Chapter 14 - Renica
The still bewildered boy continues on watching the girl with long golden hair eating the cake.
"Wait if the kitten doll couldn't be seen by others, will it be visible once I touch it? But to who should I test it with?" Arston wondered about the possibility of bringing the missing kitten doll Which now lying next to the still eating girl and shows it to other, but at lost to whom he should shows it to.
"Is it good? Asked Arston to the messy face girl after eating the 'cake'.
"y.. yes, it's delicious, thank you Arston"
"Do you still want more?" offered him while cleaning the leftovers on her face with a makeshift napkin from a cloth he found on top of his table.
The cloth didn't got dirtied by the leftovers, however, once he sniffs it, he smells a sweet sent coming from it.
"I think I'm full, thank you again"
"What would you like to do now?" Arston wondered of what kind of activity that a spirit in a form of little girl with a possible identity of a princess to boot would like to do.
"Umm, I also don't know"
Arston then points his hand at the white kitten doll and says
"Why don't you play with it? I' just going to read this book while you at it, and also, a quick question for you, can you walk outside during the day? Owh yea, can you move away from the doll of you? I mean, if somehow the doll got sent away, can you still stay here?
"Okay…. Why couldn't I walk during the day? It's just quite hot, I don't like it, and as for the doll, I can but, if the condition allows it, I prefer not to be separated from it, I don't know where and what happened to my mom, so, so, if something bad happened to her, it might be the last thing she left me"
"You didn't feel any burning sensation at all when the sunlight touched your body?" He redirected the cry-baby spirit attention from the sad topics.
"Na ah , how long do you want me to sunbathing anyway? My skin might got hurt if I played outside for hours"
"Fair enough" Shrugged Arston.
Arston resumes his reading on the purplish cover book, it recorded some more spells and their chants-hand gestures. But the book was written in another language which he can't understand. And so, he didn't realize when the girl sat next to him after got bored with the kitten doll.
"What are those Arston?"
"Huh?, how long have you been sitting there ? The boy now massaging his newly noticed swelling forehead.
"Umm… quite long I think, I got tired from playing alone with Ms. Kiki alone, and I saw you were frowning, so…. I've been sitting here for sometimes now, but what are those??" Answered Renica truthfully
Arston turns his head to the direction of the window inside his room. He sees the rain from before has already been replaced by a red-orangish hue sky, hinting at the evening's arrival.
"Ah, it's evening already?" he scratched the side of his head and felt his complaining tummy.
"Fire, thunder, strike," Renica slowly pronounces the words written on the book
"What!!!"
"It says, fire thunder strike" Renica repeated the words, bewildered.
"You can read that grass writings!!!??"
"Well, yea, mommy taught me how to read and write daily, along with dancing, etiquette, and cooking, I hate cooking, but mommy said if I want to eat delicious food, I must know how to cook them too"
Arston felt wronged, he spent hours on determining what the book is saying. Yet, the dumb spirit girl can read them all along. He rubs his aching head even more.
"if your mother tongue language is that grassy abstract of literatures, how can you speak the current tongue? I've seen some bad autograph before, but none as worst as this"
"Dah… of course I relearned from watching other kids being taught by their mom" Renica spoke matters of factly, like it's the most obvious thing.
"Hmm… make sense I guess, Can you hel" Arston came to his realization when Renica put her index on his lips.
"Shush… I think your mom is coming again from your earlier yelling"
The door soon opens, and a black hair woman can be seen from the opened doorframe. Her black hair seams got a bit longer from Arston remembers, it now going down as far as her small back. Her Black keen eyes scan the whole room from anything out of place.
"Hey little mage, have you seen anything weird lately?"
"Huh? What weird things aunt laula? i was just reading this book aunty, but I couldn't understand it" pointed Arston on the purplish cover book.
"Such as things moving by themselves?, maybe some cold sensation, even its supposedly warm?" Laura gives some examples to what she was referring as weird.
