Behind the Curtain, Elizabeth J. D. [best young adult book series txt] 📗

Ballerinas

The leaves on the trees were like emeralds that day; shining a beautiful green in the sunlight. Something was different. Something that I couldn't explain. There was just a feeling that could be pushed down but never swept clear of my heart. It was there, and was not intending to leave anytime soon. I feared to talk. Maybe it would go away. I was cautious of even thinking anything too defined. The mysterious dreamlike haze was so thin that I feared I would break it - yet so strong that it couldn't be shaken. But I didn't want to, anyhow. It was enough for me to just sit and dream of what it might be - I didn't have to find out what it was, just have the pleasure of knowing that it existed. Knowing it was there, it was real, even if nobody else could feel it. That made it even more special - it's mine. It was an adventure, and dream, creeping ever so slowly, but so gracefully and pleasantly that it felt like it floated - towards my life. Nearer and nearer, it gently danced. That was it...it wasn't creeping, it was dancing. Just like a faerie ballerina with gauzy sparkling wings, veined with swirling sparkling lace, and a white tiara, frosted with shining snow-like glitter. This dream of mine also had another side to it. It was graceful and beautiful, but the exciting, colorful side might have been just as thrilling. This ballerina didn't need wings - it had enough fun without them. It preferred to run and dance and twirl - even recklessly, if that was what it felt like. This ballerina wore red, yellow, and blue on its crown - rubies, topaz, and sapphires. It danced and laughed and always was waiting just around the other corner - just around that last turn - bidding you catch up to the excitement it held in store....but always skipping just ahead to the next one after the one you just reached. Always new excitement to be reached. But if it were found, would you find this mischievous ballerina to be merely a flight of fancy; or even more beautiful and fanciful than you had ever, in your wildest dreams, imagined...?



Silence

Speech was not an option. So she kept it all inside. She could see, and hear. But for the hurt in her eyes and heart, she may as well have been in a world of darkness. A world where she didn't know how to bring light in. A place she struggled to communicate and got more and more frustrated every time she tried. Tears of frustration hammered against her eyes, threatening to spill out, as she wrote out a letter to her one and only friend, the only one who wasn't afraid to come around to her home which was threatened to be ransacked any day - or worse, during the night.

The world of pitch black that she pounded the walls of to be released from was Nazi Germany. And her reason for being unable to speak was that she was mute. Even if she had learned somehow, she would have forgotten for its lack of use due to the terror she faced every day. With all the things kept inside, wanting so bad to be let out, part of her didn't want to communicate one word of what she saw through her eyes every day of her life for the past three years

Trapped

For Millie there was no gravity.....
However, that also meant that there was no air.
When she leaped, she flew. The ten years she had spent somewhat involuntarily in ballet school had taught her that.
But the pressure she felt from her friends and family to continue something she had no passion for fairly made her feel that even whilst in the midst of floating, she was falling, sinking deeper and deeper; and she doubted sometimes that she would ever get out.

Ohpher ~ Daughter of the North Wind

Daughter belonging to none and to all;

Daughter of winds, of cold, and of fall;

Daughter of fate and daughter of change;

Daughter of love and life rearranged.

Visible below was the startling contrasts of green and blue, land and ocean, farm and brook. She knew them all well, having passed by them and over them unfathomable counts of times. She knew every blade of jade spiking from the brown earth. She was familiar with every veined emerald upon the sturdy branches of the trees.

On some days, especially nearing the times of fall and winter, she swept through languished spikes deprived of their gaiety and stirred the lost and fragile leaves which had also been deprived of their jade brilliance. At these times of the year, the organics dangling from trees' branches were nothing more than veins, made cracked and hard from the loss of life. It was her responsibility to take them away. She snatched them from their home branches, relieving them of their life-giving employment. When possible, she attempted to coax them towards piles of their own kind. In time, they would fall to their essential pieces and be returned to the earth. In this way, they were eternal. She felt a gust of pride in having helped bring aid to the leaves - ensuring their mortality and thereby their immortality.

