Book Two Chapter 46 - Cutie
Cutie
*Miss Elda*
I jump out of my seat when I hear what sounds like an explosion going off next door and run out into the yard for a better look. Sure enough, there's smoke coming from the adventurers' house. They're usually such nice neighbors. Just kids, really, but good kids. Quiet most of the time, and always helpful when I need a quick little hand with something out of reach.
The thought of a fire breaking out immediately sends my mind to the dear orphan girl they took in with her brother. Both of them are far too young to be adventuring if you ask me, but without parents to take care of them, the brother is stepping up to provide for his sister the only way he knows how, and there's something to be said for that.
But the kids are always gone this time of day, out righting the wrongs of the world like too many spicy pepper snakes in the garden or a lemon fungus outbreak in the fields. They work hard, those kids, and leave nearly every day of the week to keep it up.
The one exception is the little girl. Too young to go adventuring even by their standards, she takes up the admirable task of taking care of the house. It must be a great deal of work to keep such a large house at her age, but I've never heard word of her complaining. She spends most days all alone by herself inside, except on days she goes down to the market.
I can't help but stand there and rack my mind as I stare at the smoke drifting into the sky. Was this one of the days she had gone to market? Our houses are close enough that I normally see her leave when she does, but had I seen her today? I could have missed her.
There's another explosion of fire and three grown men come running over the fence from the front of the property. They're moving fast enough that I barely get a decent look at them, but they look like riff-raff. Burnt, smoky riff-raff.
"Let's get out of here!" One of them, sporting thinning hair and beady eyes, is practically screaming his lungs out as he scrambles over the fence.
"Come on, Chief," another shouts, a big young man that could have been doing honest work in physical labor if he really wanted to make something of himself. I briefly think he's going to charge right through the pickets, but he vaults over them at the last moment.
"Damn angry maid," the third, wearing a knife on his hip, is swearing. To his credit, he comes cleanly over the fence in a single leap.
All three of them are sporting smoking cinders and scorched patches on their clothes, like they got caught face-first in the blast, but none of them look seriously injured. I suspect they're going to be sore for a few days, and I'd recommend an aloe rub if they didn't look the sort to have had it coming.
With that thought, however, my mind jumps back to poor, sweet Ayumi, and I snatch my skirt up and get to moving. Those ruffians mentioned someone still in there, and the only one it could be is that little girl. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'll hang myself before I stand by and leave a dear child to burn alive.
I'm halfway between the houses before I realize that I should have sent for someone to ring the fire bell, but it's too late to do it now; that child is in danger right now, and any hesitation could mean the difference between her making it out alive and her brother coming back to the loss of what little was left of his family. All that I can do is hope someone else noticed and is making their way to sound the alarm on their own initiative.
But I'm completely unprepared for what I see when I round the corner. There is no fire. The house is almost entirely intact, and the only sign that there was any fire at all is in the shadows on the door frame. Ayumi is there, perfectly fine, and kneeling down to fret over the door, itself, which is busted in around the latch as if …
… As if someone kicked it in. Were those hoodlums trying to break in and rob the place? What would they have done to Ayumi if they'd found the little girl there all by her lonesome? The thought sends shivers up my spine. Whatever those explosions were, they drove the troublemakers off before any such ill could befall her.
"Oh, Ayumi, dear, tell me you're alright," I gush as I hurry up the walkway to her side.
She gets to her feet and turns to face me. "Miss Elda," she registers as I hit my knees and start fretting over her, looking for burn marks. "I'm fine. It wasn't a problem."
I take her by the shoulders and lean back to look her in the face. The blank face. The poor thing must be shellshocked. Little Ayumi has always been withdrawn since I first met her, a coping mechanism, I'm sure, for the passage of her parents.
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Her brother, Arisu, deals with their passing by throwing himself into his training like a boy possessed, as if he's determined to make sure such a thing never happens again. Poor Ayumi, on the other hand, seems to have retracted into herself for shelter. I imagine we have all hoped that being around the others and having them to talk to would help her to open up again.
But now, brigands have charged at her new sanctuary, accompanied by fire and explosions. Who knows what kind of memories of her lost parents that might have brought up? A child should be scared. A child should be shaken by the intrusion of a place they felt was supposed to be safe. A child should be crying. Ayumi should be in my arms right now, crying for stability.
