บท 16: We'll All Cry Together and Meanwhile: Theo
"You!" Shouted Theo.
"Molly!" Cried Belen.
"Can't you be more like Belen?" I snapped at Theo. When we returned home, the two of them were waiting at the front door. My parents went in first. The only reason I paused to talk to them, was because I was afraid that they would follow me in if I didn't. Yesterday, after the adults retrieved me from the meadow, it had been too late to see the other kids. Then this morning I had slept in until we left to meet Xipil.
Belen hugged me tightly.
"I was so scared!" She sniffed, and her tears dotted my shoulder. "I thought it would kill you! It's all my fault!"
I sighed. "No, it's not. There's no way you could have known the gryphon would be in the meadow."
"Yeah," Theo strangely agreed with me. "And it's not your fault that Molly stupidly challenged the gryphon."
"Really?" I glared at him.
"What else do you call running up to it and glaring at it?" He returned my gaze with his usual stoic I-know-what-I'm-talking-about expression.
"The other kids could have been hurt if I hadn't done anything."
"And then it would have been their stupid fault."
"I couldn't let them be hurt!"
"Why? They're older than you. You're smaller, so they should protect you." He patted my head, as if to prove how much shorter I was. With him being an elderly 6-years-old, he was twice my height.
But I'm actually so much older. I exhaled slowly, forcing the resentment out.
"He was really worried about you," Belen told me with a wavering smile. She had stopped hugging me, but still held one of my hands. "He wanted to go with the adults to get you."
I snorted. "And what were you going to do? Fight the gryphon with a stick?"
"Better than waving at it," he replied, his dark brown eyebrows meeting in an angry frown. "At least at these times you should act like a normal 3-year-old!"
"I am a normal 3-year-old!"
"No, you're not!"
"SHUT UP!" I tore my hand away from Belen. My thoughts had exited stage left thanks to a sudden burst of anxiety. "Go away!" I turned sharply around and raced into the house, slamming the door behind me.
I didn't wait for them to knock, or for my parents to come see what the noise was about. I immediately went to my room and dove under the blanket. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. They know. I'm not a real 3-year-old. I couldn't do it. If they had just left me alone, they wouldn't have found out. It's their fault. They should have stayed away, then I wouldn't feel bad. They know. What do I do? Do I pretend like I didn't hear? Do I deny it? Do I agree? Will my parents finally realize that I'm too weird? I have a pet snake. I try to kill myself for magic. I have to grow up quickly, go back to Earth, go back to my old family, who think I've passed on for good.
I'm not a demon.
I'm not an elf.
…
I'm not a demon or an elf. THAT'S what worries me?
Instead of crying, I found myself laughing. The anxiety had arrived like a wave, and then popped like a bubble. I was born from an egg! I have pointy ears, blue hair, and gray skin that I keep suntanned. I'm accompanied by someone who is essentially a fairy, I have a talking snake who resents me for not having died properly, and my parents already know that I used to be an old woman. An old human woman. I guess what the gryphon had said bothered me more than I had realized. I was so proud of being my parents' child that I had forgotten where to put the emphasis.
"Molly?" Mom had entered at some point, and she stroked my curly hair. "What's wrong, guppy?"
I sat up, rubbing my eyes. She was sitting on the bed next to me, the beige blanket bright against her dark green dress. She wore minimal accessories, only a silver bracelet with white stones (actual stones, not precious gems) and pearl earrings. The pearls were small, but perfectly matched and without an obvious flaw. Once when I asked her about them, she joked that she had spent years looking for the right pearls, and so now she could never remove them after having put so much effort into finding them.
I threw myself into her lap.
"Mom," I whined. "Theo said I'm not normal. He's a jerk."
Her laughter was not delicate. It rocked into my core and left me giddy. I felt her rub her cheek against the top of my head.
"What is normal, my beloved Molly?" She asked lightly.
"He said I'm not a normal 3-year-old."
"Are you?"
I stiffened at this. Part of me had hoped that she would be angry for my sake, or at least deny it. I plucked at her skirt sullenly.
"No," I admitted. "But I've been trying."
She laughed again. "You cannot change something so fundamental. You are different from the other children here, and that is neither good nor bad. And if it were to gain unwanted attention…" I glanced up. Her orange eyes burned with a fierce confidence. "Then your father and I will handle that. So, my guppy." She flicked the tip of my nose. "You do not worry. But also do your best to stay out of any more trouble. Aspers and gryphons are more than enough for your poor mother's heart."
