Rowan → Ethan Nakamura ✔

Prophecies

"Ready or not, here I come!"

Rowan opened her eyes with glee. She scanned the park, giant trees rustling, their branches obscuring the sky. The sun streamed through the leaves, the dark brown of benches turned mahogany beneath its light. Adults walked past, some flashing her a friendly smile, others looking around for her parents just to make sure she wasn't alone. Sometimes they had children who played their own games, laughing and running just like Rowan.

"I'll find you!" She promised, cheerfully shouting. Movement flickered in the corner of her eye, and she dashed to a nearby tree trunk. "Aha!"

She frowned, bewildered. There was nobody behind it. Something hit her in the back. "Ow!"

A small fruit bounced off her and rolled into the grass. Rowan looked up to see a boy her age, jet black hair over his eyes. He grinned cheekily, legs swinging from the branch he was sitting on.

"That's not how the game works!" Rowan shouted up at him. "You weren't supposed to tell me!"

"It's not like you can catch me anyway," he said, triumphantly kicking his feet.

"Oh yeah?" Rowan narrowed her eyes.

"Try it." The boy urged, confident in her failure. It only motivated Rowan more.

She crouched down and jumped as high as she could. If anyone had been paying attention, they would have seen a girl hang in the air, the ends of her ruffled top flutter as if stilled in time. It was like she was attached to invisible wires, an assistant in a magician's levitation trick. Then Rowan grabbed a nearby branch, and the spell was broken.

She wrapped her legs around it and turned over so that her stomach was on the branch. She got to her feet, balancing perfectly, and looked up at the boy, whose cocky smirk had disappeared. "You better run, Nakamura."

He let out a shout of excitement and childish fear before scrambling up the tree, Rowan in hot pursuit.

"Come here!"

"No, you monkey freak!"

"You were the one who climbed up here first!"

They jumped from branch to branch, disturbing nests and frightening small birds, who squawked in irritation as their homes were occupied by a hand or a shoe. Soon, Rowan felt sunlight on her face, and she grinned. Nowhere to run. Sure enough, the boy faltered, and Rowan quickly tapped him on the ankle.

"Got you," She sang. "Who's the loser now?"

The boy pouted, sitting on a branch. Rowan joined him. They were directly on top of the tree, leaves spread around them like cupped hands. "You suck, Ro."

"I also won. I think that was record time."

The boy checked a small digital watch on his left wrist. Rowan remembered picking it out for his tenth birthday – she knew he would have liked the pixelated scale drawing that appeared when a button was pressed. An actual metal scale was too expensive for the budget her parents had given her, so she had opted for this cheap, plastic watch instead.

Regardless, Ethan had loved it.

"Two seconds faster than me," he said morosely. "But I also told you where I was, so it doesn't count."

"That's what I said, and you said it didn't matter, so it does count." Rowan argued.

"No, it doesn't."

"Yes, it does!" Rowan gently hit his arm.

"Hey!" Ethan hit her back. Rowan did the same, and they squabbled like magpies over shiny treasure.