Among the Elementals

Morning Surprise

Aubrey got up, and stared out the sunny window. The light poured into her brown eyes, and she groaned and rolled over. Too late. Downstairs, the morning riot had started. A screaming match was taking place, and even if Aubrey had wanted, she couldn’t sleep. Grumbling about sisters and mothers, she climbed out of her bed. Aubrey went to her bathroom, and took a cold shower. Her sister had wasted all the water already. By the time she was dressed in a slouchy pair of black jeans and some plain old t-shirt, the screams downstairs had stopped.

Aubrey exited her bedroom, her backpack pulled over her shoulder. As she walked, she passed her dad’s room. He was an average sized man, with a slight paunch, and a large, slowly developing bald spot on the back of his dark hair. Dressed for work, he was searching for something.

“Lost something, dad?” asked Aubrey, peeking in to the door, and glancing around her parent’s messy room. Clothes were strewn everywhere, the bed was unmade, and papers fell from the side-table to the ground. The television on the wall in front of the bed was playing some odd foreign news channel.

“Have you seen my glasses Bree? Your mother put them in the bathroom,” muttered her father.

“Did she now?” asked Aubrey, slipping in to the room to look around. “Are you sure she didn’t tell you to put them in the bathroom?”

“I don’t remember, I was watching the European stocks. Fascinating really, both Europe and Asia are experiencing stock drops, it’s a huge problem with the economic concerns. London’s FTSE dropped 0.57 percent yesterday,” said her father enthusiastically, as he picked up a dress and tossed it on the bed.

“Is that what’s on the television?” asked Aubrey, glancing as a man in a strange European tongue smoke wildly, his mustache curling as he did.

“Oh, I have no idea,” muttered her father, “I stepped on the remote.”

“Colin!” called her mother from downstairs, “You’re going to be late!”

“Can I turn it off?” asked Aubrey, as she plucked the remote off the bed, as her father called back a ‘coming!’ to her mother.

“No-No, it’s fine Bree, they’ve been discussing the plunge of the Japanese markets,” said Colin, enthusiastically as he watched the television.

“How do you even know?” asked Aubrey in surprise, as she lowered the volume, her father not noticing at all.

Before he could answer, a young girl, smaller and tanner to Aubrey appeared up the stairs. Her face was crunched into a frown, marring her otherwise pretty features. She had light blue eyes, and dark curly hair. Her skin was tanned from outdoor sports, and she had a much more athletic shape to her older sister. She was wearing a green headband to push back her straight dark hair, and forcing her bangs to stick up slightly behind them, and a pair of green pajamas. The young girl was glaring at the floor as she walked.

“What happened with mom this morning, Ash?” asked Aubrey, nodding to the younger girl, who stopped dramatically in the door way as Colin turned in amusement.

“She doesn’t get it!” said Ashley with all the dramatic air a thirteen-year old could muster.

“Straightening your hair? The choice of clothes?” asked Aubrey, as her father continued to search for his glasses.

“For your information, it was neither of them,” said Ashley with a snooty glare, “It was because I wanted to go to Meghan’s to get dressed today.”

“Doesn’t she live three blocks over?” asked Aubrey with an eye-roll.

“Exactly! Why can’t mom just drive me over?! It’s so damn annoying!” said Ashley, relishing the word damn on her tongue as only a young girl could.

“Hey! Watch your tongue!” called Colin, as he dug around the papers on the side-table.

“Whatever,” said Ashley with a shrug, “Now I have to text Meghan and tell her I’m not coming! Do you have any idea how lame I’m going to look?”

“I don’t remember you telling me about going to Meghan’s house last night,” said Colin with a frown, as he grabbed his glasses from behind the lamp, and put them on, framing the dark eyes Aubrey inherited from him.

“That’s because we planned it like, ten minutes ago,” said Ashley with a roll of her eyes, “You need to keep up dad!”

“Aubrey!” called her mother, “Kale’s here!”

“And I have got to go,” said Aubrey, as her father frowned.

“Ashley, are you wearing eye-liner?” asked Colin slowly, approaching Ashley.

“I’m heading to my room, later Aubrey!” called Ashley, ducking away and leaving behind a bewildered Colin to follow Aubrey down the stairs as he grabbed his black leather briefcase.

“Now she comes!” said her mother from the front door. Kale stood behind her, munching on a banana as he waved, his large hand almost hitting the ceiling as he did.

