They brought Cindy to the Cove's hospital even if she insisted she was fine. They let her rest in there for a day.
She and Amy ended up slurping a frozen mango.
"Okay, now tell me the truth about Hash. I promise I'll keep it between us." It's hard to take her seriously though, because she looks like a puppy.
"What truth?" She looks stricken, Amy can't seriously find the truth about Novalia can she?
"Look, the media is a machine that can transport your mind to the place you have been to physically. Not in your dreams even if you thought it was real." She took her time explaining, making her frozen mango melt and drops on both of their feet.
"Eww..Amy.. No matter where I search, I didn't have evidence that he exists. As much as I wanted to." She wished he lived here too, but for the most unfortunate of beings, they were separated by time and space.
"I don't understand." Amy's tried to comprehend what she just said, but her grimace says she was confounded.
"Me too." She let out a loud sigh. It's true, she didn't have words to explain.
"Alright, you might have been really stressed." Amy raises her hands up, surrendering.
"I'm pretty sure we have more explanation when you rested more." Amy kept walking while assuring her that there's nothing wrong with her then move towards the huts to get some more food.
Isabel followed, but her eyes caught up the location where Liz, the musician's hut, supposedly stands.
"Wait! Do you know what happened to the small bamboo house on that hill?" She caught up with her friend, but still staring at the cottage's site.
"You might have imagined it, silly. There has never been a bamboo cottage in there." Chomping down a Quesadilla she answered while shaking her head.
"But the musician.." But she stopped. It could have been something similar to the first shack she went to the first time she met Hash.
"Have some of these cheesy rolls, maybe you're starving and imagining things." It's Amy's second serving of Quesadilla. Isabel can't understand where this woman puts all the food she eats.
"I'll just have this mango, I'm already full just looking at you." She said and taking a bite of the sweet mango.
The truth is she wanted to drive Amy away and plans to check that hill later.
"Don't you have any other work aside from hanging without me and Cindy?" She pretended to ask innocently.
Amy looked at her watch. She shook her head.
"I have thirty more minutes." She said and continues with gusto.
"Hey, as what has been written in the contract, we have this worship every Sunday, it's no biggie, it's just a meetup of everyone in the circle." Now she said it straight and not muffled because she finished her third serving of cheese roll.
"Everyone in the circle?" Isabel wants her to clarify, wondered what it meant.
"Well, technically, you are now the Cove's employee." She scratches her head when she said that and then looked far away as if it's not a big deal.
"I didn't read anything about being an employee." Isabel had read it thoroughly up, down front to back, and vice versa. She can't remember.
"Section forty-five, clause twelve says the participant of the experimental therapy, will not pay a monetary value, but the facility will going to ask you something in return may it be your skill, knowledge or service." Amy recited the exact quote from the contract.
"That's a little sneaky, but understandable." She said.
"So who do we worship?" Isabel is curious because the facility is too much into Science than Spiritual. In fact, the place they claimed to be sacred is always empty.
"That's just a term we used as an inside joke. It's just a meetup." Amy giggled.
Just like she thought.
"Okay, what activities do you have on a worship day?" Sounds like a party to her and she didn't like parties.
"Our seniors will give an inspirational speech and then we will be placed in a learning program depending on your skills and status in the circle." Her eyes were dilated in her thick glasses while explaining to Isabel the details.
"What would be my status?" Isabel asks, thinking of like school system elementary grade or by level or by military ranking.
"Gregory Raven was a professor. So it'll by scholar level."
She is happily discussing what she knew with Isabel.
"Your level is not a scholar, yet, but a novice. Mine, since I was born and raised here, is Scholar number 10." Amy looked shy when telling about her scholar number.
"So you're one of the top ranks?" She lowered her head and bit nodded.
"You should be proud." Isabel is genuinely happy for Amy.
"This is not my choice though." For a split second from a cheery physician, Amy turned into someone like a lost kid in the subway.
"What do you mean?" Isabel held her hand. She has a feeling that Amy needs her help.
"Nothing! Yes, I should be proud of my rank and you can easily go up too! As long as you follow the guidelines." Amy changed the topic, and she's back from being a cool physician. Like that incident never happened.
"Oopsie! My time's up, need to go back to my office. See you at Cindy's ward tonight! We'll have a movie night! Yes! Popcorn!" She is running towards an available golf cart and driving away, waving her hand, yelling popcorn.
Isabel just shakes her head at Amy's personality. She waved her hand until Amy was out of her sight.
She rushes back to the center of the grove to see if the hut is now visible. But to her disappointment, it's still not there.
She decided to risk it and ask the meat griller.
"Hi! Do you know Liz? The musician that plays the Harp?" She gave the griller her most charming smile.
However, the man shuts the meat hut's window on her. He hurriedly went to the door to close it, too. But Isabel neat him to it.
"Kind sir, please." She begged. Her wedding is this Sunday. She needs to go back.