"Absolutely," Maxine chimed in. She had snuck her way onto Mom's shoulder while she was distracted laughing at me. "By the way, you're not normal. Please be more normal. Please stop trying to kill us. Have I mentioned this before? Dying is bad. Living is good."
I stuck out my tongue at Maxine. Mom grabbed it.
"Where are your manners?" Her tone was stern, and her grip strong.
"Ah sowwy." I mumbled. She shook my tongue once and then released it. "But Theo's still a jerk."
"Theo is wonderful. He does his best to look out for my ill-mannered, abnormal daughter." Thanks, Mom. "As does Belen. Even with the gryphon, they did a good job. Now if my daughter would learn to not approach dangerous animals, that would be best."
"But they're cute…" My nose got pinched. "Ow! Okay, okay! No more dangerous animals." Unless they're fluffy. I haven't done fluffy yet. Xipil didn't count, because he was so large that I could only see his feathers most of the time.
"I will hold you to that, Molly." Is that really a promise you expect a 3-year-old to keep? Maybe I'm even more abnormal, because she treats me abnormally. That's it – I'm blaming Mom. "Now, you will go apologize to the two despondent children in our living room. Your father almost tore them up when he heard you crying; he is a little fragile since your encounter with the gryphon."
"I'll apologize to Belen," I declared, sliding off her lap.
"To both of them, Molly." Her left eyebrow arched threateningly, and her tone would not tolerate any disobedience.
"Fine." I didn't stop my sulkiness from showing. "But he doesn't deserve it."
She slapped me lightly between my shoulder blades. "With sincerity, Molly."
"FINE, Mother." I ran out of the room before she could catch me.
As she said, they were sitting on the chairs in our living room, and I could almost see a gray raincloud over their heads. A minute longer, and we would need towels to clean up the downpour. When I entered, they looked at me hesitantly. Belen was clutching at her skirt so tightly that her knuckles were white, and Theo's lips were pursed as if only that would prevent him from speaking. I pulled myself into a free chair.
"I'm sorry for shouting at you." I think that was all I needed to apologize for. Oh, wait. "And for slamming the door."
"It's okay," Belen replied. "Theo's sorry too. Right, Theo?" She looked at him with a mixture of warning and questioning.
Theo looked down. Theo looked at Belen. Theo looked at me. His thin lips opened, then closed. The wheels were clearly turning. Finally, he took a deep breath that lifted his shoulders in the magnitude of his decision.
"You're not a normal 3-year-old." He stated.
"THEO!" Belen shouted. "You're supposed to say sorry, not do it again!"
"I'm not going to lie! You know it, I know it, and YOU know it," turning to me for the last one. "You work too hard and you're too comfortable. You're nothing like the other kids your age. It's like you're not a kid at all. But you're too small. You act like you're our age, and you get hurt. I don't care that you're not normal, but you shouldn't have tried to protect the bigger kids. That's our job. Belen and I are the biggest, so we protect them, not you." He crossed his arms. "That's all. And I'm not sorry."
Belen leaned towards him, opening her mouth as if she were going to retort, and then stopped. Tears welled up in her eyes as she looked down at her hands.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled.
Theo looked taken back. "Don't you say sorry. Why are you saying sorry?"
"Because you're right." The tears came on strong; even her nose started dripping. "But I don't want to hurt Molly's feelings!" Her voice broke in a sob and she started hiccupping. "And Molly could have died!" She sat there, hiccupping, sobbing, and dripping without care. Theo stared at her like a confused puppy.
And I felt like a complete heel.
"Belen…" I started hesitantly. I think this has gotten a little out of hand. Yes, I didn't want to let people know that I remembered my past life. Besides potentially making relationships awkward, I didn't know yet if it would attract unwanted attention, as my mom had put it. At the very least, the attention could be inconvenient. At the most – very dangerous. I couldn't trust that these kids could keep a secret that big. The one thing this situation proved, however, was that I couldn't act like a normal 3-year-old. I was a horrible actor. I needed an excuse. Or, rather, I needed a scapegoat.
