Toman's Little Sister

82 | A Strange Girl

There was a girl I remember. Her aura was protected but not warding. Her eyes held the wisdom beneath the stars. Her voice was confident but not arrogant. And, most of all, she was just a little girl.

She seemed so familiar. Not from her looks. But there was this distinct feeling that I recognized, like knowing who is your friend and who is your enemy. She seemed like she was neither.

I remember being in the park in the fall and she was the only one who resided in the area.

I remember her eyes scanning the page of a book too large for her hands and a bookmark rested beside her, lifting a bit in the autumn breeze but never straying away.

Her legs were too short to reach the ground so they dangled from the edge of the rocks surrounding the park's trees.

A sweater seemed to drape over her, too large to be hers. She wore no shoes so there were pebbles marking her feet and dirt on her soles, but she didn't seem to mind them.

I caught her eye, not because of any notable features but because I blocked the sun from her book. She stared at me for a moment before placing her bookmark between her pages and moving to a different spot where no one was blocking the sun.

Perhaps you're imagining a girl around her teenage years wearing an oversized sweater like many do. But it was a small girl, only about three or four.

She barely glanced at my face and more at the light I blocked. Did she even channel that what was blocking the sun was a person?

I returned the next day. She got her original spot back and was now reading a different book. Had she finished the one from before or was she the type to simply read another book she found interest in?

She delicately turned a page in her book before stopping and looking up, right in my direction.

Her eyes were asking me to come closer. They were examining me before she let me.

I felt exposed despite the layers of clothing I wore for the fall.

"Are you going to continue staring at me or will you sit down?"

I sat next to her, glancing at her book. It was a chapter book although thin and she held it with such delicacy, careful not to break the spine or bent the pages.

She asked my name. I gave it to her.

And I never saw her again. Well, not her her.

I saw the girl again. The familiar face with the familiar eyes of wisdom with the protecting aura that didn't ward others off. But it wasn't the same one I met at the park.

This one was different. She stood tall. She was elegant, almost, but still held the light of a child.

She didn't try to seem invisible to the people around her anymore. Her head wasn't hung low and her nose wasn't buried in a reality that wasn't hers.

When she was in a room, she commanded it. Everyone knew she was there and they made her comfortable.

I saw her leaned on a boy's shoulder and for once, she was truly still. She was asleep but no one dared to take advantage of the vulnerability for she had none. Like I said, she had a protective aura around her that I can't quite explain.