The Unwanted Winter - Volume One of the Saga of the Twelves (32 page)

A real winter was coming
to Los Angeles.

*****

Elena had just stridden
upon the fifth step of the stairwell, hop-trotting as fast as she
could.

“
Elena, wait!” said a
voice from behind her at the bottom of the staircase.

Elena stopped so suddenly
she almost fell forward. She had to brace herself, using her palms
against the corner of a step a few feet in front her, to keep from
hitting her face against the hard concrete of the steps. She spun
around swiftly, but instead of staying upright, the motion made her
unceremoniously flop down into a sitting position. Her legs were a
tangled mess beneath her. There was little else she could do, but
sit down.

I have no time to
talk,
were the words on the tips of her
tongue when she noticed it was Nixy. The small girl had one her
arms extended toward her. In her grasp, she was holding the very
jacket Elena was so intent on retrieving before her teacher left
and the impending “doom” occurred with her father.

“
I was searching for you
in hopes I could get your jacket to you before you went home for
the day,” continued the pale-skinned girl. Like always, Nixy wore a
white dress with a blue ribbon tied at the waist, her hair gathered
with a matching blue ribbon intricately knotted in her hair,
flowing into a long ponytail behind her head.

Elena smiled gratefully,
stood and made her way back down the stairs, taking the jacket from
the slender girl and immediately put it on.
Wow, when did it get so cold all of a sudden!
She zipped it half way up and said, “I was just
going back to the room to see if I could get it before Mrs. Smith
left.” Nixy merely nodded. “I really have to thank you, because my
Dad would’ve been really mad at me if I forgot it again, you know,
especially with it being so cold lately.”

A half-smile etched across
Nixy’s face. “I see, then it is a good thing we were of similar
minds.”

“
Of…
what?” questioned Elena.
Why did Nixy have
to always talk with such funny words that no one could understand
but her?

“
Nothing,” whispered the
pale girl as she glanced to either side of her with two quick
successive moves of her neck only to shift her silver eyes back
upon Elena’s dark brown, intense and piercing. “Would you like to
slay a pigeon with me, Elena?”

Elena took a half step
backward, her brow furled in utter confusion. “Huh? What?” she
spoke through a gasp. “I mean, what do
you
mean, ‘slay’? I have never heard
that word before, Nixy,” she asked, though a vague indication the
word held negative connotations didn’t escape her.

Nixy chuckled cutely, her
hand coming up to her mouth as if she were trying to conceal avid
mirth. Her shoulders bunched toward her ears as she laughed
silently, while Elena waited misunderstanding clearly written on
her face.

Why was Nixy so weird? Why
did she laugh when she was the only one who knew what she meant?
Why can’t she talk more like the rest of us?

Plus,
I really don’t have time for this
,
thought Elena. She realized she was wasting time talking with this
weirdo and not out by the tree, waiting for her Dad. Dawdling about
wasn’t what she was supposed to be doing. She was going to be in
trouble with or without her jacket if she didn’t get moving
soon.

“’
To slay’ is to take the
life of a thing,” explained the girl in the white dress, through
giggles still rising out of her.

Elena’s jaw opened in
shock as if Nixy had just sprouted a second head and told her not
to worry about it. The others’ expression was the most natural
thing in the world. “You mean to
KILL
? You want me to go with you
and
KILL
a
pigeon!” She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been as entirely
astounded as she was at that very moment.

Kill, who the hell was
this kid anyway? Do all Scandinavian kids go around their country
killing birds for the heck of it? What kind of place was this
Scandinavia, then?

“
That is precisely what I
mean, little girl.” Nixy’s laughter stopped suddenly and her eyes
seemed to grow cold right before Elena.

Again with the “little
girl” crap, can’t you see that you are like 4 inches shorter than I
am!
Elena yelled in her mind as Nixy
continued.

“
Now, would you like to or
not? I have a knife you know…”

Elena felt her
astonishment melt into a sickening fear as she stared back at the
pallid girl not liking the hard, lifeless expression upon the
other’s face. There was something about it. Something was telling
her Nixy was much than she appeared to be at first glance. The girl
looked different than she had a blink of an eye prior. She seemed
older - far, far older than she had looked to the rest of the world
a second before. Her lifeless orbs possessed more knowledge for
someone of her apparent age.

The nine-year-old girl
tried to swallow her fear and hide behind the shaking of her hands
as she zipped her jacket the rest of the way up, her chest rising
and falling with deep breath after deep breath.

Nixy smiled again, but it
didn’t reach her eyes. They stayed the same – devoid of life and
barren, like the surface of a glacier. Her perfectly white teeth
gleamed at Elena, so pure and uniform, they too seemed unreal, fake
like everything else about the white-skinned girl before her. There
was some hidden menace behind what she was seeing. It confused her
even more. Maybe what she was seeing wasn’t real. Maybe this
so-called little girl wasn’t a girl at all…

“
Shall we leave now and be
about catching our prey?” asked Nixy again, taking a step
closer.

Instinctively, Elena was
about to take another half-step back ward, but forced herself not
to.
There is no way she has a knife here
at school,
she thought, determined not to
show fear when the situation didn’t warrant it.

