Margret's Village

Like Oliver did, I held the shell of the clam and slurped up the soft meat in the middle. Together with the meat came the boiled Red wood water. The first flavor that hit my tongue was a slight sweet taste. Then as if chasing after it, a large mounting spiciness blasted through my mouth.

Opening my mouth to breathe in air and air out the spiciness, I tasted a slight hint of sweetness to round out the flavor before the saltiness of the clam appeared.

"Can't take a little spice?"

At the table, upon seeing Oliver's red face, Brian couldn't help but aggravate him.

"If you think that it's 'a little', why don't you eat it yourself."

Biting back, Oliver watched as Brian picked up the clams with anger, hesitating much more when he smelled and looked at the meat, before he mustered up his courage and swallowed the meat. In no time, his face was also a very bright shade of red.

Patting his brother's back, Theodore also took up the clams and took a mouth. It seemed Theodore was a fan of spicy food, as other than a slight sheen of sweat on his face, he showed a face of enjoyment and reached his hand out to take another clam.

Next was the stuffed mushrooms. With their purple caps and the white flower on top, you could barely see the filling. I grabbed one whole stuffed mushroom and popped it into my mouth.

At the beginning, on the first bite, there was the slight meat-like flavor of the mushroom. Then, coming right behind the mushroom was the sweet and refreshing taste of berries. Although the berries were steamed, they still tasted sweet. The sweet taste of the berries leaked into the meaty taste of the stem that came next, giving a new variation to the taste that seemed to highlight the meaty taste of the mushroom. And once that taste ended, we hit the slightly dull but soft steamed nuts. But soon, that taste was overtaken by the more sweet and flavorful white flowers that were on top. With their flavor seeped into the nuts, the texture and the flavor made another round of eye-shutting combination that seemed to dance all over my mouth.

Opening my eyes to look at the children, Oliver was still enraptured by the taste of the mushrooms while Brian had reached over to take second helpings. The only one who seemed to prefer the clams over the mushrooms was Theodore, whose hands were dyed red by the Red wood water.

"Now, since we are eating, could I ask some questions?"

Glancing up from his plate of stuffed mushrooms, Brian gave a sound of affirmation.

"Do you know anything about the last outsider that came to your village? If I'm not wrong, she stayed in this house as well, right?"

Brian took another bite of the mushroom as he answered.

"The last outsider? Sure she stayed here. After all, this is the guest house. From what I heard from my mom, she was hiding in our village to escape some bad guys. In fact, one of the villagers just happened upon her and saved her. I think it was Ms Helen?"

He looked over to Theodore for confirmation, and Theodore nodded his head and took over the conversation.

"Ms Helen said that she was visiting Margret when she happened upon her. After that, with her car, Ms Helen drove that outsider all the way to our village. Mom then said that the outsider stayed with her for several years before she fell in love and moved. I don't know where she moved to though? Why? Is that outsider your friend?"

I shook my head and smiled at the two children.

"No, we don't know her. But we do want to ask her something very important so we came to this village."

Watching as the children finished all the food, we saw them out of the house before I went to go wash the dishes.

[I wonder why that Helen person didn't go to Margret's village? Won't that be the closest place? Why all the way here?]

Scratching her chin in thought, Sazzy leaned back on the living room chair.

"We can probably ask Ms Helen this later."

Washing my hands and wiping them on my clothes, the four of us left the house once more.

"Excuse me, could I ask where someone named Helen lives?"

Approaching one of the villages, they gave us a weird glance before pointing to one of the houses.

On the outside, the house looked similar to every other house. But there were little graffiti of flowers drawn near the ground.

Knocking on the door, we heard footsteps approach the door before a slightly fierce looking woman peeked through.

"What do outsiders want with me?"

Giving us a quite intimidating glare, I was about to answer when everyone's gazes were pulled to a young girl who appeared beside her.

"Mom? Do we have guests?"

"Kayla!"

Helen bent down to scoop up her child into her arms. Her fierce gaze softened by a lot but she still shot a glare at us.

