Seven Stories

Chapter 7: Breaking Equilibrium

Agnes knocked on the door before opening. She entered the room with a worried look on her face, trying to balance the bowl of steaming hot soup without spilling any. The Dulains' spare room had half-filled bookshelves on the walls, and a double bed covered in blue sheets. Resting with her head on a marine blue pillow, Karen was lying, wrapped in them, with her eyes still closed. Lii was sitting on a chair next to her, stroking her snow-white hair gently. Her bag and wooden staff had been dropped on the floor near her. She looked up at Agnes and tried for a feeble smile.

"Hasn't she moved at all?" Agnes asked kindly.

She expected no more than a puzzled look from the blonde young woman to whom they had offered shelter, and that was exactly what she received. Since those first terrible moments out on the Dulains's garden, when the white-skinned man had given order to his soldier to lower her weapon, no word the strange people had uttered had been understood, and it was obvious they did not gather much more.

Setting the soup on the nightstand, Agnes sat on the bed next to Karen's inert body. Her breathing was barely noticeable. She rested a hand on the girl's forehead to test the temperature; she did not miss the fact that Lii's eyes instantly darted to her face, or that the girl leaned in slightly as if trying to protect the little girl.

"It's alright,' Agnes said in the softest voice she could, "I mean her no harm."

Lii nodded briefly, and smiled faintly as a "sorry". Agnes had first thought the two girls were sisters; but looking closer at Karen, she saw that their faces shared no common features. Karen did not even look like a white person, despite the terribly pale color of her skin and hair. Lucian had called her albino, but Agnes was not sure this could be anyone's usual complexion. It only made her worry more about the girl's health.

"Poor little one. I don't know where you guys are from, but it seems she did not appreciate the trip."

The girl had no fever. Agnes looked at her watch. Her mother had advised her to bring her to a hospital if she did not wake soon. She had given Karen until eleven, and it was ten fifty.

"I'm going to go downstairs again," Agnes told Lii, mimicking the act with her fingers. "Do you want to come?"

Lii understood quickly and shook her head. That was as much as they seemed to have in common communication-wise.

"Okay. Come down if she... oh well, you know."

She went to the door and had almost closed it behind her. She stopped, bit her lip, and turned to Lii again. "And please," she added pointing at the bowl, "eat something. Okay?"

Lii looked at the soup and smiled to Agnes again. The young woman finally got out, muttering "we wouldn't want someone else collapsing".

The atmosphere in the living room was much more tense; and tenser than the bedroom of sick child was not easily achieved. The boy named Ikan was standing up in a corner, talking to the soldier who had refused to give her name, in that language they did not understand. It sounded like the running water of a river, but Agnes had noticed the boy and young woman did not have the same accent: the boy's was rougher, accentuating the hard sounds more, and he articulated his words more clearly.

On the other side of the room, the rest of the Dulain family was gathered, Timothy subtly hiding behind the square figure of his brother. As Agnes got closer, she could hear them whispering.

"Well she's not pointing her sword at you anymore, is she, Tim?"

"That woman is nuts!" Tim argued.

Their mother was trying to calm them down, a hands on their shoulders even though Lucian was much taller than her. When she noticed Agnes, her body relaxed a little. The look in her eyes asked for good news about Karen's health, but Agnes could only shake her head. The green eyes darkened.