Love lines (16 page)

“Shall we read the rest of the legends? Maybe there will
be something useful,”Amanda said, looking at me.

“Can be worth it. Just not today, I'm awfully tired,” I
said wearily.

“We all had a hard day. Let’s continue tomorrow,” Evan
agreed.

Christian, who was sitting next to me, touched my cheek
with his hand.

“Do you mind if I leave you for a few hours?” he asked,
smiling gently.

“I’d rather you didn’t, but...”

“Ah, for God's sake!” Evan and Amanda groaned in unison.
“Don’t make us witness your intimate scenes,” Amanda said. “I love both of you
very much, but not
that
much!”

“Well,” said Christian with disappointment. “See you
tomorrow, Eileen.”

He left a gentle kiss on my lips and went with Evan. A
few seconds later I received a text message from him with the following words
in it:
“You are always in my mind
.”

I smiled and, ignoring Amanda’s angry glance, went to
bed.

The next day I had to attend another practice session,
this time with the users of air.

“If today you feel something unusual, like the
unbearable desire to show everyone how much more power you have, hold your
impulses,” Evan whispered when we entered the audience. I rolled my eyes
defiantly.

“So are you suggesting me just to watch silently their
pathetic attempts to create anything of the air?” I asked, smiling.

“Clever girl,” smiled back Evan.

We were in the great hall filled with bowls on the
perimeter which contained multi-colored rose petals.

“What do they need so many petals for?” I asked in
surprise.

“How do you think?” Evan asked in response.

“You mean they're going to pick it all up in the air?”

“Soon, you will see everything yourself,” he said,
leading me to a few chairs in the corner.

            This time the show was really exciting. Not
that the powers of fire or water were less mesmerizing, but the feeling that
you were in the heart of the most powerful hurricane, was just mind bending.
And all this wind was created just by three people. Two girls and one guy.

“They are Embry students. Air is their element,”
explained Evan.

The blond boy was in the center of the hall, and the two
girls were on both sides at a distance of several steps from him. They were
making flows of petals that formed a tight colorful ball. When all the petals
took their place in the figure, the impression was as if the ball was moving
itself. As far as I could see, the guys were slowly moving around the room
inside this multi-colored ball, making it roll along with them. When a range
has been passed, they returned to the center again, and in no time the ball
broke up with thousands of petals, which flew into the air and barely having
touched the floor, filled the entire space of the audience. Then they formed
another shape. This time it was a butterfly whose wings was moving smoothly
with the flow of the wind. Only then I noticed that the petals of the wings,
also turned into small butterflies, following it.

 It was really amazing. When all the petals-butterflies
came back into the bowls, it became quiet again.

 The wind stopped.

“All the rehearsals that you see - are just small parts
of what will be shown at the festival,” Evan said. “Each performance lasts at
least for fifteen minutes, so it’s just the beginning of a real show.”

“It's looks more like magic,” I said stunned.

“Oh, no! You haven’t seen magic yet.”

Having said that, Evan touched my hand from the palm to
the wrist and beautiful buds of azaleas appeared there. Their velvet petals
were touching my bare skin.

“Take care of yourself,” he said, looking into my eyes.
There was always some hidden meaning in Evan’s words as if he knew some secret.
Sometimes he seemed to wise and experienced for his young age and I wondered
why.

“Do you want me to show what I can do with the petals of
your flowers?” I asked looking sadly at those magical creations on my hand.
Somehow, the comprehension of the fact that the power of wind was also one of
my abilities wasn’t making me happy.

“It’s better if you do it somewhere else,” he said,
emphatically nodding in the direction of still present in the audience
students.

All of our
supporters
thought that the
manifestation of my other powers apart from dealing with water and fire should
be kept secret from everyone, including teachers. At least until the moment we
find out what this knowledge can turn my life into.

“How about a little walk, while the others are still
training,” I said, looking at a few petals still floating in the air.

The weather today wasn’t sunny and all the morning light
was absorbed by the fog. Embry’s gardens were still full of blossoming flowers
and the air of Dever was filled with their incredible aromas.

“You’ve not chosen the best time for walks,” complained
Evan, with his foot catching on the root of an old oak tree. “It’s pitch dark
out here!”

Looking around, I didn’t notice anything unusual, except
for some dim colors of nature.

“Everything here is clearly seen, Evan. Do not
exaggerate. Even the squirrels, are laughing at you,” smiling, I said.

“What squirrels, Eileen?” he wondered.

“Those who are eating something under the tree over
there,” I said, pointing in the direction of a tree in a few yards away from
us.

I couldn’t understand why Evan’s eyes were asking
something like
“Are you crazy?”

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I stopped,
frowning.

“Because, looking in the direction where the squirrels
should be, I don’t see anything but the gray mist,” he said.

“Evan, you can’t be serious!”

His weird behavior irritated me to the utmost.

“Okay then,” he said and felt for the cell in his
pocket. “Christian, are you still busy?” he asked into the phone. “Yes, we are
conducting an experiment here. Can you come to the pine trees that are near the
back wall of the academic building? Okay, we'll wait.”

“Evan, I don’t understand…”

“Just wait for Christian,” he said.

“Is it necessary to keep standing in the middle of the
path?”

“Yes. Like I’ve already said, we need to check up on
something.”

