Battle of the Elements

I didn’t speak to him. I didn’t even look him in the eye after we left the bar. We found Dane and Harrison in our room and ignored their questioning looks when they saw the tension in the air.

After Alex saw me and Bridgette, he stormed over and pushed me away from her. Then, without warning he pulled his dagger in her and demanded she showed him her ‘mark’. With a roll of her eyes, Bridgette pulled her dress up slightly to reveal an ugly scar in the shape of a flame. Then, Alex pulled me away from the bar and Bridgette. I hadn’t spoken to him since.

“Ok… ignoring the two sudden enemies in the room,” Dane said, eyeballing Harrison “we found what the problem is by the way you two.”

Alex didn’t look up from his bed “Yeah, there’s a flame elemental here. She’s probably starting fires and killing people like a typical magician.” He glanced my way “It’s in their nature.”

It took everything inside me not to yell at him that he was wrong, that magicians – like any other human - just want to live like a normal human being. But I kept my mouth shut because he didn’t know any better than what he had been taught, and he didn’t know that everything he had been taught about magic users – like most of what people say about them– was completely untrue.

“Nope.” Harrison said from his spot on the bed closest to the door “Actually, it doesn’t have anything to do with her, not that we know of. There have been reports of children going missing.”

I looked up at him “While that is horrible, what does it have to do with magic?”

“Well,” Dane said casually leaning against the wardrobe “they all happen at the exact same time every few days. Not only that, but the children seem almost…hypnotised by this…sound.”

“What do you mean?” Alex asked, staring at the ceiling while laying down on his bed.

“It means” Harrison said “we spoke to a few towns’ people and they all said relatively the same thing. Every few days at around nine in the morning this noise comes from the forest and the children will stop at nothing to follow it and they…they don’t come back.”

The whole room fell silent. We all knew what we had to do next was get out of that hotel room and ask questions.

Harrison let out a sigh as they walked down the road next to me, it was freezing outside and we had been going door to door for hours to find something that might help us. So far the same information was being repeated at every door – every few days there is a noise that hypnotises local children to go into the woods and not come back – until we came to a little house on the end of the street.

Harrison knocked on the door three times slowly like this was a chore he had done every day since he could crawl. We stood and waited for a few minutes until, just as we were going to leave, a red haired girl opened the door. Her lips were cracked and there were dark bags under her eyes and she was paler than I had ever thought possible “Can I help you?” She asked, her voice was as cracked as her lips and so quiet you had to practically lean in to hear what she was saying.

“Hi, I’m Titania and this is Harrison. Can we ask you a few questions please?” I said gently.

The girl stayed quiet for a moment then nodded slightly as if she was unsure “sure.” She said, then she turned around and walked inside without closing the door.

Harrison and I exchanged concerned looks, but stepped inside none the less. The house was small and well furnished. The girl led us into the lounge room and gestured for us to sit down on one of the floral-patterned couches before she sat in a little arm chair just across from us. She was so skinny you could practically see the bones in her arms. “What did you want to ask me?”

“What’s your name?” I asked

“Abby.”

“How old are you?” if she was too young then we would have to ask her parents about the children.

“I’m sixteen.”

“Do you live alone?” Harrison asked, practically reading my mind.

“Yes.” Her voice cracked when she said answered his question.

“Why?” I questioned, I could tell there was a story here.

“My parents died when the war started, then my little brother was killed when a bomb hit the school.”

“War?” Harrison leaned in.

“Yes. The war between the kingdoms of Casolite and Jasinia. It started a year ago. You hadn’t heard?” She seemed surprised at our reactions

“No. Can you tell us about it please?” I could feel it in my gut, this had something to do with the children.

“Sure…the two kingdoms have always been on edge about each other, like the kings were walking on thin ice. Then one day, something happened to make Jasinia bomb our school and it killed ten children and fifteen teachers, most of the kid got out before the bomb went off but…”

“Were you…” I felt my insides twist with disgust at the thought of a kingdom killing children.

