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The wind blew, and she stepped away from me. “Help me find the purple mangor.”

I started to answer her, but stopped when I realized she wasn’t talking to me. She was talking… to the wind? I watched in amazement as it whirled up around her, causing her shirt and pants to flutter, and her hair to twist straight up, and then it stopped.

Her hair fell and her clothes stopped fluttering.

“Who are you?”

She smiled. “Scarlet.”

“Are you a witch?”

She laughed like I was joking, but I wasn’t. “No.”

“I’ve only seen witches communicate with nature.”

She shrugged.

There was a flutter of a breeze near a bush and she started to run towards it.

“Come on!”

“Seriously?”

She didn’t turn around, but continued to run. In this instance, she reminded me of a young child, running carefree through a field. She was practically emitting a light, as excitement and curiosity flowed through her.

Another ruffle of a bush or flight of birds and she would steer this way or that. It was like nature was communicating with her and she was following. Had I not seen it with my eyes, I probably wouldn’t have believed it.

I don’t know how long we had been following the path or where we were, but we came to the edge of a plunge pool at the base of a waterfall.

She stopped and looked up in amazement. “Isn’t it beautiful!”

“Yes, yes, it is.” She caught me looking at her, so I quickly diverted my attention to the waterfall. “So, what do we do now?”

“I don’t know. I guess we wait.”

“We wait? For how long?”

“I don’t know.” She looked around. “But the sun is high in the sky and mangors don’t typically come until it’s twilight out. So we have some time.” She looked at me and I saw the look of mischief in her eyes. “I’m going to go for a swim. Care to join?”

“No. I’ll stay here.”

“Suit yourself.” She started slipping out of her clothes.

“What are you doing?”

“I don’t want to get my clothes wet. Do you know how cold I’ll be tonight?”

“So maybe you shouldn’t go in then…”

“But I want to.”

“Do you always do what you want?”

“I never had the opportunity before, but now I do, therefore I am.”

I chuckled until she took her top off and was standing in front of me, completely naked- her soft and supple skin begging to be touched.

Shit. She had no reservations.