“Great!” becoming even angrier I said, crossing my
arms.  “There is Christian,” I added, looking in the direction where we had
just come from. Evan again gave me a look full of confusion. Coming up to us,
Christian said:

“I couldn’t find you. What is it?”

“Ahhh… here's what we're trying to figure out,” said
Evan. “Christian, what do you see in front of us?”

I couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Evan, for God’s sake, it’s ridiculous!”

“Christian?” he repeated.

“Absolutely nothing, except, perhaps, for the fog and
the nearby tree,” he shrugged his shoulders.

“And Eileen can see the spruce in front of the Great
Hall, where the squirrels run, whom she, by the way, can see too...
at this
very moment,
” said Evan.

Christian frowned watching me thoughtfully.

“Do you mean that you can see that far in such a fog?”
he asked.

“Is it just me, or do I really see
at the moment
two complete idiots who won’t stop asking the same idiotic questions?” I flared
up.

“Eileen, we're just trying to say that your vision is
clearly a… hundred thousand times as superior as ours,” Evan said, exchanging a
look with Christian.

“You can see what we don’t,” said Christian, coming up
to me.

“Just like Lillian,” I blurted out. Both pairs of eyes
stared at me in surprise.

“Like Lillian…” repeated Evan quietly .

Only by understanding the meaning of my own words, I realized
why they were both speechless. My new ability reminded them of the dark night’s
gift from the legend of the Black Lake.

“No, it can’t be possible...” I said. “Do you think I
can do everything, that
she
was able to do?”

“Maybe your middle name was given to you for that very
reason,” said Christian.

Before he pronounced these words, I didn’t pay any
attention to the fact that the name Lillian, which was my middle name, could be
connected somehow to this story.

“By the way, you wanted to show us something else
today,” reminded Evan.

“To show what?” asked Christian.

“I think I can possess the power of the wind,” I said,
staring alternately at my companions.

“So you found the ability to control the third element,
and you can see through the fog and at night... Can you find your bearings at
night as well?” asked Christian.

“I don’t know. I haven’t noticed it before.”

“So we should check it out today,” Evan said. “Let's go,
we must also make sure about the wind.”

This time we went into Christian’s room. It was as large
as mine, but he had lived there alone. I sat in a big chair by the window, and
Evan - on the opposite sofa. Christian went to his desk and picked up a stack
of blank sheets of paper.

“Here, try with this,” he said, putting the sheets on
the coffee table next to me.

I closed my eyes and tried to remember my feelings when
I was watching the students of Embry. A light breeze rustled the paper. I
opened my eyes and held out one hand to the sheets, making the wind increase,
raising them into the air. Evan and Christian were watching in disbelief the
white sheets of paper filling all the space of the room.

Someone knocked on the door. I immediately put my hand
down and all the paper fell scattering around on the floor.

“Who's there?” Christian asked, coming to the door.

“It's me,” said the familiar voice of Amanda. All the
three of us sighed with relief.

“Come on in, quickly,” said Christian, literally pulling
his sister into the room and shutting the door behind her.

“Have you just been swept by a tornado?” Amanda asked
surprised, stepping over the scattered papers.

“Worse,” Evan grinned. “By Eileen.”

“The wind is one of her elements too,” Christian
explained, sitting on the armrest of my chair.

“Geez!” exclaimed Amanda. “Have you checked up the earth
already?”

“This is what we are thinking about doing right now,”
said Evan.

“But I don’t know how to do this!” I returned. “I felt
the power of all the previous elements through someone else, and I have no idea
what to do with the earth!”

“So, try to imagine that the floor under my sofa, is
movable. Make it move,” Evan commanded. “Come on, Eileen, show us what you are
capable of.”

“Do you really want me to do this?” I asked unwillingly.

Christian put his arm around my shoulders.

“There’s nothing to worry about. If something goes
wrong, Evan will stop you. Just try.”

Again I closed my eyes, raised my hand up and tried to
imagine how the floor can move. At first I didn’t feel anything, but then I
felt some new sensation in my arms and heard Amanda’s scream. I opened my eyes
and saw that the sofa on which Evan was sitting before was shaking noticeably,
and the floor beneath it began to wriggle like a fabric in the wind. I put my
hands down frightened.

“Holly Hall! I can’t believe that,” I whispered.

“And I can,” said Evan, again sitting on the couch. “Of
course it’s hard to believe, but the fact remains obvious.”

“As far as I understand you can’t see auras yet,” added
Christian.

“No. I have no idea what that is like,” I said
trembling. Even Christian’s presence didn’t help me to calm down. I was shocked
and I was scared to death.

“That's another similarity with Lillian,” noted Evan.

“With Lillian?” repeated Amanda. “Do you think that
Eileen has the same abilities as she had?”

“Why do you think that Lillian didn’t possess spirit?”I
asked. “If it wasn’t mentioned in the legend it still doesn’t prove anything.”

“In addition, all the rest of her abilities have been
well described, so if she really could control the spirit, that would be
mentioned too,” said Christian.

“The fact that there is no mention of the spirit,
doesn’t mean that Lillian didn’t know about its existence. The spirit begins to
emerge at eighteen, and you, Eileen are not eighteen yet. In addition, we don’t
know what age was Lillian, when she died,” Evan replied.

“You forget that there were other times, they could be
married to Gabriel at fifteen and have a child already before becoming
eighteen.”

“I think Evan’s right,” timidly said Amanda.

“Thank you, dear,” smiling radiantly, he replied.