Lucius remembered the day he found out that the younger Walker girl was losing her sight. They had never been particularly close, they would play in groups with the rest of the children of the village, but mostly kept to their own little circle of friends. But they had always known one another, and so he felt it deeply. He was young, only a few years older than her, but he had a strong sense of justice, and he wanted to fix it. He had no medical training, and even if he did, he had heard his mother say that no-one, not even a doctor, could fix it. But as time passed, slowly, he started to realise that more and more, Ivy Walker was being left out of the games she used to take such joy in. She could no longer run about freely, for fear that she might hurt herself. Hide and seek was out, as she could never seek, and not see well enough to do any hiding. And so, more and more frequently, Lucius Hunt saw the young girl sit on the sidelines, alone, and listen wistfully to the other children playing the games she had once taken for granted.
Once, he decided to speak to her, but stopped himself. What did he have to say to her? They were not friends, and he certainly did not want her thinking him strange for approaching out of the blue. So he walked away.
It happened again, he wanted to go talk to this girl he hardly knew, wanted to find out what it was like for her, what was the worst part, what wasn't so bad, what she missed the most, what her dreams of the future were, what her favourite colour was, anything and everything, he wanted to know about this girl who smiled quietly when she hurt the most, and forgave the hurt that the other children caused, when they never even realised that they had done so.
One day, he decided. If he had no reason to go and speak to her, he would make one. So he started small. He watched her a bit more, and learned about her through that. He listened to her when he could, when she was speaking to her father, or her sister, or her mother, or whomever. And he stored it all away. He watched the way she moved about, and took mental notes on what she seemed to struggle with.
But everything he did, he did unobtrusively. He was not doing these things to gain attention, and he was a shy boy, naturally veering away from the notice of others, happiest when he could keep to himself. And so he kept quiet, and learned everything he could out of the corner of his eye, from afar and barely able to hear her words or see her actions, only close enough to observe, never intrude.
And one day, he was home alone. His mother had gone off to a meeting with the elders, and although he was young, she knew that she could trust him to stay home and safe while she was away, and so she left him home, with a few warnings to not enter the woods, to hide the colour red, and to treat others with respect if he should go out.
He did not go out. He had been planning the day since he had woken up that morning, and had quietly waited for his mother to leave so that he could get to work without being interrupted. He was sure that if his mother saw what he was doing, she would not be cross, but there was no reason she needed to know, and so he kept his plans to himself.
But as soon as he could no longer see her shape walking away from the house, he went into his room and got a tie. It was black, and thick, perfect for what he wanted. He tied it around his eyes, fumbling a bit at first, he had never done this before, and he could not see what he was doing. And then, in complete darkness, Lucius sat on his bed, and waited for his senses to adjust. He waited a good five minutes before even venturing to stand up, and when he did, he took small, slow, shuffling steps. He had found a branch the day before, and had set it against his bed, it was the perfect height to use as a walking stick. So he groped for the stick, and once he found it, he used it in the same way he saw Ivy use it, sliding it in small, back-and-forth motions across the floor. He still moved achingly slow, but he had a bit more confidence with each step, and tried to think of it as though he was merely moving about his house during a pitch-dark night. He managed to maneuver into the hallway, and from there into the kitchen. From the kitchen, he exited the house, and sat on the steps of the porch, and felt. The sun was warm and there was a light breeze coming from the east. He could smell hay, and hickory, and leaves, grass, and animals, the wood of the porch and the slight scent drifting from the village of someone baking bread. He had never before noticed that so many things had smells.
And then he started to notice the sounds. The birds were cawing, and the wind made a shuffling sound as it swept through the tall grass. The house creaked ever so slightly, the grass shivered a few feet to his left, a small insect taking flight from its perch on the ground. He could hear the sound of some of his friends playing not too far away, and the wistful whispering of the trees in the woods to the south. A neighbor was humming discordantly as she hung up wet laundry to dry in the warm summer day, and a dog barked a few houses down.
