A 'Favor'

Walking back to our house, we were surprised to see three people standing outside. Two of them were Brian and Theodore, pouting and bored, kicking rocks to kill time as they waited. Beside them was a woman who was holding a little container while talking to the two boys.

Getting closer to the house, Theodore is the first to notice us and jumps up in an excited wave. Brian and the woman notices this and turns around.

"Hello. Thank you for taking care of my two boys."

Slightly bowing in thanks, the woman hands us the container in her hands.

"Please come in."

I opened the door and invited the three of them inside the house. Brian and Theodore had no hesitation entering the house, quickly capturing Oliver by his hands and dragging him to somewhere else in the house. Probably to play.

The woman was a little more hesitant but still stepped through the door once she saw her sons dragging Oliver away.

"Sorry about the two of them. They are at the age where they want to play with new friends a lot."

Heading to the kitchen, I opened the container to see a familiar dish.

[Isn't this the Moon cake we saw before at the AT center?]

Sazzy peeked into the container and exclaimed, before salivating at how good it looked.

"Here's a moon cake as a little gift and apology."

The woman entered the kitchen behind me and gave a quick glance around.

"Oh, there's no need to apologize. It's also good for Oliver to make some friends. Speaking of which, I am Alex, and my little brother is Oliver."

Holding out my hand in a handshake, the woman seemed a little surprised at my friendliness and quickly shot out her hand to grasp mine.

"Nice to meet you! I'm Patricia. I'm sure you have met my two mischievous sons, Brian and Theodore. I heard you were visiting this village, and that my sons had disturbed you."

[News sure does travel quickly in this village.]

Letting go of her hand, I took a knife and sliced the moon cake into enough pieces to share between the kids and us.

"Oh I don't need a slice of the cake. Just take enough for you, your brother and the boys."

Helping me put their shares onto plates, we talked a little about the pains of raising children.

"Right, I heard you visited Helen. You brought Oliver along with you right?"

Suddenly out of nowhere, Patricia switched the topic.

"Yeah I did. I didn't feel safe leaving him alone in the house after all."

Leaning slightly closer, Patricia spoke in a whisper.

"Then I take it you met her daughter Kayla."

She had an aggressive look in her eyes as she uttered this sentence.

[Where is she going with this?]

Hearing what Patricia was saying, Sazzy immediately shot to attention and tried to stand in between Patricia and I. Although since she was invisible and also incorporeal, she didn't stop Patricia from leaning even closer.

"Yes we both met Kayla. Helen seemed very protective of her though. Why are you asking."

She paused, her face frozen for just a slight second before she straightened her back.

"To tell you a bit of their story, so you don't think anything bad of them, but a couple months ago Kayla got really sick. She had to be sent off to Sana for treatment. In fact, the cost for her treatment got so high that their family sold off everything they could. Even now, her father is always away trying to pay back those who helped pitch in."

Giving a sympathetic sigh, Patricia closed the container with a small click.

"In the end, they managed to save her life. But her eyesight was a lost cause. Since then, Helen hasn't let Kayla out of her sights even once. She has also been cooped up in her house. I'm afraid at this point Kayla might never be able to live her childhood properly."

Putting a hand to her cheek, Patricia gave another sigh before she animatedly went back to her whisper-like pose.

"Your brother seems like a very responsible and gentle child. I'm sure Helen would allow him to take care of her. Most of the kids in the village are a little too rough for Helen to be put at ease. So if I could ask a small favor, could you let Oliver and Kayla hang out more often? Then after that maybe I could convince Helen to let her out of the house again."

[Why is she asking this upon a stranger? It's a little too suspicious.]

Narrowing her eyes from the side, Sazzy crossed her arms and gave Patricia a displeased look.

[You probably shouldn't agree. There's no way anyone in their right mind would suddenly spring a favor onto a stranger! There's definitely something afoot!]

I agreed with Sazzy. I politely declined Patricia's 'favor'.

"I'm sure even if Oliver is such a good child, it would be harder for him to convince Helen since he is not from this village. However, we will give Helen at least one more visit before we leave. If that is ok with you."

Listening to my words, she gave a little chuckle before we moved our small talk back to more mundane things.

