1
She sat in a field, half concealed by the tall reeds dancing around her in the late afternoon breeze. Her gaze was turned up at the crystalline sky; it's immeasurable distance a great mystery to her sleepy mind. Her legs remained crossed as her right foot began to dance in mid-air. A slight hum broke the otherwise unnoticeable silence, a familiar tune to the casual passer-by.
But the unexpected visitor was anything but casual.
"Tarazed," sounded an utterly unforgiving voice from across the meadow. "Tarazed, where are you?"
Muffled footsteps could be heard making their way to the girl's carefully hidden bare patch in the reeds. As they drew nearer, she decided to fall asleep.
"There you are," muttered that voice again, stepping in trough the wall of plants. "They're all waiting for you, you can't just sit here and daydream all day long, you know."
The girl lied there in a false slumber, a pleasurable smirk dancing ever so slightly across her face.
"Tarazed, stop playing games," the voice grew sterner, and Tarazed's insides smiled with the prospect of irritating her older brother. "I know you're not really sleeping. Now hurry up, your letter's arrived and everyone wants you to open it."
Tarazed's brother slouched off in the direction of a tiny rectangular house set almost as if by random at the top of a small rise in the landscape. With her eyes narrowed to barely the tiniest of slits, she watched closely as the clouds above her moved lazily through the thick, hot summer air. Rising slowly to her feet, Tarazed brushed off the seat of her jeans and followed the path her brother had taken.
Nearing the house, she looked up at the pale, beige-coloured outer walls and single-paned windows. With a heaving sigh she stepped up to the front door and entered the house.
Inside it was comfortably cool, despite the suffocating heat outside. Tarazed kicked off her sneakers and left them in the middle of the living room floor before advancing into the kitchen where she could hear excited whispers and the dull clunk of ceramic upon wood. She could see through the doorway a thin strip of sunlight streaking across a circular table with mismatched chairs and a plate of vanilla wafers sitting in the center.
"Tarazed, is that you?" came a shuddering voice from somewhere inside the kitchen.
"Yeah, Mom," Tarazed replied, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her windbreaker and finally strutting into the kitchen and sitting next to a plump woman with unkempt blonde hair.
"How've you been?" the woman asked, clapping Tarazed hard on the shoulder blade.
"Good, thanks," said Tarazed. She reached across the table and snatched one of the last few wafers left on the plate. She flexed her shoulder when the woman turned away.
"Your letter's come, Tarazed," said her mother, briskly walking over to the table and taking the seat at her other side. "It's just arrived. Quite early, I must admit. You've only been out of school, what, a month?"
"It's her school request forms, Mum," Tarazed's brother croaked from the door way into the living room. "She's in her fifth year; she's allowed a chance to visit another school."
Tarazed's brother, tall and slightly built, was leaning against the doorframe, his dark brown hair sitting rather wildly on the top of his head. "She should come to London, with me."
"Enough of this," their mother sputtered over her coffee mug, catching some of it with a napkin. "We don't even know if it's available for her year. Just open the letter, dear, so we can have a look, that's it."
She collected the letter, thick and bulky from across the tabletop and placed it in front of Tarazed's crossed arms. Tarazed stared at it vigilantly, not giving into the pressure of opening it until she herself was satisfied with the control of her nerves. On the front is said "Tarazed Birn, The Little Gray House, Mashpee Neck, Massachusetts. She slipped her thumb under the flap of the envelope and slowly began to break the seam, completely aware of her mother's, brothers, and her aunt's eyes all fixated on her. She could see out of the corner of her eye that her mother's mouth was slightly agape.
She pulled the yellowing pieces of parchment from the envelope and opened up the first. It was simply a list of her school books and supplies she would need if she chose not to visit another school that year. On top it read "For your interest if you decide to again attend the Salem Witch's Academy."
The next piece of parchment was covered in clearly delicate handwriting, scrawled patiently over three quarters of the page. The last bit of the parchment had a short list of five schools of which Tarazed could choose to attend, two thin black lines at the bottom labeled "Please print clearly your school of choice," and "Secondary school of choice."
Delphi leaned in closer to Tarazed, holding his breath as he looked over her shoulder.
"Well, dear, what does it say?" Tarazed and Delphi's mother sat, blinking anxiously and wringing her hands.
"London's on it mum," Delphi stated in a triumphant way. Tarazed let out a sigh of relief. If anything she had been hoping to at least be given the choice to go to school with her brother.
"So," their aunt began, craning her neck forward to inspect the list of schools, "what other choices do you have?"
Tarazed's mother shot a look of encouragement at Tarazed, and nodded.
"Err, well, there's Sydney on here, and Paris…."
"You always said you wanted to go to Sydney, Tarazed!" her mother exclaimed, pointing to her daughter. "I think it would be a nice change from the Americas."
Tarazed raised a quizzical eye to Delphi, who had settled himself in the chair across the table. He shrugged slightly.
"Now, Connie," Tarazed's aunt said, "Let her decide on her own."
Tarazed's mother nodded, and then watched her daughter wearily.
Tarazed ran down the rest of the list, Ontario, and another in Moscow.
"Wow," Delphi sighed, "imagine the school in Moscow, that wasn't on my list."
"Of course it wasn't" his aunt chuckled. "If it had been you'd have gone there instead of London, then what would I have done? My nephew in Moscow, I laugh at it now."
"Relax Mom, it's either going to be London or Sydney, I'm not going somewhere that I can't speak the language."
"But think of the culture differences, don't you think it'd be more beneficial—"
"Mum, shove off. Don't make her freak out over this. It's only for a year."
"Yes, I suppose you're right then."
Tarazed looked longingly at the parchment, and then scribbled "London" on the first line, and "Sydney" on the second.
2
"So, what did you send back?"
