Gathering Water (11 page)

“Ready, Della? You need to open yourself up the way you do before you Gather, but instead of pulling it towards you to Gather, I want you to try to push it away. That’s the easiest to start with.”

Opening myself up was easier said than done, but I did what he asked and felt around the energy inside myself until I found the little ball that felt like Air. Then I tried to feel what was outside myself at the same time and push. But nothing happened.

“That’s okay, you’ll get it. Just try again,” my uncle, not so helpfully, told me.

“Dad, you care if I add something?” Cash called from his “just-in-case” distance away. My uncle looked at him and shrugged, which Cash took as an affirmative since he started walking over to me.

“Della, if you let yourself get really still you can almost feel how the Air you’ve Gathered and the Air outside of you are still connected. Like a lasso or something. You want to use that connection when Bending. Got it?” That made much more sense, and I saw that my Uncle was nodding his head in agreement. Cash jogged back over to his safe distance away and my uncle signaled me to try again.

Damned if Cash wasn’t right, because as soon as I felt around, I felt that connection he was talking about. It wasn’t really like a line, or lasso; it was more like a magnet. So, using that, I tried to push again.

And my Uncle Connor went flying a good 20 feet away from me.

I don’t know what he did to keep himself from being injured, but he looked fine when he stood up and brushed the dirt from his pants.

“Dad, did you see that?” Cash yelled from across the stage area to where his father had landed, hooting in excitement while I did everything I could not to panic at my mistake.

“Yes, Cash. I saw it.” Connor replied dryly while he walked back towards me.

“That was a good start, Della. This time…”

“Are you serious? That was supposed to happen? Are you okay?” I asked him.

“Yes, I’m fine, I got my Shield up in time. It just seems that with your deeper Well, you have a little more…” he searched for a word.

“Oomph?” I provided the word that Luke used the day before, making Connor chuckle.

“Yes, a little more oomph. You’ll learn to use smaller amounts of energy as you gain more control. Beginners always go all out, you just have a bit more to go all out with. So, let’s try that again, only this time I think I’ll stand behind you.”

Connor pulled out a plastic grocery bag for me to blow around, making Cash get it and bring it back at first, until I got the hang of blowing the bag back towards me. After a couple hours, when I was making the bag dance in all directions, not just back and forth, Uncle Connor decided it was time for me and Cash to practice together, this time with me trying to blow things into him while he practiced his Shielding. It was, apparently, the best way to practice. It was also really fun.

We started off with light things, like pine needles. The Shield was really cool. Connor made Cash use his Shield at different sizes, so sometimes the pine needles would suddenly stop just an inch away from his face, then he’d push the Shield out larger and they would stop a couple of feet away. When he used a larger Shield, I noticed that some of the needles would get through, once even lodging in his mouth and making him sputter. The larger shield must be more difficult for him to use, so when I knew he was doing it I tried to be more forceful to get through his barrier. You know, payback for being a constant pain in my rear.

When Connor noticed what I was doing, he instructed me to push myself and try something a little heavier. So he pulled out a bag full of small sea shells, and let me at it. After I got good with the shells, we tried small rocks, then sticks, and so on. Cash seemed to be getting more and more tired, and after the second golf ball hit him in the gut, Uncle Connor called a halt to our practicing. Throughout our lesson together, Cash had to pause several times to Gather more Earth for his Shield. Every time Connor shook his head and admonished that he needed to learn to multitask.

“The Clades will not wait for you to Gather for your Shield before they attack!” he said the last time, after he’d called for the stop.

“I know, I know. I’m working on it. She just kept breaking them down faster than I could Gather.”

“Okay, Cash. This time I want you to Temper with Fire while you Shield. Maybe you can figure out another defensive plan. Della, why don’t you try to Temper at the same time, too. I’ve been thinking that you probably overdid it with Luke because you were using your entire store of energy. Try and separate a smaller portion before you Temper with it.” Connor tossed me his lighter. Cash had his hand in his pocket, draining his cell battery for the energy. He’s a smart man, my uncle. Sneaky too, because he’d known what was happening for a while and wanted to see if his son could figure it out on his own.

It took me a few minutes to focus on what I was about to do. I was nervous, not only because I’d never Gathered from a flame before (what if it burns?), but also because the last time I Tempered was far from a good experience. I was afraid that the same thing would happen again. I flicked open the Zippo, sparked the light, then Gathered from the tiny flame. It was such a small amount that I instinctively started searching for a larger source of Fire to Gather from, feeling around for the warm type of buzzing that I now associated with that particular energy before I remembered that burning too much while Tempering was probably what caused all my issues the day before.

