Within Memories PV Andrew Vance finished Reopened

No sooner had Lizelle and Sierra claimed their new seats beside each other on the swing set, after kicking off the last girl, that their “shoulder angel” friend and classmate, nine-year old Stacy Vance, approached them, her six-year old brother Andrew in tow, tagging faithfully alongside her.

“You guys are so mean.” Stacy rolled her eyes, lightly scolding them. While Stacy herself was hardly a bully, how she ever came to be on “friendly” terms with two of Hillstone Primary’s notorious ones was beyond Andrew’s line of comprehension.

He felt sorry for the other girl though. Andrew’s eyes followed after Aurelia as she went off in the direction towards the benches. He recognized her as one of the girls from the older grades, having seen her face at the school several times in passing, but didn’t know what her name was. While standing beside the swing set, Andrew’s attention snapped back to his sister’s conversation, shortly after Stacy’s eyes landed on what seemed to be a small, clear ball that Lizelle was fiddling with in her hands…

A few minutes later, Andrew found himself being dispatched from the swings, walking briskly over to where Aurelia sat alone on her bench. Stacy had managed to pry the ball from Lizelle and Sierra, and then tasked Andrew with the responsibility of returning it to its owner – the girl that had dropped it by the swing. Andrew was always the errand boy, the middleman, but in times like these, at least it would give him something to do while waiting for his dad to pick up him and his sister from school.

He resisted the urge to take another peek at the clear glass ball he was carrying in his hand. Something about it struck him as…unusual…in the most fascinating and enchanting sense. While Lizelle and Sierra had called it “trash” and “plastic”, in Andrew’s eyes, he didn’t see a worthless item all. It almost reminded him of a Christmas ornament. He assumed it would be of value to someone…

“Uh...Hi. Is this yours?” Andrew approached the girl and extended his right hand out, holding the ball for Aurelia to see. Andrew looked like a healthy boy his age. His mid-brown hair was kept short and spiked, a little bit ruffled, since he hadn’t shown much interest in styling it yet. His eye color varied, depending on the lighting. Usually they were a gray hue, but the sun often brought out the blue tones in them, such as they were now, on this particular bright and sunny day in January. Even though the sun was out, Andrew wore a thin jacket to keep himself warm. He could get cold real easily.

A bitter chill of a wind blew causing the small girl to wrap her arms around her torso in attempts to keep warm through the cold weather. Thellea better arrive soon or her daughter might get a frost bite. The German-Dutch born girl unzipped her backpack and took out a slim children’s book which bursted with colour every page you turned. Hansel and Gretel, it was in German. Her Mother had told her she needed to be fluent in German specifically as it was her Mother language. Aurelia however, had only started learning a few words a year ago. She was already fluent in both English and Dutch, perhaps German was a little to much for the young girl.

Aurelia turned the pages of the book lightly, she was barely reading any of the oversized words but was rather looking at the colorful illustrations, Gretel, a young girl like her with her hair in two pigtails and Hansel, a short haired boy who’s face was dusted with freckles. Engrossed she was and had only lifted her head up when someone spoke to her. A boy had his hand extended with a clear glass orb in it. He asked if it was hers.

Her Remembral. The only magical object her Mother had allowed on her. Even though young, Aurelia knew that muggles were forbidden to know anything about the wizarding world. The remembral was a wizard’s object and Aurelia knew she could get in big trouble for letting the boy see what it actually was. Reaching out, Aurelia snatched the orb swiftly from the boy’s grasp, as she did, the orb turned a hue of crimson red. Uh oh, the girl thought. She hastily stuffed in in one of the pockets of her robe.

“You can’t tell anyone you saw that.” She whispered, tucking a stray hair behind her year nervously. Aurelia would get into trouble if this boy went around telling every kid in the playground that she had a glowing magical orb, she would get into trouble and her Mother wouldn’t be happy either.

The glass ball must have been important to her. Andrew was somewhat taken aback by how quickly the girl snatched it from his hand and then hid it in one of her pockets. He was more confused than angered by the rudeness of it. He had half-expected the girl to say “thank you” and for him to say “you’re welcome” and then leave a good deed at that, but since the conversation hadn’t started that way… the girl’s statement puzzled him.

“Oh. Uh, okay. Sure…” Andrew stood in front of the girl in awkward silence. Not telling anyone about the glass ball wouldn’t be a problem for him. He only wanted to hand it back to its owner. He was quite forgetful in the sense that he didn’t care to pry his nose into other people’s business or think about it afterwards. However, there was Lizelle, Sierra, and Stacy to worry about. Andrew glanced over at the playground, where the three girls were playing. He couldn’t promise that they wouldn’t tell anyone else about the glass ball they had found by the swings, but he didn’t think they would even bother to remember it, unless if he was wrong.

