As soon as she pushes me in between two trees. Two very tall, weak, thin trees. I'm starting to really doubt her judgment.
"Stay between these trees." She says in a whisper. "Don't look out and don't say anything."
I stand there, trying to catch my heart from beating out of my chest, thinking, I'd have better chances on my own. She really is trying to kill me. But as soon as this thought enters my mind. Brooke does something I'm not sure how to describe.
Her feet plant themselves into the ground like the trees. Her legs glue themselves together as her body changes from a girl into a plant. No not a plant. A thick vine. She wraps herself around the trees I'm standing between, twisting and weaving in and out. In circling me in a cacoon. There is just enough room for me to stand and maybe sit on the ground if I curl up in a ball. Her vine reaches high into the sky and I see it spread like wildflowers across other trees near by. As soon as the vine comes to a growing stop, leaves and flowers starch out from the vine. Hiding me completely. There is just enough time for me to slowly slide down into a ball, when the smoke reaches the clearing where we are.
"Brooke?" I say softly. But she either can't speak or won't speak in her plant form.
Another power a nymph has entertains my mind. She's like mother nature. Creating, guarding and absolutely has the power to beam light into anything. But most important, is the stream she's tied to, the rushing water of everlasting life. This stream is what everyone and everything searches for and yet never finds. The stream that's behind us. At least it used to be behind us. I no long can hear the rushing water.
Nervously, I rest my back on Brooke’s vines, feeling the plant of her come alive. Her heart beats with mine as we wait for the doom that's approaching. Our pounding heart beats, is the only thing I can hear. The only thing that's left. Boom boom boom. I desperately pray, I'm the only one that can hear it. Because I have a feeling that smoke isn't alone.
The temperature must have dropped at least 30 degrees. I peer through Brooks vines, but, I see nothing. Only the frost on the trees as the air turns frigid cold. My body starts shivering uncontrollably and after a few moments of rubbing my hands together and breathing hot air on my fingers. I realize the smoke isn't searching in vane for someone. It's following the carbon dioxide I breathe out. The more I breathe and shiver the easier it is to find me. My hand instantly rises to my mouth. Fully knowing its a foolish wish that I could somehow stop breathing and stay alive at the same time. If only. If only I could shift the air. Shift the wind.
My mind giggles with the idea that both Jayden and Brooke seem to think, I could control the wind. That somehow the power to will something so majestic, so wild, and untouchable, could come to me freely and easily. And, not even know I had the power to do so. But then again, what did make me feel that I was more powerful than all three of the pixies? Who exactly did I think I was in that moment?
Unsure how to answer that question. I decide the only way to find out, is to try and call the wind. I need to call the wind. It might be thr only thing that could save us now.
Untangling my arms from my legs, I circle my fingers around an invisible ball. I don't know if calling the wind has anything to do with my hands in this shape. It just feels right to me, or maybe my hands are so cold this is the only shape I can must up. Either way, it gives me something focuse on.
I think back to when Jayden told me to stop the wind. The panic in his voice when he couldn't tell which power was Zilor's and which were mine. What was I doing? Oh right, I was holding onto him for dear life. Unable to leave him to face Zilor alone. I was... afraid. Stupid. Full out insane at the moment. But I was afraid.
Then with the pixies and Brooke, surrounded by them with no where to run. Although I thought I was more powerful than them. Deep down, I was afraid, like a child on the school grounds being bullied. Like right now, I'm terrified. Every inch of my body is filled with stone cold terror. I'm trapped in Brooke’s cacoon, if that smoke follows my breath, there will be nothing to save me, no one to stand in front and tell me to run. No gaps of empty air where I could simply walk out of the circle.
A shadow crosses the courner of my eye and I jump. My heart quickens, but I don't let go of the invisible ball. Nor do I look away from my fingers. The air inside of my hands tingles as it whispers by. Suddenly, wind curls around me, like a dreamy hug or distension memory.
The wind is a whisper of a breeze, weaving in and out of Brooke’s vine. Dancing. I realize. A smile tickles on the corner of my lips. As I wonder if it will dance with me. I slowly take my right index finger and twirl it in a circle. Watching the movement in Brooke’s leaves. The breeze doesn't hesitate to mimics my finger in a small twirl of its own. When I let my finger come to a stop and, the small twist of a wind smooths out to a flittering gust. Never fully leaving the cacoon, but never fully caged either.
I can start it. I think. But can I stop it?
My teeth grind together and my cheeks burn hot. As I focus on making the air still. But nothing happens. In fact the breeze toys with me in a hungry vengeance. It wants to be released fully from the cacoon. Free to dance, to play, to destroy at will. My eyes squent into a line as I battle with it, but the wind only builds stronger. Gaining its power like an angry teenager.
"Raynee" A voice calls from beyond the cacoon and I suck in a breath, possibly my last breath.
Shifting to my knees, my hands plunge into the ground. Hoping that by some magical force, I might grow into a plant like Brooke. But no such luck, I stay in my weak, wimpy human form.
The light beyond Brooke’s vines turn dark as the fog creeps closer and closer to us. But as soon as it touches the cacoon my wind forces it back with a gust. I look up in amazement. I didn't even tell the wind to do anything. It shifted on its own. For a spit second, a thought crease in my mind. What if the voice could feel the push on the smoke? But if they did, they don't seem to turn towards us and the smoke moves past us without touching Brooke again.
"Raynee" this time I recognize the voice. The soft, sliky voice that rings through the air and through my vains. Jayden.
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