“In the explosion? No. I was at home sick that day, my little brother wanted to stay home too but I told him he had to go because he had a test on that day. I should have let him stay…” her voice trailed off and her eyes fell to the ground.

“I think it’s time we left.” Harrison said, putting a hand on my knee as a warning. He was right, it wasn’t our place.

We left the house in silence and walked to the inn.

Alex

The two of them walked into the room just before dark. I set the paper down on the bed and let out a sigh.

“What’s up?” Titania said, speaking to me for the first time since I pulled a knife on the witch – he had been thinking a lot about that girl, he even spoke to Dane about her, Dane had said in a joking way ‘a wolf in sheep’s clothing.’

“We’ve been working on this for hours, still nothing.” I said.

Harrison slumped down onto his bed “Well, we have some information.”

Dane didn’t look up from his piece of paper in his hands – we’d been scribbling down information and trying to connect it together and it wasn’t working – “really, tell us.”

Titania leaned against the door and looked at the ceiling “Well, theirs this girl Abby, she told us there was a war starting a year ago. The local school was bombed and ten children and fifteen teachers were killed.” She said it in an emotionless voice, that’s how I could tell what she was upset.

“Why don’t we get something to eat before we all start boxing ourselves in this room?” I said, I had to get her out of here before she could hear the news we heard.

Harrison perked up “Yeah! I’m starving.”

Dane smiled and set down his papers on the bed “Sure.”

Titania nodded and smiled slightly.

We walked down to the bar – it was the only place that served food at the hotel – and grabbed a table on the back corner where the music was the softest. A waitress with bright pink hair came and took our orders and we all sat and talked about things like where we would go next and joking about why someone would dye their hair pink when we all saw a flash of crimson red by the bar, we all saw the golden locks of hair just disappearing out the door. Then Titania leapt out of her seat and before any of us could do anything, she was out the door.

Titania

It was her. Bridgette. I had to talk with her, tell her I was sorry.

I had only just met her but already, I felt like she was one of my closest friends. I followed the pull outside, ignoring the weird looks of strangers and into the woods where she was leaning against an old oak tree. She looked into my eyes and put a finger to her lips, be quiet, I could almost hear her say it. She looked around once before she motioned for me to follow her. She quietly walked through the forest before coming to a small cave opening. Then, she clicked her fingers and a small flame lit up in her hand.

I felt the air leave my chest as it flickered at her fingertips. A ghost of a smile appeared on her face before she went into the cave. I followed her down the cave, in the darkness her entire body gave off a light glow, her eyes shined brighter and her hair almost seemed alight with fire.

After walking for what felt like ages we saw light in the darkness. Bridgette’s eyes flickered to me then to the light, I walked forward carefully, feeling the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Just as I reached the exit to the cave where the light was coming from a hand shot out in front of me and held me back. Bridgette eyed me not to go any further so I just looked, my eyes took a minute to adjust before I saw what was in front of me.

Children. Lots of children, some in cages, some on the floor eating bread, all of them had dead eyes, pale skin and large bags under their eyes – never had the term ‘like death warmed over’ been so true, maybe it was created for these children. None of them looked at each other, they kept their eyes glued to the ground and walked slowly so that each step looked like their last.

My heart stopped at the sight, I felt fury and sadness build up inside my chest – I was going to transform. I burst into a run, not stopping until I was out in the woods, far away from the cave and collapsed at the bottom of the very same oak tree Bridgette had been leaning against. I took deep, rapid breaths. I had to get under control. No. It was too late. I felt pins and needles move in waves through my body for a second, then they were gone and I was left retching my guts out under a tree.

Bridgette

I followed her to the tree, poor kid. I had showed her those kids because I thought she could do something about it, help them. I walked towards her, she was an earth elemental. Her hair was out but her clothes had completely changed. Her blue dress she had been wearing had now been replaced with a dark brown, flowy dress with a green belt and trimmed with roses. There were some small white flowers scattered in her hair along with a few leaves. She looked like she was vomiting up her entire life. After a few minutes of her vomiting she finally looked up from the dirt. I gave her a piece of fabric from my pocket and she wiped her face.