“
Hiya, girls, how’s it
hanging!”

Both girls started at the
sound of the masculine voice hailing them. They turned, as one, to
see Anthony walking toward them from the front doors of the main
building, beyond which was the street.

There had been many, many
times Elena had thought her brother was the biggest pest of all
time, even a downright pain-in-the-ass. There were times when all
she wanted to do was get as far away from him as possible or sock
him in the “nads“ so hard, he’d just crumple to the ground,
thoroughly hob-knocked, incapable of bothering her any
further.

Typically, once he got on
her nerves, he wouldn’t stop. He would continue to pester her until
she either ran into her room, slamming the door on him or one their
parents heard their combined noise and told them both to behave.
There were other times when he played too rough or snapped at her
for no reason. Mostly, he’d be having a bad day or just didn’t want
someone as young as her around.

But, right at that moment,
on that cold day with her father late and everything getting worse,
she couldn’t have been happier to see him. She had never thought
she’d think that about her teenage brother.

Never.

She sighed with relief and
nearly shouted. “Hi Tony, what’re you doing here?” She was stepping
toward him as quickly as she could, without giving the impression
she was actually trying to get away from Nixy. She wanted to be as
close to her brother as possible.

“
Whoa, Ellie, I’m right
here. There’s no need to blow out my eardrums,” chided
Anthony.

“
Sorry,” muttered Elena,
not sure if she should smile or grimace.

“
Hi, Tony,” uttered Nixy
from behind, over Elena’s left shoulder.

“
Who’s she?” questioned
her brother, glancing at Elena, but pointing his chin toward the
small girl in her white dress and blue ribbons.

“
I am Nixy,” answered the
girl as if the question had been posed at her directly, as if Elena
didn’t exist. “We know of you.”

Anthony looked back at
Elena with a frown at the other girl’s strange statement. He edged
his body to the left, hiding Nixy’s line of sight behind the head
and shoulders of his sister mouthing silently, “Weirdo?” He moved
back to his original position as if nothing had happened, while
Elena could only smile at her brother and tried not to laugh. She
nodded vigorously to distract herself. She knew Nixy would be
furious if she guffawed aloud, especially at her
expense.

“
Would you like to play
with us, Anthony? We were just on our way -.”

“
Can’t, sweet-cheeks,”
Anthony replied over her as Nixy’s face melted in disgust. “We have
to get out of dodge and back home. I have been given my marching
orders!”

Elena felt her heart
quicken at the good news. “We do?”

“
Yeah, Dad had a
super-last-minute meeting with his agent, so he called me and told
me to swing by and get you girls on my way home. Since I got out
early today, the bus got me here almost at the right time.” He
glanced over at Nixy and hesitated, and suddenly seemed to realize
something. A few errant pieces of a puzzle seemed to have fallen
into place. He scrutinized Nixy, a vacant look, Elena had seen many
times, washed over his face. He delved deep into
thought.

For a second, none of them
moved and the silence stretched.

It stretched some
more.

Elena was about to say
something, anything to break the awkward (if not downright eerie)
moment, but Anthony seemed to shake himself out of his mental
wonderings and asked quickly, “So, where is Mikalah? Is she by that
tree?”

Elena nodded absently,
knowing Anthony had come to a decision about something. She could
sense it, but had absolutely no idea what he was thinking. She
figured it involved her newfound classmate, but couldn’t be
sure.

“
Yeah!” burst Elena for
the second time, talking a little too loud. She was much too
reassured to control it, it was like a river swollen with the
spring thaw. A huge deluge of gratitude all at once, there would be
no stopping it.

Anthony snorted at his
sister. “Let’s go get her, you little fart, before she blows away
in this stupid wind.” He motioned toward her and they moved around
Nixy, walking out the rear doors of the main building, retracing
Elena’s steps.

Absently, Elena turned
back to look at Nixy. “Bye-bye, see you tomorrow.” She turned to
face forward, uncaring if the strange, pale little girl responded
or not.

*****

Behind them, Inghëldir
watched them stride away, hearing Elena say, “I’m not a fart,
Tony.”

Then, the brother’s
retort: “You sure smell like one.”

Though she could see them
talking back and forth, she could no longer hear what they were
saying, their voices swallowed up by the rising iciness of the
growing tempest outside. If either of the siblings had turned at
that moment and glanced back at the undersized girl, all clad in
white, they would’ve been shocked to see her face filled with
nothing but unfettered loathing. A frosty smile was frozen upon her
lips. Her thin, waif-like voice carrying on the wind…

“
We will get you, all of
you. In a matter of days, we will have you. The Minions Lord of the
Storm never fail. I, Inghëldir, never fail. I will savor every
morsel of your young, innocent flesh before this is all said and
done.

“
I promise. Oooh, how I
promise!”

Then, the girl named
Marissa passed by Inghëldir, talking amiably with her
friends.

With a newfound grin,
Inghëldir turned to follow the unsuspecting little girl.

How
fortuitous
, thought the
child-that-was-not-a-child, her feet silent as she stalked her
prey.
It is high time we unearth where
this lesser Kring-Hël resides. The Seeker will be excited
indeed!

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