We're seven years old and school has just let out for the day. Zelda is staying at my house because her father is out of town on business.
"Let's play a game!" she cries excitedly, clasping her tiny hands together. She flashes a wide, toothy smile at me, and I smile back because she's missing her two front teeth and I think she looks silly. I'd never tell her, though. I nod my head and ask her what game. "You close your eyes and count to one hundred. When the time is up, open your eyes and come find me!" Her golden curls bounce around her face as she backs away from me. I comply and cover my eyes, trying my best to fight temptation and not peek. "If you find me, I'll give you a prize!" I laugh to myself and start counting, hearing her footfalls travel up the stairs.
As I count, I hear a floorboard squeak directly above me, which means she's somewhere in my room. I finish off with one hundred and call out a warning before bolting up the stairs after her. Zelda's terrible at being sneaky, because I can see her shiny black shoe poking out from under my bed. I tiptoe over the squeaky floorboard and rip the bed skirt up, laughing at her blushing, enraged face.
As promised, Zelda gives me a shiny blue rupee, which I spend on ice cream for the both of us.
We're eleven years old and we've begun venturing out into the forest to avoid the bullies on our street. Zelda's devastated because some girl dipped her hair in glue and her older sister had to cut two inches off all her hair. She won't talk at all and it's getting annoying because I can't stand it when she's quiet. I offer to go swimming with her, but she shuts the idea down. We could go fishing, but she doesn't feel like it. I tell her she can play some of my video games, but she shrugs despondently and we wander further into the forest. I finally ask if she wants me to find her.
A spark lights in her eye and she nods, barely giving me time to cover my eyes before she bolts into the woods. After one hundred, I look around and notice a trail of leaves she had kicked up in her haste to hide from me. I follow the scuff marks and come to an old felled log. Way to be obvious, Zelda. I look inside and she's at the other end, crouching and covered in mud. She's facing the other way, so I stand and continue on, calling her name and pretending to be frustrated.
I make sure to walk in her field of vision so my shoes cross her path. She's so bad at being sneaky. She giggles and I immediately find her again, covering her mouth and furious at herself for giving her location away. I help her out of the hollow log and she gives me whatever was in her pocket. It's a plastic figurine of a little red bird she found on the playground. I keep it on my nightstand for years.
We're sixteen years old and absolutely bored to tears at one of Zelda's father's business parties. She's wearing a blush colored sundress with a matching ribbon in her hair and boys keep telling her how pretty she is, so I'm irritated and standing in the corner glaring at everything. Zelda doesn't seem to notice and she keeps giggling and twirling her hair. Some girl comes up to me and starts talking about something I don't understand or care about, like politics and the weather and other boring adult things. I make sure I'm polite or Zelda would kill me. I loosen the ugly blue tie she made me wear and look around. Zelda and I finally make eye contact for the first time since the party started. Her eyes flicker from me to the girl and something inside her shifts. Her shoulders tense and she stalks over, her little white heels clacking against the cobblestones. She addresses the girl and makes up some phony excuse I see right through, but the other girl – her name is apparently Sarah – begrudgingly says goodbye and walks away.
Zelda grabs my hand and my stomach does this funny little lurch as she drags me away. We skirt around the edge of the garden and break into the woods. Zelda takes off her shoes and shoves them into my hands, and she marches along ahead of me, leaving me to stare at the ribbon swishing in her hair in time with her stride. It's mesmerizing.
She stops short and turns around, closing the distance between us. I blush and gulp, because her hands start working at my tie and I can't do anything. She smells good and all those stupid boys were right – she looks beautiful today. We make eye contact and something in her eyes scares me. She doesn't look angry or happy or playful; there's an ancient sadness in there, and I want to know what caused it. I open my mouth to speak but Zelda rips my tie off of me and ties it around my eyes. "Come find me."
I count to one hundred and take the tie off, tucking it in the pocket of the slacks Zelda made me buy. Her shoes are still in my right hand. I look around. She's gotten better at this, and I have no idea which direction she's gone in. Out of nowhere, I spot her pink hair ribbon lying on the ground between two trees. I jog over and pick it up, smoothing it between my forefinger and thumb. I look around again, look down. I hear a sigh from above me.
She's in a tree, perched on a branch and swinging her bare feet. She's still pretty bad at being sneaky.
Zelda works her way to a lower branch and scoots so she's holding with her hands, hanging a few feet above the ground. She drops and stumbles, but I catch her before she falls forward. "You always find me," she sighs into my shirt. I smile against her hair and tell her it's my job to find her, but she makes it easy because she doesn't know how to be sneaky. Instead of laughing, she pulls away from me and reaches behind her neck. She takes off the necklace she's worn since before I've known her and reaches around my own neck to fasten it. I pick up the pendant and twist it so I can look at it. It's of three stones stacked into a pyramid, slightly resembling the marks on both mine and Zelda's hands. We've never known what they were for or where they came from. The stones are sapphires, deep glittering blue. I've always thought they looked like Zelda's eyes.
She smiles sadly. "So I'm always close to your heart." She takes the pink ribbon and ties it around my wrist in a double knot so it doesn't come undone. It almost looks white against my tanned skin. My eyes stray to the triangles on the back of my palm. "So you'll always find me."
I break from my reverie and pull the chain out of my tunic. Zelda's three sapphires stare back at me, glinting in the dappled light of the forest. I press the pendant to my mouth for a beat and let it drop. It's been weeks since she was taken and I have no leads at all. I used to think I was a good finder, but now I know Zelda has always made it easy. When she's not the one doing the hiding, I have no hope.
I look down at my wrist and pull my glove back. Through all of my battles, the ribbon is still there, knotted tenaciously and frayed at the ends. I smile and run my thumb over it. The master sword lays against my shin casually, daring me to pick it up. I strap the scabbard to my back and stand, adjusting my gear.
"I promised I'd always find you."