The Colour of Your Aura (Enoch O'Connor)

Chapter 3

"Enoch?" I asked, knocking on his door. To be honest, I thought he wouldn't open the door at all.

"What?!" He shouted, swinging the door open with such force I took a few steps back.

Why was he in a bad mood?

"I-I was just going to ask it you could animate these dolls for Claire and Bronwyn. I don't know what they mean by animate thought," I explained and his eyes softened when he saw me at the door.

"I already told them today that I couldn't do it," He sighed, running a hand through his dark brown hair. I made puppy dog eyes at him and stuck out my bottom lip and it worked like a charm.

I was surprised at how quickly he was warming up to me. According to Emma, it was supposed to take a few years for him to even stop saying my name with disdain. He had warmed up to me in a few days.

That must be some kind of record.

"Ok, fine. I'll do it. But you owe me," He smirked, opening the door wider so that I could go in after him.

I held back a gasp as I looked around his room. One wall had a shelf that ran from floor to ceiling and there were several other shelves in front of that also. Jars filled with a yellowish liquid stocked the shelves and there were various types of jelly like objects floating in said liquid. I stepped closer to the shelf that I was standing in front of and I couldn't hold back my gaps when I realised that the jelly object wasn't what it seemed.

It was a small heart that was somehow still beating.

I spun around to see Enoch set the two dolls on the desk and he lifted a scalpel that was set to the side of him. He cut a long, thin incision down the chests of both the dolls. He was careful not to cut the dainty frocks that they wore.

He then strode past me, not meeting my eyes as he lifted two jars, with one heart in each of them, down off the shelf and then he made his way back to the desk and sat down again. He unscrewed the lids of the jars and lifted out the first heart.

"Um, I'm going to need your help for this bit." His voice caught my attention and drew it back to him. He was looking up at me nervously, as if he thought that I was disgusted by him.

"What do you need me to do?" I asked, sitting down on the stool next to him.

"Just hold the cotton of the chests apart whilst I set the hearts in," He explained and I reached forward, pulling the incision wider as gently as I could.

He lifted a pair of tweezers from his right side and pinched them carefully around the first heart. He shook some of the liquid off the heart and lowered it down into the chest. His hands were cold as they grazed past mine and I tried to stop the blush that appeared on my face.

What was wrong with me?

He tapped my hand to tell me that I could release the doll and I did so. He handed it to me along with a spool of thread and a needle.

"Could you sew this one up whilst I deal with the other one?" He asked, not glancing up as he struggled to get the heart into the other one.

I started to sew up the doll but Enoch couldn't get the heart into the second one on his own. I sighed and set the other doll down. I gently pushed his hands out of the way and I held the chest open once more. He sent a quick smile my way before picking up the second heart and neatly placing it in the dolls chest.

We then set to work in silence, the only sound being the snipping of the scissors as they cut the thread. I buttoned the frock of the doll that I was holding back up and Enoch did that same.