At times, on the way to a gathering of brittle, fluttering leaves, she would take time out to play with an animal or child. She had discovered the interesting fact that young ones of all species enjoyed chasing down things which were borne away from them. She supposed it was the joy of the hunt and not the actual obtaining of the object, for most of the time when she would sweep a leaf in front of a curious child or animal, sending them into an ecstatic, leaping chase, the object of the chase was not held on to for long. The dog would snap at the leaf a few times with his sharp ivory teeth, and then release it, apparently disinterested. Those of the human species would generally gloat for a moment, squeal in delight, and then release the leaf. She was never sure why they enjoyed this catch-and-release so much. However, she herself found much enjoyment in bringing happiness to others. Therefore, she kept at the game day after day, seizing any possible opportunity.

Her love for bringing joy to others sometimes made her unsettled and quite ruffled, and at other times of the years made her perfectly happy. In spring, she was welcomed with upturned, gently smiling faces. In the summer the searing heat was more unbearable in some parts than it was in others, and the reactions of those whose hair she ruffled reflected the fact. For those in the south, especially, it was as if all species unanimously thought of her as the greatest gift from above that could possibly have been bestowed upon them that day.

In the fall time, some began to bundle up in cloth which protected their arms from the cold winds. Though she felt a little miffed at this at times, the majority of the population still welcomed her and the scents she brought - those of old things dying; those of new things impending. Those were her happiest times of year, though in summer the heat she was laden down with did send her into a sullen mood every now and again. The winter was her busiest and, unfortunately, most upsetting time. In winter she was nearly never welcomed, but rather shunned. Humans used more and more clothes made of increasingly thick fabrics. It was as if they didn't care a whit for her. To her chagrin, she sometimes went into gales of fits and set the windows rattling. This, of course, did not make anyone happy, least of all herself, because her fits only caused the humans to bundle up even more tightly. So she would shuffle herself off to play tag with herself and the brave gliders on the ice newly-formed by the harsh cold. In the skaters she found her solace; though their cheeks were whipped red by the force of the cold and wind, they still welcomed it with a calm and smiling upturned face.

Although her most active times of year were those listed above - fall and winter - she also enjoyed the times in spring when the water was not frozen into sheets of crystal. At those times, she would brush against the oceans, the lakes, the brooks, and the ponds, causing them to stir and ripple. Witnessing how they began in small rounds and grew to become large ones, reaching at times to the utmost sides of the bodies of water, always seemed as a miracle to her even though she had seen the same occurrence thousands of times in the past. She never could be sure when her past had been, or where she would drift to next.

The idea of time was a mystery to her. She was aware that her duties changed depending on the seasons, but she was such an intrinsic part of the lives of the seasons that she was not removed far enough away to properly observe the changes. At times she felt as if she were the most ancient being in the universe. She felt as if she had been living since the first quarter-inch turn of the planets. Yet at other times, usually in spring, she felt as if she had just been born, for all the laughter and strength she felt within and around herself.

If you have come to the assumption that she was a creature who lived inside the wind, your powers of conclusion are rather weak. If you have assumed that she was and is no more, you are also quite mistaken. She is not an inhabitant of the wind; she is the wind. Her busiest times are in winter due to her being the Daughter of the North Wind, the lowest in temperature and most powerful in spirit. Her name is Ohpher; she existed in the past, exists in the present, and will exist in the future; Nonetheless, she never was. She has always existed and never will be.


Chiumbow - Laced Rebel

Chiumbow is born of a wealthy family; not just a wealthy family, mind you. One of the most wealthy fifteen in the nation. Her childhood was limited frequently by such domestic skills as she was required by her mother, father, and numerous governesses to learn; needlepoint, in particular. She found the process tedious and learned to bear within herself a strong disdain for the masterpieces made of fabrics and threads. However, Chiumbow learned at an early age that as long as she cooperated while being watched, she was trusted. This, in turn, led to more opportunities for her to do those things which she more enjoyed and, what's more, persuade her father to purchase for her those things which her girlish heart desired. Although, it must be told that she did not always spend her clothes-money on new dresses, hats, hatpins, ribbons, or any other sort of attire. Once she saved her clothes-money and bought for herself a speedboat. Another time she purchased a sleek red motorcycle. If any of her friends ever found out - save the ones who were inside the small circle of laced rebels - she was sure she would be excommunicated more quickly than she could start the afore-mentioned motorcycle. Which was saying something, seeing as how after the first dozen spills she had become admirably adept on