She looked out the window of the terminal, feeling almost disgusted with herself. She shouldn't be leaving her brothers yet. She still had almost a year and a half of high school left, and that was how much longer they needed her, at least the way she saw it.
"Ellie-Belly!" her youngest brother, Stevie yelled, and jumped on her back. The eldest younger brother, Jeremy, was running for them. He jumped on the front of Ellie and hung there trying to swing at Stevie.
"Ah! Boys! Stop!" Ellie whimpered, her head was stuck in the crossfire. Her brothers ignored her completely as Stevie fell to the floor and raced off towards the small baggage claim with Jeremy close behind.
The Rhinelander Airport was the closest airport to her house and it was over 150 miles away. It was really small, too. No more then a few hundred square feet. It could only house small planes, which was fine in Ellie's opinion, less to ruin the natural quiet of the Wisconsin woods with. She turned to look at her dad and brothers who were now sitting on two seats, the boys poking each other, and her father reading the paper, completely oblivious to the war going on next to him. Ever since that day Ellie's powers had emerged there had been a sort of rift between the four of them. She knew they still loved her, but they were scared of her and what she could do.
"Flight 12 to Minneapolis St. Paul, is now boarding." The announcement seemed to blare louder then all the others had. Maybe it was the fear of traveling on a plane, which Ellie had never done, or maybe it was the thought that she could be leaving home for good for a place that was completely unfamiliar to her. She watched as her dad and her brothers stood up, and came over to say good bye.
"My little dear. Growing up so fast. You be good, and come back as soon as possible." Her father smiled and pulled her into a giant bear hug, "I won't lose you dear. Be Strong." Jeremy patted her arm and turned away, he was never one for good byes or hugs, but little Stevie grabbed her around the waist and hung on tight.
"Ellie-Belly, come home soon. Then you can take Jeremy and me fishing, kay?" He looked up at her with his clear blue eyes, the same eyes her mother had given her. She leaned down and pressed her cheek to the top of his soft hair, and almost began to cry, but she couldn't let herself now. Not here. So she just kissed his head, and smiled.
"We'll see, Shorty." He kicked her shin, hard enough to bruise, but nothing she wasn't used to.
"Have fun kid." Her father said as a last goodbye, and she turned toward the door that led to the plane sitting out on the runway already, with its ladder attached and its short leg room, and no family.
How had she let that doctor talk her into this? She wondered to herself. He had seemed so charismatic, so happy and at peace with himself. After she had discovered what she could do, she was anything but. She got quieter, removed herself from her friends, and would spend hours just walking the woods and following the creek that ran through town. She would play with the water. It would talk to her, or at least it felt like it did. Often, she felt that the water was the only thing that really understood her. It would whisper, telling her secrets only she understood, and she would play with it. Twisting it into shapes and folding it over to make a pillow. Her father found her one night after she had fallen asleep one evening next to the creek, in the middle of the forest about a mile from her house. He knew she wasn't lost. Ellie had grown up in the woods, and probably knew them better then anyone else. But when he stumbled upon her that night she was floating on a pillow of clouds. Literally. Everyone dreams of sleeping with the clouds and how their seeming soft and fluffy look would actually feel. Ellie had made that dream a reality, and she seemed to be lost in her own world. It was then that Nikolas realized that without help, he was going to lose his daughter to this strange thing that was taking her. He had nothing against it, but he had already lost one of the women he loved, and he didn't want to lose another. That night he had carried her home, and placed her in her own bed to sleep the night away, and the next morning he had called the only doctor he knew.
She had gone in for an appointment with her childhood doctor quite skeptical about what he was going to tell her. She knew what was going on with her. She had access to the internet and knew about mutants and how they were being persecuted all over the country, but she never thought that the prejudice spreading across the country could pierce her fragile environment. This doctor though, Dr. Harris, thought differently. He convinced her to have another appointment with a Doctor McCoy that he had known since collage, and was a mutant expert. He was one himself. Ellie had agreed, and Dr. McCoy had shown up at her father's diner one Saturday evening to speak to her. They spoke of how she powers came to be, what she could do, what he could do, what she wanted to do with them, and if there was a way for her to gain more control. Because no matter how hard she tried, every time she lost her temper, someone ended up getting hurt. Dr. McCoy had recommended a school for mutants that he also happened to work for. He offered to let her take a tour, meet the headmaster, and decide there. At first she was skeptical until someone found out at school.
She never had many friends; she preferred books, studying, and sports to friends and parties. So when someone found out about her little problem it got around that the Chloe girl was weird for a reason. It was most likely Dr. Harris's son Will. He had never really liked Ellie. The school was small, no more then a few hundred people. So when they all found out, the teasing started, and the few friends she had paid little to no attention to her. For the past two years she had been on the track team, swim team, and basketball team without any problems. The straw that finally set her off was her track coach kicking her off the team because she "couldn't keep up with the others." Ellie knew that she had the best two mile time in the school. She had set the school record last year for cripes sake, but the coach didn't seem to want a mutant on the team. So Ellie called up Doctor McCoy, and they had arranged a "visit." Ellie knew there was little chance of her coming home anytime soon. She needed to start over somewhere new. Somewhere she could put to use the lesson she had learned at school: that secrets must stay secrets.
On the plane, she sat quietly reading the Stephan King novel she had recently purchased, Salem's Lot. She was a normal teenager, she felt. Sometimes she just liked to float on clouds.
Ellie Chloe looked out the window of the plane, down on the only place she had ever known, and a tear slipped down her cheek in the half light of the plane. Someday she'd know peace.