When I walk back into our room, I pause for a moment when Ralph sits with Eve on her bed. "Umm..." I wanted to heat up the water, but with him here...
"Hey, Aria, can Ralph wash up too? He needs to, but we haven't gotten to the river lately, and it looks like it's going to rain tomorrow." I'm not sure what rain has to do with that... Oh, because people don't do things when it's raining, do they? I wonder if Eryk runs the refinery on rainy days...?
Pushing away the random thought, I focus on the important thing here. I pull Eve a step away, leaning close so I can whisper to her privately.
"What what about the hot water? I don't want anyone to know about that."
"It's fine, he's my brother," Eve responds. But... how does that make it ok? I don't even know him. "Don't worry, I can tell him it's secret."
"But..." I bite my lip. Eve looks down at me, pouting.
"Please?" she asks again. "It'll be fine, you trust me, don't you?"
"I do, but..." But not him. My eyes squeeze shut so I don't have to see any more of the hurt creeping into Eve's expression.
It's a bad idea. I know it's a bad idea. But I don't want to say no to Eve. I'd feel terrible. She trusts me and I want to trust her but...
"Ok," I sigh out in a big huff. "Fine. But he can't watch," I add on, "I don't want anyone else to see what I'm doing."
Eve bounces a few times in excitement. "Thanks a lot, Aria!" Despite her beaming face, I already feel like I'm going to regret this. But I'd also regret hurting Eve...
I sigh again, before instructing her to get Ralph out of the room while I work.
Our floor is nice and clean unlike how it used to be, so I have no trouble sliding the big basin against the wall and kneeling by the bucket of water with my ignium ingot.
When I push mana through the mollite in my wrist to heat up the ignium, I wince. My barrier is bit roughed up from what I pulled earlier. Still, it's nothing like it was when I tore myself apart before, so I bear with it, spending some stirring the water with the ignium ingot. I know I don't need to worry about burns with the bits fire mana it's giving me, but after today, I'm feeling more careful than usual with hot things...
As soon as the water feels nice and hot, but not too hot, I wipe off the ignium and set it under my bed to cool off. I also make sure to clear out the extra fire mana I converted, before I tell Eve they can come back inside.
"Oh." I'm surprised to see Mary there too when the door opens. I guess she just got back. It looks like Eve already told her, so we all pile back into our little room. Eve starts with Ralph, getting him undressed and in the big basin. Even though he's only five, he's still about the same size as me...
He sits there, complaining and saying he's bored while Eve orders him around, making him lift his arms, turning around, or anything else so she can scrub him all over. He does look like he enjoys the hot water despite his complaints, and as soon as he's all clean, she praises him for being much more cooperative than usual.
That was cooperative...?
"Ok Ralph, you can't tell anyone about this, do you understand?" Eve makes a point of holding him by the shoulders until he meets her eyes and answers.
"I won't." He doesn't sound like he's lying, but he doesn't sound that serious either...
"I'll be really mad if you do," Eve insists, "so don't do it." Ralph nods a few times, but all it makes me think is that he doesn't care. He has no idea how important the information is.
Well... he's only five, one of the little kids, and I don't get the same impression from him that others give off. Probably because he had Eve to take care of him, now that I think about it. He didn't have to grow up too fast like everyone else, did he...?
By the time Eve's pushing Ralph out the door, I'm trying to come up with excuses to explain the hot water. I wanted to trust Eve, but there's no way Ralph is keeping this a secret. Nothing's even happened yet and I'm already getting mad at her. She said he could keep a secret!
No, no, not yet. I take a few breaths and stop myself. He might surprise me. Maybe he's really good with secrets. I shouldn't get mad at Eve for something that hasn't happened yet.
I tell myself that, but it doesn't change how I feel. So I keep it inside and try not to let it out, until my heart settles down on its own.
Even so, it doesn't stop my search for some explanation to give when Ralph eventually blows my secret. Nuvrite can get hot too, so maybe something about that...
After Ralph leaves, we all take turns bathing as well. The other girls are kind of sloppy about it, but I make sure to scrub myself carefully like I was taught, to get as cleaned up as I can. It won't be as hard to stay this way either, now that the house is actually pretty clean. Jannette comes back partway through, so I reheat the water for her and she washes up too.
----------------------------------------
We finish up, then I start washing my clothes. I only have a few sets though since I keep destroying them all the time. I need to get more when I go out over the weekend. Besides Jannette, the other girls take turns gathering around the other side of the basin that they can reach with it wedged against the wall, and wash their clothes too, while they have the chance with the hot water.
