Hunter's Curse
VII.
"Hey, Allen! I'm bored," eight-year-old Celena complained as she invaded her brother's room and threw herself over his bed. It was a habit of hers that usually infuriated her neat-freak of a brother, but she always defended herself saying that she had not been able to resist testing the mountain of pillows to see if they were really as fluffy as they looked when he scolded her.
Allen was sitting at his desk by the window, pouring intently over some book she could not see behind his curtain of golden hair, and she was mildly disappointed when he did not even glance at the sound of her hitting the bed.
"What are you doing?"
"Go away, Celena," he replied monotonously.
The little girl's shoulders slumped and her joy seeped away through the floor cracks. Everyone at home had become so dull. Mother would spend most of the day in bed or say that she was not in the mood to play with her at the moment and that she should go find her brother. And Allen was not any better. He did not go out with Celena to the fields around the house any more, to pick flowers or play swords. He would just sit in his room or in the library, reading all of their father's old books that he could find.
"Come on, Allen," she whined, hoping to persuade him. "You can do that later, come play with me!"
This time, he didn't even say anything. Celena fumed at being ignored.
"Fine! I'll go play by myself. I'm going to make a crown of flowers for papa and when he comes back I'm going to give it to him and he's going to love me more than you because I made him a present while you were going through his things and touching his papers. You know he doesn't like it when we do that, so there!" She harrumphed at the end of the tirade and strode out the door with petite but stubborn steps, holding her long frilled skirt up as she went.
She was just outside Allen's room and preparing to continue her march all the way outside through the blue-paned corridor when she heard a crash coming from her brother's room. Sneaking back to peer around the door's threshold, Celena saw him kneeling at the floor, shaking slightly.
At first she thought that maybe his chair had broken and that he had fallen down. It would have suited him nicely for treating her the way he had been since their father had left this time. But then, she noticed the chair was upright and Allen was trembling.
A strangled murmur made its way to her: "he's not coming back."