The Elementals (3 page)

           
She leaned forward touching her lips to his, she then whispered, "yes."

           
"Tomorrow morning if I'm in Heine Brothers Shop you won't be there will you; even if I wait?”

           
She stepped away. "I'm going to walk home now, alone, and I'm not going to look back. Don't chase after me, don't beg me to stay, don't go to the shop tomorrow. Pretend I never existed."

           
"What if I can't?" he asked.

           
"You will." She turned her back on him, moving the hood of her jacket over her head, tucking the strands of her dirt colored tresses behind her ears. She did as she told him she would and she didn't look back. He didn't come after her either.

           
Terra shoved her hands into her pockets feeling the jagged sharpness of her house key, one of the hundreds that would be put into her collection. She liked that one too, it was her favorite. She sat for hours, etching flowers into it and painting it. It was intricate work but she did the same with every key she owned.

           
The skittering orange leaves danced past her. Fall was her favorite season; the crispness of it anew and alive though the flowers and trees perished. Along with the wishes she said to Ian, there was one she didn't say out loud to him. She didn't want to move again. They were always moving, never staying in a place long enough to be attached. Her younger sister Marissa could never enjoy friendships with the humans she met in high school. She used to develop friendships but they always had to end.
 
In the eighth grade Marissa learned to never get too close. Terra had tried talking to her about it, but it was a lesson best learned through experience.

           
Their house was the only green shingled one on the whole street and the only one whose leaves were not piled up waiting to be deposited into bags. She crunched her way through the leaves to the front door and let herself in.

           
Boxes littered the living room; the couch being the only piece of furniture. Marissa, in her school uniform of a black knee length skirt and white button up top with the traditional school emblem of a wildcat, was lounging on the couch. She had an old, heavy book on her stomach leisurely turning pages every few seconds, her sunglasses propped up on her head. A few pieces of her hair, a shade lighter than Terra's, stuck out oddly from behind the sunglasses.

           
"How did it go," Marissa asked, her voice light and trickling like rain not pausing in her reading.

           
"He'll be fine." Terra explained.

           
"No, he won't." Marissa tossed the book aside sitting up and staring at Terra with the razor edge expression she gave when she was dead serious, as she always was. "I
know
this. I'm always right. He won't be okay and he’ll be on about this for
years
. I told you not to get involved with him, he's sensitive. Why didn't you listen?"

           
Terra rubbed her forehead against the oncoming headache and sat next to the empath Marissa. Empath wasn't the right word for her dear little sister as she had clairvoyance and what some called “prophetic knowing.” In other words, she was a know it all.

           
"Because... I wanted to know what it would be like to be human." It sounded more pathetic coming out of her mouth than it did in her head. She should've just kept it to herself. Better yet, she should have listened to Marissa and not have done it at all.

           
"He didn't matter at all to you, did he?"

           
"You know that isn't true, Issa" Terra snapped, softening it up by using the nickname she tagged her with the day she was born.
 
As a two year old Terra couldn't pronounce her whole name properly so the nickname Issa stuck. "If he didn't mean anything to me I wouldn't have told him I was leaving."

           
"He guessed it." Marissa replied, so sure of herself.

           
Terra shrugged, "whatever! I would have told him." Sometimes, it’s a pain to have a sister that had meddlesome powers.

           
While Marissa couldn't control her emotions Terra could bury hers, and though everyone of their kind was strong, Terra was more resilient, not only emotionally but physically (it seemed to be the only power she held). Marissa could comfort; Terra could damage. It was by the beauty of genetics that they even looked similar, both of them exhibiting softness in their features. Both had round faces and long elegant figures with Terra's chin being slightly sharper. Aside from that they were complete opposites and yet in every way compatible. She swore that no one would ever be closer, it wasn't possible; but as predicted, it wasn't true.

           
"Where's Era," Terra asked thinking of their adopted sister.

           
"In her room, she has a migraine from picking me up at school today."

           
"I'll go see her."

           
Down the hall were three rooms, each room belonging to a sister. Terra stopped at the far left room and walked in. There was no need to announce herself, like Terra being able to feel vibrations from the floor Era could feel them in the air. She heard everything for miles away and when there was babbling of a crowd of more than four people it was almost torturous.

           
Era’s room had boxes piled up in the corners, just like there was throughout the rest of the house. Soon there would be little evidence that anyone had lived there but the next tenants would know as Era had painted the room her favorite color, sky blue with fluffy white clouds near the ceiling. Not to mention that it was the cleanest room in the house, there was not a speck of dust and the sound of an air filter system softly hummed.