"It's my mom's fault!" I abruptly declared. Belen and Theo looked at me in confusion. Maxine, perched on my armrest, was snickering. I imagined that I could feel my parents listening in the next room with bated breath. "I'm half elf, right?" They nodded. "Elves grow up faster. Also, I lived with just my parents before moving here, so I don't know how to be normal. You're the first other kids I've met." From reading the history books, I knew that the elves kept to themselves, especially away from humans. It was pretty safe to lie about that, since I doubted that they would ever meet another elf besides my mom.
Though, according to Xipil even my mom wasn't an elf. I guess that means that none of us have met an elf. My mom must be counting on the same thing that I was; she could call herself an elf, because no one knew enough. At the thought that even I hadn't been trusted with the truth, my heart squeezed in pain. One might wonder about why I had decided to trust Xipil over my parents, but it actually was a no-brainer. There were no benefits for him to lie, and I was all too familiar with how people acted on benefits.
"So, I'm not normal," I continued, this time a little defiantly. "But I wasn't wrong to protect the other kids!"
"Yes, you were!" Theo shouted. "You could have died!"
"They could have died! YOU could have died!" I shouted back. My vision suddenly got blurry as I joined Belen in crying.
"I'm bigger! I'm supposed to protect you!" Theo's voice was suspiciously high-pitched and cracking, and I highly suspected him of having not escaped the cry-fest.
"I'm abnormal, right?! I'll protect YOU!"
"No!"
"Shut up!"
"Both of you shut up!" Belen wailed.
"Children," my mom's soothing voice slipped into the sea of sobbing. She picked me up first, and then knelt next to Belen to hug her with her free arm. She gently pushed Belen's head into her shoulder. My dad had entered the room with her, and he went to hug Theo. "You are safe now. You were all very brave, and you did your best. Thank you, Theo and Belen, for caring for Molly. And Molly, thank you for protecting the other children. It was frightening and you all did well. You did very well," she said softly, her words sinking into my mind; I suddenly felt warmer and a little sleepy.
"Al'na's right. And anyway, you should blame that damn gryphon, not each other." I could clearly hear my dad's anger.
"Tunifer," she scolded. "Do not suggest such things." She gently kissed my forehead and stood with Belen balanced on her other hip. "We will let them sleep for a bit. Bring Theo."
"I can walk by myself," Theo protested.
"Sure, sure," Dad replied.
The three of us were tucked into my bed. I thought that Theo would protest more, but I had underestimated how stressed he had been. As soon as our heads hit the pillows, we were gone. I was only conscious long enough to feel my hands captured by slightly bigger hands, one on either side.
---
When Theo met Molly, his first impression was that she had extremely curly hair. No one else in the town had curly hair. They would at most have wavy hair or frizzy hair. Her hair had so many curls, that he was pretty sure that if he stuck his fingers into it, he would have a hard time pulling free. He could only focus on her hair, because all he could see was the top of her head; she was short, and she was looking down as she hid behind her mother. Her hair ended above her shoulders, so it looked like a bushy hat.
When he led her away from the adults, he thought that she was shy. She seemed hesitant to hold his hand, unlike other younger children, and she answered him with only a couple of words at a time. She nodded when he introduced the other kids, and she barely acknowledged him when he explained the game.
When she was embarrassed for not throwing the ball far enough, he realized that she was weird. After he had become one of the older kids and he started looking after the younger ones, he became used to how the younger kids wouldn't realize that they were doing things wrong. He had to fix their mistakes over and over again, accepting that no matter how many times he explained something, they would probably still do it wrong. She was 3-years-old, and yet she was frustrated. Now that she was looking up, he could see her rounded nose, oval eyes that were an even brighter blue than her hair, and her pale red lips. All of her emotions were clearly conveyed on her face. She was unhappy, and even a little angry. Despite this, she didn't throw a tantrum, she just tried again and again, slowly improving. Except for her magic. She couldn't make the ball light up, which was normal. All of the other kids playing were older than Theo, and some of them were old enough to be in school where they were learning advanced light magic. He hadn't expected her to be able to do anything more than roll the ball, but because she was trying, he did his best to teach her.
Instead of gratitude, she glared at him. She turned her fluffy head away, and stubbornly acted as if he didn't exist. She refused to throw the ball to him, even though she had thrown it to the others multiple times, and she only replied if it was impossible to not do so.
His mother's favorite word came to mind – infuriating! She was totally infuriating!
