It wasn’t long before the train started running again. Claire sat beside me for the remainder of our trip. We quickly took to chatting, asking each other about our likes and dislikes, and exchanging stories about our hometowns. My first guess had been right, she was from the South, which explains her skin color, so rarely seen around these parts. She had gone North to visit her aunt, two stations away from my hometown, and was coming straight back to Willow to attend the coming school year.
“My town is really inhospitable in the winter,” she told me. “Too much ice, too much snow. So I usually prefer to spend the winter someplace warmer.”
“You have snow?” My eyes glistened at that statement. “Like, real snow? Wow!”
She cringed. “It’s not as fun as it’s made out to be. A couple of centimeters can be really beautiful. A meter of snow in front of your doorstep is just a bother. And it’s cold. Really, freaking, stupidly cold.”
“Whoa,” I told her. “I would like to see that someday.”
Claire laughed. She had this cute, heartwarming kind of laugh that made you want to hug her. Or, well, that’s how I felt about it.
“I’ll take you there, someday,” she replied. “But you have to help me clear the snow off the front yard, okay?”
“Deal,” I said, offering her my pinky finger.
She looked at me, befuddled. “What am I supposed to do…?”
“Oh come on! Does your hometown not have pinky promises?”
“No,” she said, surprised. “I didn’t even know it was a thing.”
“Okay, give me you right hand. Now… like this…” I took her pinky in mine, and shook it. “It’s a promise,” I said. Sure, that wasn’t exactly what I was supposed to say, but I didn’t want to scare her off with all that stuff about swallowing needles.
She smiled, blushing.
I asked her more questions about her hometown, which she readily replied to, then she asked me about mine in turn. At some point, I decided it was safe to tell her about my curse. Well, I didn’t call it a curse, per se. Curses are scary. People would switch sidewalks on the street in order not to pass by my side. All I said was that I had some “pretty bad luck,” and began to tell her about the incidents with the church and the swimming contest.
“Y’know,” she told me, “I never learned to swim.”
“You… haven’t?”
“Nope. It’s not like my hometown is anywhere near the ocean, and it’s usually too chilly outside to go swimming in rivers. People don’t really teach others to swim.”
“I can teach you,” I told her, surprising myself at how readily I answered that. “I mean… after we come back from your town, maybe we can go spend some days on mine. I live near the shore, we can hang out at the beach. I’m a good teacher… I think…”
She giggled. “You’re not making it sound very tempting.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I’ve never really taught anyone to swim before. But I think I could do it. Well, maybe. Anyway, I understand if you don’t want to.”
Claire shook her head. “I’m in,” she said, not a hint of hesitation in her voice. Then she offered me her pinky finger. It was my turn to laugh. This was going to be a fun friendship.
—
We eventually got tired of talking. I gazed outside the window, wondering how much longer it would be until we got there. I was growing restless. It was a long trip, yes, but, more important than that, I was really, really hungry. So much so that my brain skipped past the “feeling sick of hunger” stage and went straight into ordering my stomach to devour itself.
As if reading my thoughts, Claire opened her backpack and took a couple of apples from inside it. “You hungry?” she asked me.
“You bet,” I told her, accepting the apple and digging my teeth straight into it.
Claire took a bite of the other apple, with much more composure than I did. She didn’t seem to be judging me on the way I ate, but that still made me slightly embarrassed. I really wished I had thought to bring some food with me on the trip. The idea that a twelve-hour trip would make me hungry had totally slipped my mind. That must have been my curse acting up again.
Just as I was admiring the dignified way Claire ate her apple, some of the juice from it dripped down her face and onto her dress.
“Shit,” she said, with her mouth full. I grinned. She might act like a respectable, noble princess on the outside, but deep inside she was just as sloppy and careless as I was. That kinda made me happy. And to be fair, the fact that she kept up the princess act didn’t stop her from getting her hands dirty… or in this particular situation, her whole body, it seems. I couldn’t help but worry about her dress: it must have looked beautiful without all that mud. I wondered if there was any way to get that off the fabric without leaving behind any stains.
“Your dress is beautiful,” I pointed out, absentmindedly.
She swallowed, wiped the corner of her mouth with a napkin, then looked down at the mess that her dress had become.
“Well, thank you,” she said. “The mud was my idea. Kind of a finishing touch, don’t you think?”
I laughed. “Yes,” I told her. “Very charming.”
“Do people wear dresses back at your hometown?”
“More than you can imagine,” I told her. “It’s just… I don’t think they fit me, personally. I’m more of a jeans kind of person.”
“Oh duh. I guess I should have changed into jeans as well, before going out there into the marshes. Jeans are so much easier to clean afterwards.”
I nodded. It really didn’t sound very bright of her to do heavy work while wearing a dress fit for a princess (or, at least, for a high society lady). But where would she change? The bathroom cabin was way too small to get out of that dress.
In my mind, I began to picture Claire trying to take off that complicated dress inside the cubicle that was the bathroom. I imagined her in her underwear, fighting with the zippers, and… oh god. Was that arousal I was feeling? Nope. Nonono. I’m not going to jump the first friend I made at my new school. No frigging way.
Nevertheless, once I began to think about it, I couldn’t unthink it. I caught myself stealing glances at her cleavage. No! Stop! She’s a friend! You’re not gonna mess everything up again, like you did with Naomi, will you, Anamaria? Back off, tone it down, get those primitive instincts under control.
“Are you okay?” she asked me. I could only nod in response, and turned my eyes back to the landscape outside the window. She sounded concerned. Oh if only she knew… “Well,” she began to say, “I think I’m going to change into some clean clothes. I don’t wanna show up at school looking like I fought an alligator in a mud pool.”