Beside him, a smaller woman stood. She was tall, lean and pretty, with slight chubbiness on her face and body. Her face had the beginning of wrinkles forming around her eyes and lips. Her eyes were a bright blue, and she had a lighter brown shade of hair in comparison to the dark hair of her daughters and husband. It was pulled up in a loose, messy bun, with lighter brown strands that fell down her face, and greying roots showing from the hair pulled back. Dressed in a white bathrobe with stains from cooking, she stood at the door, her face pulled into a teasing smile.

“There you two are!” she called, “Honestly, the two of you waste so much time! Ashley and I have been dancing around for the last hour!”

“It’s 7:48 mom,” said Aubrey with a shrug, “We have plenty of time. The bus doesn’t get here until 8:00”

“Lu-sh-ee’s run-shning,” said Kale, swallowing the banana in his mouth, “She’s at the track practice.”

“What time is track?” asked Colin in awe as his wife began to dust off his blue shirt.

“Six in the morning,” said Kale with a grimace.

“Kale!” called out a cheerful voice, and everyone turned to the steps where Ashley was bouncing down the stairs. Her brown hair fell perfectly around her face, the bangs pushed back by the headband now flopping across her blue eyes. Her smile was glossed over in pink. Now out of her pajamas, she was wearing a pair of denim shorts and a white lacy shirt on top.

“Hey Ashley,” said Kale with a warm smile, “Are you leaving now?”

“Oh no! I just heard your voice and came to say hello,” said Ashley brightly, as she blushed slightly at Kale’s smile, and missed the step down.

Aubrey and her mother exchanged glances, and turned their heads to avoid laughing as Kale replied, “That’s sweet of you Ash, how’s school?”

“It’s so great!” gushed Ashley, “I love being in eighth grade! It’s like, we’re the oldest kids, and all the teachers let us get away with so much more! My grad is just six weeks away!”

“And she hasn’t stopped talking about it,” interjected her mother with an eye-roll, “Are you finished getting dressed this morning, Ash, or are you waiting for your grad to get ready?”

“Excuse me!” harrumphed Ashley, glaring at her mother, “Do you know where my mascara wand went?”

“Mascara wand?!” squeaked Colin, “What mascara wand! Jane you never told me you allowed her to get make-up! I forbid it! You can’t let her get away with that Jane! She’s way too young for that! No way Ashley, no make-up allowed!”

“But dad!” wailed Ashley, as Jane replied angrily, “It’s my wand Ashley! And I took it back to my room, just get dressed already!”

Amidst the chaos, Aubrey grabbed Kale’s arm, and led him out the door. Ashley would argue with her parents until the sun fell. Kale glanced back at the door in amusement as they exited out into the warm summer morning. The sun was almost fully up, and kids were walking around them to school. As soon as they were well past the brick, brown house with a black roof, like a copy of the rest, Kale burst into laughter.

“Ashley’s great,” he said when he calmed down, “Your family’s great!”

“You say that every time,” said Aubrey with a scowl, “Just wait. Next year Ashley starts walking with us, and she comes with her friends too!”

“Not like it’s our problem,” shrugged Kale as the two turned left at the end of Aubrey’s street, “She probably won’t want to be seen with us anyways. Or am I wrong to assume that based on the number of times she’s shoved us into your room because she doesn’t want her friends to know you have uncool friends.”

“You’re probably right, but she has a crush on you right now,” teased Aubrey.

“Since when?!” demanded Kale, jumping in surprise.

“Since like, last weekend I think,” said Aubrey with a frown, “Around the time her friend Meghan teased her for never having a crush before.”

“So I got picked to be her first crush?!” asked an incredulous Kale.

“Is that a problem?” asked Aubrey lightly as they reached the bus stop. Within minutes, a large yellow bus rolled around from the end of the street towards the large gaggle of teenagers.

“It’s weird! How am I supposed to act around her?! She was like, eleven two years ago and I was helping her with math homework and now she has a crush?! This is weird!” complained Kale as the two stepped into the bus and grabbed a seat. Kale sat by the window, towering over the other kids in the middle of the bus, and Aubrey sat beside him with a laugh.

“Are you serious? You didn’t even notice? She spent the last four days coming downstairs to see you, dressed up, and you didn’t notice?! Even Lucy noticed, and she hasn’t picked up that you like her yet!” giggled Aubrey at Kale’s abashed expression.

“Not funny,” he growled as he leaned back into his seat, “It’s not funny at all! Besides, this is completely different! I’m normal around Lucy, and she doesn’t know that I like her so she’s normal with me.”

