Aunt Sarah had come by to check on me and Phoenix. She had dropped Ali off at his friend's parents' house since her sister had something to tell them. Aunt Sarah was supposed to go to a meeting, but her client had to cancel at the last minute.
We were in the kitchen right now. We were going to have hot chocolate since it fit the cold weather, and we were feeling lazy.
Truth be told, I felt sort of sluggish when I woke up this morning. If I didn't need to take care of my siblings, I probably wouldn't have gotten out of bed today.
It also felt like it was probably going to rain today. Ali would definitely not be happy about it.
"Do you have any idea why that girl wanted to talk to Ali?"
Aunt Sarah shrugged. "She wouldn't say. I just get the sense she had big news for them."
"Oh? Any guesses as to what it could be?"
"Zip." She turned the stove off. "Chastity has me utterly stumped. Normally, I'm good at guessing these sorts of things."
I claimed the closest hot chocolate. "How did Ali seem to be doing when you dropped him off?"
Aunt Sarah sipped her hot chocolate. "I think he was feeling as lousy as we are. Not that he'd just say so. I was tempted to have him ask if he needed to be there."
"He hasn't really had time to recover from everything he's been through in the last couple weeks, has he?"
"Not really, no." She sighed. "My Lany puts on a brave face for everyone, but these things do take their toll. I'd be surprised if he rebounded before the end of the week."
I would be skeptical, too... I slept beside him, so I could keep a closer eye on him than the others. He also crashed after our last battle. I wanted to say he was doing better the first time around, too.
"Me, too..."
The door swung open. The girl who'd given me the candy for Ali came in. Her cheeks were red. "It's nice to see you, Mrs. Sarah."
"Nice to see you, too, Chastity." She smiled. "Thank you for giving him a ride home."
"It wasn't any trouble." She glanced behind her. "He didn't seem to be feeling good."
So, Aunt Sarah was right...
"I thought both of you would want to know this, too." She ran her fingers through her hair. "I got my memories back..."
Aunt Sarah gave her a hug. "That's great, dear. It must be a great weight off your mind."
"My name was Sakura Koizumi."
My aunt's eyes got big. I wasn't too sure why that would happen, though...
She came up to me and got on one knee. "Can I give you a hug?"
"Sure..."
She put her arms around me. "Cece was a wonderful queen. I adored your mother, too, when I was a girl."
Tears welled up in my eyes. "You're an Engrad..."
"You said your name was Sakura Koizumi." Aunt Sarah averted her gaze. "Is that right?"
"It is."
"Koizumi..." Aunt Sarah looked like someone flashed a light in her face. "Hiro is your papa, isn't he?"
"Yep."
Hiro? Who was that?
"From time to time, my sister would tell me about things he did with my brother-in-law. It sounded like they may as well have been brothers.
She laughed. "Mama used to tell me that, too. And that, sometimes their friends weren't comfortable with letting them split up."
"Elia mentioned that, too. Most of the time, they'd get a bed and Elia would share the other with one of the girls."
I missed Mother and Daddy. They didn't get very many opportunities to tell me stories like those... Kayleigh had to take them away too soon... It was bittersweet when Annie and Leon would tell me about theirs...
"Did Lany know?"
Aunt Sarah shook her head. "We just told him and my husband and nephew a couple days ago."
"Goodness, Sarah! I could have waited to tell him my news if I'd known!"
"But he wouldn't want you to."
She nodded and turned to me. "I won't keep you from your brother any longer. Just don't force him to talk if he doesn't want to."
That had our attention. Why would she say that?
"I could see it in his eyes that he was struggling." She shuddered. "I'm shocked he managed any meaningful conversation with my parents. Once we got out of the house, we spoke nothing but Japanese."
That was crazy... What caused that? I wasn't sure if I'd seen him like that before.
I went into our room. It looked like Ali face planted into his pillow. He buried his face in it and was laying on top of our sheets.
"Hey, Ali." I stroked his hair. "You feel okay?"
"Sleep..."
"You want to sleep?"
He nodded.
I shut our blinds before I tucked him in. I would have liked it if he changed back into pajamas, but I knew I had to pick and choose my battles. He wasn't wearing shoes, so what he was wearing would have to do.
The image of a book popped into my head. I wasn't sure why that would happen. Phoenix used to communicate with me in a similar fashion, but that was when he was very young and didn't have the words to tell me what he wanted.
I was too young to remember this, but Annie and Leon told me I used to communicate the same way when I was toddler. It helped limit my tantrums.
Still, that couldn't have been Phoenix's doing... right? It'd been a long time since he'd done this. Once he began learning words, he preferred them to telepathic pictures. At this point, he didn't even use telepathy that often. His primary motive was just to help Lie develop her own telepathy, and honestly, he probably was the best person to help her do that.
No one else in our group could do that.
Annie seemed to think Ali had psychic powers, but she had yet to convince me of that. Unlike Phoenix, I hadn't seen him use telepathy or move things. I was hesitant to assume he had the powers without proof of my own.
The image came again. I was tempted to check on Phoenix, but I knew Ali was the one who needed me most. Now that he had access to audio books, Phoenix didn't ask me or Ali for a story every day.
Could Annie be right? Was Ali the one sending me the message? If he was, why hadn't I seen him do this before?
"Ali... I know you wanna go to sleep." I whispered in his ear, "Do you want me to tell you a story or do you want me to leave you be?"
Again, an image of a book. This one was crisper than the others. I could see the cover of a book. I had seen it before on Ali's bookshelves, so I knew where to find it.
This one was thinner than the things I usually saw him reading, but I guess that was to be expected. People didn't want to read when they were tired.
The circumstances weren't, but this was a nice moment. I wished Ali and I had grown up together like we were supposed to. If we had, I could have done this with him like I did for Phoenix.
I didn't think I made it through an entire page before he fell asleep. He really was tired.
I gave him a kiss before I slipped out of our room. He would sleep better if no one bothered him. I could stay out until he woke up. It wasn't a problem.
***
Surprise, minna! Doing a 3 part special release today!
Thoughts on the character interactions? Theories? Predictions?
~Shino out!