The Tale of Red Rocks

Chapter Two

I didn't know what Isaac was doing and if he was even alive, but I hoped he was okay. I told Elise that nothing possibly could have happened to him in three weeks, and she seemed to believe me. I wasn't sure if I should believe it myself, but the last thing I wanted to do was upset her.

Father had let me take walks with Elise every day for the last week and he hadn't even scolded me for skipping my lesson, which he paid a lot of money for. He was somewhat changed. It was the absence of Isaac that affected him. I tried even more to be like my brother now that he wasn't home, but Father didn't care. For him, I was still just me. Isaac was a God.

Isaac used to have meetings with our father once a week and I was never allowed to know what they talked about. When that happened, Mother used to sit and talk to me. "When they have their secrets, we can have ours," she always said. I didn't think much of it back then, but after Isaac left, I missed talking to her.

Mother ignored me when my father was around and we only spoke when he was somewhere else. And then, she didn't even want to talk to me, she just said 'good morning' or 'where is Elise?' or something like that. It wasn't Isaac's fault, how could it be, but I still found a way to blame him. I didn't want him to be the hero. After all, what had he done to honor our family? Left to serve his own honor? I was ready to throw my whole life away to make Father proud; I was willing to give up on every dream I had to make him proud. However, the only thing my father really wanted from me was the one thing that I could never give him; I could never be Isaac.

I wanted so badly to tell Elise about it, but I knew it would just upset her more than necessary, and I wanted to make her happy. It was what I had promised Isaac when he left and I wasn't going to let him down. I wouldn't say anything to upset Elise, ever.

We were sitting by the river watching the water flow in the light of the high sun. Elise was drawing something in a little book she carried around. I hadn't seen it before the day before and back then she'd tried to hide it from me. Now, she was drawing in it while I watched her. I couldn't see the paper but I could see her face lighting up when she swung the pen.

"I heard a circus is coming to town on Friday," I said. Elise looked up at me and nodded.

"I've never been to a circus. Will you take me there?" She smiled again. Not alive, yet not completely dead.

"Of course I will. I've never been to a circus either," I admitted to her. And then she told me she knew that. I realized that she knew so much more about me than I knew about her, but not because she'd shown enough interest in my life before. No, she knew because I hadn't changed. I couldn't change. Not even though I so badly wanted to.

I tried asking her what she was drawing, but she wouldn't show me. The minute I brought it up, she put the little book back in her purse and pretended it didn't exist. I let it go, or at least I chose to wait some time before I asked again.

"Louis?" I loved the way she said my name. I loved her voice.

"Yes?"

"I want to go somewhere." She looked at me, hopeful.

"Where do you want to go?" I asked her. Elise shrugged her shoulders got up from the ground. She started taking her shoes off and tossed them away. Next followed her stockings. It felt wrong looking at her. She hiked the hilt of her dress and started walking out in the water with bare feet. "Please, join me." She waved at me as she took a few more steps further out in the river. I realized I had to follow to make sure she didn't fall in. I started taking off my shoes, but Elise was already moving further out in the river. She was almost in the middle of it.

"Elise! Wait a second!" I yelled after her. I tried to hurry more, but she was around a hundred feet away already. "Wait!" I called after her, but she had started running in the water.