Blink of an eye (Part 2)

in #freewrite5 years ago (edited)

If you haven't read the first part of the story, you can find it here.

‘What are you doing?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ the boy replied in a tone way more condescending than Maggie would have thought appropriate for a mere child. She was only 16, but having to fend for herself for the past two years had led her to adopt the ways of a much older woman.
‘I meant - what are you doing in this town?. I don’t remember seeing you around’.
‘Just visiting for the day’, the boy answered, shrugging as if to show that should’ve been pretty obvious too. ‘I’m flying home tonight’.
The boy was weird, Maggie decided, and possibly not quite right in the head.
‘How could you fly home when there’s no airport for a hundred miles around?’
‘That’s OK, Beanie will fly me home. You know, Beanie, my unicorn…’
Maggie searched his face to see if he was joking, but there wasn’t even the hint of a smile.
‘ Everybody knows unicorns don’t fly and besides they’re not even real’, the girl answered, now a bit condescending herself.
‘Beanie does’, the boy replied nonplussed.
Arthur had run out of pebbles to throw and had turned his attention to her, studying her with great interest.
‘I’m Maggie’, the girl offered.
‘I’d imagined you taller’.
The stale water of the fountain was shaking visibly and not from the boy’s game this time. Maggie felt dizzier than she had ever been and it took all her willpower to hold herself together. She focused her eyes on the lion-head in the fountain, but even the gray stone seemed insubstantial. If you looked at the top of his mane, it was almost translucent. Arthur kept talking, something about his father, but she could barely hear him. No doubt the boy was the cause of all this and if she didn’t do something quick the world around them would implode.
‘My father said you used to play hide-and-seek together’ the boy was saying as Maggie forced herself back to the here and now.

I

The confusion on the girl’s face was so obvious, the boy volunteered some more information.
‘Douglas Brent, you must remember him. He lived quite near you, on the farm’.
The bright sky turned suddenly dark, as if a thunderstorm was imminent. The girl was struggling to make sense of it all. Douglas, of course she remembered him, they went to school together and he always shared fresh strawberries and cherries with her. But, still, it couldn’t be true. Douglas was only a few months older than her, he couldn’t be this boy’s father. The kid was making fun of her.
‘Look here, child, I don’t have time for this nonsense. My world is in trouble and I need to deal with that. You’d better leave.’
‘Now that’s rich. You cannot tell me to leave. This is my world and if you continue to speak to me like that, I’m afraid I’ll have to make you leave.’
The boy frowned and made as if to walk way.
The lion-head in front of her was now as clear as glass. Maggie could see the bakery across the square through his no-longer-stone eyes.
‘Please, don’t. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical explanation. Please’, the girl begged.
The boy seemed mollified and quite happy to resume their conversation.
‘Is it true that the two of you once ran away from home and hid in a cave and then a bear almost tore you to pieces when he found you in his cave?’, Arthur asked with all the innocence of a child. A real child.
‘Funny of you to ask that. I haven’t thought of those days in ages. Yes, we did run away once, when Douglas broke the kitchen window and was scared of what his Dad might do to him. And we did hid in a cave, only there was no bear. We only thought we heard a bear and ran all the way back like crazies’.

The boy’s eyes were shining and Maggie found herself laughing. The world seemed to have steadied itself, the sun was shining and and the lion-head was again as solid as ever.
Something was still bothering her, though.
‘I wonder how I never noticed Mr.Brent growing old. He was a big strong man when I played with Douglas in the orchard, before he went away with his Mom, not five years ago, I’m sure. And look at him now…a broken old man’.
‘What do you expect? He’s my grandfather, he’s supposed to be old.’
(to be continued)

Story written for @mariannewest's freewrite challenge, today's prompt was: 'happy'! Check out her blog and join our freewrite community.

Thanks for reading!

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Image: Pixabay.

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