Hide and Seek

Chapter 1

My childhood home's backyard is what I felt was one of the greatest backyard's a child could have. If you were just outside my house you wouldn't have known it was there since my house just looked like the usual small suburban brick home. It was a wide and long grassy plain terrain allowing me enough room for me to run and skip for hours because the ground, no matter the season, was gentle and forgiving under my feet (though granted I still tripped every now and again).

In the corner laid a massive but beautiful single oak tree which always gave refreshing shade in the summer and something to climb and explore with any season. We also had an apple tree that sat at the very back of the backyard, its branches growing over to our neighbours giving them the fruit during autumn leaving us with the rotten ones. My clubby house sat just under the oak next an old rusting tool shed only holding my Mother's gardening tools covered only by a faulty door.

In the middle of the backyard facing the oak sat my green and yellow play set. It was equipped with two sets of swings and a slide right next to it. Behind a few feet away laid my Mother's sandbox veggie garden that grew the juiciest tomatoes I would always snack on when they were ripe.

Before Loki I didn't really spend much of my time in this legendary backyard. I would only be out there if my Mum was willing to play with me by pushing me on the swing or decorating my clubby house with me. I would have rather sat inside engulfed in a book with my Mum or in my room with my small but still treasured toy collection.

But when Loki arrived, it was a different story. With Loki I was able to fully see the backyard in a way I had never really allowed myself to before him. He made me want to race around the yard not scared to fall over and spend more time in the sun rather than my head in books.

Loki and I played Tag, What's The Time Mr Wolf, (Loki always liked being the Wolf so he could chase me) and pretend games where Loki would either be a brave warrior or a King and I a Warrior Princess or a stern but lovable Queen to our enhanced world.

Loki's and I's favorite game to play together though was Hide 'n' Seek.

Loki always liked hiding more than he liked seeking mainly because he enjoyed the idea of duplicating himself so I could race around the yard to try and find him. I also think he liked the idea of seeing my face light up when I found him or my determined expression when I was having trouble but still wanting to find him and his doubles on my own.

I would usually get five doubles, the first three always being the easiest to find. The rest which included the real Loki were always difficult and the hardest to find. The real Loki had a knack for always finding the best hiding places around the yard, always finding somewhere new and different I was never aware existed or could even hold a person let alone a God.

Right behind the tool shed, in the bushes that surrounded my Mum's veggie garden, in the dark corners of my clubby or the dark left corner of my backyard that lead into the weed covered corner of my left sided next door neighbour's yard were just a few of his tricky places I could remember being astonished by.

The first few times we played he would always be snickering with glee and arrogance but as time grew Loki learnt to be deadly silent. It was even to the point where I wonder whether he was actually hiding or he had left me to go back to Asgard. When it got to this point I would get distressed screaming to him to give me a clue.

When he first started being silent the God would never give me clues, mainly because he didn't believe in hints.

"It defeats the purpose of the game." Would be his main argument followed by his main critic,

"You simply need to seek harder."

Although as time grew the God decided to start giving hints. But they weren't exactly easy to spot. Like Loki the clues were hidden requiring me to fully use all my senses and my surroundings. It was usually plants brushing in the wind to where he was or a distant dog's barks being manipulated to say which direction I should take. The plant would never be near me, always ahead and would usually just be one leaf or branch to make me concentrate.

To me it kind of felt like looking for Waldo in aWhere's Waldobook because I was always looking for some sort of defining difference. It was like Loki was setting a further challenge for me or saying in his own passive aggressive way that looking for him was easier than looking for the clues.

I would always try my hardest to look for these clues along with Loki himself but like any person looking for Waldo among the sea of red and white, I would get frustrated or ultimately give up and start ranting at the book.

If I got to this stage (which half of the time I did) Loki would eventually make it more oblivious by causing the whole plant to move the direction he was in. If I started crying which I only did if I had been looking for him for more than half an hour (yes, he was that good) he would stick out his hand or a leg to wave at me. If he did this he would always make sure to catch me for a hug and a kiss to my crown to reassure me he would never leave me.

This was one of the reasons he never wanted to be the seeker. He would never want to think even for the sake of the game I was lost and he had to find me. He never wanted to feel like I was away from him because he said to me the idea scared him.

At the time that gave me a strange sense of comfort that Loki felt this way. I would never find myself questioning this till I was much older, asking myself,

If Loki was so scared of losing me…

…Why would he make me go into this state of insecurity thinking I had lost him?

Although, with this said he did play the seeker once, but it was to protect me