Winter's Spring

'Chapter 2'

It had been 1 year and a half since I had found her in the street. We had grown remarkably close, and she very much trusted me. In the first few months she had trusted me to wash her up and she had trusted me enough as well to wash her toy, but she had watched me closely as I had done it. We had moved from Chișinău to Bucharest in Romania, and we had just moved into the new apartment. The supplies in the apartment were running low and I knew I had to go out and buy some more supplies. I didn't know whether it was smart to leave this girl alone in the apartment, so I decided to bring her with me. We walked down the streets, but I made sure that she held onto my hand as we walked. We found a small market and decided that that would be the best place to buy the things we needed. Firstly, we stopped by a clothing store, and I bought Gracie some new clothes that fitted her since she had grown. We then stopped by the farmers market and collected some fruits and vegetables. The store owner's oved Gracie and kept her busy as I shopped.

Once we had our things, we made our way home. We stumbled up the stairs and then we walked into the apartment. I chucked the bags onto the counter and one of the bags toppled over. The bag of different fruits spilled out of the bag and out onto the counter. I sighed and walked around the counter to collect the fruits that had fallen onto the floor and saw them floating with red mist around them. I looked at them in shock and then looked at Gracie who had her hands up. I watched as she moved her hands gently and the fruits followed her movements, she placed them gently onto the bench and then returned to what she was doing. I walked over to her, and she was colouring in a small colouring set I had bought her.

"Gracie! Cum ai făcut asta? (Gracie, how did you do that?)" I asked shocked, crouching down to her level. She simply shrugged her shoulders and continued. 'This girl has powers, how had I managed to find a young girl with powers? And the fact that it had taken a year and a bit to find out? How could I have been so stupid.' I think to myself. I looked up at her again and saw blood dripping from her nose. I reached my hands up gently and wiped. I stood up and washed my hand covered with blood at the sink and then grabbed some tissues and walked back over to her. I grabbed out some tissues and folded them before pressing it to her nose. I pressed it to her nose and pressed my hand to the back of her head and rubbed it slightly.

(TIME SKIP TILL 4 HOURS LATER)

Gracie's blood nose had stopped about three and a half hours ago. I sat on the bed watching the young girl sit and colour in her book. I wrote in my journal the events that had happened over the past two weeks. I then looked up and saw Gracie packing up the book and crayons. She picked them up and then walked over to her backpack and packed them inside. She then crawled onto the bed and came up next to me. She laid down and rested her head on my lap and looked up at me. I used my hand rubbed her hair, carefully.

"De ce ești atât de uimit când am prins prunele? (Why were you so surprised when I caught the plums?)" she asked.
"Pentru că nu i-ai prins cu mâinile. I-ai prins cu puterea ta.(Because you didn't catch them with your hands. You caught them with you power.)" I answered. She slowly nodded.
"Vrei să încep cina? Ți-e foame? (Do you want me to start dinner, are you hungry?)" I asked, She shook her head.
"Nu mă deranjează, nu mi-e foame. (I don't mind, I'm not really hungry.)" She mumbled. I nodded.

"Bucky, spune-mi o poveste, te rog? (Bucky, tell me a story please?)" She asked. I looked down at the girl in my lap.

"Bine, (Okay,)" I paused, thinking of a story. "A fost odată ca niciodată.... (Once upon a time....)" I started.

(TIME SKIP TILL LATER)
Gracie was asleep on my lap, and I was gently stroking her head. I look at the girl and see all the cuts and bruises she had when I first found her were slowly fading away. She was becoming much more comfortable with me, and she was starting to open up. But she never said a word about her family, as if she either never knew them, or she didn't want to talk about it. I gently leant down, picked her up and moved her to the other side of the bed. I tucked her in, wrapping her in blankets. I got up and made sure all everything was locked and then I turned off all the lights. I got into bed with her and leant down on my pillow. I tucked the blanket over me and felt the bed shift next to me. I felt warm hands wrap around me and then someone laying their head onto my arm. I wrapped my arm around the child next to me.