[I feel like she is trying to ...dig something from you. But what?]

Patricia offered to find Oliver and the two kids, and bring them to the kitchen to eat some cake. Sazzy had moved aside from being between Patricia and I.

"She may be. I feel that the whole 'favor' thing was a cover up. I also don't think her coming here is as 'unplanned' as she tries to make it seem."

Exiting out of the kitchen, I saw Oliver, together with Brian and Theodore, run down the corridor in front of Patricia. The three of them then rushed to sit on the living room chairs as I brought out the cake.

Stuffing the cake into their mouths, I heard the cheerful laughter ring out through the house.

After the three of them finished the food, Patricia took the two boys and left.

The moment they left, Oliver pulled at my arm.

"Theodore and Brian said that their mother told them to watch us from afar. And if we saw them, they should run. But they thought we were pretty decent people, and were probably lured by the food, so they came over."

Putting my hand on Oliver's head, I patted him as I thanked him for his investigation.

However, before my hand could leave his vicinity, he shot out his hands to catch mine.

"I don't think Ms Patricia is anyone too malicious. But I do feel that she's hiding something."

"Thank you Oliver."

Patting his head once more, I went back to the kitchen to do the dishes again.

Yawning, I spotted Ava out from the corner of my eye. For the majority of the day, she had said nothing but was quietly tapping away at her personal terminal. She had even disappeared on some occasions.

As Ava noticed I was staring, she closed her personal terminal and came over.

[Is there a problem?]

"No. But I was wondering, what have you been doing all day?"

Wiping my hands on my clothes, the two of us walked and talked as she went around the house, closing all the windows and doors.

[Ah this. It's slightly related to Oliver's mission, but it's not the confidential part so I can show you.]

Pulling up her personal terminal again, I saw many articles and journals about the human anatomy. And she also had very concise looking notes opened next to these sources.

"What is Oliver's mission? He needs to learn all this?"

I looked at all the different windows open. The diagrams looked quite familiar, but at the same time I couldn't understand what they were saying.

[Well I can't tell you the whole thing, but I think I can say that it is something Oliver is very passionate about. I'm just helping him out now so that his journey may be a little easier in the future.]

Closing her personal terminal, the two of us walked over to Oliver's room.

At this time, the sun was going down, dying the entire house as well as his room a very ominous shade of red.

On the bed, Oliver was sitting with his personal terminal open. On his pupils I could see a lot of words reflected.

I walked over and peered a little at the screen. Similar to Ava's screen, there were many things related to human anatomy. But this level was much easier to understand. In fact, I might have learned some of this in school.

"I see you're working very hard."

Oliver jumped at my words, quickly hiding his personal terminal. Seeing his exaggerated action, I reached over to ruffle his hair a little.

"If you have any problems, feel free to ask me. I think one of the windows, the 'Simple Physiological Structures of the Body', is something I was taught before we left the house. I'm pretty sure I can still remember it quite well."

I watched as his eyes jumped to Ava who was behind me. Then, after a short pause, I saw relief bleed into his eyes and his body relax.

"Ok Sister. If I have anything I don't understand, I'll ask you."

Grabbing my hand, I felt him rub his face over my palm, before he stood up on his bed and gave me a full hug.

"I love you."

I patted his back. I didn't know what suddenly got him into such a sensitive mood, but it was certainly something that both he and Ava couldn't tell me.

"I love you too. Now go to sleep. It's not good to read when there's not enough light. You'll harm your eyes."

The two of us parted as I saw him rub his eyes and nod his head.

Giving him a little peck on the forehead, I tucked him into bed, closing the curtains, before leaving. Ava stayed behind in his room.

Exiting his room, I saw Sazzy leaning against the wall. Seeing me, she pushed herself off the wall with her hand and we walked over to my room.

"Do you know anything about what Oliver is doing? He seemed very stressed."

We reached the front door of my room, and I heard Sazzy sigh.

[Ava told me about some things. He's probably just facing quite a bit of pressure right now. All we can do is support him.]

With that last line Sazzy then reassured me that everything would be fine and chased me into my room.

[Go sleep. We might be seeing the chief tomorrow, or not. Either way, there's nothing to do now.]

"Ok. Then, good night."

[Good night.]