Clairvoyance

[intheheart]

Title: Clairvoyance
Rating: PG.
Summary: Ahava sees things.
AU: Magical Realism
Notes: Trying my hand at magical realism. Constructive criticism welcomed if you have it; I'm new at this genre.


The whole world smelled like fall, when Ahava opened her window and leaned out on a bright October morning.

She inhaled deeply and smiled at the world, thrilled. She loved fall, loved the faint scent of smoke in the air and the peculiar odor that crisp leaves gave off when you stepped on them. Crunch, crunch, crunch. There weren't many on the ground yet, but soon they'd start falling and she and Dad could rake them up. Then she'd jump in the pile until they were scattered all over the yard and rake them up again, and repeat the cycle until Dad made her put them in bags for the trash men to haul away.

And then Halloween would come, the dark soft night when she could be anything she wanted to be, where everyone she met had a different, truer face. This year she would be a gypsy, with a bunch of scarves, ribbons wound in her dark hair, and a red silk skirt with fringe and embroidery that she'd found in the attic. Mom even had bracelets with coins on them that she was going to let Ahava borrow, and a tambourine to shake and rattle. She'd go trick-or-treating with her brothers and sisters and get all the best candy, and come home to cocoa and the cinnamon applesauce Dad and Timmy always made.

Ahava tucked her knees under herself on the window seat, propped her elbows on the sill and smiled out at the world. She loved fall. The strangest and most magical things always happened in the fall.

"Ahava!" Mom called up the stairs. "Get up, it's almost time for school!"

"Coming," she called, over her shoulder, but she didn't really move. She wanted to linger for a moment in the window and the cool autumn air.

And, okay, maybe she lost track of time, the seconds slipping and twisting through her fingers like a live thing, until...

"Ahava!"

Okay, that was Mom's business voice. Ahava blew out a breath and pushed away from the windowsill, then paused, confused.

There was a car stopped across the street from her house, and a woman leaning against the hood, shading her eyes. She had dark hair in soft waves and strong eyebrows, that Ahava could see because she was looking up at her window.

Ahava frowned. That was kind of creepy. Random women did not stare at her window every day. She grabbed the curtain but didn't close it quite yet, because there was something in the way that woman was looking...

The woman shifted against the hood of the car, the fringe of her red silk skirt sliding along the paint.

"Ahava Maria!"

She jumped and spun away from the window. Her mother was standing in her bedroom door, arms crossed and eyes narrowed. "You aren't even dressed!" she said. "Hurry up or you'll be late for school."

Ahava scrambled off the window seat. "Sorry," she mumbled, not very sincerely, and went to her closet. "I meant to get dressed. There was just this woman..." She stopped, then, because the woman felt like something private.

"Woman?" Mom asked, and went to the window. "Honey, there's nobody there."

Ahava paused in unbuttoning her bat-patterned pajama top and blinked. "Across the street? Leaning on the car?"

Mom shook her head, and gestured out the window. "Nobody there. See for yourself."

Ahava buttoned her top back up and went to the window, and sure enough, there was no car and no woman, just the street and the yard across the way, and a few early leaves skittering over the empty asphalt.

"That's so weird."

Mom rolled her eyes, turned her around, and gave her a gentle shove back toward the closet. "Get dressed," she said.

"Ugh, fine." Ahava pulled her closet open again, grabbed a white shirt and her overalls, and pulled them out. The fringe brushed along her arm, gently and she stopped, blinking at the skirt.

"Ahava," Mom said, and stopped herself. When she spoke again, a second later, it was in a very different voice. "Where did you find that?"

Ahava turned and looked up at her mother's face, but there was only confusion and a strange sort of sorrow there, no anger. "Um, it was in the attic. I was going to wear it for Halloween. Is that okay?"

"Um." Mom bit her lip, then said, "Sure, I mean, I don't see why not. I suppose you're the one with the best right to it anyway."

Ahava blinked. "Um. What?"

"It was your biological mother's," Mom said, and added, "At least I think it was. I never saw her wear it, but it was in her things. If it fits, you can have it."

Ahava's eyes widened, and she turned back to the skirt, hanging in the closet. The fringe waved softly, almost friendly, stirred by a breeze.

She turned around again, sharply, thinking maybe she could see that mischevious wind moving if she only moved fast enough.

But the window was shut.