I spent another minute or two trying to figure out how to do two things in tandem. I decided that Tempering with Fire would be easiest to do first so I closed my eyes and did the little cloud trick I learned the day before, and was especially careful to only use part of what I’d collected since I wasn’t sure how much was too much. I felt it work instantly, felt my body become more attuned to the elements around me.

Opening my eyes revealed a world full of wavy colors, almost like ribbons, wisps, and clouds all over the place. I wondered if the sheen over my uncle and cousin meant anything special, or if all people seemed to vaguely glow when Tempering. Cash’s Shield looked like a brick igloo surrounding him. I thought I would have difficulty focusing on Tempering and Bending at the same time, but it was surprisingly easy. The two were so different that after I started Tempering it required no thought to keep it going, and I was able to focus on Bending my way through Cash’s Shield.

Uncle Connor tossed the five golf balls back on the ground, and I picked them up and swirled them over to where Cash was, seeing his Shield flare up when the balls hit it. But I didn’t get through on my first assault, so I tried again, putting all my focus on getting through his Shield. This time, all five hit at the same time, making his Shield flare up especially bright, and the next thing I knew, Cash was holding on to his shoulder. I’d gotten in again.

“Is she doing what I think she’s doing?” Cash asked his father.

“Yes, she is,” he answered.

“What am I doing?”

“Cheating! Dad, you never taught me how to shield an object!” Cash was still rubbing his shoulder, but was quickly walking towards his father so he wouldn’t have to shout.

“I wasn’t cheating! I don’t even know how to cheat. Uncle Connor, tell him I wasn’t cheating.”

“Cash, she wasn’t cheating. She was just fighting smarter than you.”

“I still think it’s cheating if she knew how to do something that I don’t know how to do.” He finally reached where we were standing.

“What did I do? And if that’s how you define cheating, then you’re a big fat cheater cheater pumpkin eater, cause I barely know how to do anything,” I said with all the wit of a second grader.

“You were Shielding the golf balls! That’s why they were able to get through. My Shield only blocked out your Shield, so the ball was able to come right on through!” he gestured wildly at me. I don’t think he was really mad. Cash is just, well, excitable.

“I was what?”

“You put a Shield around the golf balls. Cash’s Shield only protected against the Shield on the ball, not the golf ball itself. That’s why it got through,” my uncle explained a little more calmly.

“But only one got through. I swear, I didn’t know I was doing it! I don’t even know how.” How did I keep doing things I didn’t know were possible? And I thought my life was confusing when I was just some orphan discovering who my mother was.

“Well, neither do I. Dad, did you know you could do that?” Cash asked before realizing that we were both being laughed at.

“No, I didn’t know. It never occurred to me to try.” He was shaking his head at us, though for the life of me I couldn’t see what was so amusing. “Let’s pack up, kids. It’s a quarter till two. I want you both to pick up this mess using your abilities. Cash, just Bend the shells over the stage to the Sound. There’s nobody there, so don’t worry about that.”

“Seriously? But we need to talk about this! How is she doing that?” Cash wasn’t going to drop it, and I was pretty curious to hear what he had to say, myself.

“Son, just do what I told you while I figure it out. I just saw this for the first time, too,” Connor told him, though he didn’t seem as outraged or impressed as Cash did.

We spent the next few minutes doing what we were told and cleaned up. Cash had a lot more control over his Bending than I had, and it was kinda neat watching him pick up all the shells and Bend them, single-file, over the stage wall and towards the Roanoke Sound. Since I was supposed to help, but didn’t have the control to get the golf balls back into the bag, I just blew them over to Cash, who caught them and blew them into the bag with his own Air Bending. When everything was back to the way it was when we came in, Connor shouldered the bag and we walked back to the car. Cash and I piled into the back seat again, leaving the doors open for a few minutes until the AC started blowing cool air.

“All right, I think I figured it out. I think Della was so focused on hitting you, Cash, that she ended up Shielding the golf balls-“

“I figured that much out. How?” Cash had the same habit of interrupting that I did.

