After about a week and a half of living with the Magicians, Austin finally seems to trust her enough to be alone. Either that, or he trusts his animal friends enough to stop her from escaping.
But no matter what the reason, she likes the alone time and freedom.
Austin is away visiting the city and Dez, and his parents are working, so Ally wanders around the Magicians' little town. She hasn't gotten to look around much; the only real tour she got was when she was first brought here, and she wasn't able to take in the details because she was focused on the fact that she had just been kidnapped by a deadly Magician.
Now, however, she is free to get a closer look at their interesting town and their way of life. It doesn't seem to different from that of the Scientists', from what she's seen so far.
The other Magicians are beginning to recognize her. Many of them give her a polite smile and a wave when she passes them on the road, but she can tell that they're afraid of what could happen if she got back home and turned them in. Others are open with their wariness around her; they avoid her gaze, and parents tighten their grips on their children's hands. Still others glare at her with anger and disgust.
She doesn't let it bother her, though. She can see things from their point of view, one of the advantages of being so superior in intelligence. She doesn't blame them for not understanding her perspective.
She finds herself in front of the playground, and she sits on an empty bench. For a few minutes, she simply leans back and closes her eyes, enjoying the warm sun on her skin. She doesn't get to go outside much at home; she's always either in school or studying, with only about half an hour of outdoor exercise for her health. She makes a promise to herself to go outside more when she gets back. She likes it.
Her thoughts are interrupted by a child calling for his mother. She opens her eyes in curiosity and sees a boy around seven holding onto the wrist of a little girl that looks to be the same age. The woman who must be his mother walks over to him.
"Mommy, tell Amber there's no going invisible during hide-and-seek!" he whines.
The little girl, Amber, giggles beside him. "It's not my fault I'm really good at hide-and-seek!"
The boy's mother sighs and looks at the girl. "Amber, sweetie, using your powers to win is cheating. That doesn't make the game as fun, does it?"
Amber stops giggling and frowns. "Cameron flies when we play tag so I can't catch him!" she argues. "If he can use his powers, why can't I?!"
"It's not fair!" Cameron whines.
Amber sticks her tongue out at Cameron, and he does the same to her.
The poor mother sighs defeatedly. "I think it's time to go home. Amber, do you know if your mom is home?"
"She is," Amber says.
Cameron's mother nods, and the three of them walk away from the playground. Ally takes out her journal to write about what she just witnessed.
Magicians' powers are not just used in their professions. Their powers are intertwined with their culture. Saw two children talking about using their powers while playing games. It is considered cheating, but these two children had separate powers. Would it still be cheating if they had the same powers?
She closes her journal and puts it away. She's about to get up, but something grabs her left leg. She shrieks in surprise and kicks the air to force whatever is on her leg to get off.
She sees a massive snake writhing on the ground, trying to regain its bearings. She exhales, trying to calm her pounding heart.
Deciding that it's best to leave before the snake realizes she was the one who provoked it and attacks her, Ally stands up and continues walking throughout the town.
The snake slithers at her side, brushing up against her ankle every so often.
"You must be one of Austin's friends," she mutters defeatedly.
After receiving one too many sideways glances from the Magicians she passes on her walk, she decides to just go back to the Moons'. Besides, since the house is empty, she'd like to look around more thoroughly and see if there's anything out of the ordinary.
Austin's scaly friend doesn't enter the house with her. It stays on the ground outside, coiling and uncoiling its body restlessly.
She first goes up to Austin's room.
It isn't that exciting. His bed is against one wall with a small nightstand next to it. There's a desk against another wall and a small bookshelf next to it. If she didn't know any better, she'd think it was just an average person's room.
She walks over to the bookshelf, being careful not to trip over the dirty clothes littering the ground. Most of the books are mystery novels, which she finds interesting. However, some of them are ones she doesn't recognize. Upon further examination, she realizes that they're like Magician self-help books, all advertising varying advice on how to control, embrace, or advance one's powers. He has about seven of these books, and it makes her wonder if maybe he feels insecure in his powers. For starters, no one else he knows is a Nature Magician, and that fact along with his inability to attend school seems to have made him a bit of an outcast in their Magician society. He also can't control his powers, which must hurt his confidence as well.
She makes a mental note to try to gain more insight about his insecurity when he gets back.
She looks at his desk next, and it's mostly just a mess of slightly wrinkled papers with various notes, doodles, and lists written on them in red pen. She wonders if he knows that red is one of the hardest colors to read.
Along the back of the desk against the wall, she finds a long rectangular planter. There's nothing growing in it, but the soil inside it seems fertile and sunlight streaming in from one of Austin's windows hits it perfectly. She wonders if the Nature Magician actually struggles to grow anything from a seed without using magic.
She's about to walk out of the room, when she sees something on the wall by the door that she didn't see when she walked in.
It looks like a calendar, but not really. Thirty-one clear boxes line the wall in rows of seven, like a calendar of a month with thirty-one days would look if it started on a Sunday. The boxes have no lids, and inside each box is a small terracotta flower pot filled with soil. Most of the pots are empty, but the first row and a half of pots have a single flower growing out of them. Most of the flowers are white, but a few of them are bright shades of red, yellow, blue, or purple. Next to the flower calendar is a single clear box attached to the wall, except this one has a small notebook and a pen sitting inside it. She's about to reach for the notebook, but a loud BOOM! stops her.
She frowns and walks over to Austin's window, where she sees dark clouds rapidly covering the town. A flash of light and another BOOM! confirm that the sound is a clap of thunder. Rain starts pouring down from the sky, and she rushes downstairs, journal and pen in hand.
She quickly scribbles down an entry about the rapid onset of such a huge storm with no warning before setting the journal on the coffee table in the living room and venturing outside.
She stays on the porch as an attempt to stay dry, but the wind whips at her clothes and hair and causes the rain to spray on her anyway. Austin's snake friend is still curled up by the door, but she sees it watching her warily.
Lightning strikes a tree a few yards away from the house, but Ally frowns in surprise when the tree doesn't appear to be damaged.
Before she can worry about it too much, she sees someone walking down the path. When they get closer, she realizes it's a very angry, very dry Austin.
He walks up the porch steps and grabs her arm, dragging her inside wordlessly and slamming the door. She knows better than to fight it.
"You caused all this?" she asks as he starts pacing in the living room.
"I'm angry."
"Clearly."
She winces as another loud clap of thunder startles her.
"What's wrong? I thought seeing Dez made you happier," she says.
"That's the thing," he snaps, stopping to look at her. She could swear the rain outside starts falling even harder, hitting the roof like tiny hammers. "I didn't see Dez."
"Why not?"
He glares at her for a second, his jaw clenched and his hair smoking. "Because Dez is gone."
hahahaha hey guys...long time no see...? i am truly sorry that i took so long to update, but with ap testing and all my homework and some other things i've been dealing with, i really haven't had any time to write. BUT school ends next week, which means i should have a lot more time! hopefully you still want to read this story because i want to keep writing it, and i promise it'll be worth it! i'm also sorry for this short chapter but i promise the next one should be longer and much more exciting :) thanks for reading!