“You know, you shouldn’t bottle it up. It’s not healthy.” I said, I was meaning to be gentle but – like every damn thing I say – it came out harsh and sarcastic.

“I know.” She replied, she didn’t snap at me though – that was new, I was always snapped at – she just said it like she was pathetic, which felt kind of worse.

“Then why do you do it?” I asked – again, sounding angry.

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“No. No I wouldn’t. Not how I am now anyway. If you met me a few years ago I would have.”

She just nodded. Damn this girl was emotional.

“Well, let’s change the subject. I wanted to get you alone without that idiot intervening. What’s your name?”

“Titania.” She said

“That’s a cool name. Means ‘queen of the fairies’ right?”

She sniffled and laughed a little “Yeah. You’re the first one to know that.”

I smiled.

Then her face turned serious “What was that? Those children?”

“They were kidnapped.” I hated depressing conversations.

“By who?”

“I don’t know. All I know is you can’t tell anyone.”

Her head shot up from the ground, her eyes were even more vibrant than they had been in the bar. “What?!”

“I said you can’t tell them.”

“Yeah, I heard! But why?!”

“Because your friends will save them. If they save those kids then the kidnapper will change their place, get rid of you and on top of that, just take more kids.”

She didn’t argue – she looked like she wanted to though – instead she just nodded “I understand. But when the time comes when they really need to know I will tell them.”

I smiled “Wouldn’t have it any other way.” I liked her, she had a back bone after all.

“I need to go. They’ll be looking for me.” She said, as her body lit up in a blinding light and her original dress appeared again.

That girl was going to get herself killed if she kept shoving her real form away.

I should have said goodbye but that was when her bastard of a friend came pounding through the trees…

Titania

Alex came running through the forest and pulled me into his arms so that my face was just a few centimetres away from his.

I glanced to where Bridgette had been standing but she had disappeared into thin air as fast as a candle could go out.

Harrison came stumbling through the forest with Dane at his side “Why did you do that?” he asked.

I didn’t reply, they wouldn’t understand if I told them.

Alex looked into my eyes “Titania? What’s wrong?”

Everything “Nothing.”

Dane let out a sigh “Guys, whatever’s wrong doesn’t matter right now, we need to get back. This place gets too cold at night, if we don’t leave now we’ll freeze.”

Harrison had his arms crossed “Yeah, can we go please? We can talk when we get back.”

Alex

Was she going through a melt down again? It had only happened once before. When her mother died, she was upset. I was the only one she would talk to, then I kissed her that same month when we were fourteen and she had a break down. There was only so much she could stand, her father said she had anxiety but it seemed so much more serious than that. She would be smiling one second, then she would bolt away to the woods and when her father bought her back she would just cry and go to sleep. She tried hard to forget about it and until now, it had never happened again.

When we got back to the room, I put my hand to her forehead like her father did when he brought her back home after her trips into the woods. She was burning hot, her breath smelt like bile and she was pale. I set her down on the bed and told Harrison to get her food from the bar.

Dane was sitting on his bed again – it was pretty much the only place to sit in that room – he didn’t say anything until Titania had eaten and gone to sleep.

“What was that?” He said, he eyes me doubtfully.

“She’s having melt downs. She’ll be fine tomorrow.”

“Melt downs? Are you sure she should be here if she can’t function properly?”

“She can function fine. It’s just that she has a lot on her mind right now. She doesn’t have them often, her last one was when she was fourteen. That was four years ago. She’ll be fine.”

“Well, it’s not like we can send her back now can we.” He said, glancing down at Titania “Let’s just head to bed. We can talk in the morning when everyone’s awake.”

It was then that I realised Harrison was fast asleep on his bed.