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Chapter 2: Understand

Abruptly opening her eyes, she threw her blanket off her body and smashed her bare feet to the cold wooden floor. Her eyes blurry, she saw her bedroom; untouched. Growing confused, she touched her scalp, searching for cuts, scabs blood, anything that would allude to what happened; she found nothing. She signed with relief. "It was a dream." She walked over to her bookshelf and traced her finger along the edge of the shelf. Looking at the titles, she smiled as they then become more familiar to her. "The tale of the the last dragon and the girl" she read aloud. "The Tales of Ba Sing Sae" she said; a classic. Her short attention span was then drawn to a familiar smell. The aroma of Honeysuckles paraded around her room. Holding her nose up into the air, she felt a sense of contentment. "Mom" she whispered. Opening her closet, she gathered her favorite clothes and rushed out of her room. Barely putting her hand through her shirt, she peered her eyes down the banister and listened for her family. Hearing only one familiar voice, she ran down the stairs as quickly as her legs would carry her. She smiled as she smelled the aroma of cookies being baked in the oven. She smiled as she strolled into the kitchen. "Mom?" She yelled with disbelief. Looking over at all, and away from the cookie dough, she smiled at her daughter. 

"Nice of you to finally wake up" she said with amazement. Looking at the old oven clock, the red numbers read, 12:00PM. Ella rubbed her eye sockets and looked another time. 

"But I thought-" 

"I told you, don't eat right before bed" she pointed at Ella with the wooden spoon. A piece of cookie dough fell from the groove of the spoon. "You always eat before bed and have the most vivid, unimaginable dreams" she told. 

Ella shook her head and laughed. "...I guess." Moving over the freezer box, her mother, Marie, opened the box and took out a small glass container holding orange juice. She walked over to Ella and gave her a small glass.

 "How about something not full of sugar for breakfast." she motioned Ella to drink the glass. "Make sure you drink all of it, I made it myself" she adds. There was a strange silence, but Ella does as she is told, and guzzles the orange juice. Pondering about her dream, Ella looked at her mom. 

"In my dre-" her mother stopped her in mid sentence. "I know!" she abruptly says. "How about I do the thing?" she thought. 

"The thing?" Ella asked, seemingly to forget what her mother is referring to. Ella's mother opened the kitchen junk drawer and pulled out a skinny black wand. Carefully, she held the wand to Ella's head. "Hold still" she advises. Not knowing what she is doing, Ella stood there waiting for her mom to be finished. Just then, a tiny light swam out from the sides of Ella's head and were sucked into her wand. The wand stopped glowing. "There" she said. "All better." Ella looked at her mom and suddenly felt a flourishment of ease in her mind. The memory of the dream, was gone. Marie grinned and stroked Ella's cheek. "Always here to take the bad dreams away" 

There was a knock at the door. "I will get it" Ella's mother says robotically. She rubs her hands on the dirty dish towel in the kitchen and throws it into the laundry shoot. Walking over to the door, she fixes her hair quickly and looks through the middle window in the deadbolt door. His face appeared disfigured in the tempered glass, Ella curiously looked through the door and leaned against the wall, sipping her orange juice. The front door creaked open. 

"Hey!" Ella's mom cheerfully said. 

Moving out of the way, Marie showed her guests in the door. Standing inside the door frame, stood a man, tall, well put together, with three children behind him. She paused as he held out his hand to her. 

"Charmed," he only said. He shook her hand and gripped it tightly. She pulled back with hesitation and looked at his awkwardly. She stood in front of the tall man, and stared into his deep blue eyes. Ella, glaring at the man, noticed a familiar smell of leather. She looked over at her mother and grinned.