Chapter 9 ~ Eliasha, part 3

They walked out of the wood and crossed an open lawn before reaching the outer wall.  It was grown over with ivy and climbing plants, some of them flowering in the late afternoon sun.  An old tree grew nearly up against the wall, coming short of the top.  Eliasha went over to it and bent down, pulling leaves and vines away from the wall near its base.  “See?” she said, “the roots of the tree have grown under the wall and weakened it.  I chipped away at it a bit, and now there’s a crack large enough to fit through.  But you wouldn’t see it unless you were looking for it.”

“Huh.”  Russ bent over and peered at the crack.  “Kinda narrow.”

“Yes, but I can get through it.  Let me show you.”  She set her guitar down on a bench under the tree, and took off her shawls, dropping them over the instrument.  Russ coughed and glanced at the ground and her bare shoulders appeared again.  “You have to bend over backwards a bit,” she said as she demonstrated; “it’s a little like sliding under a fence.  And the ivy . . . gets in the way . . . but . . . there . . . .”  She squeezed through the crack expertly, disappearing for a moment.  Then she reached back to lift up the ivy and lean through, peering in at him.  “It’s really quite easy.  Would you like to try?”

Russ hesitated.  At first it seemed harmless, but then he got the unsettling feeling that she was leading him somewhere, for a reason she wasn’t saying . . . .  Why show your secret escape route to someone you’ve just met?  Especially when that someone was him . . . .  There was something else going on.  There had to be.  She was awfully . . . bold . . . and only seventeen, anyway.  She took her fun with him a little too far.  And he shouldn’t even be standing there like he was, staring down the neckline of a seventeen-year-old’s dress.  He glanced away.  And Liseli . . .  how would he explain to Liseli that he’d been running around outside the city with Eliasha?  Best not.

“It’s probably too narrow for me,” he said, taking a step back.

She shifted the ivy and cocked her head to the side, smiling at him with her eyes glittering in amusement.  “I don’t think so.  Come, I’ll show you the places I like to go.  There is some beautiful countryside out here.”

“Seen it.”  He looked up at the tree and cleared his throat nervously.

“Oh psh.”  She wiggled the ivy leaves playfully.  “I’ll show you things you probably didn’t notice coming here.”

He shrugged.  “I just don’t think it’s a very good idea.”

She sighed.  “You are very uptight.  You come from the land of Uptightia.”  She stuck out her tongue and then backed out again, letting the ivy drop over the crack.  He could still hear her voice, taunting; “Uptightia, where no one knows how to have any fun, and a man can’t so much as look at a girl without being struck by lighting and having his eyes fall out.  Where twenty-year-olds act like old men, and there probably aren’t any real old men because you all die of ulcers by the time you are thirty.  Where you are afraid of your sweethearts and feel guilty just talking to other girls.  Where you think it’s all right to go around breaking locks and snooping where you ought not to be, unless a girl wants to show you something.  Where—”

Russ tried to stop listening.  He sat down on the bench with his arms crossed and stared at the path ahead.  He didn’t bother telling her that Liseli wasn’t even his “sweetheart,” because that would only amuse her more.  So I make a good laughingstock.  If Liseli had a sense of humor like this kid she probably would be my sweetheart.  Ha.  Haha.

He gingerly lifted the corner of her discarded cape, and pulled the guitar out from underneath.  He plucked the strings experimentally, fiddled with the tuning knobs, and strummed it a couple times.  It was a nice instrument . . . well made . . . pretty nice . . . .  He started to play a tune on it, and was gratified to hear Eliasha fall silent.

The ivy rustled as she came back through.  She stood over him quietly for a few moments, then said, “You’re quite good at that.  So they have guitars in Uptightia?”

“America,” he responded without stopping.  “And thanks.”  He smiled a little, pleased by the flattery.  He rarely played the guitar where anyone else could hear, because he didn’t think he could stand being told that was another thing he couldn’t do right.  He’d been playing it long enough, and often enough, he’d better be at least okay . . . .

“I mean it.  I can’t play like that.  Show me how.”  She sat down next to him and wiggled her fingers.

“How what?  You just play . . . .”  He grinned to himself, knowing that wasn’t altogether true; he couldn’t “just play” without having practiced a lot . . . after having his dad show him first.

“You play differently than I have heard minstrels do it,” she sniffed.  “Come now . . . please?  I only got this last year as a present from my grandfather, for Aysha’s Day, and no one showed me exactly how to play it.”

“Okay.”  He stopped and handed the guitar over to her.  “Show me how you’ve been playing it.”

“Well, I—”

“Wait, that’s not how you hold it—” he reached out automatically to adjust her hand on the frets.  “There, that’s . . . no, don’t move it.”

“It’s feels odd, my hand doesn’t bend that way comfortably . . . .”

“You’ll get used to it.  Now . . . put your fingers here . . . and here, and here, and . . . yeah.  That’s a G chord.  Press down . . . not too hard!  Alright, and now strum with your other hand . . . there . . . no, your hand’s like wet noodle.  Strum, ’K?”

She giggled, loosening her grip on the guitar as she strummed a sickly sounding chord.  “I’m still not doing it right . . . .”

“That’s ’cause your wrist is wimpy.”  Without thinking Russ reached around her shoulders and held her arm, moving it to show her the right position.  “There, now move the strings, not your hand.”

Eliasha turned to him and grinned fiendishly.  He froze, thinking she was going to kiss him again, but instead she observed, “Now you’re the bold one.”

“No.”  He let go and slid down to the end of the bench.  “You tricked me into that.  And it’s not that big of a deal, anyway.”  He tried to believe it.

“Then I didn’t trick you into anything.”  She lowered her eyes and smiled.  “But now I do know that you forget to be afraid of me when you have something to show off.”

“Huh.”  He crossed his arms.  “I’m not afraid of you.”

“Consequences, then.”

He shrugged.

“Liseli.”

“No.”

She didn’t look convinced, smiling as she extended the guitar back to him.  “Go ahead and play some more.  I don’t care about lessons.  Entertain me.”

He took it.  “Being cautious and . . . and safe is not the same as being afraid.”

She nodded, continuing to smile with her eyes half lidded.  He practically struck the guitar as he glared at her.  She looked away.  “Don’t be mad at me, I’m just making observations.”

“I’m not mad.”  He eased up on the expression, and the guitar.  He thought that Eliasha reminded him of someone, then realized who it was.  Bleach her hair blonde, put bracelets on her, and she’s a little like Kyla, minus the hissing and bitchiness.  Kyla thought she was so smart, constantly telling him why he did or didn’t do things.  Eliasha thought it made her cute.  That was one of the nice things about Liseli, she didn’t feel the need to tell him what he was thinking.  Most of the time.  He decided not to tell Eliasha what he thought she was thinking, so he just played the guitar.  Showing off, she’d called it.  Fine.

“I liked the other thing you were playing better,” Eliasha said, still looking away from him.  “It was pretty.”

“This is rock, it doesn’t have to be pretty.  It rocks.”

“Bizarre.”  She glanced back at him, wrinkling her nose.  “Music should be pretty.  Play what you were playing before, this doesn’t even sound like a song.”

“Okay, Princess.”  He switched over abruptly, grinning at his own use of the nickname.  Eliasha was the kind of person he could give a nickname to and get away with it.  Russ compared her distasteful expression to ones his mother had given him many times before.  Some people just didn’t get his kind of music.

After a couple moments a shadow fell over him.  He looked up, then jumped and froze, killing the song on a sour note.  Liseli stood next to him, but she was looking at Eliasha.