Silent

It was the end of the week and Violet had still not said a single word to Silas.

But that didn’t stop him from asking her question after question, until she began to complain of hand cramps. Still, she answered every single one as best she could. She had been adopted by her human parents at the age of four and lived with them in the outer suburbs of the city. She had attended the local primary school there, but had had to attend the inner city high school because the local high school did not accept mage students.

“Really?” Silas had asked in disbelief. “An all-human high school, in Lotus Falls? I thought the city was pro-magi?”

Violet simply smiled and shrugged, her answer to every question she couldn’t answer in writing.
Beside them at the lunch table, Thea and Alistair shared a look. While they were happy that Silas had made a new friend, they were also surprised. There were not many girls who could hold Silas Bellhouse’s attention for so long. Or put up with it.

At the end of lunch, Silas and Violet headed straight for the library for their study period, were he continued on through his long mental list of questions. Half-way through the period, Violet put her foot down and refused to answer any more questions on the premise that she had work to do, and so did he. No matter what he said, Violet would not change her mind, so instead he asked her for her phone number, so that he might ask her the rest of the questions over the weekend.

V: I don’t have mobile.[i/] She replied, her parents’ wouldn’t allow it. Silas almost didn’t believe her.

“Your parents won’t let you have a phone? Why? It’s not like you’re going call anyone.”

Violet just smiled and shook her head as if to say ‘silly boy’.

“What about a computer? Can I Skype you? Email you? Something?”

She shook her head.

Silas’s shoulders slumped, defeated.

“So, you mean to tell me, no pun intended, that I won’t be able to talk to you at all over the weekend?”

Violet shrugged her shoulders sympathetically.

“But, what if I think of a question over the weekend, but forget it before I can ask you on Monday?” He demanded.

Violet huffed and pointed at the notebook she had been using to answer his questions all week.

“Huh?”

Violet rolled her eyes in frustration and scribbled something down, almost throwing the notebook at him.

WRITE IT DOWN, IDIOT.[i/]

“Oh, right,” He replied sheepishly.

Violet rolled her eyes again and returned to her work.

At the end of the day he watched as she rode off in the school bus, smiling as she waved him goodbye for the weekend.

Although he spent the weekend trying not to think about his new-found friend, he constantly found his mind drifting towards her. He wondered what she was doing, and if she were wondering the same thing about him. Questions that he wanted to ask her kept popping into his head when he was supposed to be concentrating on other things, so much so that Lord Winterbourne became quite annoyed when Silas would suddenly stop in the middle of a task to scribble something down.

His annoyance finally peaked on Sunday afternoon, when, in the middle of a rather complex defence spell he was learning, Silas paused mid-incantation to pull out a notepad from his pocket and jot down another question to ask Violet.

“Silas, what is with you this weekend?” Lord Winterbourne asked, frustrated. “Why are you so distracted?”

“Uh, no reason,” Silas replied, hastily shoving the notepad into his pocket.

“Urgh, are you still thinking about Violet?” Thea said behind them as she and Alistair approached.
Lord Winterbourne raised an eyebrow.

“Who’s Violet?”

“A girl he met at school,” Alistair teased, grinning wickedly in reply to the scathing look Silas sent him.

“At the high school? So, a teenage girl?”

“She’s almost eighteen, and she’s a mage,” Silas explained, defensive.

“A mage?” This got the High Mage’s attention. “There aren’t any teenage mage’s with that name in Lotus Falls.”

“Well, there’s one. She was adopted by humans, so maybe they-“

“Mage’s do not get adopted by humans, except in extenuating circumstances. And, all mage adoptions go through the High Mage. Are you sure she’s a mage?”

“Yes, I’m sure. She has bright purple eyes and she has magic. Ergo, she’s a mage,” Silas argued. Behind him, Thea and Alistair chorused their agreement.

Lord Winterbourne furrowed his brow in thought.

“Strange. I’m sure I would have known about humans adopting a mage child.”

Without another word, he turned and walked away, leaving the three young mages to stare curiously at his retreating figure.

***

Come Monday morning, Violet was surprised to see Silas waiting eagerly for her at the bus stop. As soon as she climbed off the bus he handed her his notepad full of questions. Violet raised her eyebrows in utter surprise as she flicked through the pages.

“You told me to write them down, so I did,” He said. Violet nodded thoughtfully back at him, her expression expectant.

“What?” She looked at his pointedly, before raising a hand and waving at him.

“Oh, hi,” He grinned. “Sorry, I got a bit carried away.”

Violet just smiled up at him.

“So,” He asked as they made their way inside. “How was your weekend?”