"Sh/t come to think of it, if I couldn't see this dumb princess, what Aunt Laura just described is not weird at all, it's a straight up creepy, and thankfully, her appearance is not scary like what people usually said, she even looks pretty, no doubt about it, if time allows it, celebrities back home will pale in comparison" he thought,
"Nothing at all aunt Laula, isn't it normal if it's cold right now? The rain just stopped right? He actually said.
"Well, I guess it's true, but , somehow I'm feeling another's presence" Laura keeps scanning the wooden room.
"Really? But, I'm not seeing any other people aunt Laula""
"I swear I felt that same cold back in many ruins, it's marking the existence of ghosts, could I just been thinking too much?" Laura pondered to herself.
"Umm, aunt Laula, is dinner ready yet? I'm hungry" Arston moved the conversation to his stomach.
"Y, yes, let's just go down" She left the door opened and move her steps toward the stairs.
Arston releases the half breath which he's been holding after hearing the slowly receding footsteps.
"Damm… aunt Laura sure is keen, her intuition is just too sharp" he thought.
Arston then whispers some words to the shivering girl.
"Hey, you best stick close to me, that's my aunt, hey, are you listening?"
Arston had to flick the girl's forehead before she finally calms down.
"Are you okay now?"
"ye, yea, I… I'm fine, now"
"What's wrong?"
"it, it's her aura" Said Renica after inhaling a deep breath.
"What's up with her aura?"
"Her aura seems a bit too gloomy for someone can use light magic, maybe she'd experienced something scary?"
"How can you tell that?"
"You best have dinner first, I think it's too long for me to explain, I'm not good at describing things"
"Alright, are you feeling hungry again ?"
"Umm, a bit I think"
"Okay Renica, later, you point your finger to which food you want to have, and I'll pick it for my late snack"
Renica nods and follows the boy's lead.
In the dining room.
"Is there anything wrong Laura?" Irvina saw her friend's contemplating face and asked.
"Mm, Remember that ruin we first entered after the ceremony?" Laura nodded, and reminded her friend about their first ruin's exploration.
"Well, yea, you were hitting on.." Irvina recalled her passed but stopped.
"I'm serious, not.. not that part, the part where you almost got kidnapped by that ghost?"
"Uh, ar, well yes, I don't remember much, all I can recall are the part where I saw a really, when I mean really, it was really-really handsome man with grey eyes which made me so captivated, and the next thing I know, I already lying down with you sitting next to me, also, I need to remind you that I wasn't a kid anymore back then" Irvina told what her recollection of the experience.
"Well yea sure Mrs. ,,, cough-cough, Mrs. merchant," Laura was about to call out Irvina's tendency, yet, she remembers that this perverted woman's husband is currently present, thus the coughing.
She continues her dialogue
"I never told you this , in fact, we discussed it with the others not to tell you, but since you probably will never enter another ruin, I think I should tell you, since I'm feeling that same intuition earlier, the really-really handsome man that you saw back there, wasn't a man at all, it's a spirit of the deceased, what you saw, was a flying blooded head, which we soon disposed of, turns out, it was a spirit of the executed criminal, we weren't sure of the criminal part. But we sure of the executed part, since his skeletal remains was still hung in the middle of the ruin, including his skull which got hung separately next to it"
"F/ck, why didn't you tell me?" Irvina shivers from the revelation.
"Honey, please, your words," Lenfort reminded his shivering wife.
"No darling, I… I… " Irvina Spoke falteringly when recalling another scene which she didn't tell, the one where she kissed that grey eyed man that turns out to be a flying blooded head.
"Calm down girl, let me finish my explanation" The black-haired woman tried to compose her disgusted friend.
She resumes after A deep inhale from Irvina.
"And now, I'm feeling that sensation upstairs, I normally can immediately locate the them, but earlier, I didn't find anything, it was quite vague but I'm sure that cold comes from a presence of one"
Arston who has been eavesdropping along with the one whose presence just got discussed, instinctively take a step back and remark silently.
"Holy sh/t" and "My god" respectively.