Golden eyes

A shiver ran down his spine. It triggered memories he had of his little sister. He was ten when he lost her, a baby that could babble, back then there was nothing more precious to his eyes than a little sister.

Now that he thought of it, just like Ruth, he lived in a recluse area, he had no sister nor brother to play with, no one to share his pain with. It was one of the too many reason he had to trust Ruth. Despite her young age, she displayed a calm behavior to every abnormalities shown by her secret friend, every tiny emotion she felt was easily readable on her face.

When she came to sit on his legs, she obviously had a rough day. Oswald was unable to tell if she had fever, his touch was numb to a wide range of temperatures.

Only the moon's glow entered the room, because her head was lower than Oswald's chin, she avoided his weird gaze by being too close.

"Say, did I miss you that much? I know I couldn't talk much in front of your parents, but I didn't know we were such close friends."

"Nah, it's too cold in this house." She rebuked shyly.

Her head was close enough to let Oswald count lice on her blond head. She had that light perfume, a faint mix of honey and wood wax that comforted the boy.

In the other hand, the poor Ruth had to refrain from complaining about his sweaty clothes.

"I wanted to talk about the cross you don't like, Ruth. I saw one person with tons on his body, yet no matter who I'm asking to, no one in the village knows about it, I can't ask your father, he's not talkative, and I won't ask your mother, because I'm not supposed to be here. Why don't you tell me more about it?"

She chuckled when he made fun of her father. She knew he was tall, but her sole opportunity to compare it to someone else's height made her realise how much he actually was.

"Bad things will happen, it's 'the worst omen', they used to say. I couldn't ask them more informations, I can only tell it's bad."

When she was hot enough to let go of her blanket, she preferred changing her clothes to keep the soft cocooning wrap. Lifting her sleeves, she attached her hair in a ponytail, revealing red, blue and purple marks.

She instantly became a hundred times more fragile to Oswald. He became as hard as a rock unable to move an inch, too afraid to make her whine.

"What happened to you?" He mumbled. He grabbed her tiny hand and pulled it to observe the surface of her arm.

Her two round eyes shown how stunned she was to learn how good was the boy's sight.

"That's because of my mom, when I don't reach her expectations. Don't bother, I can't feel most of them."

He stared at the cross on the wall, the wooden sculpture and the little effigy painted on it had a lot of green glow around. He pointed it and asked. "You touched it?" He wanted to remind her of his little trick, to make her smile for a bit. But she scratched her head and replied. "No, the opposite."

He understood how her smell revolved around the object when he stared at her wounds with odd marks.

"Next time, tell your mother it's fine to not succeed in everything." He said with a low tone, making his vocals chords vibrate in a low growl.

"Stop being stiff, you're not comfortable." She shrugged, clearly feeling the difference between calm Ozzy and stressed Ozzy. She pointed at the wall where Oswald drew last time they met. "She was mad when she discovered your scribble. But it's fine, you didn't know. Don't blame yourself. Now I look as miserable as you."

'That's right, it's because of me. What kind of parents she has! Thankfully it's not Dariel's fault, I don't think I can handle the big guy, yet.' Oswald thought while observing her bruises.

He let the girl sleep one full hour before waking her up. An hour during which he lamented on the loss of his younger sister, and Ruth's dire state.

The sun was about to show up and so were her parents.

He ran across the forest, full speed. He managed to catch a couple of rabbits before going back home.

After cleaning them, he went upstairs to wake up his mother, there he saw the walls painted. A multitude of green and golden strands extended from the top to the bottom of the room, he did not dare to enter, the crib was on the opposite side of the bed, making it impossible for him to see his sister's face.

From the door, he asked. "Mother. What's my eye color?"

"Brown." She grumbled.

He knew when his normal vision switched to the better one, from dusk until dawn. But he had no clue about how it triggered, nor when they changed color, he wanted to make sure he looked normal before departing.

'What the heck happened here? I've just seen the tidiest mess ever.' He thought.

His mother had plenty of time to change the room's bedsheets, to clean the walls, the floor and even the web supporting her mattress. There was supposedly nothing to see to the naked eye.

During the next week, he managed to catch a dozen small preys, which he brought to the village the same day. Half the fur was for sale, the other was for his mother, but both bunches needed to be treated.

As for the meat, he brought it to the butcher after passing by Simon's shop.

"Hi Tina, how are you today?" He asked. No one suspected his presence few hours ago. It was early in the morning, Adelmo was still sleeping upstairs, Oswald shown his best attitude to the man's wife.

"Some day, I'll ask my mother to make you a nice apron. You'll see how skilled she is, she's impressively accurate." While he promoted his mother's business, he met Tom's gaze, the boy was departing to meet Oswald, we was surprised to see him working as if nothing happened.