Élphame

Chapter Seven

           "I'm not even surprised anymore."

          The rec. room was like a miniature Chuck E. Cheese's. There was a foosball table, an air hockey table, a basketball hoop, a Pacman machine, table tennis, skeeball, a rock climbing wall, a slide that Naomi was pretty sure started somewhere upstairs, a chin up bar, and buried trampoline. Naomi didn't even know how the room could physically fit everything in it at once, but somehow it did.

          "Most of this is stuff my Uncle Sahale got cheap from pawn shops or yard sales that he fixed up," Darcy explained. "And my cousin Gen is a huge health and fitness nut, so she added the rock wall."

          "And the slide?"

          "My dad's idea, but Aunt Tehya helped him install it."

          "Wow," was all Naomi could say. "And where's the top of it?"

          Darcy pulled her behind the slide and pointed to a crawl space-type hole in the wall. Naomi peered inside and saw a ladder.

          "Wow. How long has your family had this lodge?" Naomi could easily imagine generations of Jogahs adding to the building, improving it and making it better.

          "That's... a hard question to answer," said Darcy slowly. "And it's also something I've been wanting to talk to you about."

          Naomi looked at her. "What do you mean?"

          "My questions first," Darcy insisted. She took a deep breath, like she was preparing herself, and when she looked at Naomi it was a hard, searching stare, like she was trying to see inside her and look at her brains. It was more than a little unnerving, seeing the sudden change in her friend's usual carefree demeanor.

          "What are you?" she said.

          Naomi blinked. "I-I, what?"

          "What are you?" Darcy asked again. Naomi thought she might be joking, but the look Darcy was giving her that made her feel like she beneath a microscope convinced her otherwise.

          "I don't know what you're..." Naomi stopped and her blood turned to ice. Her lungs refused to draw air and Naomi felt the color evaporate from her face. She was seized by pure fear.

          Her thoughts were racing at a million miles an hour. She couldn't possibly be talking about... could she? But what else could she be talking about? How did she know? How did she find out? Did she see me? When could she have seen me?

          "I... I..." Naomi couldn't speak. Her voice was shaking too much, and her mind was so muddled she couldn't form a coherent word.

          "Are you a Naiad?" she pressed. "A Wight? A Sprite?"

          Naomi recognized all the creatures her friend was naming. The naiads were the spirits of bodies of water in Greek mythology. The wights were the dwarf and elf spirits in Norse tradition, and everyone knew that sprites were a species of fairy.

          This was all made perfect sense to Naomi, who had had an interest in mythology legendary creatures since before she could remember. What made no sense whatsoever was why Darcy was asking her if she actually was any of these creatures.

          "What are you talking about?" she finally managed.

          Darcy sighed. "Fine, we'll do this the hard way, then." She reached into her back pocket and pulled out... an envelope. For a crazy second Naomi thought it was a knife, and she flinched away.