Mare

Autumn MONTFORT

The mornings were colder than normal, I expect it to be due from the winter storms that are coming from the higher mountains. The rivers that carry the spring water are no longer overflowing from summer rain but actually slightly drained, freezing too. I expect the first snowstorm to hit in the next week, the summer buds had already fallen off and our neighbor's grass, who takes care of their lawn like it's his own child, had turned a dusty yellow. I've heard the storms here are weird and inconstant. Unlike Norta, where it's bitter and unbearable, lasting weeks before the snow melts, a reckless snowstorm can hit Ascendant covering the city but the sun can soak it all up as if nothing happens. I'm sure Bree will love it, he would always have to shovel the snow back in the Stilts.

Its been a few months since my family and I officially moved to Montfort, an apartment between Vale and Ascendant called Paradise Valley. Small town but mom chose to stay farther away from the crowded city, dad and her needed the quiet, I did too. Our apartment was on the other side of the lake and was a tall building, an ugly yellow with brick on the outside. Three floors and a balcony. The backyard leads through the small stream that carries the spring water and then the vast golden field. Wrapping the mountains until the gold turned into deep green and soon dark brown and white. I spend most of the time looking out my window, it looks straight into that field and every so often I can see bison or coyotes. Gisa has found an obsession with them, always traveling closer and closer to them but she seems to forget there one to charge. She isn't stupid though, I would expect Tramy or Bree to lose an arm getting close to those beasts but not Gisa. She respects them.

I'm sure at this time, Gisa and mom are cleaning up the table from breakfast, I missed it again, slept through the clinking and clanking of silverware and cooked ham. They all have adapted to the new life fast and well. I seem to be the only one who stayed stuck in the room, practicing lightning storms above me, each time getting weaker and weaker. I blame the year that took my life and replaced it with battle and blood. And even though I had everything taken away from me I would give anything to be back there bending my back for a cause, a cause that's cost me my heart.

Now that I've spent my months here repairing and spending time with my family, my lightning has turned weak, I could barely strike and burn a tree without feeling a little dizzy. It was really starting to nag at me but I had to remind myself I choose to part my ways, become an 18-year-old ordinary red girl with my family, but it hurts to say I miss being that little lightning girl. I'm happy I tell myself because I chose this for my family and it would be foolish of me to become selfish and take that away from them.

Though it's not like I have been spending time with them, Gisa was most likely painting with mom, a new hobby she picked up, and dad, resting on the couch probably half asleep listening to the news. Tramy and Bree always hang in the town, they've made friends already and I wouldn't expect them to develop some romantic relationships soon. Me though, write letters to Farley when she hardly calls me back, in my room with the window always open yet I continue to complain about the bug problem. Farley dropped off the earth for me, she stayed consistent for the first month but began leaving me on voicemail so I started writing letters, not because it would work because it was nice to write out my frustration with her and never really sending them out to her. But I can't be mad at her, Clara getting older and that means more time to watch a child during a time where a country is broken glass and putting back a country while taking care of a child isn't easy.

I miss her, I miss Farley and I miss other people that stay in the back of my mind and the bottom of my heart but those letters stay crumbled in my drawer. I shouldn't keep them but maybe I'll actually give it to him, but the better of me knows that's stupid and I won't play stupid anymore.

"Mare. Mare!"

I turn my head to the door which always remains half-open.

"Mare!"

It was a mom and it meant she needed something but could do it for herself but the real reason was she just wants to see my face. I rush down the bland carpet stairs and see her and Gisa, sitting in front of the fireplace. Gisa was reading and writing down something on a notebook while mom was enjoying her coffee. I wondered where dad was though.

"Where's a dad?"

"With Tramy and Bree in the town, there looking for fireworks and dad wanted more peaches from the market."

Mom seemed as she forgot she called me down so I peered behind her, watching her eyes stay open halfway and wrinkles on the side of her lips twitch.

"You called for me?"

"Oh yes, I want you and Gisa to go out into the field and pick up some wood for the fire."

"We can't just buy it?"

"Yes but that would cost money."

We had money but Mom continues to stingy.

"Don't you think it would be fun Mare? You tend to stay in your room a lot and the fresh air would be nice."

By the way she sounded, as if she was my mom, meant she was mad or upset that I haven't taken my time to spend time with her. Though how could it be my fault that painting and sewing never been my forté. I wasn't going to start an argument now though so I complained through a half crooked smiled.

"Sure, we'll leave in a few minutes."

I looked at her expression, hoping that blank stern face would turn soft but her fingers swiped the book pages harshly where I could hear the sound of paper scrapping on paper.