Andrew turned his attention back to Aurelia, wondering if he ought to say something besides “bye” and walking away, back to the playground. The girl on the bench seemed a little lonely, if not a little nervous, after taking back her glass ball. Perhaps he ought to stay and offer her some company? But perhaps she wanted to be alone. In that case, he didn’t want to be a nuisance to her.

Shaking off his doubt, he decided to perk up with a friendly gesture.

“I’m Andrew. What’s your name?”

His eyes fell on the open book that Aurelia was reading. Captivated by its colorful pictures, he leaned over for a closer look at the pages. Upside down, as they were.

“I like your book,” he commented. It was an honest complement. The illustrations were very beautiful. Plus, Andrew figured that when talking to girls, complements were usually the best conversation-starters.

His eyes lit up excitedly, remembering the backpack he was carrying on his shoulders. “I can read, too,” he said eagerly.

Setting his backpack down on the bench, next to Aurelia, Andrew unzipped the main pocket and dug through its contents, before fishing out a book of his own:

It was a paperback copy of “Black Beauty” in slightly worn condition. The front cover depicted a foggy night background in shadowy gray and violet hues, with the head of a black horse contoured in the moonlight. Popped against the darkness, a white diamond star on the horse’s forehead completed the signature look of the novel’s main character, Black Beauty. Aside from the front and back covers, the rest of the 250-page book was black-and-white. No illustrations, just 12-font letters with slightly larger chapter headings printed on cream-antique paper. Certainly not as pretty or colorful as Aurelia’s. Not that pictures were of importance when it came to improving Andrew’s reading level, according to his parents, who sought to raise Andrew and his siblings as early readers. Most of Andrew’s books were handed down from his older sister, Stacy, whose bookshelves were overflowing with horse books. Not that Andrew had any preference.

He sat down on the bench, next to Aurelia, and flipped to where he had last left off – “Chapter 27: Ruined and Going Downhill” – and proceeded to read from his book, albeit quite slowly. Some of the words were tough, beyond Andrew’s vocabulary, and he often skipped around the page, leaving holes in whatever passage he was reading. Staring at too many words could get boring after a while…

Peering over at Aurelia’s book, whose illustrations were far more entertaining, Andrew became puzzled by the strange words he saw on the pages, none of which he could understand. He didn’t know that the words were in German, but his first instinct was to say them aloud, thinking that the meaning of the words would become clear, as he had been taught.

“Kuh-nuhp-pur, kuh-nup-pur, kuh-nee-ahys-chen,
"Knupper, knupper, Kneischen,
Wur kuh-nuhp-purt an mee-in-em Haws-chen?”
Wer knuppert an meinem Häuschen?"

Unaware as to whether he had unintentionally butchered the German language by interpreting the words in the only “English” way he knew how, Andrew turned to Aurelia with a perplexed look. “What does that mean?”

Aurelia simply stared blankly at the boy when he introduced himself, she wasn't sure how she should respond since her Mother always told her not to speak to strangers, especially muggles. But seeing that the boy was friendly enough to return her remembrall, it would be that bad if she given him her name. " Aurelia Bezuidenhout," she finally introduced herself after a few moments.

She had expect Andrew to walk away and join the other kids to play instead he placed his bag down and produced a book, one much thicker than what laid on her lap. On the cover page was a graphic of a dark horse. The girl acknowledged his statement about reading as well with a small smile. Aurelia usually didn't interact with kids around her age besides her Brother, whom seemed to disappear into thin air a few days ago, therefore, having a conversation with this boy she just meet made her rather uneasy.

"Wer knuppert an meinem Häuschen," she corrected him with a chuckle. The way German words were pronounced were much different than the English language. "It means... Who is nibbling at my house" she said. "It's Deutsche- I mean German. I already know the English language as well as Dutch but Mama wants me to learn her language so she makes me read children's books." She said, her lips pouted sulkily. Young Aurelia would rather finish the book, tales of bard and the beetle than read Hansel and Gretel, the children's tale she had heard over a dozen times.

She was on the 8th page, the page where the witch opens the door of the gingerbread house only to lure the children in. The witch was depicted nothing like a real witch, she was dressed in clothes like rags and her very pointed oversized nose was adorned with a wart the size of a grape on it.