“I tried it out while you guys were cleaning up, and it really isn’t too difficult.” Uncle Connor looked back at us in the rearview mirror to make sure we were listening. “Instead of taking the energy from within to create a Shield around herself, she just took some of the Air that she was already Bending and wrapped it around the balls, fortifying them and creating a Shield. It’s really obvious. I’m embarrassed that I’ve never thought of it, actually.”

“Cool. You think you can do it with every element, and have it stay invisible, as with normal Shielding?” Cash seemed especially excited by the prospect.

“I’m not sure, I think you can. You’d have to be careful to use the energy from the element, and not the element itself, but you have to do that with any Shielding. It requires more energy to do though, so it’s pointless until you get better at Gathering while burning the energy.”

“Okay okay. I get it, dad. I’ll practice, all right?”

“Della, you’re being quiet. What’s on your mind?” Uncle Conner asked, as if it were possible to catalogue everything running through my brain at that moment. There was one thing that had stuck out during our practice, though.

“Uncle Connor, you said something about a Clade when you were yelling at Cash earlier. What is that?” I would have brought it up when he first mentioned it, but I was too busy concentrating on the lesson.

“Well, I was hoping to wait a while to tell you all this. I don’t want to overload you with information. This can all be a bit overwhelming if you weren’t raised to know,” Connor deflected.

“Dad, she’ll be fine. She hasn’t freaked out yet, so I don’t think she’s going to,” Cash said in my defense.

“You have to understand, Della, that we aren’t alone. There are other beings, and other realms. The Clades are one of those things that aren’t human, and they’re bad news. Just be wary and trust your instincts, and that’s all you need to know about it right now.” He shut me down before I could even protest the lame explanation he gave.

I kept my mouth shut, though, and stared dejectedly out the window, looking at the water below the bridge we were crossing to get back home. By the time we were back on the main road again, Cash kicked my foot and winked at me when he got my attention. I took it to mean that he would explain a little better than his father once we were alone, and the thought cheered me back up.

November 15
th
, 1968

Dear Journal,

I have terrible news! One of the Elfennol, Martine, who I have fought beside so many times, has turned to the Clades. The taint is so quick to spread. There was no hint of darkness in his energy the last time I saw him. It is times like this that I feel sorry for the Elfennol; sorry that they see their companions turn to darkness so frequently. His turning has only solidified in my mind that we must not trust the Elfennol. Too often do they give in to temptation, too often do their friends become their enemies. Will their hands not sway when battling their own brother, or child, or friend? Will they protect their ally, or their enemy when their enemy is someone they love?

After we got back to the house, the three of us sat down and chowed down on some chicken-salad sandwiches that Aunt Ellis had made for us. She had left a note saying she was in Virginia shopping; I wasn’t allowed to go since I had “training” to do. After we all rinsed off our dishes, and listened to Uncle Connor give us (mostly me) tips on today’s lesson, Connor excused himself to do some work in his office.

“Spill it,” I told Cash now that we were finally alone.

“Not here, dad might still come out. Let’s go over to your place. I’ll tell Dove to meet us there.” Cash said before calling out to his dad where we were going.

I had taken over his mother’s bike since I had started staying with them, and we pedaled over to my house, only going inside long enough to grab some lemonades before heading out to sit at the top of the stairs on the back deck.

“You really need to get a table and chairs out here,” Cash said while twisting off the top of his drink and leaning his back against the railing.

“So, the Clades…” I began, ignoring him and reminding him to answer my earlier question.

“Clades. Well, they’re
no bueno
.”

“I already figured that one out, genius.”

“Hey, you guys out here?” We both turned towards the side of the porch where we heard Dove’s voice calling from.

“Yeah, over here, bro,” Cash called, scooting down a couple of steps to make room for his friend, and turning his body sideways so he could still talk to us.

“So what’s up?” Dove sat down on the step next to me, our knees briefly touching until he got situated.

“Della wants to know about the Clades,” Cash filled him in.

“Hey, don’t look at me. My family stays on the sidelines of that fight. We’re just the cleanup team.”

“Wait, your family knows about them too?”

“Della, we’re Healers. Who do you think patches everyone up? Or all the humans, at least. The Elfennol do their own healing.”

“Yeah, they don’t normally lower themselves enough to help us mere mortals, not unless it’s life or death, so Dover’s fam, and others like them, fix us up,” Cash explained.

“Are we going to get to the part where you tell me who they are? And who are the Elfennol?”

