“I am fairly certain that my mother would send a howler to end all howlers if I ever spoke to her with that degree of freedom,” Amelia replied, laughing along with Elijah at the absurdity of the shoes and how out of place they were in the owlery, or anywhere except a formal ball for that matter. His description of his mother sounded as though his family had plenty of money to spare, but she wouldn’t have guessed it from their initial meeting. Most people who had been raised in wealth seemed to exhale galleons and exude sickles. Elijah, however, hadn’t seemed the type to have come from money, but it did explain the various languages and talents. Only the fortunate were able to provide their children with such an academic background.
Amelia listened as Elijah continued talking, moving on to the subject of shoes. She was grateful for his conversational nature, the way he could carry most of the weight of the conversation without needing much input from her. It made it much easier to imagine that the two of them might be able to spend any notable amount of time together without Amelia giving up entirely on his proposition. Amelia listened to what he said, nodding and smiling in the right places, but for once not rehearsing them beforehand in her head. She was working hard to let go of the pretenses, but every now and again she felt them creeping back in, playing a gesture in her head before carrying it out for Elijah to see.
This is going to take a while…
The rhythm of his speaking allowed Amelia to delve herself into his stories, letting them surround her as she did the lives of so many other people. Sometimes, she wondered if learning so much about the stories of others would eventually make her own story obsolete. It wasn’t that she wanted to lose herself, she just relished in the idea of knowing about other people things that they would never know about her. It was as if the catalogue of information she held on each person she met were stones that helped to build her defenses, guarding herself with information.
Having fallen into rhythm with Elijah’s speaking, she almost missed the fact that his hands were once again touching her hair. Although Amelia had always thought her hair to be the only notable part about her, it had never received so much attention as in the past hour with Elijah. The boy seemed fascinated by it, for reasons Amelia did not fully understand until he began to explain. His description was elaborate, well-thought out. Before he mentioned painting, Amelia had already begun to think of it as the way an artist might describe her hair. He was detailed and focused, looking at her hair with an intensity that she thought might set her hair ablaze, only adding to the colour palette Elijah was already observing.
When his description stopped and the analogy began, however, Amelia was once again caught off-guard by his perceptive nature, looking away from him to avoid having to read the meaning behind his words. Hearing it in his voice was more than enough to give rise to yet another bout of panic, which Amelia silenced by closing her eyes and taking slow, deep breaths. He was not merely observing her actions and guessing at her emotions, he was interpreting them and looking beyond the things she said and did to what they meant and where they came from. Although she was impressed with his ability to read into the intricate tapestry which was her personality, it scared her to think that he was willing to observe each thread with such careful scrutiny in order to see the bigger picture. It was a level of dedication that intimidated Amelia, wondering if she would be able to stand the test of such careful inspection and the self-awareness that would rise from Elijah’s observations and analogies.
After finishing his analogy and replacing Amelia’s red-gold curl, Elijah slid down the wall to sit at her feet. It seemed an odd dynamic to be standing over him when he clearly had every other advantage in the situation: he was a better conversationalist, had a better grasp of his emotions, and was far more open about himself. When he tugged her wrist to bring her down to the floor, she hesitated only for a moment about potential owl dropping before deciding that any stains on her jeans would be minor compared to the complex she was getting standing over him. Once on the floor, Amelia pulled off the heels, setting them upright next to her among the straw and dirt, her feet glad to be rid of the unnaturally high arches the shoes provided.
Although her feet relaxed once she was sitting, her mental defenses were anything but relaxed, which is why she chose to ignore completely Elijah’s first prompt. The time when she would be able to answer his question, to explain her motivations and reasons for pushing people away was so far in the future it seemed hardly visible or possible. Instead, she chose only to address the second of his conversation prompts, smiling at his words as she began to respond for the first time in several minutes.
“Christmas,” Amelia began, taking a deep breath to steady herself against what she knew would be a mental barrage against her opening up about even the smallest bit of her personal life, “My family has always placed such an emphasis on Christmas. And not because any of us are particularly religious, mind you, but because it is an opportunity for my mother to go all out. She decorates the house as though it were the setting of the latest holiday movie, bright with tinsel and holly. She always orders a tree from one of the larger forests on the outskirts of Scotland, 10 meters tall, to place in our foyer. It stands the entire month of December, the welcome mat in our home.”
“She always relishes in the oohs and ahhs of the holiday guests,” Amelia continued, reminding herself to breathe, “The house looks spectacular, the food is exquisite, and no one ever wants for anything at Christmas. Last year, my father bewitched the ballroom to make it snow indoors, which made for an interesting sight to see the couples waltzing around a dance floor surrounded by snowdrifts.”
“And the whole house smelled of peppermint,” Amelia finished, recalling this last bit of information only after she had allowed herself to become absorbed in the memory, not even looking at Elijah anymore as she stared off at nothing in particular, lost in the description of a holiday long past. The peppermint had been Raoul’s idea, and he had charmed the entire house to smell that way. He had been just a bit to heavy in his bedroom, though, and there was a spot on the carpet which still smelled of peppermint. Although it was painful, Amelia still went in there every time she was home, just to smell it and think of him.
by 