For all the noises and smells he was taking in, though, the whole scene was so peaceful and serene, like something out of a storybook.
He wanted to explore more, to learn more, and so he reached out, and felt the grain of the wood on the steps where he was sitting. It was rough on the edges, but the center of each step had been worn smooth, like a smooth stone, and was soft to the touch. The fabric of his pants was rough and sturdy, and there were a few patches of dirt and grime from when he had been working earlier in the day. His shoes were soft leather, but time and use had made them worn and scratched.
He went inside and attempted to do everyday tasks, like washing his hands or making his bed, and was completely unsuccessful in his first few attempts. When he finally managed to produce results, they were clumsy and awkward, not done with his usual perfectionism.
Lucius lasted for a few hours before he took off his makeshift "blindfold." But he felt that he had learned a great deal from the experience.
A few days later, Lucius was with his mother in town, when he looked over and saw little Ivy sitting against one of the walls, listening to the other children play games and laugh among themselves. As per usual, he did not approach her, and after a few minutes, he looked away to speak to his mother. When he looked back over, however, she was no longer there. He looked around a few times, slightly concerned, but assumed that she had gone off with her sister, until he saw her standing a few inches from his right shoulder. He was surprised, but tried to mask it. He did not know what to say, so he said nothing. But that didn't really matter, as she began the conversation for him.
She stared at him for a disconcertingly long time, it seemed like hours, before she laughed. "Well," she spoke as if responding to something that he had said, "I figured, you are never going to get around to talking to me, so I may as well come and talk to you, right?"
Lucius continued to stand silently, still unsure of what to say to her. She was so talkative and outgoing, cheerful and straight-forward, everything that he wasn't, and he didn't know how to take it.
But this didn't even seem to slow her down.
"Come on," she said, "come sit with me." She had gotten permission from his mother before he had even realised what she was doing, and she dragged him by the hand to the spot where she was sitting minutes before.
The feel of her skin touching his was a shock to him. He wasn't prone to physical contact, and if he touched anyone, it was almost always his mother. And this girl felt completely different from how his mother felt. Her hands were cold, and soft. She had freckles all over her hands and arms, and she smelled good. He didn't know what the smell was, he knew he had smelled it before, but he couldn't put a name to it. He didn't ask, though. That would not be proper.
She plopped back down against the wall, and he joined her, sitting more slowly and carefully, which struck him as strange, considering the fact that she was the blind one. But from her movements, that was easy to forget. She had a way of carrying herself, of walking, of swinging her arms, that made it seem like she was unafraid of misstepping, that she had a perfect knowledge of where she was walking, and who was in her path. She was unafraid in a way that he knew he would never be, in the same situation.
He looked over at her, wondering how she knew that he wanted to talk to her, how she knew that he was watching her, why she wanted to talk to him, how she recognised him, so many questions were swirling about in his brain, and with each one he wondered if he should ask her about them, but he didn't.
Instead, she looked at him, smiled mischievously, and said, "Well of course I knew you were watching me. When you lose one of your senses, all the rest kind of work even harder to make up for it, you see. So even if I cannot see with my eyes, I can still see more clearly than anyone else in this village."
He wondered at her strange way of speaking, she spoke her mind at every moment, no filter, no pausing to decide if the words should come out. They just did. And the way she replied to questions he never asked, he felt as if she could read his mind, and he didn't think he liked that very well.
She lifted her brows at him, almost as if listening to words he was speaking, and then said, "Oh, I apologise. I am quite good at reading people, is all. And besides, if you do not speak to me with words, then I will just have to find a different way to tell what you are thinking."
He thought about this for a moment, and decided that it made sense. But what should he say?
"How is your family?" he asked, and then blushed at the inane conversation. He should have said something better than that, but she made him nervous.
