The Elf Girl (3 page)

God, I’m sorry
, I prayed.
I just can’t hold on any longer.

I was slipping. I could feel it. I would fall over the bridge again, and this time no miraculous pile of dirt would lift me to the surface.

But then I realized that it was taking an incredibly long time for me to fall. I was puzzled. It was funny how my only concern at this point was why it was taking me so long to drop into the water.

I lifted my neck slightly to observe what was happening. Immediately I figured out what the problem was…for the water, I mean. Someone was stopping it from taking me. I guessed it was the same someone I had heard shouting. Catching my interest, I put my hands on the ground to stop myself from being dragged any farther by the water. I wanted to see what would happen next.

He was lithe and agile as he moved around me, trying to prevent the water from taking me into the lake once more. It was tricky to notice his exact movements. He was fast, and I was still dizzy and weak…but I did notice one thing.

This man was creating dirt with his very hands, right out of thin air, and he was using the soil to expel the water. I watched vaguely as he created pile upon pile of dirt, but holding back a little in doing so, as if he was afraid to touch the water himself. The mud seemed to be working, though, because it was slowing down the attack and prolonging my safety, but I knew it would take more than that to stop the water completely.

He tried a different tactic. He made another pile of mud and added a few rocks, which he had also created himself. Who was this person? Was I hallucinating, or was this for real? How could it be? I remembered how I had thought Addison was strange. The thought almost made me laugh because of what was going on now.
This
was strange. Addison was nothing compared to this.

Finally, the man created a huge boulder by spreading his hands wide, the rock forming quickly before my eyes. Then he dropped it on the coil of water. The boulder just missed hitting my ankle and smashing my foot to millions of pieces. I stopped moving. The water stopped tugging. Everything was quiet and peaceful.

I breathed a hoarse sigh of relief and threw my hands over my eyes, trying to calm myself down. My heart was racing from a mixture of shock and adrenaline. I still had no idea what had just happened, how it had happened, or who had worked so hard to save me…but at least I was alive.

I made no attempt to move. I wasn’t sure of my legs, or how it would feel to stand, so I didn’t try.

The man was before me in an instant, his dark, earthy brown eyes staring down at me. Even in the dark, I could see them clearly. He held out his hand to me. Silently, I placed my hand in his and allowed him to pull me up. I owed him my gratitude. He had saved my life, no matter how strange it all seemed.

He was tall, lean, and muscular, with messy dark brown hair, wet from the pouring rain that must have ended while I was unconscious.

When I was on my feet and standing on my own, I waited for the mystery man to say the first words. Unsure of my voice, I didn’t speak. I wondered if he would explain himself. I wondered what he would say, if he would tell me the truth or not.

“Are you all right?” he asked, his eyes starting at my toes and ending at my eyes, looking me over to make sure there was no permanent damage. At least not damage that he could see. On the inside, I was freaking out. But he wasn’t looking for what was going on with me beneath the surface.

“Yes…I think so,” I rasped. I cleared my throat. “But I’m a little sore, a little dizzy, and
very
confused.”

“You have a right to be,” he replied simply.

“Yeah….”

He didn’t say anything else.

“So you aren’t going to tell me what just happened?” I deduced. The fact was clearly readable across his face.

He looked me over again and sighed. “Just be careful in the future,” he said.

“What’s that supposed to mean? How can I be careful when I have no idea why this just happened? Water grabbed me!” I cried, gesturing with my hands toward the side of the bridge where I once lay. “How is that possible?”

When he didn’t respond to my questions, I probed him further, trying to get him to answer me. “What about you, with the mud and the rock and the crazy out-of-thin-air thing? What
was
that?” I demanded to know.

“It was saving your life,” he said, a hint of petulance creeping into his tone. “Be careful in the future, Ramsey.”

Then he took off running, and after a few seconds, he was gone from my sight.

***

Exhaustion sped through my body as I walked home. For once, I was not wide awake in the wee hours. I guess my fight against drowning and unseen forces had sapped my energy.