"We just want to talk about Amanda. That's all."

I tried my best to smile at the mother daughter pair.

Giving a sigh, Helen opened the door wider and invited us inside. Leading us inside, we sat on her living room chairs.

"What do you want to know about her?"

Speaking to us with a softer voice, Helen still made sure to fiercely glare at us.

"We heard from the person who used to stay at the house on the beach near Margret's village that they had met Helen before she disappeared. I just have some questions about her disappearance. That's all."

Looking over at Oliver, who was obediently sitting beside me, she leaned down to him and said in a soft and kind voice.

"Hello young boy. Could you look after my little Kayla for a while. Your sister and I have some things to discuss."

Helen placed Kayla on the ground, and took Oliver's hand to hold Kayla's.

"She has a little trouble seeing, but that's no big deal. Just play with her normally."

Oliver looked up at me, and I smiled at him and gestured for him to go. Then, taking her hand, he led her over to a place slightly far away but still within eyesight and talked and played with her.

"You brought up your brother very well. He's so thoughtful."

"That's just how he is. But thank you."

Helen shot me a glance for a while, before giving a slight chuckle.

"I guess we both have some family issues. But no matter, that is not the topic for today. You said you wanted to ask some things about Amanda?"

Getting back on topic, the two of us talked while keeping an eye on the two children.

"Yes. The previous owner thought she was dead since he found a melting skeleton in the woods. But when I asked two kids, Brian and Theodore, they said you brought her here instead of to Margret's village?"

"Theodore and Brian did? If you heard these things from the previous owner, then you should know that she was attacked while that owner was in the house. On that day, I had just finished visiting Margret's house and was just picking ingredients for the ride back, when I saw her running towards me. Behind her was a man with very obvious malicious intentions, so without thinking I threw the nearby acid juice fruit at him. But for the answer of why I brought her here? I need to ask you, how much do you know?"

Oliver was drawing on Kayla's palm, and she was smiling with such joy that from the corner of my eye I could see Helen's impression of us increase.

"I know that she was most probably being chased by either a Pro-colonizer, or a Colonizer themselves. And that she had a recipe for something quite confidential. The owner has passed on that recipe to me and I have confirmed what it creates."

I saw Helen's eyes turn to me again briefly before going back to the children.

"I see you know practically everything. I'll speak. Margret's village is a nice village and all, but her people have a pretty bad history of being involved with the Colonizers. Granted, the majority of people there now are on our side since most who are Pro-Colonizer left with them. But after the war, some of them still came back to the village. And the village wasn't cold hearted enough to leave them out to dry. Since Amanda was chased by someone from the Colonizer faction, it wasn't safe to leave her there. So I brought her here instead."

Margret's village used to have a history with the Colonizers? I narrowed my eyes as I thought about how the conspiracy of the Mors people, specifically the Venenum, were in charge of the poisoning of the Allied people. Maybe that conspiracy was so strong because of this point?

"Although none of us believe that Margret and the other villagers are at any fault. After all the Colonizers had also managed to convince several of our own to join them in their fight. The only difference is that none of the people from the other villages came back alive."

"Could I ask, after she came to the village, did she do anything? Margret told me that only you and the Fluvius people know anything about Amanda. Now I know why the Media Luna knows, but why the Fluvius?"

Reaching this point, Helen stayed silent for a while before she got up.

"If you want answers for this, it would be better to ask the chief. Back when Amanda had first arrived, she had hit it off with the chief the most. I only saved her and brought her to his village. We didn't have such a deep relationship."

Helen walked over and patted Oliver in the head, thanking him for playing with Kayla before she scooped Kayla up into her arms and escorted us to the door.

However, before she closed the door, she left us with a parting sentence.

"You should expect a call from the chief soon. She's very efficient."

And with that, Helen disappeared into her house and the four of us headed back to ours.

"Did you get the answers you were looking for?"

Lightly entwining our hands, Oliver asked as we walked.

"I did. Did you have fun?"

He nodded his head and spoke a little about Kayla.

Now we only had to wait for the chief to summon us.