She smiled at him, reading his mind again, and thanked him. "They are all quite well, thank you, Lucius. Papa is still adjusting to living like this, but he tries to keep a cheerful attitude. I am afraid Mother doesn't know what to do with me. I wish I could be of more help to her around the house, but I can't see what I am doing, which makes almost all of the chores I used to do easier for her to do for me than for her to teach me to do without sight."
Lucius thought for a moment, then perked up. "I could help," he said.
She looked at him with a puzzled face, until he continued.
"I mean, I could help with the chores around the house, if you wanted. And maybe I could help teach you how to do things." There was an awkward pause while he blushed and she smiled to herself, and he didn't know what else to say, so he kept quiet.
"I would like that, Lucius. But it wouldn't be too much trouble?" she asked with a small smile.
"Of course not." He realised that she knew that it was not, but asked anyway, and he wondered why.
They has seen each other most every day since then, he would come to help with chores or help Ivy learn how to function again. And Mr. and Mrs. Walker fell in love with Lucius for that. Every once in a while they would play together, instead, she would sit while he read to her, or he would describe flowers, hide-and-seek, or sometimes they would just sit and talk. Well, mostly Ivy would talk, pausing every once in a while before saying something that made him wonder if she really could read minds. But he didn't mind so much. He liked to hear her talk, sometimes he would let it become background noise while he watched the clouds, but mostly, he just listened to what she said, and thought about it. She always had such interesting viewpoints, and questions he never would have wondered about if it weren't for her. And so, they expanded each other's world, each happy in the role they played, and drawing closer, day by day, into something that turned almost into an unlikely friendship.
For the first few weeks, Lucius was very careful with Ivy. He always held her arm if she was not sitting down, and he was so watchful, always the first person to help, always ready to hand her her cane, to point her in the right direction, or to warn her of an obstacle in her path. She had grown very used to the feeling of his hand on her arm, of their fingers brushing when the cane was passed, of just feeling him standing next to her, a warm, quiet presence that seemed like it was always there. It was like the sun rising in the morning, she always knew that she could depend on him, that he would always be there for
Until one day when he wasn't.
Ivy thought that if she wasn't so good at reading people, and if her other senses weren't as sharp as they were, then she might never have noticed that Lucius began to act differently around her. It was so small, so subtle, but the impact was like a hold inside her.
He flinched when they touched. Ever so slightly, and he recovered right away. But it was unmistakable. He was slower to offer her his arm when they walked, and slowly, he stopped walking with her altogether. She noticed his breathing was strange and ragged, but he never seemed like he was sick. He was warmer than usual, too, but not feverish. She had never experienced it before, and she had no idea what was going on. But as his behaviour continued, she became concerned. And so she did what she always did when she had a question: she asked her Papa.
He smiled at her when she described what was happening, she could feel his smile, she could see it in his colour, his special colour that only she could see and nobody else. Papa didn't even know about his colour, it was a secret she kept close to her heart. And she could always tell when he smiled, because his colour became just a little bit brighter.
And he didn't know how to respond to this innocent query from such a small child. He shook his head while he thought about it, and finally said, "You will understand, Ivy, one day. Just don't give up on him, okay?"
She nodded her promise, but was confused by his answer. But she knew she wasn't going to get anything more out of him, and so was content to sit on his lap and listen to his heart beat.
The next day, Ivy decided she was going to get to the root of the matter, and to find out what was wrong with Lucius. So, she started doing whatever she could to draw him out, acting helpless and clumsy, trying to get him to help her. She even went so far as to fake a fall, but although he lunged for her, ready to catch her, he stopped himself at the last minute, and pulled away. He knelt down instead, and handed her the cane, making sure their fingers didn't touch. "Are you okay?" he asked her, and she nodded, hiding her tears, convinced that he didn't like her anymore, her childish mind deciding he hated her because of her blindness. And so she pulled away as well, and they drew apart, slowly, painfully. They had a few precious weeks as friends, and then it was over.
It wasn't until years later that Ivy realised why Lucius stopped touching her. And it was many years after that that she finally spoke to him about it.