meal for us, you can always do it. Only, inform me the day before, okay?”

I smile at her emotionally.

“Thank you...”

“You’re welcome, dear. Now, come on, help me finish preparing breakfast.”

“Okay!”

We get up and I help her with breakfast.

…

When we finish the breakfast preparations, Fiona sends me to wake everyone up. She told me to start with Miranda, because she’s the hardest one of all to wake up. So, I go straight to my room, and sure enough, Miranda is still sleeping.

The exact same moment I touch her shoulder to wake her, the alarm goes off. But, that seems to only make her want to sleep more, as she gets even more under the covers.

“Miranda, wake up...”

“A few more minutes...”

“Not a few minutes, only 5 seconds, otherwise, I will do something you won’t like.”

She puts her whole head under the covers and avoids me. I count to five, and she still hasn’t woken up. So, I lose the little patience I have, and go to the bathroom. I search the bathroom vanity and find what I was looking for: a plastic glass. I put water in it, and go back into my room.

“Miranda, this is your final chance, will you wake up?”

She again ignores me, and I think I hear her snoring. Then I sigh, pull the bed-sheets from her head and pour the whole glass of water in her face.

She screams, quickly wakes up and gets off the bed, while trembling. Okay, I think I woke her up, for good.

“Good morning, sunshine.”

She gives me a death glare, and groans.

“I really don’t like this ironic side of you...”

I laugh.

“Well, at least I tried before pouring the water on you, now get on… Breakfast is ready and we have school.”

The angry look from her eyes disappears, and it’s place takes a skeptical look. I raise an eyebrow, questioningly.

“What is it?”

She keeps looking at me for some seconds. Then, she sighs and goes into the bathroom. She soon returns, with a towel on her hair. She keeps looking at me weirdly. I grunt and sit on the bed.

“Tell me, what is it?”

“I...”

I understands she has some trouble to comprehend what’s happening, and that she’s feeling really weird, so I wait patiently for her, to collect her thoughts. After a while, she opens her mouth.

“I want to know more.”

“More about what?”

“More about these powers… and I want someone to talk to about them… I feel really weird and I can’t exactly explain it.”

She says all these with her head down and with one breath… like literally. I laugh a little at that… She seems so open and talkative, that I can’t get used to seeing her getting shy and bothered at me.

“Of course, I can...”

She lifts her head up really quickly and looks at me, astonished.

“Really?”

“Really...”

And then, I get ready for the bones crushing hug, that she usually gives me when she gets excited, but it never comes. Instead she looks at me, her shocked expression soon changing, and giving way to a small warm smile. Now, it’s my turn to look at her wide eyed…

I quickly snap out of it, and get up from the bed.

“Okay, we’ll talk about everything at night, now go change.”

She looks at me happily and goes out of my room towards her own, hopping from one foot to the other.

Then I remember something. I quickly go to my desk, and find what I was looking for. I go out of my room towards Jason's and Fiona's and knock the door. When I don’t get an answer, I go inside, and find him just walking out of the bathroom, dressed and ready. When his eyes land on me, he seems surprised.

“Lila? Good morning. Do you need anything?”

“Good morning. No, Fiona asked me to wake everyone up. But… I also had something to give you.”

He comes closer to me, and waits for me to continue, his hands under his chest and his eyes staring right back at mine. I look down, at my hands.

“Yesterday, when I went home, I remembered something. Dad had always had one photo of every important person in his life, right in front oh him on his desk. And, I believe that you should have this one.”

I lifted my gaze and gave him the picture, in its frame, like he had it in his office. When he sees the picture, he gets shocked. But his expression soon changes, and a warm and emotional smile spreads on his face.

“It’s our graduation...”

“I know… It was one of the stories about you two that he liked to tell me, a little too much...”

He takes the picture in his hand. He touches it with tenderness, and I see his eyes have glassed. But, before I could say anything to him about it, he exhales, and goes to put the picture on the big vanity of the room, where many photos are standing in frames. I catch a glimpse of their wedding, of Fiona pregnant, of John and Miranda as kids…

“Thank you for this… I really wanted this photo… Each one of us had one, but I lost mine when we moved… I got really sad when this happened.”

“I’m sure, that he would want you to have it.”

I pause for a moment and then exhale.

“Now, I must go. I haven’t exactly finished my job yet.”

“Okay. See you at the table.”

He turns to look at me and smiles. I nod, smile back and get out of the room.

Before going into John’s room, I take a moment to calm myself. That was really intense!

