“You poor child.”
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It took some time for him to understand what she’d said to him. Without realizing how slow his wits were working, he repeated, “Huh…? Poor…?”
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“Yes. Very pitiful.”
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Her voice had a beguiling quality, a combination of innocent beauty and sultry seductiveness. The gleaming pearl lips curled into a subtle grin, emitting more of that honeyed tone.
“You are like a wilted flower in its little bed. No matter how you extend your roots into the soil, no matter how much you stretch your leaves into the breeze, you cannot touch a single drop of dew.”
“Flower…bed…”
His brows knotted as he tried to puzzle out the meaning of her words. The fog shrouding his mind still hung thick, but something in her words brought a stab of pain to his heart.
“You understand. You know just how thirsty and starving you are.”
“…For what…?” he heard his own voice say.
She stared at him with those mirror eyes, grin still in place.
“For love.”
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For…love?
As though…I don’t know…what love is…
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“Precisely correct. You don’t know what it means to be loved, you poor child.”
That’s not true.
Mom…loved me. When I had a nightmare, when I couldn’t sleep…she would hold me and sing me lullabies.
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“But did that love truly belong to you, and you alone? It didn’t, did it? It was spread among all your siblings, and you just happened to receive it by default…”
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That’s a lie. Mom loved me…She loved only me…
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“You wished she only loved you. But she didn’t. So you hated your father, your brothers, for stealing your mother’s love.”
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Liar. I…I don’t hate Dad or my brothers.
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“Is that true…? But you slashed him.”
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……
Slashed who…?
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“There was that red-haired girl who might’ve been the first one to love you and only you…and you slashed the man who tried to take her by force. Because you hated him. He stole what would have only been yours.”
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No…that’s not why I swung my sword at Humbert.
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“But it didn’t satisfy your thirst. Nobody loves you. They all forgot about you. They decided they didn’t need you, and they cast you aside.”
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No…that’s not true. I…I wasn’t abandoned…
That’s wrong…I know it is. I have Alice.
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The recollection of that name seemed to clear away some of the thick fog shrouding his mind. Eugeo clenched his eyes shut. A warning voice in the back of his head said he had to do something, had to act.
Before he could do anything, that bewitching voice slid in through his eardrums again.
“Is that really true…? Does she really love only you…?” she said, pity mixed with a bit of mockery. “You’re forgetting. So I’ll help you remember the true memories you’ve buried deep in your heart.”
Then his vision tilted.
The luxurious down bed vanished, replaced by a deep, dark hole through which he fell without end.
Just then, he smelled fresh grass.
The sunlight was green where it hit the earth through the leaves, and his ears were full of the twittering of birds and the rustling of grass underfoot.
He was running alone through a thick forest.
His point of view was strangely low, his paces short. He looked down and saw skinny little child’s legs sticking out from a pair of short trousers. But soon it felt natural again, and the only thing he felt was overwhelming haste and loneliness.
For some reason, he hadn’t seen Alice all morning.
Once he finished his morning chores of caring for the cows and pulling weeds in the herb garden, Eugeo raced off for the usual meeting spot: the great old tree outside of town. But no matter how long he waited, Alice did not show up. Neither did his other childhood friend, the black-haired boy.
He waited for them until the sun reached the highest point in the sky, then he trotted off toward Alice’s house, filled with a strange sense of unease. She had probably gotten in trouble for some mischief and was forbidden from going to see him. But when he reached her house, Mrs. Zuberg simply shook her head and said, “That’s strange. She left quite early this morning. Kiri-boy came along, so I was sure you’d be with them.”
Eugeo mumbled his thanks and left the village elder’s house, then continued his search, the feeling of unease turning to panic. But Kirito and Alice were nowhere to be found—not in any of their playing spots or hideouts, and certainly not in the center square, where Zink and his sidekicks liked to hang out.
There was only one other place he could think of. That round little clearing deep in the woods to the east, where the other children didn’t dare go. It was their secret spot, full of flowers and sweet fruit, a place the adults called the Fairy Ring.
He raced straight there, feeling the sniffles coming. He was urged on by loneliness, suspicion, and the presence of some third, unknown emotion.
When he finished running down the twisted trail and approached their secret clearing around an especially thick old tree, he spotted a golden shine between the trunks and came to a stop.
That was the familiar gleam of Alice’s golden hair. For some reason, he held his breath and listened. Traces of murmured words reached his ears on the wind.
Why…? Why? he repeated to himself as he snuck up to the clearing. Self-pity and misery threatened to crush him as he hid behind the mossy trunk and peered into the clearing, which was overflowing with Solus’s light.
Alice sat in the middle of the profusion of colorful flowers with her back to him. He couldn’t see her face, but the long golden hair, blue dress, and white apron couldn’t belong to anyone else.
Next to her was a head of spiky, coarse black hair. His best friend in the world, Kirito.
Cold, clinging sweat flooded his palms.
Kirito’s voice traveled to the edge of the clearing, nonchalant. “Hey…we should head back soon, or we’ll get busted.”
Alice replied, “We’re still fine. Let’s stay a little longer…Just a bit?”
Oh no.
I don’t want to be here.
But Eugeo’s feet might as well have been tree roots stuck into the ground.
He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the sight of Alice’s head leaning closer to Kirito’s.
Little shreds of whispering.
It was like a painting, two small figures leaning together in the bright sun, surrounded by brilliant flowers.
No, no, no.
This is a lie. It’s all lies, he shouted from somewhere dark. But no matter how hard he tried to deny it, the certainty that this was some truthful memory summoned from the very depths of his mind grew firmer, filling his chest like bile.