Lectured By Death (1)

"Nononononononononono…" I awake to pitch blackness. The last thing I remember is falling asleep in the basement of our house. Sporadic shuffling noises cut through the still dark. My muscles tense expecting the worst. I concentrate on the noise, which sounds like two pieces of cloth rubbing together. The sound remains steady, which calms me down a bit. I reach over to the nightstand near my bed and ignite a magic lamp.

"Ahhh!"

"Ahhhhh!" Shinobu screams, causing me to do same. She's standing over her bed, tears pouring down her face. A look of panic fills her eyes. I instinctively jump up to comfort her.

"Everything's okay," I say as I lightly grab her arms.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. I can't help it. When we were in the forest, I tried to cover it up, but now that we're in a room, it just goes everywhere. I'm so sorry." She collapses into a sobbing mess. Confused, I look around until my eyes settle on the bed. A wet spot and the distinctive smell of urine tell the whole story. At first, I brush it off as a childish mistake, but I soon put the pieces together.

[If she's always been a bed-wetter, then I don't think she would react like this. It might still be embarrassing, but it wouldn't be something she has a breakdown over. In all likelihood, this is a recent behavior, and it's not the first time. From what she said, this may have been happening regularly in the forest, and I just had no idea. I tried not to think much about it, but sexual abuse is a likely culprit. She seems a bit too old for a change in environment to illicit such behavior. If she feels unclean or sullied by what was done to her, wetting the bed may be making it worse.]

She eventually stops crying and looks up at me. Her body language becomes more closed after seeing my expression. I snap back to reality and think through the last few seconds.

[I've been staring at the bed with a frown for several seconds now. I need to convince her that I'm not upset about her wetting the bed without explaining my thought process; I'd like not to bring up the specifics of her abuse if I can avoid it. I'll need to act fast to mitigate the damage.]

"What, did you spill water on your bed? I don't get it." I play dumb while frantically thinking of what to say.

"D-don't you smell that?"

"Smell what? I've had a stuffy nose for the last few days, so I can't smell much of anything."

"Oh…" Shinobu pulls her knees up below her chin and hugs her legs. Her eyes are dull and listless.

"How about we wash the sheets tomorrow and get a waterproof cover for your mattress, so you don't have to worry about spilling water anymore?" My current plan is to stick to my guns and pretend I don't know it's urine; I will literally die on this hill.

[Is there any type of waterproof material in this world?]

Shinobu buries her head in her arms without responding.

"Is there anything you want to talk about?"

She shakes her head.

"How about you sleep in my bed tonight, and I'll just sleep on the ground?"

She doesn't respond.

[Since she didn't immediately refuse, I can probably coerce her into it.]

"I'm wide awake after my nap, so I'm not going back to sleep for a while. It'd be a waste not to use it."

She doesn't respond.

[She's likely concerned about soiling my bed as well. Dammit, this is hard.]

"If you're that worried about spilling water on my bed, we can always put the sheets on the ground for you. They need to be washed anyway, so it's okay if they get dirty."

Finally, she looks up at me with big puffy eyes.

"Are you sure?" Her voice trembles as she asks.

"Absolutely. I need to get some work done, so I'll just be sitting at the desk."

"…Okay." I eventually gain her consent and move my bedspread to the ground. The stone tiles on the floor don't look particularly comfortable, but I'm hoping my thick wool blanket will help. I set up the makeshift bed and carefully guide the fragile girl to her temporary bedspread.

"Alright, I'll be at the desk if you need anything, okay?" She nods and rolls over. I sigh lightly and walk over to the desk with my magic lamp. The warm orange light does little to clear the cool, damp air. I open a book about dungeons and read the same sentence repeatedly as my mind wanders.

[Good lord, what have I gotten myself into? I'll need to think of a good waterproof material to use for her mattress. If urine begins to collect in the straw, it will start to mold. Ideally, I'd use tar, but that would be too sticky. I could cover it with a piece of cloth so it doesn't get on the sheets, but then I'd have to worry about that getting soiled as well. If the protective cloth needs to be washed, it'd be really hard to remove, so that doesn't seem like a good solution. If we had rubber, I could just use that, but I haven't heard of anything like that circulating in the market. I suppose we could use leather; if it gets dirtied, we can just wash it. Even a wet cloth should remove most of the urine. The leather will deteriorate over time, but it's not expensive, so it shouldn't be an issue.]

Satisfied that I've resolved one problem, I pull out a loaf of bread from our supplies to munch on. I wash it down with a swig of water and return to my book.

[More importantly, how will we deal with the rumors spreading about the Richter family? I don't want Shinobu to constantly be confronted with her trauma. We could try and dampen the rumors, but that may lead to the Streisand effect. Fortunately, as a noble, I don't think there will be many people willing to confront her like that. We'll have to move more covertly to avoid running into the guards. It may be beneficial to talk to Jezabel about this as well. I'm not a therapist or a psychologist. I don't know how to care for someone in Shinobu's position. The last thing I want to do is make things worse, but I have no idea what I'm doing. I wonder how many times my parents have had similar kinds of thoughts. Taking care of children is difficult.]

I manage to finish reading the page before falling back to sleep.

The next day, we gather the dirty bedspread and carry it all down to the nearby river. We pass through the southern gate without incident and dip the fabric in the icy waters that flow quickly by the town. There isn't any detergent in this world, so we have to rely on the water oxidizing the stains to remove them. It's a tedious process, but the sheets eventually reach a point that could be considered clean. We snake our way back to the house through the alleys to avoid the guards.

[It might be wise to wear hooded robes from now on to avoid identification.]

We find the kids in the basement when we return.

"Where'd you go?" Sakura asks.

"To do some laundry," I reply.

"You couldn't have waited for us to get here?"

"We wanted to get it done as early as possible to avoid the guards."

"That makes sense." Sakura easily falls for my bullshit, and I use that to change the topic.

"Speaking of which, I think we should all start wearing robes around town so they can't see our faces." Sakura thinks for a moment before responding. It looks like she wants to argue with me again, but I'm soon proven wrong.

"I agree. I couldn't stand the way they were looking at Shinobu. It makes me mad just thinking about it." Josh and Shinobu both accept my proposal, so we're off to the clothes shop. Sakura insists on getting a bright pink robe, but I manage to convince her to go with an olive color for Shinobu's sake. We each purchase matching robs and leave the shop incognito.