There is the sun, “Good morning Mister Sun.”
Here is the Earth, “Hello Mother Earth.”
My family is here at home, “So nice to see you again house on the cliffs.”
“Rise and shine Ell.”
“Call me Sis,” She will reply.
“How are you, Paula?”
“Call me Mom,” She will smile and wink.
“Ness, it’s a beautiful day,”
“Call me Dad,” I whisper in his ear as I wrap my arms around his shoulders.
“…” He will never say.
“Its going to be a wonderful day, Lee, Come down to the cliffs and we’ll dance the sun to shards, come up to the mountains and we’ll sing the earth to dust.”
“Its going to be a wonderful day,” I reply to the voice, “But I alone will dance and play.”
Chapter One: A Lucky Star and a Wretched Rule
I used to wake up every morning just as the sun rose from below the ocean’s horizon, and sometimes I would turn in bed to say a sleepy hello, “Allo’ Sunshine.”
There was a battle to entertain me when the sun pushed away the stars every morning, I imagined a million white soldiers pressing forward in a desperate attempt to rid the sky of its dark inhabitants, and I pretended that every time they think they’d won a surprise attack came from behind them, which in their all out assault they had forgotten to defend. So it continued every day, my private war.
My sister slept beside me, wrapped up in quilts and checkered cloth, sometimes in the morning she turned away from our bedside window and got caught up in her bed sheet bindings as she tried to avoid the sunlight creeping over the mattress. When there was no place left to retreat she would tumble to the floor, slowly twist out of her nighttime captors and stumble to the bathroom door. I would sometimes hear the shower then, and watch small puddles forming through the crack at the bottom of the door.
Every morning I recalled the past, so that I wouldn’t forget my small story.
“Lets see, how did it go?”
We were born beneath the Lucky Star in the middle of June, my sister and I, I was born unfeeling and she was born blind. This is when our father Ness lost his voice, I think. When we left the hospital we went to live in the house out on the cliffs, where the ocean was always roaring and the musician sometimes came to play. How long had it been that we lived there?
“Fourteen years?” I ask my sister through the bathroom door.
“Exactly that amount, Sis, our birthday was last week,” she reminds me.
So, fourteen years ago was also when we first could hear, not with our ears, but hear the voice that was always there.
“Hello my dears,” It chimed in with its happily distorted singing, “Will you come play with me on the cliffs today?”
“Not today or ever,” Ell and I both said.
I head downstairs, through the long hallways and into the kitchen and living room, where Paula, my dear sweet mother, would be standing with two plates in her hands, stacked high with pancakes smothered in butter and brown and golden syrup. She would say, “Breakfast is important, so be sure to eat it all.”
“I will Paula, don’t I always?”
“Sometimes you do, Honey,” And we would converse in circles until Ell stumbled down the stairs, dragging against the wall and banister, sometimes leaving a trail of water in her wake.
That morning she did, I remember. I chirped to her, “Hello Ell, my love.”
She replied, “Call me Sis,” like she always did.
That morning I teased her gleefully, “Ah, my love, you sound so happy to see me, I am overjoyed.”
“As I always am? Sis, my dear, please don’t do this so early in the morning.”
“Ah, so my love is a nightowl?”
“As always.”
We laughed under our breath and the three of us ate our breakfast together happily for a few minutes, Paula had something to announce though. She cleared her throat and we both turned to her, bright smiles and gleaming eyes, “Yes, my love?”
“Do you remember what happens tomorrow?”
I’m sure I looked confounded and my sister slowly nodded her head, frowning slightly at whatever she was thinking about. Paula reminded me, “You’re going off to Winters, to study at that boarding school, what is it called Ell?”
“Snow Wood, I believe.”
“Yes, tomorrow we’ll all be heading to Snow Wood together.”
“Ness is coming?” I asked hopefully/
“I meant… us three,” Paula looked down at her plate hesitantly for a moment, “you know that… hmm…”
I had made a mistake, “Why are we going to this school?”
Paula looked up at me suddenly, “Well, you have to go to school, you know?”
“I guess, I like studying here with you though,” How had I forgotten this?