It isn't long before I finish and carry my few things over to the window sill to dry. But looking up at the clouds, I remember what Eve said. It is pretty cloudy, like it might start raining. When I turn my thoughts to Chisa, she confirms it - it's definitely going to rain. I don't know how she can tell, it's something about the feel of the movement of air in her wings gives her a far more definite answer than me staring at the clouds.
With the coming rain in mind, everyone finds better cover to sleep for the night. Avara points out a particular spot in the roots of a big tree, and they all settle in comfortably where they'll be warm and dry. Brom tucks in with the magical creatures too. I'm surprised, he's been getting a lot bigger, I guess because he was a very young rechit when I took over his soul, so he's not a full grown adult yet. Even Chisa ducks into the top section of a house, squeezing through a small hole in the wood to slip into a nice covered spot.
Meanwhile, I look up and around my room. Since I can't put the clothes on the sill, where should I set them to dry...? It would be nice if I could use a clothesline, but I don't know if we have one, or where I would set it up if we did.
"Oh that's right, it kind of looks like rain," comes Eve's voice from below where I'm staring up at the ceiling. She leans out over my shoulder to look up at the cloudy sky. "Hmm, where should we put our clothes?" After voicing the same concerns I have, she shrugs. "Well, I guess we could give it a shot and hope it doesn't rain." Then she pauses, squinting a bit and mumbling just the last part to herself. "Would that make Saras mad?"
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
"No, it's definitely going to rain," I correct her. "It'll be in about..." I tilt my head while pulling the thoughts of the exact time from Chisa. "Sometime around midnight."
"Oh." She blinks at me. "That's weirdly specific but alright..."
"A-anyway," I fumble when I realize too late that giving an exact time is weirder than I thought. "Where should we hang our clothes?" Emily should be home any time now, so if we have any trouble, we can get her to help too. It's only a few more ticks to the twelfth bell, but she doesn't need to be as careful of curfew now that Mister Fredricson is gone. Still, she always gets home right about now.
"Let's check the storeroom, I bet we can find something in there," Eve suggests.
"Yeah, I was thinking the same thing." We head for the door, letting the other girls know we'll be back, but as soon as we open it, Emily is right there on the other side, reaching for the handle herself. "Oh, perfect timing!" I chirp when I see her. But then my gaze moves up to the person behind her. Noria?
"Good evening, girls. Getting washed up?" When she looks over everyone with their clothes and the water basin half covered by my bed from where she's standing, I suppress a shudder. The water isn't hot anymore, but it is comfortably warm instead of icy cold like when it came up out of the well. I have no good way of explaining that if she touches it...
"Yes, Miss Noria," we all answer more or less together, but the other girls throw glances at me. When the woman's eyes follow theirs, I swallow. Everyone suddenly looking at me like that made her suspicious! My mind spins for something to say, then I get it.
"Ah! Miss Noria, I was just thinking about finding a clothesline to hang our stuff up. It looks like it's going to rain," I say... probably a little too loudly. I point out the window too, up toward the sky, and thankfully, that clears up the suspicious look in her eyes.
"Oh, I see," she nods lightly, "we have a couple in the storeroom."
I have to get her out of our room... "Sorry, could you show me where? Everything in there got moved around..." I tilt my head and manage to say it convincingly now, because it's true. I have no idea where those are buried in there.
"Alright, come along," she holds the door and waves a hand for me to come out with her. I share a look with Emily as we pass, and a glance back at the other girls, silently begging them to get everything cleaned up before we return.
The trip downstairs is quick, though I manage to delay Noria by climbing carefully down the stairs just a little slower than usual. The clotheslines end up being easy to find, but it's good that Noria is here to help because they're strung up around the top of a shelf that's way, way too high for me to reach without doing some dangerous climbing in the cramped room.
Instead, Noria simply takes some down for me. I bow and thank her, but she's already moving over somewhere else. I follow, going up on my toes when she digs into a box. I hear metal sounds, kind of like a bunch of coins scraping together, before she produces a few nails.
"What are those for?" I ask.
"You need somewhere to put up the clothesline, do you not?" she chuckles at me with a playful head shake, and I get it. Duh, of course we do. I didn't think that far ahead. After she grabs a hammer, we head back upstairs. Eve passes us on the way, carrying the empty tub and bucket back down. Our eyes meet and we share a nod as we pass.
