[Incomplete/Abandoned] Eyes Like Stars || A Heartless Marissa Meyer Story

Chapter 2- Weather

Jack woke to his sister's bounding energy. When she saw his eyes crack open she jumped up.

"Come on Jack! Play with me!" She laughed.

Jack felt refreshed from his sleep, so he smiled.

Springing into a crouch faster than should have been possible. He poked his sister gently in the belly, making her giggle.

"Tag, you're it!" He told her, and raced off into the maze. She followed him, still laughing.

The two children sped through the maze so fast that a normal human would only see a blur. Jack darted through turns, cataloging them in his brain to add them to his mental map. Left, right, left, left, right. He didn't have to slow down for his sister, she was faster than him.

Even though Jack had crazy super powers, Jill had been drinking from the well almost all her life, whereas he had only started at seven.

Jack poured in a burst of speed as he neared another break in the hedge. He leapt up and grabbed a handful of the hedge halfway up. His momentum swung him around and he let go at just the right time, speeding into the new path. He hit the ground...

And stopped dead.

Right there, not fifteen feet in front of him was a dead end. It wasn't that dead ends were so unusual to Jack. But this one was different. He simply stared at it, dumbfounded. He didn't even stop when Jill ran straight into him.

The siblings stood side by side in wonder. In front of them was a wall of roses. It was magnificent. Rising up into the ever blue sky, they were mesmerizing. At the top of the wall grew red roses, dark and beautiful. But as they got closer to the ground they became bleached, until their color was pure, bright white.

Jill stepped foreword. She closed the distance between herself and the wall quickly, but hesitantly. Her small hand reached out and touched one of the pure white flowers.

Jack moved to her side, both of their mouths still hanging open.

Without stopping to think Jack jumped straight up, a feat that wouldn't have been possible if he didn't live on magical treacle. He snatched one of the red roses from the top of the wall.

Jill plucked the white rose and held it gingerly in her hand.

"What..." she murmured.

"We'd better ask the sisters," Jack told her.

But they couldn't move. Somehow they were glued to the sight of the roses. They seemed to cry out to them, a sad story simply waiting for them to unravel it.

Jack and Jill stood stock still for who knew how long. Staring. Simply gazing at that strange wall of roses.

They might never have been broken from their reverie if it weren't for the strange liquid that fell from the sky just then.

Jill looked up at Jack, fear sparking in her lovely blue eyes.

Well, Jack knew he had to protect his sister. Whatever the wet stuff was, it was frightening him too. The always blue sky had turned an ominous gray.

They sprinted back to the clearing, practically teleporting, they moved so fast.

But another surprise was in store for them, and they stopped dead at the exit of the maze.

A man stood in their clearing, looking very lost.

"Bonjour my dear children. I beg your pardon, but who are you?" the man said.

"Make it stop," Jack demanded.

"What? Oh, do you not see? It is only rain, the water shan't hurt you," the man said, upon determining what they were afraid of.

"It does not rain here," Jack said slowly through his teeth.

"If I may... where is here?"

A/N: If you want to know more about this mysterious man, go read Adri's ( @AdriennePrevost 's) two shot in her book The Crabby Crawfish - A Book of One Shots. It's called Blooming in Thorns.