"I never like how they portray the witches. They always make them evil like Bellatrix Lestrange. But evil as she is, no witch ever eats children. They always get Hags and Witches confused. Most witches are nice." Aurelia began ranting, mostly speaking as if she was thinking out loud than to Andrew.

Aurelia Bez—er—what? Andrew wasn’t that great with memorizing names. Faces, he was much better at recalling. He didn’t quite fully catch Aurelia’s last name, but unsure as to how long they would continue talking or if they would even talk to each other after this, Andrew didn’t think it was important to ask Aurelia to repeat her name again.

“Oh…” Andrew listened as Aurelia gave the correct pronunciation and translation of the German words. “That’s cool,” he said with admiration, scanning his eyes over the page. “I wish I could read it. I only speak one language.” He almost felt a tinge of jealousy that Aurelia had the ability to interpret those foreign words... Kind of like a superpower!

His mother sometimes spoke Tagalog – a Filipino dialect – to her relatives and friends, but never prioritized to teach her children a second language, since she wanted to perfect her own English and could only communicate in English to her husband, back when she was a fresh migrant in England. Hence, Andrew and his siblings grew up in a predominantly English-speaking household. A few words in Tagalog, he knew, but hardly enough of significance.

Andrew listened further to Aurelia’s ramble about witches, and then drew a blank look when she brought up an unfamiliar name. Bellatrix Lestrange. Was that a movie or story character that he hadn’t heard of before?

The name quickly fleeted from his mind as he continued to listen to Aurelia’s description of witches and how they were mistakenly depicted. Not that Andrew knew any better, from what he had seen and read in Muggle movies and literature: The green-skinned Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz... The icy White Witch in The Chronicles of Narnia... Not to mention the traditional Halloween witches with their striped stockings and black cats.

“Really?” Andrew asked, quizzical as to why Aurelia seemed so certain about the details concerning witches. “How do you know?”

Aurelia pursed her lips together now realising that perhaps she said a little bit to much. Andrew has asked how she knew witches weren’t bad. The answer was simple, she was a witch, she knew the wizarding world but yet if her Mother knew... if anyone knew, it could bring a lot of trouble. Still, Aurelia couldn’t help the urge that laid deep in her gut, Witches weren’t bad and muggles needn’t to depict them that way.

The you girl leaned in before whispering, “I am a witch, my Mother’s a witch. She can fly on a broom and all like in the books, but we aren’t wicked,” she had explained to Andrew. Her Mother could fly a broom, Aurelia was sure of it though she hadn’t seen her Mother on one before, riding brooms were dismissed as unladylike in the family.

“You can’t tell anyone either, muggles aren’t supposed to know,” Aurelia kept her voice in a whisper still, though there wasn’t anyone near to possible eavesdrop on their conversation. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out the remembral showing it to Andrew. “It is a remembral, many witches and wizards have them. It glows red when you forgot something,” as if right on command, the glass orb had became a shade of vibrant red. She held it in her small palm for Andrew to examine for himself.

Any answer would have satisfied Andrew, being that he was only a 6-year old child, currently in the “Why?” stage of life, learning to make sense of the world by asking questions. Whether the answer was truth or not, earthly or supernatural, he would accept it without judgement or ridicule towards the other person. Perhaps Aurelia’s revelation would’ve startled him if he were older. Or caused him to react strongly in disbelief, thinking she were crazy or delusional. But he didn’t. In fact, he readily absorbed the information that Aurelia was telling him, as if he were in a classroom setting, listening to the teacher speak. His reaction was one of neutral open-mindedness. He stayed silent, but listened to Aurelia intently.

His parents had already put an end to several childhood myths, which Andrew had accepted: The Easter bunny wasn’t real. Santa Claus wasn’t real. The tooth fairy wasn’t real. A pot of gold didn’t lie at the other end of the rainbow. Magic, in all physical aspects, didn’t exist in the real world. Andrew had no reason to doubt the credibility of his parents, but his child imagination was still wild and unrestrained, not yet grounded by the limitations of “reality”.

It didn’t occur to him to ask what “Muggles” were. The unfamiliar term breezed over his head. Andrew was much more captivated by the glass orb that Aurelia showed him, which had turned red inside. Something about the secrecy in Aurelia’s tone made him want to mirror her actions, and he hushed his voice, asking, “What did you forget?”

“Umm...” Aurelia hummed, tapping lightly on her chin. What did she forget? That was a question she didn’t know an answer to. Rarely she even found out and the remembral would remain red for a few hours until what she forgotten wasn’t that important. “It is not easy to remember what you have forgotten,” The young girl explained.