Who was that man back at the bridge? Why had he saved me, and how had he managed to do so? What was he? Why did he leave so quickly with no explanation? Most importantly, how did he know my name?

They were all questions I could not
begin
to answer.

I limped up the stairs to my bedroom, careful not to make any noise, and fell onto my bed, clutching the bag of books in my hand. I had picked them up before heading home from the bridge.
I’m not going to let a near-death experience take away sixty bucks
, I thought sarcastically to myself. Making jokes was the only way I could avoid thinking about the strangeness of the evening.

I was still soaking wet and muddy. I realized how bad it would be if my parents were to walk in here at this moment, or even my sister. I couldn’t just stay like this.

Making as little sound as possible, I stripped from my clothes and soaked them in the sink while I towel dried and scrubbed the mud and water from my skin and hair. I changed into new pajamas and plopped the pile of wet clothes in the hamper, making sure to fit them in amongst the outfit I wore today so it would be harder for my parents to notice them later. I moved slowly as I did all of this in an effort to end the throbbing in my head and the aching of my throat and joints.

Even though I was exhausted, I wanted to read. Reading always helped to calm me down. After everything that had happened, I felt a huge need to let my eyes run through the words on a page or two. Like if I didn’t, I would be missing out on something terribly important.

I had made up my mind.

I emptied the books onto my bed and threw the dirty, wet plastic bag into the trash. Curiously, none of the books was wet or damaged, and I was extremely thankful. I was lucky not to have lost them in the water,
very lucky
.

I carefully put away two of the books on my shelf, keeping the expensive one. I felt a strong, almost eerie, compulsion to read it.

I sat in bed and opened the volume. I immediately noticed an inscription at the top of the table of contents:

Turn to page two hundred and seventy-three. Then you will understand.

-A

I gasped. Could “A” possibly stand for Addison the checkout girl? It had to be. No other explanation seemed reasonable to me at the time. I was about to turn to the page, when there was a soft knock on the door. Startled, I dropped the heavy book, which landed with a
thud
beside my bed.

I wasn’t so good with surprises. My reactions were always dramatic.

Mom opened the door and stepped into the room. I quickly reached down and pushed the book under my bed.

“Honey, are you still up? It’s two in the morning!” Mom whispered.

“I couldn’t sleep, but I think I’m tired now. Goodnight, Mom.” I was anxious to get to that page.

Instead of leaving, she came and sat on the bed with me.
Great,
I thought.

“I’m worried about you, Ramsey,” she told me.

“You shouldn’t be,” I replied, too hastily, though, because she sighed and shook her head.

“I don’t know about that. You seem very…
distant
lately.”

Putting emphasis on the “distant” hadn’t made it any easier to hear. Truthfully, I guess I was somewhat distant. Feeling like an outsider didn’t exactly make me want to be buddy-buddy with everyone, even the parents I loved. And especially now, I
wanted
to be distant. I’d had a close call back at that bridge. I was in no mood to chat with my mother.

“Sorry, Mom, it’s finals. I’m stressed about studying,” I lied, clearing my throat to make sure she wouldn’t notice how raspy my voice sounded.

I wasn’t going to bring up the subject of being “different” from dinner. And I had no intention of telling my mother about the frightening bridge experience. I wanted to keep that to myself, along with the water and magical Earth Man. If I blabbed the story now, my mother would probably think I was insane. Anyway, telling her would also be giving away the fact that I snuck out at night. That wouldn’t go over well with either her or my father.

So, yes, I would keep this event to myself for now. It was my own bit of fantasy.

“I’m sure you’ll do fine,” she said, bringing me back to reality with the sound of her gentle voice. “You always do. Have you thought about what you want to do for your birthday? June seventh is only a few weeks away.”

“I’ll let you know soon, Mom. I promise.”

“All right, now get some sleep. Mondays come too soon.”

“They sure do. Good night,” I said.

She stopped at the door and turned back. “I love you,” she whispered.

“Love you, too,” I whispered back.

