Things Seen and Unseen

It had been a few days since Evelyn had arrived at the academy. With the expansive grounds that surrounded the physical buildings, she made it her goal to spend any free moment she had exploring them. Today, in the weak September sunlight, she found herself standing on the edge of the forest, hair tied away from her face in a messy bun, a scarf wrapped around her neck and her hands shoved in the pockets of her blazer.

From the outside, she couldn't see anything scary within the forest. Several paths dotted the edge of the treeline, worn from what was no doubt years of students traipsing into the forest. Evelyn studied each path, trying to decide which to take, and she was struck by the lines of some poem she had studied a couple years ago. The memory made her smile. A brisk wind soon wiped it off her face, however, and a shiver ran through her body.

Suddenly, movement from within the forest caught her eye. It was down the path closest to her left and moved too quickly for her to really see what it was, and Evelyn found herself seized by a childlike feeling of adventure. The smile found its way back to her face, and with a strange determination, she set off down the path, hoping that whatever she had seen had followed the path as well instead of forging its way deep into the wilder parts of the forest.

Various types of trees towered over her, their thin branches hardly blocking out the light from above. She loved the silence that was all around her, glad of the solace it provided from the typically busy school. The only sounds came from hidden animals that lived in the trees and bushes.

It was without a single glimpse of the thing that had moved that Evelyn reached a small clearing. Three more paths branched off of the clearing, all of them nearly identical. Her hands had left her pockets, her body warming up from the brief exercise, and she tugged the scarf from her neck, twisting it in her hands. Her gaze swept from the left to the right, sizing up and evaluating each path, wondering which would be the best to go down. The excitement from the original sighting was beginning to ebb, and Evelyn wondered why on earth she had chased something she had no hope of catching.

The trees never kept orange in North Dakota, at least around Beata Academy. It was the curse of a short autumn, an immediate fall of the leaves. It seemed to usually happen overnight, in two days if you were lucky. This is what Logan heard from some whispering upperclassmen. He caught the purge of leaves just a week later, on a cold September day. He had to walk through the forest. Logan did just this, and when he reached a fork in the road, one with three paths, he went for the one with the peculiarity: a small bunny. The little animal was plopped in the middle of the road, almost appearing dead. It wasn't, however, it's tiny black eyes darting around as if it wanted to go. But it...couldn't. It's foot peeked out of its fluff, a crimson color suggesting it got snagged in some sharp thicket, or narrowly escaped a predator.

Either way, it would be killed if he did not help it. Logan began to walk up the path steadily, cooing to the animal that was now looking up at him. He had read somewhere that they could scare themselves to death. If he could just reach the creature, if he could just touch his leg, he would be able to heal it. He could save it's life. As he got closer, the thing tried to hobble off, and fell over. Logan frowned. Poor thing.

"Sssh..." The rabbit froze once more as Logan crouched down. Surely it thought he was going to kill it in some way. All he did, though, was grab lightly at its foot, which began kicking with the wrath of a thousand suns, the animal squeaking loudly. Once his hand started glowing, however, it stopped. Once his hand started glowing, it froze, and grew silent.

Before the boy knew it, he had a tiny bunny in his arms, one hand gripping its foot as he healed it with his power. An autumn's walk and a new friend; what a good day. Every once in a while, he'd begin to tsk at it, making light clicks, as if it was helping. He had no fucking clue if it was helping or not.

His back was turned to the path, in the direction he had been walking.

Evelyn deliberated over the choice of path for just a few more moments. It was another breeze that rustled the leaves around her that encouraged her forward. She chose the least distinctive path: the middle one. As she approached the start, she hung her scarf loosely around her neck.

The girl had barely traveled down the path, however, when she turned the corner and found a teenage boy standing there. He hadn't seemed to hear her approaching, and she considered, for a moment, turning around and going back to a different path. But something about the way he was standing caught her eye, and she approached silently, careful not to make any sudden noises.

Once she was within five feet, Evelyn could see something in his arms. It looked like an animal, and he was whispering to it in a soothing voice. She was too close to get away without him seeing her. She stopped where she was, four feet down the path, and cleared her throat to get his attention, hoping she wouldn't startle him or the animal.

Logan jumped slightly at her clearing her throat. Some crazy part of him expected a wolf, or something to come for its kill, the bunny in his arms that was now beginning to fall asleep. He had been absentmindedly stroking its chin, after all, that usually lulled small animals to sleep.

He turned, however, and was greeted by a girl. He supposed she was not there to kill him or his new friend, and relaxed, giving her a whisper. "Um," he said silently, "It's sleeping. I'm kind of stuck with it now." Its leg seemed completely healed, rhythmically pawing at his jacket sleeve. He smiled awkwardly, mostly to the bundle of fluff in his arms. When did he become a mother?