Back among the reeds and tucked away in the small clearing Tarazed laid on her back staring up at the clouds again, her hands folded across her chest. Next to her sat a young boy her age, dressed in dark colors and sporting short hair and black shoes. His short brown hair looked rather frizzy against the enchanting blue of the heavens beyond. He cleared his throat, and Tarazed responded without looking at him.
"What do you think I put?"
He gazed over at her for a moment, sitting cross-legged with his elbows resting on his knees as his fingers fumbled with a piece of grass. He turned away and tossed the weed aside.
"Well, I don't know, there were five schools on it, Tarazed—"
"I chose London and Sydney," Tarazed whispered, cutting off her friend before he had a chance to retaliate further. "Why, what did you choose?"
The boy shot a curious glance through narrowed eyes, and mumbled, "Ontario was my first choice, but London my second."
Tarazed sighed slightly, turning her head to face the boy.
"I thought we decided—"
"I know, Tarazed, but my mother got really excited when she heard about Ontario, after, well..." His voice trailed off and Tarazed sat up, brushing off grass and pieces of reed that were stuck to her shoulders.
The furtive glance Tarazed shot at the boy went entirely unnoticed, and she gave a little uncomfortable shift in her position. "Yeah, well, I do hope we're able to go to school together."
Her companion smirked and nodded his head, but said nothing. A few more minutes passed in silence before the boy got to his feet, stretched his legs, and offered to walk Tarazed back to her cottage.
"Thanks, but I think I'll stay here," she said, reclining back to again gaze up at the sky.
Her friend hesitated, and then turned to leave, gently pushing aside a clump of weeds.
"Joe," Tarazed chirped up, returning to a sitting position and craning her body in the boy's direction. He stopped and faced her, looking rather stooped.
"Thanks, you know, for everything."
Joe smiled in response. His eyes were glinting as he made his way back up the shoreline and into town where he would cross a wooden barrier into a high wooded street. Tarazed watched his back until he disappeared around a building. Tarazed proceeded to cover her face with her hands, breathing slowly and steadily through her fingers. How could she possibly imagine her school life without her best friend? She wouldn't, she refused right then and there, with an uncomfortable tightening of her abdomen that yielded the feeling of distressed agitation, if she and Joe couldn't go to school together, she would at least return to the school she already knew so well.
Tarazed sat there, killing time by trying to etch symbols and characters into the rock she'd been using as a backrest with a piece of quarts. She was halfway through a picture of a sturdy looking dragon without wings when she heard someone pushing their way through the reeds to her left. She turned toward the sound, and squinted at the tall plants, as if staring at it long enough might trigger x-ray vision. To her it seemed as if whatever it was, it was far too small to be human. She sat there; her legs pinned beneath her gave her no comfort, as they were useless if the need to flee made itself present. She tried to calm her breathing, and she could feel her nostrils flaring with the attempt as she stared wide-eyed at the clump of reeds along the far edge of the clearing.
Before she knew what was happening, she noticed a small white object reveal itself between two thick plants, followed by a sleek chocolate brown figure. Tarazed let out a sigh of relief as she gazed onto a very thin and disheveled amber-eyed cat.
Once the effects of the encounter wore off, Tarazed began to look around, hoping to discover where the cat had come from. Where did it come from? Relief was quickly replaced with confusion and curiosity whilst Tarazed stared at the feline. It began to purr openly, and blinked up rather lazily at her, curling its thin brown tail around its paws where it sat. Sitting with her knees to the ground, Tarazed shifted to a more comfortable position, and was interested to find that the cat had also shifted, almost as if it were eager to follow her. Tarazed narrowed her eyes as the cat settled down and again curled its tail around its seat.
"Hi," Tarazed said suspiciously to the cat. It simply continued to sit there, its eyes sleeping narrowed against the sunlight, purring. Suddenly, its eyes opened wide, revealing those striking amber eyes, and a soft meow interrupted its purring. It stared up at Tarazed, obviously convinced that she could understand what it had said.
"Err, yeah, I suppose," she chanced at replying. The cat turned its head and blinked longingly at the bright sunshine, purring even louder. It seemed not to have noticed Tarazed's confusion and uneasiness. She noticed the glittering of the cat's chocolate fur and the white on its left paw that rose halfway up its leg. Tarazed cleared her throat and rose to her feet. The cat watched her, incredulously, as she muttered "Bye, then," and disappeared through the reeds.
It wasn't even a minute later when Tarazed went streaking into her house, eager to find something to eat inside of the cupboard or in the fruit basket. When she entered the kitchen, however, she found her mother preparing a turkey dinner with her wand jabbing at nothing and waving it through the air frantically, trying as best she could to finish them soon.
"Mom," Tarazed muttered, approaching and helping with the preparations. "Why—Who—What are you doing?"
"I just received a letter after you left, Tarazed," She beamed wildly at her daughter, gesturing toward a crumpled up piece of parchment sitting on the counter between some pineapple slices and a bowl of mashed potatoes. Tarazed groped around her mother as she passed with stuffing for the turkey, and, grasping the letter with one hand and using the other to pick up a pineapple slice, she began to read. She recognized that handwriting, she'd seen it before….
Her mother returned to her side, glancing over Tarazed's shoulder at the letter, and patting her on her back.
"He's coming home," she whispered, "He's finally coming back!"
Tarazed gazed at the name inscribed at the bottom, carefully written almost entirely in capital letter as with the rest of the letter. It said:
Love always,
Your father and husband,
Ernie
Tarazed let lose a small grin, and heard her mother stop working very suddenly.
"Tarazed," she said, curiously, "what's that?"
Looking in the same direction as her mother was pointing, Tarazed was surprised to find a thin chocolate brown cat sitting at the windowsill, meowing and pawing at the glass with it's tiny white paw.