Opposites: The Staff of Light [Book One]

6. Owls Seem To Remember in 24 Hours

Alice

I slammed the door shut as I entered my room. Great, now, both of us were grounded. I'm sure we were grounded because of her. I swear, cross my heart, she's acting quite suspicious. 

My anger grew. It was like the second time I got scolded by my parents. I never did get scolded before. And then I decided I had to get to the bottom of this. 

Holding my breath, I got up from my bed and opened Annabeth's room. I know, it doesn't feel good but I couldn't live like that anymore. 

"Annabeth!" I shouted, a bit too louder than I expected. 

"Alice?" she turned to me. Her voice sounded real nervous. She grabbed a brown thing sitting on her window sill where she used to face before I barged into the room. "W-what are you doing here?"

For the first time in forever, I made Annabeth speak hopelessly. 

I was literally winning. 

"What's that?" I asked, my voice started to calm down, keeping my fears down and drew closer to her. 

Her hands were still in her back so I knew she was hiding something. "What's what?" 

"Stop acting stupid, Annabeth. I know there's something behind you". 

My footsteps started to make large snowflakes on the rough floor, like when Elsa ran away from Anna on water before she sang Let It Go. “Dude, what are you playing at exactly?” I asked in a soft gentle tone. “Look, Annabeth, we never get long. I know that, but you’re taking this too far. I wanna know, please.”

“Just stay away from me,” she said, revealing that little brown thing behind her. “A-Alice, meet Combust.”

I found this brown owl with these ridiculously wide eyes. But I’m not talking like any other owl. This one had living fire as eyes as they glowed. I swear if this owl gets angry, he might explode. That was something I honestly didn’t want to know. Imagine an owl bursting into fire. If I were an ordinary person I’d probably go ‘Oh, cool! An owl’s on fire but it isn’t burning!’, or maybe something like that.

But since I wasn’t any other ordinary person, I’d probably go, ‘Ow, ow, ow, bad little chaotic crazy owl.’ In case I saw that fuzzy thing gets mad. Hey, things happen. “Uh,” I nervously gulped back a lump in my throat. “Is that thing dangerous?”

The owl, Combust, hooted angrily. “Up-pup-pup,” Annabeth shushed as she patted the head. “Now, Combust, this is my sister we’re talking about here, no precise reason to get personal, now, do we?” She looked at me. “I engineered this creature with my own flame.”

“Wow, an engineer,” I mused. Then she glanced at the ground nervously. She gulped back a lump in her throat, like when I do when I’m nervous. “Um, Annabeth, we were going so great. Why are you like that?”

Annabeth smiled glumly. “Um, how about we… you know, exit my room and probably talk this through outside?”

“You mean outside, like, the snowy pavement or maybe our snowed-out patio?”

She facepalmed and looked back at me. Her owl flew on her right shoulder. “No,” she hesitated. “I mean, like, the living room where I can sit exactly in the hearth?”

“Oh. Yeah, ‘course we can.”

As we left Annabeth’s room, I hit myself in the head. “Oh, God,” I muttered to myself. “How stupid am I?”

After many years of being together, I’ve risked my life to take Annabeth out of her room, mainly out of the house, but nothing ever seems to turn out as perfect as it seemed. I hated spending my life with Alex, I just really didn’t feel… friendly with him. We were all opposites.

But I wondered. If Annabeth was exposed to more boys, would she act better like more than she is right now like when she gets it with Alex?

I didn’t much enjoy the afternoon. I let myself out after Annabeth’s simple explanation of every detail Combust brought to her (trust me, it took minute for her to simplify every sentence for me to understand) and sat on our snowed-out patio, like what I mentioned to Annabeth.

I didn’t know. The snow always made me feel better. Although the cold never really bothered me, I still had to wear snow outfits to make it less obvious of what I hid. My powers can sometimes get out of hand like that one time I froze my own phone. Trust me. It was sincerely not a good memory.

Now that my phone wasn’t around, what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t stay mad at Annabeth for too long. Somehow, life was crushing me down. I barely wanted to think, but there was nothing else I could do.

The patio was looking great. It looked like I was under the shade of a gazebo with glass walls and doors. I slid one door open and sat down on the steps. The cold wind blew through my hair. Everything was going great until I stepped on the wrong platform and tripped over unto the snow.

I thought for one moment. Maybe my ankle was sprained. But it surprisingly wasn’t. The snow covered it and I felt great in a jiffy. “You know we do have furniture for a purpose,” I heard a mischievous chuckle by the door. I thought I would be Annabeth, but I thought I was being stupid again. I turned and it turned out, I was right. Annabeth stood by the door, Combust giving her a hot aura. She dressed herself in a white shirt and blue sweater sleeves and dark blue jogging pants. With a boiling hot aura surrounding her, she looked like a princess of Casual Friday’s. “You could have just sat here.”

It gave me a bit of surprise actually. Annabeth never goes out. Maybe the conversation made her brave. “Annabeth,” I gasped with glee. “You’re out! I-I can’t believe… God, you’re not even a tint scared?”

She widened her eyes as if she had no idea she was on the snowed-out patio. “Oh, gosh!” she yelped as a snowflake dropped on her and she whimpered back into the house door. “Thanks for reminding me. I-I didn’t… I didn’t notice. I’ll see you in a bit.”