It's hard to be lonely in a house filled to the brim with people. People being women of all ages, varying levels of psychic ability, and more or less tenuous relation to the more permanent residents of the house.
The house is filled with bodies tall enough to reach for books on the highest shelf, hands and mouths to soothe scraped knees or fill a glass of milk, laps to sit in, mouths to press a goodnight kiss against her forehead, and arms to envelope her in too tight hugs.
It's also -- according to common knowledge in the little rundown elementary school with rusted swing sets and plastic slides, their color slowly fading in the sun -- filled with witches.
Blue Sargent is not lonely. Blue Sargent has no friends.
The two facts exist together as two indisputable truths.
There is always something going on at the house. A reading. A lecture. A practice in self-guided mediation. The laying of hands. Dinner being made in the kitchen while a veritable litter of children play on the floor. All of the above at the same time. There's laughter and screaming and only at night does a kind of stillness settle over the house and its inhabitants.
Blue Sargent loves her family. Blue Sargent hates the noise that fills every corner of her home.
In a house full of bodies and arms and laughter and crying, it's easy to overlook the absence of one quietly serious little girl who does all of her homework on time and carefully hides her broccoli in a napkin rather than kick up a fuss about its presence on her dinner plate.
The house is particularly loud today. Blue's shoulders are nearly to her earlobes, molars grinding together hard enough to shatter rocks by the time she slips out through the backdoor and runs to a crack in the fence that separates their backyard from the forest beyond.
The forest is her Fortress of Solitude. Her Forest of Solitude, if you will. A moniker Blue has never spoken out loud but is immensely proud of all the same. A secret that is just her own. In a house where most things are shared or handed down, it's a treasure in and of itself.
It's her favorite time of the year, when the sticky heat of summer gives way to the crisper warmth of autumn and the trees explode in a kaleidoscope of colors. The further she walks down the worn path winding between the trees, the easier she breathes.
Inside her hand-me-down rainboots (a faded yellow with water color sunflowers re-painted on them after each rainstorm washes them away) her feet are too hot in the two pairs of thick socks necessary to keep her from stepping clean out of her boots. Underneath her arm she carries a book that the school librarian said was Too Complicated for her age.
Blue stops short at her destination, a tall and wide beech tree that's the perfect shape to read beneath. The spot -- the Perfect spot, Her spot -- is occupied by a strange boy.
One she hasn't seen before.
For a moment, she thinks that maybe he's a ghost. Maybe everyone was wrong and her Sight is just finally coming in.
But Blue's pretty sure ghosts don't have black eyes or grimy looking casts or jeans with frayed hems.
"Who are you?" Blue demands sharply, her eyes pointed with accusation. "That isn't your tree."
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It's hard to be lonely in a house filled to the brim with people. People being women of all ages, varying levels of psychic ability, and more or less tenuous relation to the more permanent residents of the house.
The house is filled with bodies tall enough to reach for books on the highest shelf, hands and mouths to soothe scraped knees or fill a glass of milk, laps to sit in, mouths to press a goodnight kiss against her forehead, and arms to envelope her in too tight hugs.
It's also -- according to common knowledge in the little rundown elementary school with rusted swing sets and plastic slides, their color slowly fading in the sun -- filled with witches.
Blue Sargent is not lonely.
Blue Sargent has no friends.
The two facts exist together as two indisputable truths.
There is always something going on at the house. A reading. A lecture. A practice in self-guided mediation. The laying of hands. Dinner being made in the kitchen while a veritable litter of children play on the floor. All of the above at the same time. There's laughter and screaming and only at night does a kind of stillness settle over the house and its inhabitants.
Blue Sargent loves her family.
Blue Sargent hates the noise that fills every corner of her home.
In a house full of bodies and arms and laughter and crying, it's easy to overlook the absence of one quietly serious little girl who does all of her homework on time and carefully hides her broccoli in a napkin rather than kick up a fuss about its presence on her dinner plate.
The house is particularly loud today. Blue's shoulders are nearly to her earlobes, molars grinding together hard enough to shatter rocks by the time she slips out through the backdoor and runs to a crack in the fence that separates their backyard from the forest beyond.
The forest is her Fortress of Solitude. Her Forest of Solitude, if you will. A moniker Blue has never spoken out loud but is immensely proud of all the same. A secret that is just her own. In a house where most things are shared or handed down, it's a treasure in and of itself.
It's her favorite time of the year, when the sticky heat of summer gives way to the crisper warmth of autumn and the trees explode in a kaleidoscope of colors. The further she walks down the worn path winding between the trees, the easier she breathes.
Inside her hand-me-down rainboots (a faded yellow with water color sunflowers re-painted on them after each rainstorm washes them away) her feet are too hot in the two pairs of thick socks necessary to keep her from stepping clean out of her boots. Underneath her arm she carries a book that the school librarian said was Too Complicated for her age.
Blue stops short at her destination, a tall and wide beech tree that's the perfect shape to read beneath. The spot -- the Perfect spot, Her spot -- is occupied by a strange boy.
One she hasn't seen before.
For a moment, she thinks that maybe he's a ghost. Maybe everyone was wrong and her Sight is just finally coming in.
But Blue's pretty sure ghosts don't have black eyes or grimy looking casts or jeans with frayed hems.
"Who are you?" Blue demands sharply, her eyes pointed with accusation. "That isn't your tree."