And sort of funny at the same time.
Since she had decided to ignore him, he decided to ignore her ignoring. He insisted on giving her tips every time it was her turn, and talked about everything he could remember about light magic. The other kids gave him odd looks, but it was worth it.
After she left with her mother, Belen confronted him. Belen was his best friend. She was a year older than him, but it didn't matter. They did everything together, and he made sure that he never fell behind.
"What was that?" She asked. They were standing side by side, watching Molly and her mother turn the corner.
"She was weird," he replied. "And funny."
Belen gave him a long look. "Don't bully her."
He raised his hands in protest. "I'm not! I was teaching her. She didn't know how to use the ball, right?"
"Of course, not! She's too young." She ran her fingers through her purple hair, combing it into three strands. She started loosely braiding it. Most of the girls cut their hair to just below their shoulders for convenience sake, but Belen grew her hair as long as possible. She said it was the best toy for when she was bored.
"Right. She's too young, but she still tried." Theo watched her play with her hair, and felt a little jealous. It was nice to have an activity at hand all the time. He didn't want long hair, but maybe something for his belt. He could ask the woodcutter to teach him how to whittle, and then carry wood and a knife.
"Why wouldn't she try?" Belen furrowed her brow in confusion.
"She tried too hard." He scratched at his nose. "Most kids her age give up."
"Maybe she's older than she looks?"
"Mum said she's three."
Belen's fingers paused. "Ooooh. I see." She continued braiding. "She's determined."
Theo laughed. "Determined?"
She shrugged. "It's nicer than saying she's weird." She yawned. "I'm going to go home. It's almost dinner time. I'll see you tomorrow. We can go meet her again and see which it is."
They waited for her to join the kids the next day, but she didn't come. Normally the parents would drop everyone off in the town center so that the older kids could babysit while the parents worked. A few days passed, and she still didn't come. Although she was funny, Theo wasn't in the habit of seeking out people who didn't like him, so he gave up on solving the fluffy-haired mystery.
A few months later, his mother asked him about Molly. When he explained that she had never shown up, she gave him a long-winded scolding and sent him packing the next morning. As he expected, Molly was not happy to see him. But orders from parents are absolute, and so he ignored her grumpiness and forced his way into her routine.
Besides, he realized that her so-called training was far more fun than his usual games. He had overheard the other adults talk about Molly's father, who had been a soldier in the demon army, and her mother, who was a mythical elf. Small made-up adventures around the town forest couldn't compare at all to observing her parents close-up, and learning directly from an ex-soldier.
Molly never warmed up to him, but he began to like being with her. His mother had been completely wrong about her; she was not shy. She was, however, sharp, sarcastic, mean, determined (Belen had been right about that one), weird (he had been right too), sneaky, and overall funny. She didn't crack a single joke, but she would crinkle her whole face whenever she was annoyed. Around the adults, she acted shy and placid. With the other kids, she was quiet. With him and Belen – she let loose. Despite her size, she could give a good wallop and he found her more of a challenge than boys his age, who held back because they knew their parents would punish them if they hurt anyone. She learned how to fight like her life depended on it. Watching the glint in her eyes when they faced off, Theo felt encouraged to practice harder as well.
She was strong. Fear tore through him as he watched her challenge the gryphon. She had jumped into action; she didn't seem to be scared at all. While Theo had been frozen, he watched the gryphon kidnap her. Belen had to hit him before he woke up. They had grabbed the younger kids and raced back to the town, screaming as soon as they left the forest.
He looked at Belen's and Molly's sleeping faces. Outside the window, the sky was dark and he could hear Molly's parents moving in the other room. Belen looked peaceful for the first time since they had come across the gryphon, and Molly's face was turned away from him, so all he could see was her hair. The other boys thought he was weird, because he would rather play with Belen than with them. They teased him, and yet didn't realize that Belen took more fun risks than they ever did, these kids who were taught to never leave the borders unless the scary armies found them. They took this to a whole other level, believing that they would never need to know about anything that existed outside of the town.
Now he knew someone who would run towards the unknown to protect other people. She didn't particularly like him, and he was pretty sure that she would still give him the cold shoulder tomorrow, but she never rejected him. He looked at his two completely different friends and grinned as he settled back into the pillow.
'This isn't too bad, actually,' he decided as he went back to sleep, not letting go of Molly's hand.
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