MADE

Touring

Snow covered the ground in patches, the sky grey making the meadow seem empty. Wind tossed the bare branches, causing a chill to run up my bones.

Alaric pressed a hand to my back, snow covering his boots. Elijah stood on the other side, vibrating with something I couldn't see.

Sebastian caught my eye in the distance, tall and unmoving. I blinked, and he was gone but in his place stood hundreds of people, their faces missing.

I looked at Elijah. He was gone.

I looked at Alaric as his arm snaked around my waist. His eyes were brown, and then his face changed too.

Amber crystals glittered as Sebastian watched me. "Miss me, love?"

It's been two days. Two days of sideways glances and a mixture of outright ignorance or admiration. Every person I came across tiptoed around me. They avoided me at best, and if they didn't avoid me, it was Amara.

My show of gifts was more than Alaric had intended me to show. He hadn't expected me to go so far, but in my defense, I had no idea how far was going too far. I had never seen another person even use their gifts, so how was I to know when to stop.

But Elijah had told me that it wasn't exactly my show of gifts that had stirred the people of the island into a sloshing bowl of water.

It was something else. Something he and Alaric had yet to tell me.

Between Alaric's shifty touring of the island and Elijah's strange actions around me, the dreams either kept me busy or thinking of them did. They came every time I fell asleep now. They were mostly the same, Elijah and Alaric beside me and the feeling of the ground falling out from under my feet.

But now the spring buds had turned to fall oranges and yellows around the clearing. I didn't understand them.

So, I spent the time I had touring the island with all of my attention focused. I had seen most of the island by now.

Alaric had taken me back to the earth sector first and introduced me to some of the people. Sometimes they were excited to meet me, kind and happy. Others were not as pleased about Alaric's forced niceties.

But the earth sector was amazing, as was each division in its own way. I could have spent hours in each one, completely at home wherever I was. Alaric could see it on my face.

The earth division was green and bright and modern - full of life and covered in the biggest trees I had ever seen. It was a jungle of lush vegetation and exciting people. Sharp, clean line of buildings jutted out every which way, wholly blended with the forest around. Twisting vines crawled up white walls and in through the cracks of the too large windows. Even the black polished lava rock walkways were lined with small flowers that lit up like tiny fire lights.

But while the earth parts of the island were welcoming and inviting the air division was strange to me at first. It was placed atop many of the vast mountains that were clustered together at the center of the island. But the higher Alaric and I hiked those mountains the more at home I felt. I could have leaped off those mountains and soured through the clouds or jumped from openings of the tower like houses. I could have watched them all day long, leap from their homes and fall down and down before their beautiful white wings would open and carry them away.

And that was when I began to understand. Every person in the air sector was graced with white wings and beautiful golden hair. I knew they would see me differently if they found out. If my white hair didn't give it away, the black wings would.