Chapter 5 - A Cocoon of branches

I had biology next, and I was glad because this was my only lesson where I sat next to Seth, that is, excluding registration. I laid my things down on my table and started chewing my pencil. This was also the best class because Chloe nor her friends participated in it. Now me and Seth stay together a lot, and sometimes sit on the benches outside. So I have somebody to talk to about stuff that I can finally talk about. Chloe thinks we're going out which is a good thing and a bad thing. It's a good thing because she me alone when I'm with him, but a bad thing because of the teasing and laughing in classes that we share. That is when I don't have him for protection!

I have learned that life is hard, and sometimes it's a struggle to get by. But you can't get under or over something or someone, you have to go straight through the middle.

I was gazing out the window when Seth came in, and was so engrossed in watching the clouds that I didn't notice him enter the room and sit beside me. I jumped when I turned my head.

"Stop appearing when I'm not looking. You could at least tap me on the shoulder and say 'Hey Sen, blah blah blah,' and say a random question or something," I told him. He smiled.

"Hey Sen, um... what were you looking at?" he told me. I rolled my eyes and moaned.

"Not now, you're supposed to say that before you appear in the chair. Just-... try it out tomorrow," I put my elbow on the table and rested my head on my hand. "I was watching a cloud." Seth laughed.

"And you think I'm boring," and then he stood up. I frowned until I noticed the teacher had come in and I was the only one sitting down. I stood up so quickly that my chair fell backwards. I could see how hard Seth was trying not to laugh. We said good afternoon to Mrs Daisy and then she left to get the biology textbooks from the storage cupboard. As soon as she had gone, Seth bust out laughing.

"You're so funny! And non-observant, you didn't even see her come in!" I elbowed him.

"If you don't stop laughing in five seconds then I'm going to get my water bottle and make some kind of water weapon and chuck right at your face like I did on Saturday. 1... 2..." and that shut him up instantly. "Wow, I must have hit you pretty hard last time," I grinned to annoy him. Then the teacher came in.

"Right, we're going to do microscopes today," and the whole class groaned and l slumped in my chair. Seth nudged me and handed me a piece of paper.

What's so bad about microscopes?

She makes us compete and see who's the fastest. And I always come last.

Well this should be easy for me, I've done extremely difficult professional training back at my land.

I'll just sit back then. You do the work.

That's not fair.

Life isn't fair get used to it

"How are you two getting on?" A voice came from above us. I snatched the piece of paper from the table while the teacher was looking at Seth.

"Well, we've been looking at the fifth one and Sen thinks it's cell 10. We were just going to the sixth slide," Seth smiled innocently.

"Well, you have the fifth one right Sen. Well done, I'll be coming to check on you a little bit later," and then she walked off. I thanked him for the quick answer and for letting me get the question right, then we both worked on them together. How he knew which one was right I had no clue, but he wouldn't tell me.

By the end of the lesson I was thoroughly bored and my eyelids were starting to droop. If the lesson had gone on for another ten minutes I swear I could have fallen asleep. By the way, if that line didn't just tell you, Seth did all the work. It was like he had lived for years longer than me... Then a thought struck me. When we had collected our books and were walking to the 'special' forest (the one that wasn't trying to pull me into war), I asked him.

"Seth, I've been meaning to ask you something," I looked at him. Today his eyes were light brown. He nodded.

"Yep, more questions. I've got it," he replied.

"Just don't take it as an offence, Ok?" I waited, but he didn't reply. "How old are you?" then he stopped, and turned towards me, so swiftly that he didn't make a sound.

"Fifteen, in my years..." he stuttered. This was another his non-talkable events.

"But how old are you in human years? I mean, you can't be much older than me," I looked at him questionably. He'd started walking again and I hurried to keep up.

"I'm eighteen, in your years," he said to me. I gasped.

"But, you don't look any older. I mean, you look younger," I told him. He smiled at the complement, but said nothing. I decided to give in and talk about something else. "What about the ever-so-complicated rankings that you failed to introduce me to last time we came down here," I pushed him. He sighed.

"Fine. As I said, there are ranks in ranks. Winter fay are always classed above summer fay. There are four different ranks of summer fay, and different ranks lead you to different jobs. To start off, there's the lowest, and I'm in that part. We do the boring stuff, like mixing potions, healing elixirs and stuff to make plants grow faster. Then all our work is shipped off to the queen who never let's us have free days. She always has something to demand us to work on. Some are crazy, I mean, she wanted us to make a potion that would change human to fay and fay to human last month. How on earth she expected us to do that, I don't know. Anyway, the next lowest rank are the animal fay who stay with the animals and help them into the human world, and past the gate. This is because there are only two seasons here and the human world is where they can live normally. Then there is the next rank, they are the sky fay who are in control of the stars and the clouds which start in our world and then drift over to yours. They also make the sunsets and study special subjects in school so they can take control of the colours of the skies, darken them at night and bring light in the morning. Then there is the highest rank of summer, who are the only ones allowed past the gate and the barrier and into the human world. They are sort of spies, going into human school and coming back with news about what has changed and whether any wars have been ended. Oh, and just for your information, the only way you'd get into the winter part would be if you were going to be non-publicly executed. Which doesn't happen much, actually," he added, looking annoyed. Did he ever feel the urge to go to the ice palace? It sounded so...so beautiful, if the castle really was made of ice. But I think what Seth was annoyed about was a little bit more personal.

