Louise

Silence held in the kitchen far longer than I expected. I searched around to see if I could find Leonce. No one else seemed to be around, but if I could hear them on the third floor, he had to have heard as well. Yet, no matter where I looked, it was just the two of them. “Is your husband—“

“Away…”

“I’m sorry. Are you hurt?”

She shook her head, still holding Louise tightly. It was hard to tell if this was the first time something like this happened or not. If it had, the damage would have been more noticeable I felt. It had to be a while. “Nothing serious.”

“So you are hurt or damaged?”

“I’m fine!” She started to walk out of the kitchen to the dining room. There was a sense that she wanted to be alone, but after what happened I couldn’t ignore that. I still didn’t understand what happened and if this was the same thing the Basilica showed up for last time. Is she aware of the risks?

I kept to the threshold between the kitchen and dining room to give her space, but watched both of them. “I’m sorry for barging in, but I heard screams from my room. I just acted.”

“Like the other day.” She stared at my neck.

It was more than obvious. I glanced away briefly. “Yes. Bad habit I guess.” I scratched my head feeling the awkwardness of the conversation build. There were so many more important questions to ask. Yet I had to sit on them all.

Once more stillness pressed down upon us. I felt like if I said the wrong thing, she’d just kick me out. Which I couldn’t really deny her, even if everything was so suspicious now. She looked more defensive than wanting answers. Almost like questions about her daughter weren’t even something to be concerned with. Was it more of that annoying Orthodoxy teachings?

Regardless, I couldn’t let emptiness continue. “How is Louise?”

“She’s fine!”

Louise was fine! She was fine. We were all fine! For Sol's sake I just wanted a normal conversation. I stepped into the room staying on the opposite side of the table. Pulling out the chair, I sat down getting a bit of a stare from her. However, I gave up my diplomatic expression and matched her intensity and sternness.

“I know I came in uninvited. But I’m not the enemy here. I want to protect Louise and you the same. I just want to help.” The hard fixed eyes on me softened a touch. It forced me to notice how much just speaking heated my body temp up. I closed my eyes and breathed out for a moment. Once I had a moment, I returned to her. “Are either of you hurt? Can I help? Do you want me to find your husband for you?”

“No…I can…” She paused when Louise suddenly started to move in her arms. A moment of fear washed over her face. That wasn’t the look of someone that found this familiar. No, she was just as confused as me about this. Dammit. What the hell is going on? Nothing made any sense!

We watched closely to see what happened with Louise. I think both of us sort of hoped it was just idle movement and she was still unconscious. That wasn’t what it was. She just kept moving, waking up. Both of us leaned forward as tension mounted in the room.

Yet nothing seemed to happen. Her daughter just slowly woke up and didn’t seem any worse than what happened a few minutes ago. In fact, she jumped up seeing me at the opposite end. “Miss Val! I haven’t seen you! You didn’t get another contract already?”

The mother, stunned by the complete shift in behavior, didn't have any hold on her. She lost Louise immediately as she rushed over to see me. Looking up at me with her big blue eyes I couldn’t see any hint of the raging girl. Had the woman in the park returned to normal just like Louise?

I leaned down a little comforting Louise, though she seemed a little confused by the action. “No, sorry I haven’t been around to play. I was checking out your beautiful town.”

“So you’ll be able to play more?”

That felt like a loaded question. I turned to her mother not willing to overstep anymore than I have now that we seemed to have reached a calm moment. With a bit of peace, she looked really to slump over with the release of tension the wound her body.

“Louise, you don’t want to annoy Miss Valeria.”

“Mum! I want to play!” She bounced a little in spot with some building frustrated energy.

She sighed heavily while I remained silent for her. Her mother stood up and walked over to us. Part of her looked to be dragging, not because she was damaged, just exhausted. She looked down at me with a renewed stern stare. I could see she was asking without words, ‘Can I trust you?’ All I did was nod honestly.

Leaning down to Louise, she looked eye level with her daughter. “Alright, but why don’t you take Miss Valeria to your room.”

“I can?”

“Just don’t be too loud.”

“I won’t, mum!” She jumped around the chair grabbing my hand. “C’mon, Miss Val! I’ll show you!”

I paused checking one last time with her mother. She gave me a slow nod back. I had to protect her. A simple enough ask. I hoped.

The eagerness in Louise dragging me along, she didn’t even seem to realize the living room was completely trashed or that there were dents in the wall. It surprised me how young they augmented their child. But it was their way. Though this shouldn’t have been the risk.

Back through the hall, Louise took me quickly to the ajar door. It had stars and flowers painted around the center with her name emblazoned in a shiny gem-like finish. Inside, the room had a bit of the look of the living room, though clearly a case of an eight year old not cleaning rather than running rough shot through it.

She had a curiously simple looking bed with pictures lined most of her walls. They were images that were partly familiar and foreign. None of these were sights found within the town. A couple I remembered from the projection she showed me and others from places I visited. She really had her eyes set beyond.

Off in the corner, I saw a pile of clothes. Covering what seemed like half of her floor were pillows shaped like trees and stars in simplistic shapes. I had to carefully step around just to reach her desk. If she didn’t protest, I would have liked to help clean things up a little. I could only imagine how much stress her mother had.

But I wanted to watch Louise. Much like her mother, I worried about what happened. I wondered if I might finally get a few more details out of either of them. This couldn’t be hidden anymore. But Louise acted like it never even happened. I wish I could’ve seen the woman to know if that’s how they ended up as well.

As I sat down at the desk, Louise rushed off to look for something in her room. Did she even know where anything was?

I leaned back to look over the surface. A couple of electronic papers scattered about with drawings that tried to match her photography, but only came out in very basic shapes and primary colors. There were a couple of devices that I didn’t recognize, no doubt something like that of the Torucube. I tried to find anything that didn’t fit neatly into her singular vision.

There weren’t many children that I knew, so I didn’t have a lot of basis for it. But I’ve never seen someone with such a hyper focus. She really had a fascination with the outside. I glanced back to see her shuffling through some containers.

Moving my hand over the desk, I accidently brushed away the paper. I started to put it back when I saw something underneath. It was another paper, but different from the others. There were some numbers written on the corner that went completely against the rest. Most of it was an image of a person that looked to glow. Rays came off them. Strange.

“Miss Val!” Louise bounced over the floor with practiced ease. “I found it! See?” I looked down, not sure what I was looking at. It didn’t seem to be another toy or projection device.

I slowly picked it up from her hand and it had lines all down a rectangular shape rounded off. There were some angular cuts through it breaking up the uniform shape, but it just sort of looked like a piece of metal. Maybe something used in a construct. “What is it?”

“Silly, it’s my favorite Torucube!”

“But Louise this is…”

She tilted her head confused why I didn’t recognize something so obvious. “What Miss Val?”