She just blinks at me as I fret.
I suppress my worry that this event may have driven her more steps back than she's gained. She may not be expressing it, but she needs me to provide the stability she's lacking right now. I can't be worrying about what might be. I have to be a pillar of support for her.
I force a smile onto my face as I get to my feet and look over the scene again. My attention goes to the door she was worrying over, and I decide to open with that.
"Are you worried that Tan will be upset about the broken door?"
She's silent for a moment as her attention goes back to it, then she nods.
With perfect timing, Hesi from down the road comes running up, and I wave to get his attention.
"We're okay," I assure him. "The door is damaged, though. Could you go get the carpenter while I watch her?"
He agrees and heads off in the other direction, toward the village center.
"There we go," I assure Ayumi as I cup her shoulders in my hands. "Mister Sasaki will come and fix that door up, and the boys will never know it was broken. Why, I'll bet he'll be able to sand down and restain those scorch marks, too. It'll be like it never happened."
Ayumi stares at the doorway and gives a slow nod. "Good."
"Yes, good," I agree as I maneuver her back inside. "No sense standing around on the threshold in the meantime. We'll be in his way when he gets here if we do that."
I make a show of patting down my sides. "My, it seems I forgot to bring any cookies with me in my hurry. Tell me, Ayumi, do you like to bake?"
I notice immediately that I have her attention, bland though it appears to be on the surface. "I don't know how to bake," she admits unabashedly. "But I've been wanting to learn."
"Wonderful!" I say, happy to have hit upon the right change of subject to draw her attention away from such terrible happenings in her own front yard. I immediately start steering her toward the kitchen. "It's never too soon, or too late, to learn, and there's no time like the present! Let's make a big batch of cookies so that your brother and friends have a nice treat to come home to!"
She lets me guide her along. "Can you teach me how to make bread, too?"
"Oh, certainly," I assure her chipperly. "In fact, bread and cookies are closely related! We can go over both in separate batches and you'll see what I mean! It really just comes down to how much of what you use!"
We get to the kitchen, in a pleasant coincidence nice and far from the front door with it firmly out of sight, and I look around to take stock of what we've got to work with. The kitchen is decently sized, and while I was worried it wouldn't have an oven, it does, as well as a large cauldron fireplace. I can see a large pantry in one corner and one glance lets me take stock of what pots and pans there are to work with, as they hang above an island workspace in the middle of the room.
"Oh, what a nice kitchen you have, Ayumi," I praise as I fish down a pan. "Yes, this will do nicely. First, why don't you get us a pair of mixing bowls, hmm? We'll need one for the cookies and one for the bread."
I watch Ayumi go about collecting things as I list them out, and no matter what I ask for, she knows exactly where to find it. This is certainly her space, or at least something she has become intimately familiar with.
I suppress a sigh as I watch her carefully crack eggs. She's such a cutie, I would have loved to have known her before she lost her parents, even if the difference would probably have broken my heart. I can just picture the kind of smile she must have, and in imagining it alone, my heart aches to see it.
If I thought it would do any good at all, my husband and I would offer to take her and her brother in. I could teach her all of my recipes, and Arisu would learn that he could do a good day's work and make his sister proud without having to risk his life all of the time.
But I recognize that it's not what they need. Their hearts have been too broken by conflict to ever settle for such peace. In fact, when I look at this child as she carefully measures out the ingredients under my direction, I know even this moment is fleeting. These aren't skills she wants to gain just to feed a family. She does it because she shares the same drive as her brother, and wants to help him in any way she can, even if she is too young to fight.
In any other sense, it would be touching, this bond between brother and sister, each supporting the other to their utmost. Instead, knowing what they long for and what drives them, I can't help but see it as tragic.
The carpenter, Mister Sasaki, arrives while we're kneading dough, and I encourage Ayumi to keep working at it while I get him started. Once he and I are alone, I urge him to restore the doorway to exactly how it was before, and not only do I insist on paying for it, I promise him a plum pie to literally sweeten the deal.
Of course, I head right back to the kitchen once he's set to start working. There's a lot to get done before Ayumi's baking is finished. I should be able to keep her busy the entire time he's working. The bread will need to rise, but we can decorate and bake the cookies in the meantime.