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“Hey, Frank?” Julie singsonged as she pranced about, raising her arms up dramatically and tipping forwards onto one leg as she did a stretch.
“The decorations,” he reminded her.
“Oh!”
Delicately, she picked up the box of decorations they had made with Eddie earlier in the day. Then she tiptoed over to Frank, holding the box with her fingertips, and dumped the contents of the box onto his freshly cleared countertop. Paper cut-outs scattered themselves across the open space. The ones that Frank had made stood out starkly, his shapes and edges even and precise in contrast to her messy, spiraling, and jagged figures.
And oh! That one belonged to Poppy. Julie set it aside so it wouldn’t be hung on the fridge with the rest of their creations. She would take it back next time, or ask Eddie if he could next time he came around!
Frank hummed inquisitively as he poked around at the mess of papers. It took a moment for her to recollect her earlier train of thought and bring herself back to the question she had wanted to ask when the… feeling was less prevalent.
“Have you been noticing anything weird lately?”
“Weird things are always going on around here,” Frank monotoned. “You’ll have to be more specific than that. Last week—”
“I don’t mean that kind of weird,” Julie insisted. She leaned closer to him for emphasis. In response, Frank pushed several of the papers her way, and turned back to sorting them out. Automatically, she picked them up and turned to try to find a clear spot on the crowded fridge. “I don’t mean funny weird.”
“You think everything is “funny weird,” Julie. I don’t know what you could possibly be referring to that isn’t.”
She pouted and placed a butterfly-shaped magnet onto the papers with a little more force than was strictly necessary. When she looked back at him, he gave her a blank look. But when she looked closer, squinting at him, she noticed that part of his monobrow was raised.
“What do you think is weird?”
Julie looked at her hands. Pressed them together, folded her fingers, pulled her hands apart until only her index fingers held them together. Pushed them together again.
She felt cold, suddenly. No. No, that wasn’t it. She didn’t feel cold, she just didn’t feel hot . She didn’t feel anything, all of a sudden. Or maybe she did. Her tongue felt like felt. Her brain felt like cotton. “I’m not sure how to explain it.”
“Well,” Frank said. He pushed a few more papers over for her to hang on the fridge, an even mix of his neat ones and her disorderly ones. “If you figure it out.”
“If I figure what out?”
“Whatever it is you think.”
She giggled, the odd feeling fading. “I think a lot of things, Frank!”
“I’m sure.”
After hanging the last of the papers that had passed his examination, she spun around, spinning her skirts as she giggled at him. “That’s so mean!”
Frank rolled his eyes, the motion overly dramatic, accompanied by him moving his whole head. Then he narrowed his eyes, giving her a serious look. Not that he wasn’t always serious. “If you figure out how to explain it, feel free to let me know.”
Julie sat in the dirt, legs splayed, knees bent around her, back arched. She ached. She had never used to hurt. Not even a little. But now she did. Her limbs grew heavy and jolts of pain went through her joints when she was too still for too long, or when she strained her limbs oddly for prolonged periods of time, or when she sat in fields or in gardens and tended to the flowers.
When she brought it up, Poppy had laughed good-naturedly and told her that that was what happened when someone got old and hunched over plants like they were still little. But Julie had always sat over the flowers, and she was rather sure that she wasn’t quite old yet, so she wasn’t sure what the issue was.
So she still sat, and she still spoke to the flowers in low, lilting words and watched them creep higher and higher. All they needed was some proper encouragement and some kind words. Everybody needed a little bit of that to grow.
She hummed. Then she shuddered. A full-body spasm that started at her neck and rattled its way down her back and shook her arms. Following some odd tingling, tugging, at the back of her head, she turned, suddenly cold, suddenly shaky.
There was nothing obviously looking at her despite the odd, crawling, invasive thing tracing up her spine, and she didn’t know why anybody would rather hide than say anything so–
“Oh,” Julie noticed, letting out a breath. “I didn’t see you there! You should have said hi. Oh, I didn’t mean to ignore you!”
That’s alright, Julie. I was being quiet.
“I was so distracted,” she fussed. Shakily, Julie stood, brushing off her aching legs and straightening her skirts. She wiped her face and smeared dirt across her cheek.
How were the flowers?
“Lovely,” she giggled. A few flowers had risen with her, their leaves stretching towards her as if wanting for more time. A vine was wrapped ever so loosely around her ankle.
Finally, Julie turned fully, clasping her hands together. She opened her mouth to talk before something came over her expression. Some uncertainty buzzed in the depths of her mind, growing louder and louder, closer to the forefront. “Can I ask a weird question?”
Yes?
Julie pursed her lips before a smile overtook her face again. She laughed. She was just being silly, wasn’t she?
When she looked past–
When she looked at Home it… it looked back.
“Do you ever get the feeling someone might be watching you?”
Clutching her hands together, bouncing on her toes, shifting her balance as she shuffled around in the dirt, with green sprouts reaching up to hug her, Julie waited. She smiled, big and wide. Like a good friend should.
Why, Julie? Do you?