Instead of getting out of bed for the book, I forgot all about it and fell asleep. Before I knew it, morning had come.

~2~
Coincidences

Mornings were, well, mornings. They were loud, crazy, tiring, and just not fun in general. Don’t get me wrong, I loved waking up early. I was a morning person; Dina, not so much. Even this morning, after almost drowning, I was awake. I wasn’t tired at all. I think it was because I was still so shocked. But I was surprised that an adrenaline rush could last this long. It was definitely a unique experience.

I couldn’t get my mind off what had happened the night before, but I found myself wanting to get back to normalcy. Well, back to my kind of normalcy at least, Ramsey-normalcy.

Almost dying wasn’t part of that normalcy. I found myself trying to go on as if nothing had happened, while still remembering the experience in the back of my mind, because I knew occurrences such as these could never truly be forgotten. Other than that, I didn’t know what I would do about last night’s events, or if I would do anything at all. There was no way I would ever be able to track down that man. I didn’t even know his name. Maybe I would just have to forget what had happened and be careful in the future, as he had suggested to me. As for the coil of water, I would simply have to accept that there were incidences in the world I would never be able to explain. At least that was all I had to work with now….

While I quietly ate my eggs at breakfast, Dina yelled at Mom for not doing her laundry the night before. The stylish new red top she had planned to wear was in the wash and wouldn’t be ready for school today. It was just an
awesome
start to the day. When the screams finally subsided, I turned to see Dina trotting happily down the stairs, sporting an even more attractive yellow tank with darker yellow spirals across the bottom. I recognized it as the present Mom had been saving for Dina’s birthday in August, after buying it in New York during a weekend trip with her friends.

“Nice top,” I muttered, still chewing on my eggs.

“Thanks, Mom got it for me. Totally
gorge,
right?”

I strongly disliked it when Dina shortened words. The habit just made her seem flaky and dim. I loved my sister, but she was a little low on the smart ladder.

“Yeah, it’s very
gorgeous
.” I smiled and returned to my food.

Dina blew me a kiss and headed for the coffee. She added so much cream and sugar to her cup that I almost choked on my eggs and laughed. I was always amused when teen-aged girls drank coffee just to look sophisticated. They thought the taste was just awful, but if drinking the caffeinated beverage was a way to appear as part of the popular majority, it was totally worth it. In my opinion, coffee was okay, but I preferred herbal teas. I sipped mine and sighed, thinking about how strange everything was, considering my family had no idea about what had occurred last night. We were all following our normal routines, and even I was feeling oblivious to the truth.

Dad ran into the kitchen, tie slung around his neck, briefcase in hand. As a lawyer, he was always on the go. He was moving so fast he almost ran into Dina by the coffee.

“Having a late start, Dad?” I guessed.

“You got it,” he said, pouring himself a cup and spilling a little on the counter. Thankfully, Dina was there to clean up the mess.

He muttered a thank you, grabbed the coffee, and left. The closing of the door muffled his goodbye.

Mom came in almost half a second later. She was dressed in a plain t-shirt and jeans. She never dressed up for work. Her baking apron would cover her clothes anyway. It was a wonder any of us could remain healthy with all the extra treats she brought home from the bakery she both owned and operated.

“Girls, are you almost ready for school?”

Dina and I both nodded. After rinsing my plate and placing it in the dishwasher, I hurried upstairs to get dressed. It didn’t take me long to pick out an outfit. I chose a pair of jeans and a green and brown stripped polo t-shirt. I grabbed my bag and started to hurry out the door, but once again felt the need to look in the mirror. This happened every morning.

I inspected the strange girl looking back at me, with her white-blonde hair, which light passed through like a thin sheet of paper, and bright emerald eyes. I focused on her pale skin, pink lips, and long, dark lashes. Last of all, my eyes rested on her ears,
my
ears.

With these ears, I felt awkward, insecure, and ugly. I could put up a good front and pretend that the hurtful comments others uttered didn’t matter. However, they did. They always did.