The Seven Revels

Girl With The Red Balloon

Indigo's favorite thing to do was sit in the cornfields. She'd wander for hours until she knew she was hopelessly lost, then sit down with her notebook and write for hours, until it got dark or someone found her. Milo made a habit of joining her, under the condition that he could find her. When he could, he'd sit next to her and watch her write. He'd lay back on his elbows, his blue eyes fixed on her as time swept by them, brushing past them but never quite touching them.

One day, she misplaced the notebook. She tore her room apart in search of it, fell apart when she could not find it anywhere. When Milo found her in the cornfields that night, she was sobbing. She had tried especially hard to get lost; she didn't want him finding her like that. He sat beside her, quiet, for a long time. Then he looked at her.

"Did you lose it?" he asked.

She nodded, dragging her hands under her eyes. She stared ahead.

"It was a gift from my mom," she told him.

"I'll help you look for it when we get home, okay?"

"Okay, but if you find it, you have to promise you won't look inside."

He looked puzzled. "Why not?"

"It's just... something I want to keep private."

"What? You're not writing... you know... in gory detail...?"

She shoved his arm playfully. "Ew, you're disgusting. No, it's nothing like that. It's just... I think about them a lot..."

"Your mom and dad?"

"Yeah. I know they've been gone a while now, but I just... feel better when I have my notebook with me. I feel like they're just... sitting next to me, watching over me."

"That might just be me," he said, trying to hide his blush.

"No, it's different from that," Indigo said, not even looking at him. "It's... hard to explain." She felt his hand on top of hers.

"It's okay. I don't have to understand it. He helped her to her feet and gathered her in his arms. "I know they've been gone for a while now, but I also know you're still hurting. I'm always going to be here for you."

She touched her forehead to his shoulder and closed her eyes. She breathed in his familiar scent. "I know," she said after a while.

When they were fourteen, they sat together in the cornfields.

"My Nana is furious with me," she was telling him. "I've never seen her so upset before. I mean, all I did was not clean my room. I don't even understand why she needs me to clean it. It's not like we're having company over."

"You know how mothers are," he said. "Er... Grandmothers, rather. My mother is the same way. Gets mad over the silliest things."

She placed her hands behind her, locked her elbows and leaned back. "I'm just glad I have someone I can run to, and a place I can run to, to get away from all of that."

"Yeah, me too."

"I walked down the road a little ways yesterday, did I tell you about that?"

"No, how far did you go?"

"To the next farm over. It's maybe an hour's walk that way," she pointed. "I wasn't really headed anywhere in particular, I just wanted to walk for a while and I got there and..."

"They're kind of crazy upper class, aren't they?" he asked. "My mother has talked about them a few times. Jokes about how we must have adopted Daniel from that family."