"What hell is this?" is the first thought that comes into my head when I find a boyish-looking kid peering up at me.
"Is that really how you treat your savior?" the freak mouths.
"I can't hear you," I say, standing up.
"Well, you should know I can hear perfectly fine," Freak Boy mouths again.
"Even this," I mouth with a covered hand.
"Haha, yeah."
Freak Boy really IS a freak.
"Are you -" I point to his weird ears.
"An elf?" Freak Boy asks.
"Yeah."
He nods and then tells me his name.
"I'm sorry, what?"
Freak Boy rolls his eyes and then waves a hand on my ears.
Suddenly I can hear.
"OH MY GOD," I scream, quite literally.
"What?" Freak Boy laughs at how I drop onto the ground, my ear pressed against the soil of the ground.
"YOU MADE ME HEAR!" suddenly everything is amplified and I can hear everything.
I feel tears come to my eyes.
"It won't last long," Freak Boy actually SAYS.
"I don't care!!" I sob. "This is amazing!!"
"I'm Lodin," Freak Boy says, offering his hand.
I ignore him. "Then this is Dreaming Meadows?" I run a hand through my hair.
"Yeah, how'd you know?" Lodin asks.
"You're in a book," I point out the obvious first.
"Yeah, I know that too."
"How?"
"Magic," he makes jazz hands.
I roll my hands.
"Are all elves as good-looking as you?" I suddenly ask.
I feel a blush creeping up on me. Truthfully, though, he is pretty cute. Blond hair, green eyes. It's kind of the cute guy combo.
He runs a hand through his hair as he looks around awkwardly.
"No, I'm practically the only one like this," he says sarcastically.
I laugh the awkwardness off and introduce myself.
"I'm Meghan Carta."
"Yeah, I know that too. I just didn't think you would be here so soon."
Wait. He already knows my name?
"How do you know -" I get cut off.
"Your name?"
"Yes, what else."
"Also magic." More jazz hands.
More rolling of the eyes.
"How long will I be able to hear?" I change topics.
"About another hour or so," Lodin answers.
"Can we get away from the place the Black War started?" I say, suddenly aware of the tension of this place.
"Even so, you can't blame everything on this place," Lodin says.
"Yeah, I can."
"How so?" he asks quizzically.
"Ronin is evil." Now it's my turn to make jazz hands.
Lodin laughs. "Yeah, I know."
And he's doing nothing to stop it?
"You think I'm crazy," Lodin sighs.
I raise my eyebrows. "Seriously? I didn't know you were INSANE!" I storm off.
Already five minutes I've met the guy in real life and I already want to kill him off.
No wonder he sounds so hateable (if that's a word) from the book.
"You're a rare wonder," I hear him say.
"I'm sorry, what?" and that brings me back to him like a magnet.
Such a flirtatious way to bring a girl back, but I can tell he doesn't mean it in a romantic way.
"You can help save us."
"Why aren't you doing anything about Ronin," I ask.
"Because he is helping us for the time being." Lodin sighs.
"You do a lot of sighing for a seventeen-year-old with freakishly pointy ears."
"And you do a lot of talking and sarcasm for a freakishly human sixteen-year-old girl."
"Touché."
"How am I a rare wonder?" I ask, putting a hand on my hip.
"You're a human girl who was able to travel worlds," Lodin says as if he's answering with an obvious answer.
"Well, isn't that something that should happen?"
"The last time we relied on a human for the end of the Black War, she didn't make it to the other side. All we found was a pile of ash right where you were found."
SHE?!?!
"There was another one?!" I scream.
"Well, we've been trying to end this war for a long time."
Again, as if it's obvious.
"AND SHE?!?!" This time I'm yelling.
"You're going to raise suspicion."
"HOW DID YOU KNOW IT WAS A SHE?!?!" I yell this with all I have in my voice.
"I met her before she died."
The next thing I know, my head is on the ground and I'm bleeding.