{ELEMENTISTS OF WILLOW FOREST BOOK IV} The Day of Death

The Association of Elementists

24:  The Association of Elementists

Felix made up some stupid, feeble excuse about how pwetty the bwalls of light looked and how ickle wickle Felixkins ownly wanted to see what happened when he toucheyed them and ickle wickle Felixkins had NO IDEA that ickle wickle Felixkins honey-muffin would gwain their powers!

Like idiots, everyone believed him.

I was going to go back up to my room and sulk, but then I remembered that my room was a bit uninhabitable, so I went to sulk in Luke’s room instead.

What sucked, though, was that nobody else seemed to think that Felix was bad.  They all thought he was just one of them, who wondered what would happen when he did something, and then Olivia randomly wrestled him to the ground and started strangling him for no apparent reason.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Hephzibah agreed with me, of course, but as I sort of couldn’t go back in my room (or didn’t want to) I had no guaranteed place where I could speak to her alone, without someone coming in, or listening through the wall.

I wanted to run off to the heart of Willow Forest, where my house used to be and the ghost of my tree resides.  I wanted that more than anything, to be alone, to be free.  But, unfortunately, I couldn’t run off.  I had to provide the food, and my assistant chef was Felix (To actually cook it).  As I refused to be alone in a room with him at any time, and as at this point we had an oven that wasn’t Felix’s hands, I unintentionally took up all the cooking duties for the whole tower.  It’s kind of a permanent job, and I found myself stuck in the kitchen most of the time.  There’s a reason why I insist there’s a rota for cooking duties now.

Anyway, I was in Luke’s room, sulking, just after Felix had made his miserable excuse.

 “Where’s Haider?”  I demanded.

 “Oh!”  Luke remembered.  “Right!”

He jumped up.  “Felix offered for him to wait for you in his room…”

Please no.

 “But he refused, so he’s in Josie’s.”

Yes!  At last!  Someone else who was avoiding Felix!

 “Where’s Josie?”

 “Rachael’s room.”

As I eagerly ran for the stairs, I realised how excited I was to see him.  Haider.  Haider.  Maybe he’d have Leandra with him, and Leo and Sandy!  Finally, somebody I could talk to openly, without having to hide anything, or wear a mask, or put on a fixed smile and pretend I knew exactly what my next move would be.  Here was a fragment of my past, a piece of my childhood I had tried and failed to have back, the last part of my time as a child I had left.  (Technically, I was still a child, as I was only twelve at that point, but for me my childhood ended the day I woke up outside Willow Forest in an alley and wondered why everything was so grey.)  Willow Forest was still here, but I couldn’t run freely in it as I used to.  Mama and Gama had vanished.  Our house had been grown back into the ground, my Faraway Tree been shrunk back into a sapling.  But the other aspect of my life, that I had been so upset to leave, my lions, I could still have.  The War Tower had replaced my house, my friends my family, but I wasn’t completely cut off from the life I used to have.  I could still have Haider.