He helped her up off the ground and dusted her off with his good hand. As he did this, he kept a warm smile on his face.
"I-I've been w-anting to see you," she confessed, lowering her gaze.
"Is that so?" he cocked his head. "I've been wanting to see you too, ever since you grabbed that boy and we didn't get a chance to talk," he said to her.
Sasha flinched. So she did grab Luke. She controlled the tree somehow. She wanted to not think about it, so she changed the subject.
"I'm looking for a cleft," Sasha told him.
"Why, you just crawled through one," he laughed.
Sasha looked back at the hole. "Oh," she muttered.
"Oh! I almost forgot! Forgive me, I am Van Kleiss," he introduced himself and took her hand, the one that had the slip of paper in it. Sasha held her breath, as she thought he was going to kiss it like in movies. He smiled at her as the paper slipped from her fingers like soap through one's hands. Van Kleiss took it, her hand easily slipping through his. Sasha's heart began to pump faster as he opened it and read it. She felt hot because of his touch.
"So you're on a scavenger hunt?" he mused and put the paper back in her hand, closing it into a fist. "Would you be interested in this?" he asked her, pulling out a paper from his coat pocket.
"Y-yes," Sasha stuttered and he handed it to her. She opened it and read it.
Once through the fence,
You happen upon the dense.
The dense? What was that, Sasha wondered. Van Kleiss saw her confused expression and carefully took the paper from her to read it.
"Well, "the dense" must refer to the dense brush on this side of the fence," he told her.
"Oh," Sasha gazed around. There was indeed a lot of bushes around, such as wild honeysuckle and thorn bushes. Something shiny flashed in the sunlight as it sat under the bushes. Sasha rushed over to it and picked it up. It was a paper crane, made of silver metallic looking paper. On its right wing was her aunt's handwriting in bright red ink.
"Fons"
She felt Van Kleiss hovering over her and she was about to show him the word when she heard her aunt calling her name.
"I guess I should go," she sighed.
"Cheer up, I will see you again soon," Van Kleiss smiled. Sasha perked up.
"Sasha! My little poppy!" her aunt called again and Sasha hurried for the hole in the fence. Her aunt watched her from the end of the porch as she crawled her way through, with the crane held delicately in her hand.
"Ah, so you found the second clue!" her aunt exclaimed. Sasha ran up to her and held the crane up proudly.
"Oh, and the four leaf clover!" Sasha added as she pulled the box out of her pocket with a free hand. She flipped it open and held it up with the crane.
Aunt Beatrice looked down at them speculatively through her bifocals. "Come, darling. I will give you a box to keep your treasures in. I also have another surprise for you," she told her before turning and walking towards the door. Sasha followed.
In her aunt's room, there were whimsy drapes all around, as if the room was a theatre and they were the people on the stage. Her aunt's room was filled with dark brown furniture and white or cream drapes.
"Here Sasha," her aunt said, handing her a long wooden box of lighter colored wood than the furniture. It was about a foot long, and several inches deep and wide. The top was hollowed out in parts, carved to make curling flowers of wood. Red silk could be seen through the holes and when Sasha opened it, she saw that red silk lined the whole box and a key and lock sat inside it. Sasha was tickled to be given such a luxury.
"Thank you Aunt Beatrice," Sasha smiled gratefully. Her aunt wagged her finger at her.
"That's not all," she grinned, showing her false teeth. Only Sasha knew they were false, Aunt Beatrice tries to keep it a secret.
She handed Sasha a small leather bound book. Sasha peeked inside it to find it was a dictionary of somesort.
"You're such a curious girl," Beatrice said, patting Sasha's head.
Later that night, Sasha was laid out on her bed, peering through the dictionary. The title page inside claimed it was a Latin – English dictionary. Latin was interesting. The words were similar to English words, which surprised Sasha. She reached over and gazed at her wooden box again for the fifth time since she sat down with it. She unlocked it and gazed inside at her crane and the blue box with her luck inside it. Safe and comfortable, she thought. She turned her attention back to the dictionary, flipping over pages, reading interesting words, and reading some aloud to test her pronunciation. She turned to a page and saw a familiar word.
fons, fontis m – spring; fountain
"The fountain! Of course! But which one?" Sasha said to herself. She knew her aunt had at least three large ones, and several small ones. There was the one in the front, two in the back garden, and several scattered about around the house. She knew she would have to wait until tomorrow to look. Just another thing to look forward to, she thought as she curled up into her blankets, laying her treasures on her night table, such as meeting Van Kleiss again.
