Ariel's Daughter

Chapter 23

The day has a calm demeanor today, and I feel relaxed but can't help but feel something is coming whether it's a storm, danger, or something small, I couldn't tell. I feel rain drip from the sky to my cheek. Just starting to sprinkle, and I decide to stay seated with my feet dangling freely below the surface of the lake. I can't help but feel happy with the patter of unevenness from the raindrops falling on my face. I smile the same warmth of happiness spreading throughout my body in moments. A rustle that disturbs my dress lets me know that someone just joined me. I know its Avery, its his same gentleness of his steps, of his motions that makes it him to me. I know he is smiling to because I can hear the blaring of the connection between us like an alarm that goes off in the morning. I have a sense of his feelings in my head, so fully adjusted from the first day I'd met him. Since then, I have gotten much better at reading them. I was rather proud of that, and happy I could know how to interact with him at the correct moments he needed them.

I hear a second pair of feet making their way towards Avery and I on the docks. From the pattern and loudness, I know its Madilyn and her hugely clumsy ways. She wasn't the most balanced person I guessed. She claims that its because she wasn't completely used to walking on the docks like I was, but I always argue that Avery has no problem with it. It was a hilarious topic for me, I always end up laughing and we'd find a new topic of interest forgetting completely about the previous one.

"You enjoying the rain?" Madilyn's loud voice comes. I laugh quietly. Next to me I hear Avery move his feet back and forth in the water gently as if he's determined to distract himself from something. I try not to think about it and instead answer his sister's question.

"Plenty." I answer simply and she sighs. I hear the waves churn against the wood we sit upon as it becomes silent again. It's a lovely sound, but with Avery's strange behavior its almost annoying.

"Your father thinks that there is a storm coming in tonight. A rather strong one at that." She says, and I am too distracted by Avery that I only answer with a 'hmm.' And an 'okay.' "Ember, it's a storm. Coming. Now." Madilyn says sharply and I am cut from my mind at once. I've never heard her voice so brutal sounding, an anger inside it. I know its not meant towards me, its not the correct anger to me, but to someone else. Probably something repressed from her mind at the moment, but its still there almost taking it out on us. I rush myself in getting up and pull Avery up with me. All three of us find ourselves back in my cabin, my father waiting for the water to boil in the kettle to keep everyone warm.

"The wind has picked up greatly and when I glance outside it looks as if the waves are standing on their own feet in anger." My father says sounding worried and I don't blame him. From what I can hear outside our cabin, doesn't sound good.

Hours later we are sitting on the couch listening to the radio go out and in of static. I finally get up, fed up with not being able to pick up any words being said and turn the radio off. It grows deadly silent except for the large cracks of the waves monstrously hitting the cabins, and the rain thundering down on the roof. I sigh. "Maybe we should take our minds off this and play a game of cards." I say to the group. No one moves until I get up and go and find a deck of cards and sit down expectantly at the table, waiting for them to join me. I know cards aren't what they want to do right now in our situation, neither do I, but I hate just listening to it like it'd go away in a minute or two.

They all slowly sit down at the table and my father shuffles the cards quickly. "Which game?" My father asks. I smile gently.

"Go fish." I answer simply. He hands me five cards and I feel them textures of each. Long ago he'd made sure to make each cards different. A piece of tape on the king of diamonds, a piece of clay on an eight of spades. I feel my five cards and finally am ready. We play go fish many many times, and as we keep playing we finally all forget about the huge menacing storm outside our cabin.