"Um, Seth? I'm not trying to be rude, but do you have something against your queen?" he shot me an angry glare, but then blinked and looked at the ground sadly.

"I guess so. I mean, I have no problem with queens, you need one to tell you the rules. But this queen-she disgusts me. You do realise no other queen ever created a quarter of winter lands and built ice castles. It all used to be summer, and everybody worked together. There were no high or low ranks back then. She became queen ten years ago, when Lord Evergreen passed away unexpectedly in his sleep. And then she put us into ranks and she put me in the lowest, according to my skills, well, not really skills," he told me sheepishly. I frowned, confused.

"You do have skills, Seth. I couldn't do what you have been with potions. I can see why you might want to be a sky fay or an animal or spy fay, but you are still important. If you weren't there then the queen wouldn't have stocks of healing elixirs and potions. The queen is probably struggling to keep everybody happy-" I began.

"The queen isn't struggling. She never struggles because she's in an ice castle! She built it so that she didn't have to do anything there and she could have all our hard work shipped off to her only to complain about it and give us more ridiculous quests. She's doing something in that castle, and we need to do something about it," he walked ahead and pushed himself up onto a tree.

"You think she's planning something?" I gasped. This was like a missing piece of jigsaw. It fit exactly, I mean, why else would she have shut herself up forever? Seth jumped down from the tree and pulled me over to the pond I'd been working on earlier. I groaned. "Back to this again," I sighed.

"You've been practising, haven't you?" he asked me. I fiddled with my hands nervously.

"A little," I replied. This seemed hopeless, I was never going to get it right. I'd spent loads of time practising at home but I didn't want him to know that. Because if I'd been practising that much then I would have got better, but I hadn't. I hadn't got past the first stage. But I could show him how easily I could do that. "Watch," I stared at the pond, without using a flower. I closed my eyes, picturing it expanding. And so the drop of water came out again, and it started getting bigger. I kept making it bigger, as big as I could get, bigger than I had ever got it before..

"Sen, STOP! It's too big!" I peeked out of my eye and gasped in terror. A huge water ball floated above my head, as big as three football's put together. My whole concentration dropped and it crashed to the floor, but didn't collapse, it rolled forwards and into the trees, knocking some of them down with large crashes and thumps. I sprung up and flashed my eyes to Seth.

"What do I do now? It could destroy the whole forest!" I asked. But Seth didn't reply, he was obviously so taken aback by what just happened that he was speechless. So there was only one thing for it, and I started running forwards to the yellow line.

"No! Don't cross the line, you'll know what will happen! It doesn't matter that the gate isn't in this forest, the plants don't know that! Like they have been, they'll pull you in just in case the gate is in this one!" he shouted at me. But I had to stop that waterball from destroying the forest. So I sucked in a breath and stepped over the line. My heart thumped in my chest and I had an adrenaline rush. I looked back at Seth once more and then charged across the forest floor. I could see it in the distance, rolling into trees and crashing into bushes. I was the only one who could stop this. But I needed to get there fast. I urged my legs on, running as fast as I could towards it. I was only a few meters away now, I could do this. I imagined the daisy's petals shaking, and then one by one floating off into the sky. And I watched the huge ball of water stop rolling, and I stepped back, as like a water sprinkler, tiny droplets flew off and into the sky, and disappeared into the blue.

I was smiling, but soon the smile disappeared. I stared at my arm, it was burning hot but when I looked at it nothing was there. My hands balled into fists and I exhaled deeply before my eyelids drooped and I fell onto my knees, and then I fell sideways onto the floor. I stopped breathing as my body twitched, my arm still burning like fire. I had to do something, Seth wouldn't know where I was. I used what was left of my energy to scream as loud as my body let me before collapsing back onto the floor.

I thought I was dead, but what was really happening was that the forests had had enough of me overcoming their powers, and escaping back out of them. So as I lay unconscious, twigs from a nearby bush wrapped themselves around me like a spider wrapping up a fly. And they kept entwining themselves around my still body until all there was left was a bundle of twigs and curly branches in a mess on the floor. And then the cocoon I was in pulled itself into the bush and I was gone. I had disappeared from the world, and it would have been a miracle if Seth had found me. Unfortunately he did not know where I was, but knew exactly what was happening.

What the forest was doing to me.