“I know, but you’ll get to meet Jeff, Jeff Andonuts, he’s a nice young man. He’s going to be teaching both of you in a special program,” She still looked a little distant.
“Special in what way?” Ell asked in a callous tone.
“You know. Psychic stuff, Jeff has gathered a lot of talented children together for this, ‘brainy kids from all over the world.’ He he, that’s what he said to me on the phone.” She smiled a little and Ell and I relaxed.
“I suppose you’ll want to say goodbye to all of your little friends,” Paula smiled at us and cleared the table off.
“Are we going somewhere?” I asked thoughtlessly.
“Yeah, we better go,” Ell grabbed me by the elbow and steered me out of the house.
We sat on the cliffs and watched to ocean all day, the seagulls gathered around us and we chased them all away. I leaned into Ell and fell asleep as the sun was setting and when I woke up she had fallen asleep too. I whispered in her ear, “Thank you for taking care of me, my love.”
“No problem,” she said quietly.
The voice was laughing at us, “My twin stars, have you forgotten the rules?”
“What rules?” I asked the ocean mist.
“Of course we haven’t forgotten,” Ell lied for me quickly.
“He he, the rules of the Lucky Star, the rules of opposition.”
“It means the way we work together, how everything we feel is opposite, do you remember?”
“Yes,” I remembered.
The voice asked the same question it always asked, “Which of you will be the first to die?”
“I will live,” I replied.
“So will I,” Ell said as she stood up and dragged me back to the house.
We yell into the house as Ell opens the door, “We’re done, we said goodbye to all of our friends.”
Paula stuck her head out from the kitchen door, “Oh good, head upstairs and pack then,” and retreats with a smile.
We bypass the stairs and stand at our parent’s bedroom door, where Ness is shrouded in fresh pajamas and a dark shadow, each of kneels next to him on opposite sides. Ell stares at the ceiling as I say goodbye, “We’re leaving tomorrow, I’m sorry you can’t come.”
I stand up and leave as I hear Ell whisper, “I know you cant, but take care of mom for us while we are at school.”
Suddenly I feel so warm and happy as I close the door and leave them alone.
Chapter Two: A Frightening Flight and a Glowing Festival
It wasn’t long before we rode down to Twoson in a cab, watching the rich forests and strange wildlife as it sped by on the roadside. Already the leaves were changing golden red and vibrant yellow; I wondered if it was odd that fall came so early in this area, who was to know?
We cut across the sidewalk and hit the street with a thud, I yawned loudly and Ell fell over on me, pushing my cheek into the cold glass of the taxi’s window, “How much longer until we reach the airport, Paula?” I asked as we traveled in front of a large department store.
“We’re going to The Dusty Dunes International Airport, it’s a long ways from here,” She was staring out at something and smiling nostalgically.
“Oh… how boring…” I adjusted my position and rested my head on Ell’s shoulder, “Are you worried Ell?”
“You know I’m not…”
“Try for once, I want to be bored into a deep slumber,” I kicked my feet up onto the window and made little white imprints of toes along the edges, and just as we entered a they disappeared.
I sighed and scratched my nose, “Paula, tell me about Ness and Poo again.”
“Again? You better not fall asleep again…” She faked a frown at me.
“I won’t, Jeez, c’mon,” and we giggled.
“Well, it was in Summers, a beautiful resort in the far east, and your father and I were traveling with that nice Jeff Andonuts boy when your father ate some strange cake from a crazy woman on the sidewalk. Well, next thing you know he’s saying that a boy from Dalaam is coming to help us, and sure thing he comes running along the beach like a rocket from the moon. He was a cutie, 17, athletic, deep brown eyes that I could have stared into all day. The thing was though that I already fancied your father and I was so conflicted…” She faded away and I was sitting alone in a dark and lonely room.
“Lee…”
“Hello?” I shouted, panicked.
“How are you?” It was the voice.
“I’m fine, voice…”
“That’s good to hear.”
I curled up and looked around, nothing to see here. It was talking again, “So, you’re going off to see my old friend Jeff?”
“Yes, me and Ell are going to school.”
It started to talk faster, “Good, good, good!”
