"Ilse, are you well? You're so pale..."

Wendla's hands were soft, almost motherly, against her forehead. Ilse would have nodded, but her head was quite numb and all she could think was that it was an awful long walk to their tree from Melchior's house and that it smelled like rain.

"...you don't feel -- Melchior! Moritz, tell him to slow down!"

"We're racing!" called Moritz, and sure enough the two boys, who a moment ago were walking only several steps ahead, had bolted in the direction of their great oak looming in the distance.

"Come on, we shan't lose them," urged Wendla. She tugged a solemn Ilse by the arm, who must be rather ill because surely she never before would have had to tell Ilse to "come on". The other girl complied and they ran hand-in-hand, together a scampering mass of skirts and giggles and gangling twelve-year-old limbs.

Melchior's face was cool and amused above them when they collapsed in a heap at the base of the tree, having already established his place on a lower branch. Moritz remained cross-legged on the ground, idly plucking at the grass blades that cushioned its roots.

"What are we to play, then?" asked Wendla, who proceeded to sit upright and primly adjust her skirt. "Frau Gabor told us to play."

"That doesn't mean we must," Melchior replied, swinging his feet. "But if you would like..."

Moritz raised his head, brow furrowed in thought. "She seemed upset, your mother. Where was she going?"

"An errand." Melchior leaped from his branch and to the ground, landing firmly on his feet. "What were you speaking with her about, Ilse?"

Ilse, uncommonly silent, graced him with a smile that was not quite like her normal Ilse-smiles. "It smells like rain. Are we to play?"

From Ilse's mouth the word "play" did not seem so entirely ridiculous. For the others it had slowly, creepingly become more difficult to say; something stilted and foreign and awkward, something to do with the subtle change in Melchior's gait and the strange, soft near-curves he had felt nestled beneath his arm upon tackling Wendla to the ground in their last game of chase.

It had been a while since their last game of chase...

"There was no sense in sending us out so late," observed Moritz. "You see? The sun is already setting."

"Silly sun!" chimed Ilse, and for a moment she sounded like herself, even as she rubbed at a bruise on her arm that must be new, for it was not there yesterday. Everyone knew that Ilse was very clumsy. "It's only leaving because it smells the rain, Moritz. Don't you?"

"...no."

"Well," Wendla huffed, crossing her arms. "Are we playing or not?"

"Moritz is right, it will be dark soon. Perhaps we should just...head home."

"No, stay!" Suddenly, Ilse seemed very frightened.

Wendla attempted to placate her with a hand on her shoulder. "We can play tomorrow, Ilse. Besides, you look ill -- "

" -- no, now! I would very much like to play. And we can watch the sun go down together."

"Mama wouldn't let me, you know that. We'll see each other tomorrow."

Ilse bit her lip, twisted the end of one of her braids between her fingers. "Yes. Tomorrow."

"I'll walk you home, Wendla," offered Melchior. Only the sharpest ear might have been able to detect the waver in his voice. Wendla accepted his outstretched hand, with some surprise and a tiny smile. "Coming, Moritz?"

"Certainly." Moritz stood and stretched his arms, only to find himself under the peculiar gaze of Ilse's eyes...pleading, shining blue in the twilight.

"Please, Moritz."

"What?"

It was a single word, a whisper. "Stay."

Perhaps it was a trick of the light, or simply another oddity to be added to the list of unnameable changes occuring between the four of them; those strange changes Moritz avoided thinking about, acknowledging, whenever Wendla twirled her skirt or Ilse brushed against him. All he knew was that Ilse looked uncharacteristically vulnerable, there in the grass, so far away from her sweet laughter and scraped knees.

"I can't -- "

"I have something to show you."

"I...very well." He slowly sat back down, stiff and still beside her. "Never mind, Melchi. I suppose I'm staying."

Melchior might have left with a parting shrug; Wendla might have blushed at the realization that the two of them were to be walking alone; Moritz might have grunted softly, Ilse wasn't sure, for the sun kept her attention as it sank lower and lower on the horizon.

The crickets had begun, and they were alone, when Moritz next spoke.

"...so what is it you wish to show me?"

"It smells like rain."

"Ilse... " He stopped, gasped, for she had suddenly and quite harshly grasped his hand in hers, tight and warm and afraid --

"Would you forget me, Moritz?"

"I -- what -- "

"...if I were gone tomorrow..."

"I have to go, Ilse, I'm sorry."

"Listen to the crickets with me, at least. "

Her thumb was caressing his palm, and God, how could he, why was he, every little thing about her noticed at once, the rise and fall of her chest, quickening with each breath, and the curve of her shoulder, the tears pooling in her peculiar eyes --

"I have to go." He had to run.

She watched him rise to his feet, watched him flee until he was a speck, gone with the sun.

It was dark when Ilse finally stood. Surely the rest of them were home by now; surely by now Frau Gabor had left her house, and surely by now Mama and Papa, dear Papa, were waiting for her at the door. She would be in trouble, she knew, in trouble for being out after sunset and for telling lies to Frau Gabor, horrible lies that were truths about her papa, and then...

A single drop of rain fell and hit the top of her head. Ilse turned, pressed a kiss to the trunk of their tree in farewell, and began her final walk home in the drizzly dark.