In The Burrow

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

The portrait

The ochre fox flew through the night.

No voice exhaled out of my throat, but the wooden floor wailed as my body fell. The last thing I caught was the open room door and Elf walking ghostly as it went down the unlit stairs.

When I woke up by the morning, there's vaguely any of it I remember as I stared on the white ceiling. There's a little panic I felt as I gasped for fair amount of air. It was the same feeling with that dream of falling. My mind whirled with the memory of Elf, lamp and two yellow stars outside the window. The unclarity of it made me decide it was nothing but weird dream.

Although, I had the feeling it was not.

The gentle raps at the door sort of awakened a strange wildness in my chest I was almost sure I have gotten last night. Or perhaps yesterday... In the car, with the wild fox.

Lala told me it's time.

Dada was perfecting his pancakes and sunny side-ups when I went bathed and dressed downstairs. The simple ruffles on my dress's hem gained a smile from him. Dada liked ruffles.

"Up for new school?", he asked through the scent of chocolate pancakes. Finding art in every little commons was one of the things I got from him. Gentleness and patience was another.

I hummed as response, sipping through the little chocolate cup he gave me, sweetened by honey.

"Your mother and her sister, your aunt Lyria both studied on Levantre High School. I remember her telling me to bring you there sometimes...", Dada trailed. It was not always that I hear Dada open about my mother. They were fond of each other, that's for sure. I remembered her portrait hung on our house.

Her brown eyes and hair and darker skin. Contrary to my black hair and paler skin which was my father's. Although, my eyes were hers.

I have a vague memory of her but there was these picture of her smiling for that portrait as my father painted her. I was four. I kept that with me.

At least, Lala was there to always tell me stories about her sometimes. Something like playing in woods, feeding fish in pond, making flower laces. She would tell me all those pretty things about her, but aside from those, I guess, it would be my father's words of her that I always cram.

There were three schools in Levantre and now I knew where she studied, I thought as we drove through the hedge.

I brought my pink tumbler and a pack of cookies along with some papers for my enrollment. Dada left me on the gate and promised to fetch me before lunch.

I was two weeks late for the supposed to be enrollment and classes had started in LHS. It was Friday. However, Lala had already contacted the principal prior to our arrival yesterday so I had no other worries than the interview.

There was an interview. In the name of Elf.

"In the Latnyah Building, Second floor, Room 6.", I read infront of the map of school on the waiting shed, trying to find where it could be. I found it in a scan. It was located in far north, beyond the Greenhouses and just beside the Latzyah Building.

The school wasn't that big compared to my former school. The buildings were easy to locate and some legends were just as I envisioned them to be. I passed by the Greenhouse after the mini-garden of school and saw the olive paint of Latnyah Building from the distance. Good thing, I was good with maps.

I strolled through the uncemented path, puffing white mists through the 8 A.M. air. It was warm under my white dress.

There was a small pond it front of Latnyah building. Something unseen from afar, perhaps, because of the greenery. It sparkled through the early light.

Someone from my back threw at stone at it. It bounced through its pristine surface, creating ripples and startling what seemed like frog. It jumped through the grasses to hide. I scrunched my nose as a bark of laughter rang behind.

"Why would you do that?", I asked in a silent voice.

"You are new?", he asked. I faced him, little annoyed with the avoidance. He raised his brow to me as if trying to be friend. I didn't answer.

"I...", he trailed, trying to remember my question. "...was annoyed. Sorry," I raised a brow.

He waved his right hand, filled with a rim of papers as if his reason was obvious. His long hair danced. "Too much paper works."

I looked at him and nodded.

"You are new?", he repeated. I hummed as response to which he seemed pleased.

I started walking. "You'll be going to Ms. Correal, then?", I did not know, so I didn't answer. He just pouted, then nodded rather knowingly to himself.

We traced the path through the first floor of Latnyah Building, him seemingly trying to slow down to get along with my pace. He's now reading his papers, while, I look at the pond from the over the rails. The frog was slowly jumping back to his rock. I caught him pouting with the sight.

"I didn't mean that. Truly," as if trying to defend himself.

I laughed. "It's fine. You didn't...", trying to decide whether to say hit or hurt the frog. I got whelmed with the analysis.

"Didn't?", he smiled at me, waiting for my answer.

"Splash him off," that triggered a set laughter from him.

"I like how you describe things. Wordy," I wanted to tell him I was not. That I often don't speak because I would constantly have a hard time wording my thoughts. But just in time I had thought of right phrase to say, he bid his bye infront of last room on the ground floor.

"I'll pass my papers here.", he smiled and nodded off the door of room. His brown hair swayed. I sent him with a sigh.

"Share something about yourself, Ms. Witherwood," Ms. Correal lifted her glasses as she spoke. Her room was painted in every shades of green and covered with artificial moss. The scent of forest wafted in some sort of comforting manner.

I tried to think of something worth. Something not too simple. Something I was proud of.

"I paint," I said briefly.

"What sort of things do you paint?"

"Everything," I told her honestly. I painted our fading city. I painted the dawn when I first came. I painted the ocher fox. Elf eating apple pie. I sketched my room. The grasses.

And later, I would paint the pond and the frog.

Ms. Correal asked not much of questions, perhaps sensing silence behind every answers. Fortunately, she then later just told me to sketch something. I scanned her room to find for an idea as she perused through my informations and papers.

The cold in my hand gave not much of motivation to draw. The pressure to somehow show something impressive roomed me. The sound of green clock making me scrunch my nose. But then, I started to scratch the paper.

Long dark hair, thick eyebrows, soulful eyes, small nose and rounded lips, caged in a beautiful outline of face.

Minutes later, I gave her a sketch of the guy I met on the way to her office. She took off her glasses and on her lips played a ghost of a smile.

"You know him?", she asked.

I don't so I didn't answer.

She smiled. "This is Nicholas. He's a year ahead of you. Grade 12, but you two have the same strand."

Nicholas.

She took the portrait, stared at it before placing it between the pages of an old book. I had the urge to ask her what will she do to my drawing and I tried to construct it, better to sound as if I was merely curious.

But then there was a knock.