“What do you want?” there was a sense of danger in the air, I was feeling all alone despite the conversation.
“I just want to talk to you, my dear…” It had slowed down again.
“You know Jeff?”
“Oh, I know him well, bah aha ha, Jeff, Jeff, Jeff.” It strayed off, laughing incessantly.
I prayed silently, “Ell, save me…”
When I woke up we had just parked and there was a strong breeze blowing across the open airway. I stretched my arms above my head and pushed open the door. It seemed like it was raining but I couldn’t be sure, there was a look of storm clouds about the area but I guess they were just great billowing swarms of sand and dust. Ell got out behind me and zipped up her jacket with difficulty, “Looks like a good day to fly, right?”
I grinned, “Perfect.”
We set off across the tarmac airstrip towards a small Cessna, Paula grabbed my wrist when I stopped for a moment to observe a black dot on the runway. Oh, we were moving so fast, it was almost frightening. I could see Ell ahead of us, marching bravely into the buffeting windstorm. The Cessna door cracked open and allowed us inside for a moment
There in the pilot seat sat a wrinkled old privateer with deeply tanned skin and desert slot wheel tied with string around his neck. I smiled feebly at him for a moment then collapsed into the bench at the back of the plane, staring up at the red sand blowing across the cabin windows. Before long we bid the cab man farewell and the plane shuddered into action, “How exciting!” my sister exclaimed.
“I feel a bit seasick,” I moaned, and then pressed my face up to the plastic plates that held the plane together.
“Mother, you look a bit worried, what’s wrong?” I asked politely.
“Oh, nothing… bad memories of flying I suppose,” she closed her eyes for a moment, “He he, its okay though, this isn’t some crazy invention they haven’t tested…”
I looked at her with a suspicious expression when the pilot pivoted in his seat and hoarsely shouted, “Actually, this is a prototype plane straight outta’ Andonuts’ lab in winters, they had it driven in today. First flight, pretty exciting’ right?”
“Oh, even more so now then before,” Ell cried out with a giggle, then shot a look of amusement to me.
I rolled my eyes and hugged Paula and her suitcase, feebly trying to cheer her up. She jumped as my hands touched her skin. The plane wobbled suddenly, then with a shake and swerve it leapt into the air, soaring up over the sand in good time. Mom bit her lip anxiously, finally asking as her voice broke, “How long do you expect this flight will be?”
“Oh, less than an hour I’m sure, not too long at all ma’am,” The pilot turned away from the controls and gave a wide and wrinkled grin to her, I cupped my mouth and closed my lips as her eyes widened in fear.
The plane settled high above the Earth, where all the clouds stalked us from below, swirling angrily and growing darker the further we went. Thunder clapped rhythmically around us and I sung a little song to help us fly, a song about a pilot whose widow he found while carving out the clouds, but she had forgotten him when she died and so they fell in love all over again inside of his plane.
“Hmm, Hmm, Hmm,” I hummed my invented chorus again, I imagined his smile as he held her one more time before stepping out of his plane and falling through the heavens.
The P.A. clicked on for the first time, its feedback struck my ears and I pretended to roll around in agony, “Sorry, sorry, we’re gonna descend now, so buckle up!”
“What? We didn’t buckle up when we took off!” My mother person protested.
“YOU DIDN’T? WHAT IF WE HAD CRASHED?” He yelled in surprise.
“YOU DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING! OH GOD OH GOD!” Paula rampaged through her words, fire visibly igniting in her eyes.
“ITS COMMON KNOWLEDGE, JEEZ LADY… oh crap, we’re here!” He knocked the steering wheel forward quickly and we hurtled towards the snow and concrete landing.
Mom frantically searched the seats for the seatbelts but came up empty handed, “THERE AREN’T EVEN ANY SEATBELTS ON THIS THING!”
The pilot turned back towards her with a dumbfounded expression on his face, “Oh really?” he asked as the plane slammed into the concrete surface.
I could audibly hear the wheels snap off and was deafened by the sound of metal scraping across the ground. We were all thrown from our seats and hurtled into the cabin. After an eternity of skidding and razor sharp noise we stopped short of a brick and mortar wall. The pilots got shakily to his feet and kicked open the door, fleeing from the clicking and steaming plane.
