The girl who would wear green

Character Twelve

The hardest part of her new gift Essie found, was that she still was unable to work out completely what she was hearing and feeling from Amelia even though she felt she was understanding some things now.
She was desperately unhappy, and Essie was pretty sure that she had not felt any happiness coming from Amelia for some time.
Essie would feel waves and waves of longing, but then they would be followed by anger and confusion and fear.
So many emotions swirled around Amelia and yet she was also very guarded.
"I need to work this out soon." Essie thought because she knew she had to help Amelia, but only if it would be better for her. "I have to get this right, for Amelia's sake." The last thing Essie wanted was to cause her best friend to be even unhappier than she was now.
She wished she knew more about Amelia's mum. She seemed to stay inside their home a lot, and when she was seen going out, she was always dressed up as if she was going to a party.
It was a problem that bothered Essie a lot over the next weeks, because Amelia seemed to have a wall up that Essie could not break through, no matter how hard she tried.
When they went to the library again, Essie knew immediately what was happening with Sharon, and why her little girls were so subdued. Sharon's thoughts were full while she sat quietly or knitted. They lived with her husband's parents and her husband's mother had not wanted them there. She didn't want them in her son's life at all, he was her only child.
They had no choice of course, they had very little money, and Sharon didn't want to make it harder for her husband Rick who didn't seem to see his mothers' hatred of his family.
Essie could feel this coming from Sharon in waves. Sharon's thoughts were so sad, that sometimes Essie thought they may drown them all.
Essie started concentrating on Sharon's mother in law first of all, but this wasn't easy. She didn't seem able to make any headway, and there were a lot of bad feelings that kept getting in the way. She realised that it could possibly be because she didn't know her at all, or even her name, and of course, she could never ask.
Then she saw Sharon and the girls meet Rick when he came from work at the bank across the street. He seemed a little downtrodden to Essie, so she started sending positive thoughts Rick's way, including thoughts of the new housing estate going up not far away. She also decided it wouldn't hurt to send some positive thoughts towards the bank and the housing estate manager as well. She even went into the bank after school, and sat and watched Rick at work at his desk, and the people who spoke to him.
Essie visited the housing estate office and asked for a brochure, for her mum she said, while sending positive thoughts about Rick to every person she saw in the office. Positive thoughts are very uplifting Essie thought, although sometimes so many positive thoughts going out could also be quite tiring.
Essie kept on with her positive thoughts, until the day that Sharon came into the Library, and started talking excitedly to everyone she could. Even the girls were quite talkative for a change. Sharon told

everyone how Rick had been offered a promotion, and that they had visited the new housing estate and put a deposit on a home for themselves after Rick had decided they needed a home of their own.
There was so much joy in Sharon's face, and her girls were so happy. Essie felt pretty happy too. She was starting to work out solutions and how to best use this gift she'd been given.
Sue even had a chat with Essie about her son Trent. She'd been quite worried about him, she said. She'd had him a bit late in her life, and she was a single parent and sometimes raising a boy alone was not easy. She thought he'd been experimenting with smoking. But after he got over the bad vomiting bug he'd had, Sue told Essie, she was pretty sure that Trent was not smoking after all.
"Such a relief", Sue confided, "and I hope you will always be as smart as my boy Essie and not even think of taking up such a bad habit." Essie just smiled and agreed.
It bothered Essie somewhat when she discovered that she was not able to hear any thought waves when she talked with Mrs Mel, or when she walked by the grumpy old man in the wheelchair.
This scared her a little, she really liked Mrs Mel and now she was worried that Mrs Mel was not a good person after all. Surely not, she always felt happy talking to Mrs Mel, and she seemed to know more than most about the history of the country, and she was always so nice.
Maybe it was just that old people didn't have strong thoughts that Essie could hear? The grumpy old man in the wheelchair gave her nothing either, so maybe it was an old person thing. Something else she would have to remember to ask dad about.