She is floating in the air beside me. Just eleven years old, but her wings are already larger than those of her peers. They are glowing purple. She stares at me and starts to cry.
“Oh,” she says. “Oh dear.”
She looks at the rope around my waist, and the stones that hang from it, and even though she is so very young, she understands in an instant what I am trying to do.
The look on her face brings me to my senses. As she sobs, treading air with her little purple wings, I struggle to free myself from the ropes. I let them fall into the water, then reach for her and bring her into my arms.
I wade back to the shoreline as she sobs against my chest.
“I am sorry, child. I did not mean to frighten you.”
I set her down on the sand and sit beside her. My dress is soaked and clinging to my thin legs. She is wet too from being pressed against me.
She sniffs loudly and wipes her nose with the back of her hand. Her hair is unruly. Bright auburn and hanging loose around her shoulders.
Her sea-green eyes look even more green now they are tinged with tears.
“You miss him,” she says.
I nod slowly and fold my hands into my lap. “Yes, my dear. I miss him.”
“The sadness will go away, though,” she says. “That’s what they told me when my auntie died, and they were right.”
I try to smile and reach for her hand. “Yes, I think you’re right. It will.”
“I can help.” Alana turns her big eyes up at me and squeezes my hand. “I can make the sad go away for you, if you’d like me to.”
My heartbeat trips in my chest. “Make it go away?” I frown at her and lean in closer. “What do you mean, my love?”
“Sometimes, when my friends are cross with me, I make it stop.” She shrugs, and a sensation like ice-cold dread drips down my spine. She is so young, and she can already play with people’s emotions like that?
“How do you make it stop?” I ask her, my mouth suddenly dry.
Alana shrugs. “I’m not really sure,” she says. Her voice is so small, so sweet, so innocent. But the power of her words burns like acid on my skin. She has no idea what she is or how to control what she is, and we cannot help her.
There has never been an empathic Leafborne before; the other villagers don’t even know what she is yet. We have kept it hidden from them, but if she starts talking like this to others, they will know. And when they know, they will feel the same way I am feeling now; like they’re not sure whether they are looking at a demon or an angel.
“Alana, would you show me?” I inhale slowly.
I shouldn’t ask it of her. Every fibre of sense in my body is telling me not to, but at the same time, I am desperate for the pain to go away.
So, I tell myself I am asking so I can try to understand what it is she does and whether it really is as dangerous as it feels.
“Of course, Auntie Maura.” She smiles at me and takes my hands in hers.
Her wings start to flutter. Purple light surrounds her, dancing on her skin and floating from her fingertips towards me. As it reaches me, it turns from light to smoke. It surrounds me, pressing down on my skin with a warmth that feels endlessly comforting.
I close my eyes and lean into the sensation. I sigh, and as I open my mouth, the smoke fills it up. I feel it trickle down through my body. Warm water and sunlight. Cleansing me from the inside out.
I give myself up to the sensations. I hear Alana speaking, but I cannot focus on her words.
The warmth turns to heat. It grows and swells and then rushes from my body, tearing the breath from my lungs and making me fold forward onto my knees.
When I open my eyes, the smoke is surrounding Alana. It is darker now. A deep, thick shade of purple instead of bright happy violet.
Alana breathes it in. She coughs. Her little face grows red. And then she releases it.
The smoke swirls up into the air, and disappears. Disintegrates over the lake.