Ell grabbed Paula and I by the hands and escorted us from the plane, which we could see was visibly burning away and melting snow all around it. Ell looked out into the snow, where an orange glow surrounded a large and stunning building, built in spirals and arches with only a few cubic classrooms visible in-between. I wondered aloud, “Is that it?”
“So it seems,” Ell replied in awe.
There was a group of people gathered around the iron cast gates of the school, behind their shaken and scarred faces there were winter decorations thrown all about, in the center a bonfire surrounded by chairs and abandoned hot coffee cups. I waved enthusiastically at the gate guard and they gasped out questions to us.
“Are you okay?”
“What was that?”
“Do you need help?”
All at once we were bombarded by their inquiries until we stood before their intimidating mass, Ell bowed to them slightly and asked, “May we come in?”
“Oh!” They all cleared away and the gate swung inwards as we passed through.
The courtyard just inside the gate was full of onlookers, little boys just learning to walk to elderly teachers leaning on bamboo canes and scowling in surprise at our daredevil arrival. The walls were plastered with flake snowflakes and the ground was knee high with reality. I wonder if all of our mouths were open or it was just me. A man at the apex of the human circle stepped forward and suddenly burst out laughing, giant circle glasses fogging up and blond stubble making him out to be eccentric and bizarre, “Paula! You’re here!”
She ran up to him and tackled him to the ground, “How… could… you!”
“Ah? What did I do?” He squealed.
“Wonderful,” Ell commented.
“Beautiful,” I replied.
Chapter Three: A Cafeteria and a Cloudy Day
After everyone settled down we were ushered into the cafeteria for an early dinner, although it seemed to be pitch black outside the clocks only read five-something. I nudged Paula and whined, “Is it always all dark here?”
“No, no… I remember the sun at least once.”
“Only once!” I said a little too loudly.
Ell sighed loudly and picked up her plate, walking off to get seconds on our meal. We were eating something holiday related; honey-glazed ham, that stringy squash I never eat but like to pull apart, turkey that looked a little dry and delicious marshmallow and jello dessert salad that I had already taken three helpings of. What’s it called? Ambrosia I think.
“Jeff?”
He looked up at me with bits of orange jello all over his nose and stuck in his stubble, “Uh huh?”
“Wha…” I cover my mouth to stop myself from giggling, “what holiday is this… I mean, what are you guys celebrating here?”
“Oh, this is our summer festival, to celebrate the end of our summer vacation…” He looked off into the distance, “Is that it? Yeah, that’s right, summer…” He trailed off.
“Oh… but, doesn’t school usually start in August? Its only June.”
“Well, at Snow Wood we take one month off for the four seasons, summer is June, winter is December, Fall is September and Spring is March, it’s a bit of a year round school, you see?” He waved his hands around wildly as he spoke.
“Oh,” I nodded to him, “Wha... what about this ‘Special Program?’”
He rubbed his hand over his chin and smeared the jello over his cheek, “Hmm... Well, I think you had better just wait until everyone is here, then I’ll tell all of you.”
“Oh…” I gave him my look for sour grapes but he was too busy inspecting his food to notice.
I looked back up at the table filled with food for Ell, but she was gone, “Paula, where did Elly go?”
“Hum?” She stood up and looked around, “Oh, she’s talking to some children over there,” and she pointed across the room.
A bell rang shrilly in the cafeteria’s corner and everyone began to stand up, Jeff knocked over his chair and ran off towards the slivery double doors and held up his arms, shouting, “Everyone! Everyone! I just wanted to say; I’m proud of the work we accomplished last quarter, and I expect great things from you this time around. Classes start on Monday, so please check the schedules in your dormitories, thanks!” Then he jumped out of the way as the mob of children pushed open the doors.
Paula tugged on my shoulders, “What’s up, buttercup?”
“I don’t know, I feel so nostalgic.”
“Ness used to get that way all the time too…” She started to walk off towards Ell and I scrambled out of my seat to follow her.