It was a rabbit. Evelyn could see that it was sleeping in the boy's arms as he tickled its chin. Her eyes drifted upward, and she felt her heart skip a beat when she saw really saw the boy. In an effort to keep any color from her cheeks, she redirected her attention to the bunny in his arms, its sides moving up and down in a smooth rhythm.

"What happened to it?" she asked, keeping her won voice low. Carefully, Evelyn moved a few steps closer, her hand coming up a little, as though she was preparing to touch the rabbit. She didn't quite go all the way.

"I don't know." He looked down on it. "He was just injured. I'm an infirmary hand, I'm used to injured people, but..." The boy massaged it's nose, causing it to twitch, before looking up. "Um, sorry, you can pass if you want. I think I'll take this little guy back, at least for food." She was cute, but so was the rabbit. Plus, he estimated he had to heal himself soon. The nape of his neck had begun to beat, and though his lungs kept a normal vibrancy, he expected them to sloth soon.

The reason she had come down this path in the first place suddenly came back to Evelyn. She glanced around the boy, further down the path.
"You didn't happen to see anything else down here, did you?" she asked, returning her attention to him. Her hopes weren't very high, but she wanted to see if she could find whatever it was. "I saw something earlier, and I think it came this way."

Something? That sounded rather creepy. Who follows something into the woods? Logan gave her a peculiar look, and shook his head. "No, sorry." he smiled. "Do you think you saw a ghost or something?"

Maybe she saw the thing that hurt the bunny? The boy realized it could still be lurking around, and could mean trouble for them as well. "Hey, maybe you should come along too. It seems kinda...dangerous out here." He remembered the sentence he said earlier, and shook his head, quickly correcting himself, "Not because of ghosts or anything. Ghosts don't exist."

Ghosts? Evelyn had never even considered that what she had seen was paranormal. She glanced around surreptitiously, suddenly nervous about what might be in the forest. Without thinking about it, she inched a bit closer to him.
"Yeah, okay," she agreed. In an effort to not appear as afraid as she felt, she straightened herself up, tugging her scarf and jacket snug to her frame. "I'll let you lead, then."

And so Logan began to lead. As he did so, sheltering the bunny, he tossed back a question, assuming the girl was on his tail. "What's your name, if you don't mind me asking?" If they were going to take care of a bunny together, they might as well be getting acquainted. Logan wondered if she would stick with him to the infirmary. Did he make her feel obligated? Logan gave himself a coarse expression. Was he leading this girl away from a one-in-a-season autumn walk?

Well, if he was, it was too late to shrug her off now.

Evelyn followed closely behind him, occasionally glancing over her shoulders and peering into the forest that surrounded them.
"It's Evelyn," she told him, stepping carefully over a root in the path. "What's yours?"

She really only wanted to reach the school. After his comment about the ghosts, her imagination had gone wild, creating all sorts of terrible creatures and predators that could be hidden around them. Deep down, Evelyn knew it wasn't real, but she was small, and the forest was awfully big. It felt safer to be around someone else.

"Logan," said the guilty boy. But after a brief moment, he shrugged it off. Whatever, life was too short for these bad feelings to linger too long. "As I said, I am an infirmaryhand. Kinda a doctor, if you think about it." He raised a hand from the sleeping bunny, and though he was in front of her and not even looking at her, he raised it. "I can heal people. Well, people and tiny rabbits. Maybe I'll be a doctor or something." If he ever reached adulthood. "Have you ever been to France?"

"Oh,." To herself, Evelyn thought that being an infirmaryhand must be a great job. She wished that she could help people with her power. She barely had the ability to control it, though.

Evelyn was surprised by his sudden topic change. What in the world did he mean, had she ever been to France? The idea certainly appealed to her, but, unfortunately, her family had never quite had the time to go on such a trip.
"I haven't," she said. "Why? Have you?"

"No." The boy said this simply, as they left the forest and came across the courtyard, waving "hi" to a student he knew from one of his classes. "I want to, though. I don't know, I want to find someone that's been there, I want to know if it's worth the hype." He wanted an excuse not to go. He tried to be eccentric and exciting, but France was...far away. He had told Jane he was going to go, though, and that felt like reason enough. He had never ridden an airplane before.

"Oh." Evelyn fell silent for a moment, contemplating the idea of going to France. It had always sounded very nice to her, and it was definitely something she wanted to do in the future when she was old enough. "Well, it sounds like a great place to go. I hear Europe is nice in the fall." Her aunts and uncles visited often and told her about every trip they went on. They had shown her many pictures, a few that she still had with her, and it was her favorite season.

"Can I come all the way with you?" Evelyn asked. "I want to make sure the rabbit's okay." She trusted Logan to take care of the bunny, but she liked watching the little animal sleep. It was very cute.