Cash sighed, “Okay, it gets kind of complicated. So, the Elfennol are our allies against the Clades. Really, they’re the same type of being. Or, they start out that way. They both are a little longer lived, because of their healing abilities I think, and can do a lot of what we do, but only with one element.”

“Like, only Air or only Water?”

“No, no. They deal with the fifth element, which is Spirit. It’s in all living things: trees, people, the earth. Dad said they can even get energy from the sun. They’re more linked to the energy, or something, because they can’t live without it. Like, if they do too much without Gathering they can die. Not like us, we can be completely empty of our elements and be dandy. But, because they mostly
are
energy, they have a crap ton more to burn through without Gathering. I mean, tons and tons. And, they can store it in things. Gems and stuff, I think. But I don’t think they can Gather quite as quickly as we can.”

“So, what’s the difference between them?” I asked Cash. He was being about a million times more serious than I’d ever seen him, so I knew that what he was telling me had to be really important.

“The Clades are evil. I mean, intent on destroying the world kind of evil. Since they live off the element of spirit, they really like our realm because it’s so rich in life. But the Elfennol want to protect that life; they treasure it since they know they would die out without it. The Clades want to take it all to make themselves more powerful. They think if they get powerful enough, they’ll be immortal, that it won’t matter that the realm is basically dead.”

“They’re greedy bastards, and think they’re right to have what they want because they’re so powerful. Might makes right, and all that,” Dove interjected.

“So, what does all that have to do with us?”

“For real? The Clades want to take over and pretty much destroy our world. How does all that NOT have to do with us?” Cash asked, incredulously.

“You really expect me to believe that there are bad guys trying to take over the world? And our family is like, what, the protectors of the realm?” I said with air quotes.

“Cash prefers the term ‘Saviors of Mankind’,” Dove dryly added.

“Hell yes, I do. It’s pretty bad-ass,” Cash said.

“Let’s pretend, for a minute, that this isn’t the most preposterous thing I’ve heard. If the Elfe-whatever are so very powerful, why do they need us to fight with them?”

“Is this really more preposterous than you being able to absorb energy to manipulate the elements?” Dove asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe? But you didn’t answer my question,” I replied, a little sullenly, I might add.

“You’ve got to give us some credit, too, Della. We’re pretty awesome. We can Gather from, not just one, but four elements, as quickly as we need to. We can Shield, which the Elfennol cannot, and thanks to Tempering we can go all Bruce Willis in a fight,” Cash explained, emphasizing his point by bopping me on the knee with his empty lemonade bottle.

“You know that Bruce Willis usually gets the crap beat out of him before he beats all the bad guys, right?” I bopped him on the head for
my
point.

“
Destroys
all the bad guys, you mean,” Dove said, backing up my immature cousin.

“You guys are impossible.” But I did believe what they were saying. Llewellyn had mentioned the Elfennol and the Clades a few times, and what they were telling me about them seemed to line up. And as serious as Cash had been when describing the “great threat to mankind”, I couldn’t help but believe him. It was a sobering thought.

“Okay. So, have you had to fight any yet? Have you seen them? What do they look like?” Now that I decided to believe them, I had a million questions to ask.

“No. Dad won’t let me until I’ve gone in front of the Elfennol to be tested.” Cash sounded disappointed by that.

“What do you mean? Tested? Are they the boss of us?”

“No, not really. They just test us to make sure we’re ready to fight. They don’t have to test everyone, just the important people.” He puffed up his chest to show that
he
was one of those important people.

I laughed.

“My parents told me it’s more of a courtesy to them. They test the Heirs of the two main families to make sure they’re the right people for the job. They don’t have any real say in the matter, but their opinions are weighed in. It’s like a coming of age ritual for y'all’s families. Cash just happens to be the Neale Heir, which means he’ll be one of the leaders on the human side of the war.” Dove, as always, explained things much better than Cash did.

“No wonder his ego is so big. He’s like a prince.”

“Hey, my ego isn’t big,” my egotistical cousin said.

“Yes it is, Cash. But he’s not a prince, more like a general. Kind of,” Dove explained.

I couldn’t see Cash leading people into battle, if that’s even what they were talking about. I knew that there was a lot more, but my brain had had enough at that time. I didn’t want to hear any more about allies and world threats, and whatever else, so I changed the subject, promising myself that I’d revisit this conversation at a later time.

