Hyraj and Mr Arl went back to work, his niece Frinnef returned to her room; she said why, but I didn’t recognise the word, so I just smiled. Sisi and I were left alone in the lounge.

I had a lot to learn, I knew. About this world, about Sisi, about myself. Before, I had been “mothering”. Those girls had gone to school to learn. What I gave them… was safety. A small place in this world they could call home.

Sisi had that—her father. She felt very different to the girls I’d looked after before. Not… broken. I didn’t know what it was like to lose a family, to be rejected from the people I called family, that kind of thing. But I saw what it did to a child. The only thing more horrible to see than a child with a nasty bruise on their face was that same child begging to go back to the person who had given it to them.

Falling into dark thoughts, I took a deep breath and calmed myself. Sisi—sitting next to me with a pout, fumbling around with the knitting needles—had no marks like that. I was sure that losing her mother hurt her greatly, but she still had a loving father. She didn’t flinch from me, didn’t pinch herself or otherwise have a habit of hurting herself, no patches of missing hair or scabs on her lips from biting them. Things I was used to looking out for when meeting new kids.

She looked over—at my lap first, then up at me. “What is it?” she asked.

“I was watching you. It’s good of you to keep trying,” I said.

That brought back her pout, her hands tightening their grip. “I can’t do it,” she mumbled.

“Can you do it tomorrow if you don’t try some more today?” I asked, not quite how I wanted to phrase it, but hindered by my grasp of grammar.

She looked away, maybe not the response she was hoping for. Well, her dad certainly doted on her, so no need for me to as well.

Leaning down, I held back my smile and whispered, “Or am I a bad teacher?”

She froze up, then quickly shooed with her hand and sent the needle clattering to the floor.

Oh, I just wanted to hug her and pat her head and… but I didn’t. “Some things are hard when you’re child, and some things are still hard when you’re of age. But, if you learn how to try even when it’s hard, then you can do more things if you’re child or you’re of age.”

Reaching down, I picked up her needle and placed it on her lap.

“Do you have… things to show me?” I asked, this time stumbling over not knowing the word for toy. It didn’t come up in Hyraj’s book.

Still, Sisi understood—or heard what she wanted to hear. “Ah, yes! Come touch my room,” she said, putting her attempt-at-knitting on the couch and sliding off onto her feet. Couch—it was a padded bench, no arms, low back, plenty of room underneath. More comfortable than just wood, but not as nice as the dining chairs.

Her room was upstairs. While downstairs was wood with rugs for the room, concrete for the hallway, upstairs was kind of carpeted, floor covered in something like thick linen. Four rooms, but one of them… a white cloth was tied around the doorknob. I guessed it was maybe the bedroom Mr Arl and his wife had shared.

Not the time for “gossip”, I looked away, following Sisi. Her room wasn’t too big, a third of it taken up by her bed and chest of drawers. No wardrobe or toy box. The walls an off-white, floor similar, more of the linen-looking carpet. If everything had been a bright white, it might have felt like a hospital, but this sort of reminded me of like an old book, a faded drawing on unbleached paper. Soft, in a way. Gentle.

While there wasn’t a toy box, she had a toy drawer. And I meant toy. There was a doll, dress wheat-coloured with red spots faded to pink, face kind of glassy, but not in a glass way.

“Touch, this is Penny,” she said. Not that she literally said Penny, but the name of the coins I thought of as pennies. Wait, Hyraj had said “Krinjor” was the name for female leaders of the country, so maybe “Krin” was more like “Princess”?

It didn’t really matter what I thought of it as, so I held out my hands, carefully accepting her precious toy. Another funny quirk of the language, showing something meant letting the other person hold it. From up close, I realised that, rather than glassy, the doll’s face was waxy. Two black balls for eyes, smile carved in, no nose. Not perfectly even skin, maybe held too close on hot days.

“Hello, Krin,” I whispered, stroking the empty sleeve. No arm, just a wooden lump for a hand sewn on at the end; the same was true for the legs. It didn’t have hair either, just a hood. “I’m Louise, but you can call me Loulou, okay?”

Introduction over, I handed it back. Sisi took the doll just as gently as I had and, after giving it a cuddle, put it back in the drawer. I thought to tell her we could play with it, have a tea party or something like that. I thought to, but didn’t speak the words, knowing the doll was special. A gift from her mum, maybe.

That said, my mind was turning, the seeds of thoughts to think later. Right now, I focused on Sisi.

“Do you know, ah, I’m not sure the name for it, so let I call it the shopping game,” I said, tripping over myself again as I spoke before making sure I knew what I wanted to say.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“The shopping game?” she asked, head tilting to the side in the most adorable way.

I smiled. “We pretend we’re going shopping and have to remember everything we need to buy, okay? It is easy if I show you,” I said and cleared my throat, readying myself to “sing” the words. “I’m going shopping and I need to buy… two shoes.” Gesturing at her, I said, “So now you say the same I did, but buy another thing.”

She looked at me for a moment, still confused, then tried. “I’m going shopping and I buy… a hat?”

“I’m going shopping and I need to buy… two shoes, a hat, and bread.”

A spark of understanding shone in her eye. Just that—“I’m going shopping and I buy… two shoes, bread, no… two hats, bread, and a sandwich.”

Well, a good start.

It was a long afternoon of those little games, but she liked them, so everything went fine. Though Frinnef walked past the door a few times, she didn’t speak to us at all. Not sure if she even looked in the room or anything, maybe just going to the toilet or kitchen; her job here seemed to include cooking.