“Do you want help?” I asked her, before I could stop myself. She raised an eyebrow, looking at me. Oops. “I mean… do you need help, you know, getting out of that dress? It looks complicated.”
Claire relaxed. “Don’t worry, I’m good. You see, this is one of my designs. I really fussed over it so that it was easy to put on and take off. I’ll be back in no time.”
She walked away down the wagon, leaving me speechless, gaping in surprise and admiration. She’d made that dress. How cool is that? And sure enough, it only took her about a minute or two to change, then she was back, wearing jeans and a long-sleeved white shirt. She’d had her face, neck and arms washed too, and her hair was tied up neatly in a ponytail. I would never have been able to perform that feat in such a short time frame.
I took a good look at her clothes when she sat down by my side. Her shirt, particularly, was notably intricate: the fabric had been worked in a way that made it resemble a garden full of flowers.
“Is this one of your designs, too?”
She smirked. “Not this one. This was made by someone I really admire.”
“Who’s that?”
“My mother,” she said, with a small, but beautiful smile on her face.
“So I guess you’re following in her footsteps?”
Claire seemed to ponder about that question for a while.
“I don’t think so,” she told me, finally. “It’s true that she was a seamstress.” Wait… did she say was? What happened? “And she was the one who taught me the basics, too… But I don’t think I wanna take that up as a profession. I’m really interested in design and architecture, and also stuff like poetry and literature. Different expressions of creativity and art, you could say. Sewing is one aspect of it, but not the only one. What I’m trying to say is… I guess I’m really still undecided.”
I nodded, and rested my head on her shoulder. That surprised her.
“I’m sleepy,” I told Claire, not really sure if that was the real reason for me doing it. Still, that felt good, and I wasn’t going to budge if I could help it. But it seemed she didn’t mind that, after all. I felt her tension melt away as we stayed together like that in silence for a bit longer.
“What about you?” she asked me. “Do you have a dream? Something you want to become?”
“A witch,” I told her, in monotone.
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry. I forgot.”
“Don’t be,” I told her. “I know it’s an impossible dream.” I had half a mind to tell her the truth about my curse, and about how it negatively affected every aspect of my life, but ultimately decided against it. We had only just met, and I didn’t want to push her away so soon. Plus, she would find out from her classmates soon enough, once the people from my town saw me at the school grounds and started spreading the word about my curse. She would leave me, then, I’m sure. Everyone eventually does.
We rode the train in silence. The sun set soon after that, and the train kept traveling through the dark empty countryside. We were originally supposed to arrive at Willow Station just shortly after sunset, but since we’d had a setback — one I’m probably responsible for —, it would probably be well past midnight by the time we arrived. The landscape outside the window was barely even recognizable under the moonlight, and I didn’t feel like chatting anymore, so there was nothing to keep me from the inescapable boredom.
I fell asleep on Claire’s shoulder without realizing. I woke up with her voice calling me.
“Anamaria?” she asked. “Are you awake?”
I looked around. The train had stopped, and people were moving up and down the wagon.
“Where are we?” I asked her.
“School,” she said. “We’re at the Willow Station.”
“Already?”
“What do you mean, already? It’s almost two.”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. Woah! I really must have slept for a long time.
“Sorry for hogging your shoulder” I told her, dizzily getting up on my feet.
“Well, I fell asleep as well, so I didn’t mind.”
“Did you?”
She nodded, and began to stuff her belongings inside her backpack. I took my bag and my own backpack from the luggage rail, surprised that they really didn’t fall on me during the trip. But then again, my curse did cause some trouble for every passenger in the train with the landslide, so I guess that must have been enough to satisfy it.
We walked out into the station, together, with Claire leading the way. I had to wait for a couple of minutes while she tried to get a rather insolent fire spell to go back inside the lantern that she held. I wish I had brought a flashlight. That’s one more thing that just did not occur to me when I was packing.
Once Claire had finally wrestled the spell inside the glass case, and closed the hinge, we started to walk.
The station was rather beautiful, now that I think about it. It had that antique kind of architecture which really shows that the early century architects used to pay a lot of attention to detail. Claire and I walked under an archway and onto the street beyond.
“That way goes to the city,” she told me, pointing to the left of the road. “And our school is this way,” she turned right and guided me down the road.
It was really fortunate that I had managed to make a friend during the journey. At two in the morning, there was really no way I could have gotten there on my own. And that’s supposing I didn’t just sleep past my stop. So maybe Claire’s presence was acting as an antidote to my curse? Pfff… yeah, as if… But maybe, just maybe, supposing that could be truth…
I was so lost in thought that I almost hit my face against a stone wall.
“Careful,” Claire said, taking my hand. “I’m sorry,” she apologized. Why was she apologizing, if she was the one helping me, after all? “You’re still sleepy, aren’t you? But don’t worry, I’ll get you there safe,” she held my left hand firmly inside her right one. My heart raced a little. “Like this there won’t be any accidents.”
“Yeah, unless I decide to pounce on you.”
"Pounce on me? How so?"
Oh shit. That totally slipped. Quick, brain, make something up.
“Errrrr… Oh, sorry… I mean… That is… I think I was half-asleep, just now. I was dreaming, you know, and I thought that… I thought that I was a leopard and you were a gazelle. So… please forget I said anything. I’m really sorry for the rude comment.”
She chuckled.
“What?” I asked her, noticing the amusement in her voice.
“It’s the first time in my life I’m called a gazelle.”
For some inexplicable reason, that actually made my cheeks burn, blushing. I was glad that it was night and she couldn’t see that.
Great work, brain. Now she thinks we’re both stupid.
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