           
In the corner, as always, was an easel along with a used canvas and pencils that lined the bottom. Through the blurry objects drawn on the canvas, Terra saw instruments. Drums, flutes, and clarinets with blunt lightning strikes erupting out of each instrument representing abrupt and unwelcomed noise. Terra knew immediately what had happened.

           
Era lay on her twin bed, her bleached blonde hair splayed out over her pillow and fair hands holding it down as if she hoped to suffocate. "Hi, Terra," she moaned.

           
Sitting beside her long legs Terra began to speak in a soft undertone, a quiet whisper, "I heard school was hard. How long did you have to wait for her?"

           
"Not long, but the marching band came by." Era explained as she threw the pillow off her head and set a glare at the blue painted ceiling. "It was only five minutes at most; I didn't think I'd need my ear buds. Next time I won't be so stupid."

           
“You weren't being stupid.”

           
“I wasn't being smart.” Era waved her hand dismissively. “How did tonight go?”

           
She shrugged once more. “Fine”

           
“How did he like hovering?”

           
Terra grinned lightly. “He loved it.” Terra took the chained Green Aventurine out of her flowered top, which had been clanking against her own Amber stone and handed it to Era. “Thanks for letting me borrow it.” Terra said.

           
“Anytime, I don't mind loaning my power to my family.”

           
“It's amazing to feel what you do. It's a small fraction, but still...” Terra looked away to the blunt sketch.

           
“It has its downsides, every power does. Think about it Terra. I can transport and I can hover, but I can't do something as normal as going into a store without my ear buds. Marissa doesn't like seeing or knowing the things she does and she can't stand the light. She has to wear shades every time she walks out the door. It's horrible not to be able to control all of it.” Era explained.

           
Terra felt a great deal of sympathy for them. She could live a normal life, but her sisters could not, not completely. It was a blessing that she could control what she felt (to a degree), what could be surfaced and that she was the most indestructible of her own kind.

           
She was twelve when she taught Marissa how to peel a potato and her knife slipped cutting herself. Blood was dripping from her fingertips. Terra grabbed five feet worth of paper towels holding them tightly to her wound to slow the bleeding. Marissa was crying, tears flooding her face and hastily as Terra went to get the phone, the knife she had been working with fell off the counter and onto her foot. It was a moment full of stupid accidents that shouldn't have happened, but in Terra's case, it wasn't as traumatic as it would have been for her sisters. She pulled the knife out of her foot and set it in the sink, the wound healing in seconds. She hated her gift but more than that, she hated that her sisters couldn't heal as well as she could. She didn't scar, never did and her healing was much faster than any human.

           
At the end of the day, what mattered most was that she loved her family. They needed each other because they completed each other.

           
Terra sighed heavily. “There is one more of us out there somewhere. Do you think we'll find them in this move?”

           
“The prophecy never gave specifics." Era sat up straighter and quoted, "
'There will be a gathering of four, each a representation of the elements. Together, they will be stronger than anything we have ever seen. Together, they cannot be broken. Together, they will be known as the Elementals. Together, they will be."
”

           
She stared at the image of the instruments on the canvas, her mind distant from there, thinking of the prophecy that was made at their birth. Though Marissa insisted that it was true, Terra never believed, not until they met Era

           
Era was their sister. Marissa had seen her at an art supplies store five years ago, spotting torn corners of a napkin stuffed in her ears. She felt her. Era was like a breath of fresh air and when she walked, Terra knew instantly which element she was. Era was so light on her feet it could shatter any dancer’s heart.

           
Since she had been living in shelters so long, it was easy for Era to move in with Marissa and Terra. Her past was a mystery, her memory only as recent as waking up in a trash can when she was seven years old. Though Era didn't care to learn anything of her past, her sisters tried to learn any information they could about Era, but without her memory it was a dead end.

           
If the prophecy was true, and it undoubtedly was, they had one more person to find. Once they did, they could stop moving, the danger they were in constantly, would be lifted and perhaps the shadow that eclipsed all of them would vanish. They had to find the last of the elements and maybe they could live normally, however normal teenagers live...

Ice cascaded down her spine. Whoever said knowledge was power was a liar.

           
"Are you three ready?"

           
Terra had spent the whole night packing her things into the dreaded and over used boxes. After this, the twenty fifth move of her lifetime, it should have been easy. She wouldn't mope over the need to move again, but the whole process was quite tedious. She wanted more than anything to find the last elemental so that possibly one day, she could have a life. Terra wanted to continue her education and have a career or job or to have a house they could stay in and be grounded. She was the element Earth, it was in her nature.