The snow began to fall even harder than before as set off across the crystalline courtyard between the cafeteria and the main building, I tried to determine what lay beneath the mounds of snow by looking at the shapes, but all I could figure out was a bench and a few planters. Ell would grab me by the hand and stop me from trying to push away the snow from the things I was looking at, “Please. I want to get out of the cold…” she closed her eyes briefly, was she tired too?
As we arrived at the dorms I flung open the door and shook off all the snow on my clothes, the crowd of students inside stared at me incredulously as I tossed my jacket across the room and ran up the wooden stairs. I turned the corner and caught sight of a commons room with a large hearth overflowing with heat. I put my shoulder to one of the puffy chairs and pushed it up to where the bricks stuck up to keep kids away from the grate, then hopped over the arm and curled up. I think I stared at the fire for an hour or so, listening to the wood crack and spit coals as it slowly faded from orange to white.
Someone coughed behind me and I secretly peered up over the backing for the chair, a boy was stretched out on a blue velvet love seat, hands attached to a magazine that was suspiciously close to his face.
“Don’t,” the voice warned me sternly.
“I wouldn’t dream of it…” I whispered as I crawled over the brick tiling and onto the plush carpeting.
“I’m serious, don’t do it.”
“I won’t, I won’t, I just want to see what he’s reading…”
The voice sighed in my ear, “Troublemaker.”
“Ok, Ok, jeez…” I dramatically fell backwards with my back to the blue couch’s bottom cushions.
The kid behind me sat up suddenly and his magazine flew off of his face, “Ah…” he looked around in a state of confusion until he caught sight of me and froze, “What are you doing?”
I let my head fall back and looked up at him with a grin on my face. He edged down the loveseat a few inches and realized he was staring, looked off towards the fire for a split second then turned back to me, “Uh…”
“Did all that turkey knock you out?” I asked curiously, I had heard once turkey could do that.
“I…”
“Or maybe Ambrosia can do that too… I’m not sure about that kind of thing.” I looked away from him and pictured all the foods that seemed suspicious, steak for one seemed to have some strange power, pie too… “I’m on to you pie,” I announced to the world, “your day of reckoning is nigh.”
“What the…?” The boy was trying to escape over the arm of the love seat, and it seemed it was too sleek for him to get away easily, I turned around and flopped my arms out onto the couch, “where are you going?”
“I… just… who are you?”
“Oh, I’m Lee, I’m new.”
“O… Okay…” he gathered his thoughts, “what were you doing?”
“Its only fair, you know, to let pie know that I know something is up and it better be prepared to face the consequences!” I climbed up onto the couch and sat down next him, “How do you feel about pie?”
“I like… no… I meant before that!” He shouted, Was he getting frustrated?
“You’re a bit strange looking, huh?” I asked him, and he was, with big glasses that made him look like he was always surprised and his hair was all messy, sticking up almost in a afro of disorder, “Wow.”
“…” He stood up suddenly and walked off, I fell out of my seat and ran after him.
“Where are you going?”
“Please… just leave me alone…” He sounded practically exasperated.
“Did I make you mad?” I called after him as he started to jog, turning a corner.
“Go away!” He pulled open a door and stepped inside, slamming it shut in my face.
The lock clicked as I grabbed the doorknob, “You’re no fun,” I lied at the door.
I span around and sat down against the door, puzzled, “Oh… he left his magazine,” I reminded the hallway.
I plodded back down the hall and into the common room, caught sight of the shiny paper on the magazine’s cover and snatched it up off the ground, “I wonder if perhaps its erotic?”
I flipped it over and read off the cover, “Paranormal?”
“Sis, Mom and I unpacked all of our things, come on…” Ell was standing in the doorway, weary and leaning on the wooden frame.
I skipped over to her and grabbed her hand, “Lead the way then.”
She took me back down the hall and up another flight of stairs, we had the first room on that floor, “301, it’ll be easy to remember.”
Ell crashed into a nearby bed and covered her face with pillows, I stood in shock, “Why are there two beds? Do we have a room mate? Are you okay?”
“You have your own bed now…”
I sat down on the edge of her bed, glaring at the tiny mattress weighing down on a slim metal frame. Was that right?
“I don’t get it.”