Flourished

Chapter 2- The Mark

Chapter Two-

The Mark

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Catherine stared at Jacob’s hand in disbelief. There was no way he could have a mark like hers. It's virtually impossible, but there it was, flowing from his palm, like water. “Has it worked for you yet?” Jacob questioned.

“Has what worked?” Catherine responded in confusion. Jacob stepped back running his Marked hand through his dark, snow-covered hair in contemplation. Moments later, he looked at her again.

“Do you know somewhere private we can talk?”

Catherine thought for a moment before telling him to follow her. She hopped into her Jeep and sped out of the slick parking lot with Jacob close behind. The park wasn’t far up the road, and nobody would be there in the frozen heart of winter, so Catherine decided to lead Jacob there. When they arrived, they sat on a wooden bench by the baseball diamond. The anxiety Catherine felt built with every second that Jacob silently stared at the falling flurry of snow. Questions flooded her mind— There are people like me? Is this something that basically happened to just anyone? She looked down at her hands, patterns ranging from the colors red to orange, sometimes even blue.

Am I normal?

“I had just turned seven,” Jacob began slowly and unsteadily, interrupting her thoughts. “It was…four days after my birthday. My parents had taken me across the country to see the Atlantic Ocean. I was walking along the water’s edge looking for interesting stones; my parents were walking some ways behind me.

“From the corner of my eye, I saw a rock that was gleaming—no, glistening—beneath the surface of the water, about a foot or so in. I looked back at my parents, but they had stopped progressing forward and were arguing. I shrugged it off and turned to grab the gem.

“Sure enough, I was seven and hadn't considered the fact that we were in the North, and the water was ice cold, chilling to the bone, even. But I managed to grasp it safely in my right hand. When I opened my palm to take a glimpse at the sapphire, it was gone. Instead, there was a dark blue mark, a flourish from an artist’s brush. It was something small at first, just a few strokes hugging my hand, yet it rattled my parents nonetheless." He chuckled a bit, under his icy exhale and then turned to meet Catherine's gaze. "I’m guessing something similar happened to you?” Jacob asked, looking at her intently for the first time since they had sat down.

“Yes, quite similar. It was just by the river, near my village on my seventh birthday. The main difference was that my gem was a ruby instead of a sapphire, and my mark is on both palms—well, arms now,” she said, bending both her limbs to give Jacob a better look. In return, she received a small smile from Jacob. Her heart throbbed for a moment there, leaving her feeling flushed. But she didn't really understand the concept of why, so she just shrugged the pleasant experience off.

“It hasn’t worked for you yet. It started working for me a couple of weeks ago, a few days after my seventeenth birthday. I was in a pretty bad go with my dad. I don’t even remember what it was about, but I was infuriated. We were both at each other, and had been by the pond at the time. As my anger grew, the pond began to ripple. Then ripples became waves that grew choppy, crashing upon the grass surrounding it. We didn’t even notice until it began to pour, then sleet.

“It was only when we took shelter from the rain that we saw it. My arm was throbbing, and my mark was glowing, but it, too, was pulsing. Bright, dim, bright, dim. It... it was too much for my father. He kicked me out of the house, disowned me even..." Saying this, his face was hardly composed. Pain and anger was written all over, but his eyes read sadness. At the corner of her eye, Catherine saw a bit of a spark in his hand, but as quick as it had arrived, it had gone as Jacob calmed. "I grabbed my pack along with the money I’d earned over the summer, then I roamed the streets for a few days.