The glass orb remained on her hand, glowing warmly against her palm. The brunette squinted her eyes as she concentrated. Perhaps it was something I school that she had forgotten. Maybe in class? The glow dimmed slightly when she thought about class. That was a cue that she was getting there. Class what class? Maths? No. Art? It dimmed once again. Crayons, she had left her crayons in class. That was it, the orb stopped glowing, the light faded of as quick as a flame of a candle being blown out.

“I left my crayons in class. I’ll get it tomorrow.” She told Andrew.

“How about you try? Maybe you have forgotten something too?” She extended her arm with the hand held on to the now crystal clear orb towards the boy. Her remembral was a unique one, her parents had especially brought it to be engraved with her name on the gold rims; Aurelia. B. Apparently the ‘Bezuidenhout’ part was too long to fit into the little space and therefore it was put into initial form.

Andrew scooted closer to Aurelia, filling the gap between them. The bench was positioned so that their backs were turned towards the playground. Any interactions with the crystal orb would be walled off from the sight of those that came up behind them, since the two were sitting right next to each other. Andrew watched the orb intently in Aurelia’s hands as it changed color, from brilliant red to transparent again. He didn’t think to question the mechanisms as to how the orb worked, whether it was magic or not. He was simply fascinated by the color transformation.

“That’s so cool,” he gasped.

At Aurelia’s proposal, Andrew readily accepted the orb and took it in his hands, anticipating for the orb to change color. Not that he thought he had forgotten anything. Andrew had held the orb earlier on his way to return it to Aurelia, and it hadn’t turned red then, so it wouldn’t be expected for it to turn red on him now. It was like holding a mood stone, which didn’t actually read moods at all, but changed color based on body temperature. Even if they weren’t scientific, they were still fun and exciting to interpret.

So when the orb did become a vivid red in his hands, Andrew realized that he had a puzzle to solve. Really? He had forgotten something?


“Huh,” Andrew mused aloud, pondering for a few seconds. “I don’t think I forgot anything.”

He thought hard about what he had done today at school – classes, recess, breaktime, lunch. Nope. The brilliant red inside the orb didn’t change, didn’t even fade a little. What about after school? Well, he had put all the items he needed inside his backpack. All he had to do was wait at the playground for his dad to pick up him and Stacy…

Instantly, the orb became crystal clear again. Oh, wait. Stacy. He had forgotten all about her. Andrew was only supposed to return the crystal ball and then go straight back to the playground, but he had been with Aurelia for more than a few minutes. His sister must be—

“Heyy, Drew.” The nearby call rang in his ears, nearly stopping Andrew’s heart as he recognized the voice of the girl that was quickly approaching from behind him. Only one person in the world called him by that nickname. And it wasn’t Stacy.

Startled, Andrew quickly shoved both of his hands inside the pockets of his jacket, his right hand clenching the crystal orb. There was no time for him to pass the orb back to Aurelia without an oncoming pair of eyes taking notice. Within a split second, three girls had surrounded the bench – Stacy, Lizelle, and Sierra.

“Taking so long. You guys friends now?” Stacy poked playfully at Andrew. She stood beside her little brother with her dusky purple backpack on her shoulders. Unlike her two companions, Stacy didn’t come for a bullying session. Her main concern was for Andrew, checking up on him to make sure he was doing okay. However, with Lizelle and Sierra around, the other two wouldn’t pass up the opportunity for them to pick on Aurelia some more, especially after her latest dodge from them at the swings.

“Ew. Why're you with her, Drew?” Lizelle wrinkled her nose distastefully. The tallest of the trio, she strode her way around to the front of the bench, eyes targeting Aurelia with a smirk on her lips.

“Ooo, is she your girlfriend?” Sierra giggled over Andrew’s shoulder.

Along with most boys his age, Andrew had come to associate the word “girlfriend” with something as equally gross and immature as the cooties. Not that he minded being around girls, but girlfriend was an allegation that he wanted to shirk away from. “She’s not my girlfriend,” Andrew muttered, ducking his gaze in embarrassment. Automatically, he found himself scooting a few inches away from Aurelia, to make it seem less obvious that they were even talking together. All the while, he tried to look as innocent as possible with his hands inside his pockets, hoping none of the other girls would raise suspicion that he was hiding anything.

Well that ruined the mood. The girls had invaded the bench, and they weren’t about to leave anytime soon. It seemed like Andrew’s and Aurelia’s moment of peace was over.