Then it's up to our room, where Noria takes some time to hammer a few small nails into our walls and hang up the clothesline in a 'V' shape between them. It's kind of sideways though, the bottom point of the V resting partially above Eve's bed since she's in the middle.
Once Noria is finished, we all thank her, then she leaves. Having an adult around to do things like this is super helpful...
In any case, that covers our clothing issues for now. It looks like Emily gave herself a very quick wash too, since her hair is shiny and wet, and the girls already latched the window closed in preparation for the rain.
Things quiet down after that. There's dinner, and I get to spend some time teaching Emily more letters, and chat with the other girls, before we all lie down in bed. The cold is getting noticeable now, even with our window closed for the night. How much colder will it get in winter? Emily's thin blanket doesn't provide much protection, so it's good that we have each other for warmth, but what about the other girls? What about everyone else in the house?
I don't know. Those thoughts quietly drift through my head as I yawn and snuggle in closer.
----------------------------------------
When I wake up, it's already raining. It isn't heavy pounding rain, but it's still coming down decently hard, the sound echoing all through the house. I'm up a few hundred ticks before the first bell like usual. I'm glad I can keep track of time while I'm asleep now, it's really useful to always know what time it is even without the bells. But as I sit up in bed, I'm wondering, do I even have class on rainy days? I tuck the blanket close around Emily and move downstairs quietly. My barrier still doesn't feel good, so I decide not to do any mana practice. I spend some time just meditating instead, until my sensitive ears barely pick up the first bell.
"No one...?" I murmur. No John, and none of the caretakers are coming today? Does that mean I don't have class after all? Or should I just go myself? When I climb on a chair and hesitantly stick my hand out one of the ground floor windows, the water is freezing cold, and I quickly pull it back in. It really wouldn't be pleasant if you went out and got soaked with the weather like this. And getting too cold is the only thing that's ever gotten me sick before...
I pace back and forth for a bit, trying to figure out if it's worth trying to get across town to the refinery. I'd send Chisa to take a look, but she's definitely not going out in this. While possible, it would be really hard for her to fly well in this rain.
Creak.
With a few surprised blinks, I look over at the front door, finding a figure covered in layers of heavy cloth, deep brown cloaks covering their figure. I'm on guard for a few moments as they close the door behind them, before the person pulls them off, and it's Marrianne underneath.
She shakes herself and rubs her arms, before glancing around and spotting me standing here.
"Aria?" she asks.
"Hi?"
Marrianne visibly shakes off the shock, approaching and rubbing my head with her free hand. "What are you doing up, sweetie?"
I answer, "I was trying to figure out if I'm supposed to go to the refinery today, but I'm not sure..."
"What?!" she raises her voice slightly. "Of course not! It's freezing out, you know."
I frown. "But you came here." I would feel terrible, if I didn't go and found out later that Claire was there waiting. I told her I wouldn't miss my classes...
"Oh honey, that's because we're the only ones who can take care of you all. At least one of us had to come today." I get her point, but we did manage to feed ourselves before the caretakers were here. But then I wouldn't have a meal made for me, would I?
Shaking away that thought, I hum in thought for a few moments. "You're sure Claire won't get mad at me? I'm not going to miss class?"
"Of course not," Marrianne assures me, kneeling down with a somewhat sad smile. Then she speaks a little more sternly. "You'd catch your death going out in that. You're staying home today, and that's final."
"..." I squirm, uncertain, but can't come up with a response even when I open my mouth. I don't want to make Marrianne mad at me, and she definitely won't let me argue here. And she's probably right anyway, even if I'm worried... "Mm," I finally agree with a nod.
"Good, now go back up to bed," she says while searching around, before standing up. "Get some more sleep." Then she throws the soaked looking layers of cloaks she was wearing over a little table and brushes off her dress, before coming back and tapping me on the nose playfully. "Go on now."
I finally smile and nod. "Ok." With no one else awake right now, we share a nice warm hug, before she nudges me toward the stairs.
Marrianne calls quietly after me. "Sleep well, Aria."
When I make it to our room, I quietly climb back in with Emily, tucking the blanket close around us for the extra warmth.
After lying still for a bit, I mumble under my breath, "I wonder what I should do today?" This will be my first day in the middle of the week just staying home with nothing to do, ever since I started at the refinery.
My eyes slide shut slowly. I can think more about that later. For now, more sleep actually sounds really nice. Especially now that my nightmares aren't as unbearable as they used to be. Who knew that sleeping could feel good...?