_______________

It's hard to describe the feeling of being in a wheat field but I know that there was no shade until a mile towards the mountains which meant the sun was like daggers to my skin. If I weren't wearing light pants, the wheat would brush against my legs making me stop every few steps to itch my thigh or calf.

Gisa stayed a few feet in front of me, letting her hand brush and pick at the wheat. We could have gotten the wood that was closer to the apartment but Gisa kept walking farther into the field and I followed her. I kept quiet, she must have been thinking about what she was going to say to me. She always thinks before she speaks unlike me.

She stopped and I catch up to her, getting a better look at her face which was staring at the grand mountains.

"Gisa?"

Her head turned to my face slowly and an equally slow blink followed. "Yea?"

"Are you, um, Ok?"

She turned her head towards the mountains again but her head tilted towards the forest in front of it. "Why wouldn't I be?"

At this point, I just wanted her lecture to begin so it could end sooner. I crossed my arms and stared with her.

"If you rather stare at this then talk your truth than that's fine with me, but moms gonna wonder why we took so long."

She licked her lips and crossed her arms firm. Red hair brushing across her face as the wind picked up.

"Are you happy here?"

An odd question that made me bite my cheek. Though it didn't catch me by surprise. I take a few seconds to answer if I just said yes, she would ask what was making me happy and that I couldn't answer right away. Her skin was glowing at this hour with sun reflecting a dark gold on her cheeks, I looked at my feet.

I was happy, with my family and my friend Kilorn, it was my life in the Stilt but better, safer.

"I'm happy, were safe and together, what else could I need."

"You need to feel useful, there not a lot to do when everything was given to us. You're not pickpocketing anymore to keep us afloat, you're not pretending to be someone you're not to save us."

She was right, my entire life has been me trying to do better for survival, but that was over now, and there was nothing that kept us on our toes now.

"You're right, but I would give up my powers if I could Gisa, I've told you many times."

"But you've become a good liar, and I've become equally better at noticing them. I know our parents haven't though and if you leave without notice, they'll blame themselves or worse, they'll think you're in trouble."

"I won't run, and even if I had to leave, it wouldn't because I was in trouble."

"But you've thought of it, leaving back to the chaos." She turned to look at, her tight grip on her arms weakening. "Though I don't blame you, it can get a little bland here when you were used to worrying about bomb below you're feet and knives flying through the air."

I tap my fingers against my hip. "You won't tell Tramy or Bree?"

"No, there too busy dicking around with girls in the town. Surprised they haven't brought one home."

I smile, "I'm surprised you haven't brought one home."

She punches my arm. Something that makes me feel a little better.

"I'm too busy to hang around with anyone in town but I could say the same thing to you. Why haven't you found someone?"

"It's a just-"

"Just waiting still. Huh?"

My stomach flipped. I bite my tongue to keep myself from blurting out something that wasn't going to be true. "No, I'm not waiting, there's no reason to be waiting for something that's not there."

"That's not true."

"How do you know?"

"I know as much as you share, and you share a lot in those crumpled up papers."

I turn to look at her, stern eyebrows and mouth gapped. "What makes you think it's O.K. to look at stuff thats in my room!"

"Since you've kept your mouth shut about everything since we got here. You stay in your room all day, refuse to go anywhere with us, because of what? You're too hooked up on going back to a place that killed half the people you loved?" She clutched her first that hung below and back to her waist.

"Gisa stop!" I clenched my jaw and my fist. I can feel my cheeks get red.

"No, Mare. It true and you know it."

She turned around and started walking to the house.

"What about the wood."

She didn't say anything.

She could do it by herself, she was more independent than I'll ever be and she knew it as much as I did.

_______________

I did grab the wood, knowing that Gisa must of stomped off somewhere else and headed back home. When I put the wood down in a the basket I notice everyone was either in there room or outside on the balcony. If Gisa was out there, I didn't want to see her, she left with a boiled head and I didn't want to make it overflow.

As the sun began to set and the air getting colder, I shut the windows and closed the blinds half way. The sun turning the room to a gold tint that soothes me. I sink into the couch and turn my head from the fireplace to the large window that blinds weren't completely shut.

For every hour that crosses through the day meant another hour waiting for anwser. Answers that weren't coming from anyone that I wished to be from.

I saw the phone, laying on the desk next to the couch. I lightly bite the tip of my tongue watching the sun make the color of the phone reflect into my eye. Its asking me, or I'm asking myself and I give in.

I dial the numbers I was given before I left.

Dialing, dialing, dialing and then, click.

"Hello?"

"Mare?"