Ember Rising Light (Book One)

by C.K. Mullinax

  Chapter Fifty One

  My Boo-bear seemed to enjoy the boxes his presents came in more than the actual gifts. He would open a toy, pull it out and say ‘Heaven’s house’. His stack teetered and fell over repeatedly, as he walked up the mountain side. He refused to let anyone help him carry Heaven’s houses. We all followed him up the steep incline. Celeste was positively beaming. This was the first Christmas that Boo had ever spoken or opened his gifts.

  Once we reached the creek, Boo placed each ‘house’ along the bank. It looked just like a small city of boxes. He placed his duck inside one building at a time and would tell him where he was. The rubber duck had a house on the moon, the sun, the big river and one in the ‘really old forest’. Boo also gave Heaven a fire house, an army house and he even made him his very own Sunridge. We watched him play in fascination as he placed toys cars and trucks in the garage for the duck to fix.

  After an hour we finally managed to convince Boo-bear to leave the creek. He held my hand as we hiked back down. Celeste and Willow had made enough food to feed fifty people. After the meal, the men offered to wash the dishes. They disappeared into the kitchen and when they emerged it looked immaculate.

  Well, I’m sure Tray figured out a clever way to avoid washing any dishes, so I quietly thanked Rave for washing them – he only winked at me and didn’t say a word.

  They walked out to the garage once the kitchen was back in order. Tray wanted to show his boss the tools I had given him for Christmas. I had watched my brother carry the gigantic toolbox, with all the tools inside it, to our car this morning. It flipped me out as I witnessed it because I knew how heavy they were. My brother had lifted them like they weighed no more than a throw pillow.

  Although it was only 7:45, I was already exhausted. I tried to hide my yawns, but Tray noticed them. He told them we needed to get home. As we headed toward the door, we were saying “goodbye” and thanking each other. I paid close attention to Willow and Tray’s exchange. She hugged my brother and he whispered something to her, but it didn’t turn into anything else even though they were standing near some mistletoe. They are obviously going to need my assistance…

  “We saw Eli Weston at the mall. He helped us load your gifts in the car. I think that he likes Willow,” I said tentatively and waited to gage his reply.

  “He walked you both to the car, huh?” he asked, suspiciously.

  “No, he waited at the entrance of Sears for us to drive around. He seemed really interested in Willow when I introduced them…”

  “So, he loaded the stuff into the car…”

  “Well, he kind of helped the salesman load it by telling him how to do it, but that’s beside the point. He asked us both to go to dinner, so he could find out more about her…” I prompted him further.

  “What’d you tell him?” Tray replied with another question – how annoying!

  “We had to decline his offer that night because we promised you that we’d go straight home – no pit stops – no detours. You should recognize the language because that’s a quote from you. I was forced to give him a rain check because he wants to get better acquainted with her…”

  My brother still infuriatingly refused to even slightly hint if he was jealous or worried.

  “I love my gifts, Little Girl,” he told me.

  Then, he tried to reach over and rub my head. I managed to avoid it by sticking my head out of my opened window. Tray immediately swerved into the middle of the road, so a tree wouldn’t decapitate me.

  “Get your head back in here or I’ll stop and tickle you into submission!” he threatened.

  Although I complied, the interior heated up like an oven in less than two minutes. I watched him casually reach down and turn on the A/C. He didn’t ask me anything about the crazy scorching heat and I didn’t offer him anything about it either.

  I obsessed the rest of the ride home and tried to decide how to slyly bring back up the topic of his relationship with Willow. I couldn’t figure out a way to do that without alerting him to my intentions. It would sound like overkill if I said anything else about it tonight. So I would just have to wait until tomorrow – a.k.a. an epically-gimonsterous-Ember-eternity – before I made another attempt to pry the information out of him.

  All I wanted to do after my shower was go to bed. My brother had other plans. He called me into the kitchen. I looked lovingly at my bed before I finally walked down the hall to see what he wanted.

  “Whatcha need?” I asked while rubbing my tired eyes.

  “A glass of water would be nice…I need a glass of water,” Tray stated casually and I looked at him like he had lost his mind.

  “What??”

  “Please…”

  Tray was sitting at the kitchen table, doing nothing. He also knew how exhausted I was, so his request was outlandish. He wants me to get him a glass of water although he’s sitting less than three feet from the sink???

  “I’ll cooperate with your insane nonsense just this once. Fair warning though, I’m only gonna comply without protest because I’m half crazed from being so sleepy,” I added in a joking manner and walked over to the sink.

  I grabbed a glass from the dish drainer and turned on the faucet.

  “No, I want my glass,” Tray stated, sheepishly.

  Maybe he and Rave had been smoking some kind of Vaydem lunacy ‘herbs’ today out in that garage?

  I turned around and quickly surveyed my brother’s eyes to see if I could find any evidence of ‘herb usage’, but his eyes were perfectly clear. They didn’t appear to be bloodshot or glassy. Finally giving in to his insanity, I opened the cabinet to retrieve Tray’s special glass. That’s when I saw another gift to me from my brother. I also saw Krista’s gift and her grandmother’s gift that I had forgotten to open this morning.

  “Tray!” I exclaimed.

  He just smiled and tried to look innocent.

  I opened his present first, because he asked me to. It turned out to be an iPod. Krista and Elizabeth had each purchased iTunes cards for me so I could start my music library. I hugged my brother and squealed ‘thank you’ in his ear. Then, I called Krista and her grandmother so I could tell them how much I loved my gifts and thank them.

  Then, I thought of something disheartening. I don’t have a way to download any music tonight. We don’t own a computer and I wouldn’t know how to do it anyway. I tried to hide my disappointment. But, I should have realized that my brother would have planned for this contingency. He turned on the iPod and it had three dozen songs on it.

  “Krista said she’d put whatever you want on it…just make her a list…”

  I hugged my brother again before I turned on the music and put the ear buds in my ears. The music played all night long…