3.3 Premature Aging

ISAAC

Perhaps chess wasn’t the best idea, I thought as my brother glared down at the board with enough intensity to light it on fire. I should have known he would somehow manage to miss every opportunity to checkmate me, though I’d been giving him opportunities three moves in advance. He said he hated Sterling Goth, but they were rather alike how they only lived in the moment. Only difference is, Sterling never took it personally.

“Bathroom,” I muttered as I stood up. Any longer and he might have flipped the board over onto my knees.

What was the best room to hide out in? Last time I really went to the bathroom and locked myself in but it didn’t work because Vega had yelled at me to come out. I finally decided on the study. My mother was working on her book there, and I loved the sound the quill made when she wrote.

As I entered my mother looked up from the page and smiled. “Yes Taurus?”

“I just needed some place to pass time,” I said.

A small crease formed between her eyebrows. “Did you leave Altair by the chessboard again?”

“Yeah. I was hoping he’d give up if I didn’t come back.”

“But Taurus, you know how bad Altair is with time. He could sit there for days if we let him. Weeks, even, if we watered him enough. Eventually he might become one with the chair. Wouldn’t that be sad?”

“Would he become like that plant in our garden?” I asked, wondering if the whole time, that plant had been our oldest sibling.

“No, honey, that was a joke,” she replied with a gentle laugh.

“Oh,” I said. “I thought it might be true because in the books it said something about turning one thing into another, and how people tried to turn other things into humans, so maybe it could go the other way?”

“What books?”

“The ones you left on the desk. Not this desk here, the spare one in your bedroom.” It occurred to me that maybe I wasn’t allowed to read those. “There were no other books left to read,” I added quickly.

“Do you mean that big red alchemy book next to the little notebooks?”

I nodded.

She considered this for a long time. “Honey, it is very impressive you can read things like these, but I sometimes worry you’ll read things you shouldn’t, and, well… read yourself into an adult.”

“Does reading age me?”

“No… But it might age your thoughts.” She ruffled my hair while I scrunched up my face. What did that mean anyway? “Promise me you won’t read any books on the bedroom desk, and I’ll promise you’ll get to read them when it’s time,” she said.

“Okay,” I mumbled, more to stop her from messing up my hair rather than because I understood her concern. Either way, my hair was freed from the fluff torture.

“Now run along before your brother becomes a chair. It’ll be terribly uncomfortable to sit on.” With that she returned to her work.

I was left to sigh and return to the living room, where my brother was still glaring futilely at the chessboard.

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Yay I’m back! Did everyone enjoy the Olympics? I had such a great time watching them myself 😀