Outside, the rain grew heavier at times, never quite turning to a storm, never quite stopping either. I worried about being stuck here, but I thankfully didn’t have to deal with that by the time Mr Arl returned.

The moment the knock sounded out, Sisi was scrambling to her feet, darted off in a blur that sent my heart racing. “Walking, Sisi! Walking!” I shouted after her, forcing my legs to work faster than they had in months.

Fortunately, she didn’t fall down the stairs and neither did I.

By the time I joined them, Sisi was babbling, hard for me to know what she was describing despite being here with her. If he couldn’t understand, he didn’t show it. A soft smile, softer than any he’d shown me, and a gentleness to his touch that stroked her cheek. It reminded me of touching a flower, both so afraid to break it and yet unable to resist its beauty. Was that how a parent saw their child? Or, was that just how he saw his daughter?

Whatever the case, there was no need for me to hang around, so I squatted down next to Sisi and touched her hand. The gesture quieted her as she looked at me. “Can I speak to your papa for a moment?” I asked.

She stared, a long, long second passing, then she moved her hand, gestured a “yes”.

I smiled at her, then stood up and met Mr Arl’s eye. “Would you like to speak with me or should I make leave?” I asked, proud of myself for remembering that posh phrase.

He shooed with his free hand, the other still claimed by Sisi. “Please, before it is late,” he said.

So I squatted down again to say goodbye to Sisi, then put on my shoes and coat, heading out into the rain. A gentle rain, so loud with all the puddles. Wonderful. I never had the chance to enjoy the rain like this before, always rushing. Now, though, I could slowly walk, coat held tight, listening to the drops drum against me, splash. Still warm enough that getting a little wet wasn’t unpleasant.

It wasn’t a long walk. Back at the dormitory, I dried off as best I could under the roof’s overhang and scraped my shoes, then entered. The front door didn’t have a lock, but each room did—including the kitchen. Even if Hyraj was out, I didn’t have to worry about being stuck in the rain.

She wasn’t out, though, opening the door almost as soon as I knocked.

“Welcome home,” she said. At least, that was how I thought of it, more literally “pleased you came back” squashed together into a long word.

So I said something that meant like, “Pleased to be back.”

She stepped back to her seat at the desk and sat down, but didn’t go back to her open book, instead still looking at me. I wondered why until she asked, “Was it well?”

“It was well,” I said, trying not to smile at the odd wording again.

“That’s good, then,” she said, turning to the desk.

I hesitated for a moment before deciding now wasn’t the right time. It could wait for after we ate. So I put down my bag, took off my coat, and went to see if there was help needed in the kitchen. Anything I could learn about cooking, I wanted to.

Dinner came, eating in silence, then I helped wash up too. Habit for both of us by now.

Routine finished, I sat on the bed. Thoughts that had churned around my head all day finally had a chance to settle. I took a scrap piece of paper from my bag, charcoal pencil too, and started drawing.

Once I was done, I waited for Hyraj to finish the chapter she was on. One minute, two—I didn’t mind waiting. No rush. That was probably the best thing about coming to this world, never really a rush. No homework, no kids to get ready for school or bed, just peace.

She turned the page and I saw a chapter title, obvious even from where I sat. “Hyraj?”

A little longer, then she slipped in her bookmark and shut it. “Yes?”

I stood up and placed the paper on her desk, asking, “Can you tell me what these are called?”

She glanced over the page. “That it is, I forget that, at the start, I even had to share the numbers,” she murmured. After a long breath, she went through the shapes one-by-one with me and, at my request, wrote their names too. While most words were spelled as they sounded, at least when she spoke them, I wanted to make sure. “Anything else?” she asked.

“These things together, what do you call them? Like, one and two are numbers, and A and B are letters, circles and squares are….”

“A name… it is not, well, it is a term for educated people, but we call their study hiera, which includes things like graphs.” At least, she paused and drew what looked like a graph to me.

Thinking hard, I fell into a pout. “That it is… can I ask, ‘What hiera is this?’ and it makes sense?”

She laughed, a deep chuckle that sent a shiver down my spine. Before I could wonder why, she said, “It makes sense to me, unlikely many others. To ask what hiera it is, no, you would simply ask what is it’s lookalike. Most will answer with a hiera; if not, then prompting them with circle or square would have them answer with a hiera.”

I almost nodded, instead making the tapping gesture with my thumb.

A few more questions, she happily answered them, leaving me more sure about my plans for the next day. Just that, at the end of our “lesson”, she asked, “What brought you to ask these questions?”

“Oh, it is… I would like to use them in playing with Sisi,” I said, maybe phrasing it a bit awkward.

She didn’t frown, but her lips seemed to thin. It was hard to tell. Always kept everything to herself. Staring at her lips, I almost jumped when they finally moved. “Mr Arl, that is it, did you discuss tutoring her?”

“No? This is, this isn’t tutoring. Before I… came here, I was learning to… look after little children,” I said, holding my hand down to emphasis the “little” part. “My home, we tutor little children about hiera and colours and numbers. They are… more smart you think,” I said.

At that, she gave a small smile. No, as slight as it looked, it was quite the big smile for her. “I imagine so.”

Our conversation had already been at the end before her question and, now that was over, there seemed nothing else to say. I put together my notes, falling back into churning thoughts.

“… good mother.”

Hearing her, I came out of my head. “Pardon? I didn’t hear,” I said.

She shook her hand. “It is nothing. Sleep well,” she said.

“And you,” I said, taking that as my cue to finish up. Tomorrow would be a lot of fun.