a change of heart | e.k

Chapter Six

"Léo! Léocadie!"

Évangéline huffed and lowered her arms, not pleased. Who would be when their younger sister was nowhere to be found?

She'd been gone since that morning. Évangéline had gone through the house to wake her siblings, as per usual, when she realized the little troublemaker was nowhere to be found. Then, as if that hadn't been bad enough, Annette remarked that their sister had probably gone back to hang out with the newsies. It pained Evangeline to admit she was probably right. Where else would she be?

Since then, she'd been out looking. The newsies had said that they hadn't seen her, although there was so many of them that she could've ran off with one of the guys, without thinking of telling them. Comforting, right? Dipper had immediately dropped everything to help her once she found out what had happened, which Évangéline found nice of her.

At present, they were attempting to multitask — sell some papers while simultaneously keeping an eye out for her sister. They hadn't had much luck yet, but there was little they could do other than wait. It was like fishing: if you got impatient, you would likely leave with nothing more than what you came with. Évangéline hadn't the slightest idea where Léo could be, and they'd already checked all the other places Dipper thought might have attracted the young girl.

"It's funny," Évangéline admitted after some time. "I didn't plan on coming back after yesterday."

Dipper looked at her. Somehow she'd winded up carrying Madeleine in her arms. "What happened yesterday?"

She shrugged. "Someone got mouthy with my sisters, and I freaked out. Scared off more than just the guy."

It took Dipper a moment to remember. "Oh, right. You have a sword."

Évangéline scuffed her foot against the ground. "It was my father's."

"What happened to him?"

She sighed. "I think there was someone after him. They blamed it on a fishing accident."

"Was it The Unknowns?" asked Dipper with a note of fear in her voice.

She was confused as to why she sounded so terrified, until it came back to her. That conversation between the three of them the other day, the knowledge that Dipper's father was currently missing. "No idea. They took your family, right? Why didn't they take you, too?"

She shrugged but considered the question, even as Évangéline began regretting being so forward. "Dunno. Maybe it's jus 'cause I wasn't dere when dey took 'em."

Évangéline nodded. After a moment, something came to her. This was her chance. "The Unknowns took stuff, right?"

"Yeah." The girl nodded. "Hid 'em, too. Like we was sayin' tha oth-ah day."

"And when you guys snuck out and brought some of the stuff back with you..." Évangéline paused. "You didn't see a sword, did you?"

"No," replied Dipper. Évangéline wasn't sure whether she considered that a good or bad thing. "Ise guessin' dat sword belongs ta you, too?"

"It was my papa's prized possession," Évangéline murmured, hardly noticing the way she'd slipped back into her native language. "I think he came back to get it, and they had him killed."

"Oh." Dipper was silent for a moment. "Did you say you were Acadian?"

"Yes, why?"

"It's jus..." She bit her lip, adjusting Madeleine in her arms. "My faddah used ta live around 'em. Dey helped my parents."

"You're Mi'kmaw," remarked Évangéline, having known that the Mi'kmaq tribe and the Acadians had once been close.

She nodded. "He once told me tha reason he loved music so much was 'cause 'a tha Acadians."