She shrugged nonchalantly, it was okay. She’d spent most of the time in her room, only coming down when her parents called for her, doing homework and wondering what Silas was doing.

She pointed at him.

“Me? Not too bad, though Lord Winterbourne got kind of pissed at me,” He chuckled.

Violet tilted her head to the side, questioning.

“Well, you see, I was kind of distracted, you know. I kept thinking of questions I wanted to ask you, so I had to keep stopping and writing them all down, which apparently is very vexing.”

Violet smiled warmly, turning away so that he wouldn’t see the blush that had crept onto her cheeks.

***

Silas eventually ran out of questions to ask, though every now and then a random one would pop into his head. Mostly, though, they were questions that Violet had already answered, so she relieved when they finally moved onto conversations that did not centre on her.

Within a matter of weeks, Silas began to grow accustom to Violet’s silence and even understand her different facial expressions. He was still determined to hear her voice, but was complacent to wait until she was ready. And he would wait, for as long as it took.

One day, while they were sitting in the library during one of their study periods, he decided to ask her if he could see her outside of school.

“We should hang out more,” He insisted. “I only get to see you four times a day during the week, and not at all on the weekends.”

Violet looked up from her maths homework with wide eyes, shaking her head furiously.

“Why not?” Silas argued. “Your parents can’t be that strict, can they?”

She didn’t respond. Instead she just pursed her lips and stared down at the textbook in front of her.

“Seriously? Your parents are that strict? Is it because I’m a guy?”

She shook her head again.

“Then, why?”

Violet shrugged, refusing to look at him. Why did he have to make such a big deal about it? Couldn’t he just let it go? So, her parents were strict about her hanging out with people who weren’t family, what was wrong with that?

“Come on, Violet,” Silas begged. “Don’t you want us to spend more than an hour at time together?”

Violet still refused to look at him. Of course, she wanted to see him more often, but it wasn’t that simple.

“Violet?”

Silas reached out and placed his hand on top of hers. She sighed and glanced back at him through her brown curls. He looked back at her earnestly.

She sighed again. Why did he have to look at her like that, with those gorgeous green gold dancing eyes? Chewing her lip, she thought that perhaps there might be a way…

Pulling her hand out from underneath Silas’s, she ripped a piece of paper from her notebook and starting writing. Silas leaned forward to see what she was writing, but she shooed him away. After much crossing out and re-writing, she held up the page and read it to herself. Satisfied that it made sense, she handed it to Silas, resting her chin on her hands as he read it.

Ok. So, my parents MIGHT let me go to the public library after school tomorrow, IF I tell them I’m going by myself to do homework. They CANNOT find out that you are there, understand? And, only the library. I hate lying to my parents.[i/]

Slowly, Silas looked back up at a hesitant looking Violet and raised his eyebrows.

“Really?”

She nodded, excited, but at the same time terrified of the consequences should her parents find out.

“This is great!” Silas grinned back at her. “I promise I won’t get you into trouble.”

Violet just pursed her lips and nodded again.

“Hey, isn’t your eighteenth birthday, like, next week?” He asked thoughtfully.

Violet narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. What was he thinking?

“Well, they won’t be able to tell you what to do anymore, will they? You’ll be a legal adult and, therefore, we can hang out more without you having to hide it from them.” He grinned.

Violet huffed and rolled her eyes, shaking her head at him. He really could be an idiot sometimes.

“What?” Silas asked.

It’s not about them telling me what to do,[i/] She wrote. It’s about respecting my parents and the rules they set for me. Just because I’ll be a legal adult doesn’t mean I should stop listening to them, or stop respecting their rules. They’re my parents.[i/]

Silas was almost lost for word.

“Respect their rules? Vi, they won’t let you have any friends, they won’t let you have a phone, they don’t let you do anything! You’re a teenager, you should be hanging out with friends, having fun, dating, and things like that.”

Violet blushed at the word ‘dating’.

Dating?[i/] She scrawled.

“Huh?” Silas relied. “Oh, yeah, you know…” This time it was his turn to blush. “Dating. Guys. Going on dates with guys…”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Uh, anyway, I guess I should probably get to my next class,” He said as the bell sounded, though he made no effort at all to move. Violet continued to stare at him for a few moments, before beginning to pack away her things.

Silas hastily followed suit, shoving away his untouched Spanish assignment.

“So, I’ll see you after class?”

She nodded.

“And, we’re still on for tomorrow, right?”

She gave him a little shrug that he knew meant ‘maybe’.

“Right, cool, I’ll see you later then.”

Violet waved goodbye as Silas turned and walked out of the library, still blushing like an idiot. She smiled and headed to her next class, very much looking forward to the next afternoon.