…

I get out of the bathroom, after a long soak, only to see Miranda sprawled out on the bed. The day was just plain weird. When I went to wake John up, he was already up and ready. After we ate breakfast we went to school. In school, of course I was in the middle of all discussions, as they must have learned that I live together with Miranda and John, since the day before yesterday. All the girls were giving me the death glare, whereas the boys just looked at me weirdly. As I said before, it was weird.

John and Miranda weren’t in their best condition today. I often caught both of them looking lost into space. And when someone talked to them, they didn’t answer at first because their mind was elsewhere. I really don’t know how someone can be so absent minded, when only the day before they were so concentrated on what they heard.

And now, after dinner, I was ready to relax until Miranda came to me. I sigh and she hears me. She gets up and makes space for me to sit in. I go and slowly sit down, my legs under my bum.

At first we just look at each other, without really talking. I decide to open the discussion.

“So… What did you want to learn?”

She exhales and turns her gaze to the ceiling.

“I feel weird...”

“What kind of weird?”

“The kind of weird where you just want to punch somebody just because nothing goes right in your life… Or at least you think so...”

I continue looking at her skeptically.

“Do you know what makes you think like that?”

“Yes. My powers..."

She deadpans on me. I put my chin on my hand.

“I thought you were in denial and hadn’t gotten over the first shock of what you can do.”

“No, I’m okay in that department… But… From the moment that I first pushed fire from my arm I feel as if...”

She stops staring at the ceiling and brings her eyes back to mine again. But she isn’t really looking at me. She, again, seems lost in thought.

“As if?”

This brings her out of her daydream, and turns her attention to her fingers, on her legs.

“As if I have this pent up energy inside me, that if I make one wrong movement, I could do something bad… Something to hurt the one standing beside me...”

I continue looking at her. Then, I sigh and decide to tell her.

“You want to hear a story?”

She lifts her eyes to mine and looks at me.

“A story?”

“Yes…”

She looks at me questioningly. I lay back on the bed and put my arms behind my head.

“My powers manifested when I was 6 years old. I started training right after. My father helped me of course. He knew about the difficulties of being a Selinor. I first mastered water and after that air. When I mastered both of them, I started training with ice. But ice is a lot more difficult than the other two. So, the first time when I tried making an ice knife, I hurt my father really badly on his upper arm. Until the day he died, he had a scar… It never left him. When I did that, I cried… I cried so hard… It came to a point where I wouldn’t agree to even use the air and water that I had theoretically mastered.”

I stopped talking lost a little in my memories. I came back up sitting and staring at her. She never stopped looking at my face.

“Then my father, came and told me something that I still keep in mind and live with. He said that, if you have powers like me and him, you should know that it is inevitable to hurt someone. You may hurt someone innocent, or by mistake… But that mustn’t stop you from continuing training. Because, only with training can you stop hurting others.”

Then I look in her eyes and put my hand on top of hers.

“So, that’s what I’m gonna say to you… Stop being afraid that you will hurt someone. You may do it, yes… But that’s exactly why, we, as we have powers, must train with others like us… Because they know best. Maybe it’s not the same, as everyone has a different Element, but you’ll have the main lead. And, you’ll see. When you train you’ll be able to protect others… not hurt them. And if you think about it, it’s your job to protect someone. So stop worrying. These things are irrelevant.”

She stops looking at me and turns her gaze at our hands, but not before I notice the unshed tears she has on her eyes.

“But, what if I can’t do it… Lila, it’s large, the power I feel… And I’m afraid that it’s larger than me...”

I take he face in my hands and make her look at my eyes.

“You can do it… Many others before you have done… So why wouldn’t you be able to do it?”

I smile at her. Then, she let her tears go, and started crying really bad. She Pulled me into a hug and cried on my shoulder. I can't do anything else to help her, than wrap my arms around her and stroke her back, gently. Then, I notice John standing at my open door. I wave at him to come inside.

It seems, Miranda isn't the only one worrying. John comes inside and sits behind his sister. He puts his hand on his sister’s back and strokes her too. He turns his attention to me and stares at me with his honey like eyes with something I can't exactly decipher. But it's only for a moment. He turns his attention back to his sister, who is still crying on my shoulder.

And at that moment, I finally realize that, I’m not alone anymore… I think I like that. And I’m going to make it last. I’m going to help them train, to be able to protect themselves, and I won’t leave them far from eyes. Because, if I lose even one more person important to me… I don’t think I’ll last…