I got up and walked down the stairs, careful not to trip over Cash on my way down, and headed to the water at the end of my backyard.

“Cash, is Bending Water like Bending Air?” I asked.

“Yeah, but you probably don’t want to do it right now. If you want to practice why don’t you try some Tempering or something?"

“No way!” I shouted. The day before had been… traumatizing, and I was a little afraid to do it again without Connor or Luke nearby.

“What’s the matter with you? Tempering is so easy, and you don’t have to worry about messing something up,” Cash said while walking down the stairs to join me. Dove, not wanting to be left alone on the staircase, followed us down.

“Messing something up? How can you mess something up by Bending?”

“Are you serious? Common sense, Della. Think about it. We start with Air for a reason. Fire has a tendency to burn things down, or can hurt you. Earth is, well, really dirty. And Water will soak you, and everything around you, until you get the hang of it. Plus, you can see the other elements, so it’s best to practice when you’re sure no one else can see.”

“There’s nobody here right now…” I trailed off. I looked around one more time, then before Cash could say anything to stop me, I Gathered a little Water and tried to see if I could Bend a little of it. I was really just hoping to make a few ripples, or even a small wave. Instead, what looked like a mini tsunami attacked the three of us, leaving us sputtering with salt water stinging our eyes.

“Oops,” I said, once I got my lungs cleared. I went to work drying myself off, and between glares from Cash I could see that he was doing the same, though it took him longer.

“Were you
trying
to drown us?” Cash grumbled.

“No… but it’s not a big deal. See, you’re already dry.” I pointed at him.

“Yeah, but
I’m
not.” This was from Dove, who was pulling off his drenched shirt to wring it out.

“See,
he’s
not.”

“Shut up Cash, nobody asked you. I’m so sorry Dove. Here, let me fix it.” And I walked over to him, grabbing his forearm and drying him off, even his shirt. He kept his coppery brown eyes on mine the entire time, since I was desperate to look anywhere other than at his bare chest. But the eye contact made it really intimate, and when I noticed how great his straight black lashes made his eyes look, my face heated in what I’m sure was a beet-red blush.

“Ahem. You do know you don’t have to actually touch something to Gather from it, right?” Cash said in an annoyed tone of voice. I simultaneously broke eye contact, dropped Dove’s arm like a hot potato, and shuffled back a few steps.

“I, uh, forgot.” I was certain I looked like a cooked lobster at that point. I hadn’t forgotten, not exactly. I just hadn’t really been thinking.

“Uh huh,” Cash said, before walking up to a smirking Dove and punching him in the arm. They exchanged an indecipherable guy look, both jaws locked, when Cash’s cell phone rang, dispelling the tension with its declaration of being a “Barbie girl, in a Barbie world”.

Dove’s tough-guy jaw cracked into a huge grin.

“That’s a pretty sweet ringtone there, Cash,” I sing-songed to him. It had been very difficult to steal his phone and make my changes.

“You suck! Dove, shut up and put your shirt back on.” He answered his phone and turned his back to face the water while talking. Normally I would have eavesdropped to figure out who he was talking to, but I was a little distracted by a very tan six pack being covered back up. I looked away quickly once Dove had his shirt back down, but had a feeling that he’d caught my staring.

I wasn’t oblivious; I knew that the air had been a little thick around us since our run together the other night, and getting thicker. I think the term is “sexual tension”. But I wasn’t looking to complicate my life any more than it already was. I was too busy searching for my own identity to be looking for a hook up, or romance, or whatever it was I saw in his face when he looked at me.

Since I’d always tried to be honest with myself, I acknowledged my attraction to him. I let myself, briefly, wallow in the self-doubt and the fear of intimacy that plagued me. Then I shut that crap down and put all those feelings on the back burner. I’d get around to them when I had more time, and I was determined not to let that simmering pot full of issues ruin my relationship with my first friend. Well, first friend if you don’t count Cash, and you shouldn’t; it goes right to his head.

“Della, that was Mom. She just got back to the house, and I guess she got some things for you. Oh, Dove, she invited you over for dinner. Pizza.” He didn’t mention the new ring tone, probably forgetting it for the moment. Or planning his revenge.

“Tell her thanks, but my sister’s in town. Family dinner. She hasn’t had a chance to tell me I’m wasting myself by taking a semester off from school, so tonight will be fun.”

“Tell her I said ‘hi’,” Cash wagged his eyebrows at Dove.