“So be normal around Ashley, it’s not like it’s a big deal anyways,” said Aubrey with a roll of her eyes, “She changes her favorite color on a daily basis, can never make her mind up, and goes from happy to sad in the matter of minutes. If she sticks to liking you longer than a week, we call it a record. I swear, sometimes I think she has split personality disorder.”

“If you two didn’t look alike, I’d swear you weren’t sisters,” agreed Kent with a nod, “You’re always so focused, it’s actually kind of weird.”

“Thanks,” said Aubrey sarcastically, as the bus rolled up towards the school.

From the outside, the school didn’t look much better than the inside. Moss crept up the old building. The brown brick was beaten and weathered. The design was boxy and the windows small and prison-like. The lettering to the school was in small print across the side and top of the building. The letters R and M in Graham were painted a different shade of yellow than the other beaten and worn yellow colors. On an average morning, students would mill around the brown grassy lawn, talking and laughing until the first bell rang.

Today, however, was different. As Aubrey and Kale rolled off, they noticed the different atmosphere almost immediately. The students spoke in hushed tones, and many were pointing towards the parking lot. A few edged closer, and immediately Kale and Aubrey exchanged curious glances. They moved in front of the bus, Aubrey behind Kale. It wasn’t necessary as the bus began to roll away, and the parking lot cleared. At first, Aubrey’s view was obstructed by Kale, but then she gasped.

The pale haired man she’d seen yesterday was in the parking lot. Dressed in a similar fashion to yesterday, he was leaning against his motorbike. His eyes were focused intently on the small girl in front of him. Aubrey started when she recognized it to be Lucy! The two were talking quietly to each other, Lucy looking at her feet. It was the kind of expression Lucy wore in front of adults she had upset. Aubrey’s eyes blurred for a minute, and she blinked. To her shock, beside the pale man was a dark haired man.

Aubrey focused intently on the two. They were so eerily similar. The way their cheekbones curved, the square of their jaw, the way the two seemed so focused on Lucy. Even their expressions were alike. A serious gaze, with their arms crossed in front of them. Though they faced opposite directions, they seemed like a man and his shadow, constantly moving in perfect mimicry. Aubrey was fascinated as she watched them move. So much so, that she didn’t notice Kale stiffen beside her at first.

“Who’s that?!” hissed Kale to Aubrey, “And how does he know Lucy?!”

“I have no idea how they know her,” admitted Aubrey, “But those were the guys I saw yesterday!”

“Guys?” asked Kale, not looking back at Aubrey, “What guys? There’s only one guy.”

“The two of them,” said Aubrey, “Don’t you see them?”

“There’s only one guy,” said Kale, but tightened immediately as Lucy waved goodbye to the guy she was talking to, and then moved towards them. Aubrey stared at Kale in bewilderment as she looked back. There were definitely two, weren’t there? Confused, she watched them leave, trying to figure out what was going on.

“Hey you two!” called out Lucy as she approached them with a false smile, her eyes sad. Her blonde head bobbed as she finally reached, running quickly across the parking lot.

“Who was that?!” demanded Kale at once.

“Just some guy,” said Lucy airily, “He needed some directions. He’s apparently trying to find Ms. Malta, fancy that. He said it had to do with some paper work.”

“Paper work?!” asked Kale with a growl, “I doubt it. He looked dangerous. You looked upset.”

“I’m fine, how was the walk over?” asked Lucy, brushing Kale off to face Aubrey, who was quietly watching the exchange with her friends.

“It was nice,” said Aubrey, glancing at her shoes. Lucy was lying. It was fairly obvious they’d upset Lucy somehow, but she wasn’t sharing. Nervously, Aubrey began to fidget, tapping her foot. It was strange to have Lucy behave so differently around her, and she just didn’t like it. Not only that, but she was positive there had been two guys. So why did no one else seem to think that?

“Shall we head to our lockers then?” asked Lucy brightly, “Is something wrong Bree? You’re fidgeting again.”

“I’m alright,” said Aubrey with a slightly forced smile, “Let’s get going then? I don’t want to be late for history with Mr. Patsy.”

“Yeah,” said Kale with a shrug, turning away with a confused expression from Lucy, “Let’s get going.”

“Lighten up guys,” said Lucy, grabbing Aubrey’s arm and Kale’s elbow, “It’s Friday! Let’s have fun!”

“Alright Lucy,” said Aubrey with a small smile, “Let’s have fun.”