"I feel so lonely~! Oh, so loooonelyyyyy~! My friends have left me~! So I am lonely~!"
Seriously, where are they?
I'm updating this during lunch, and for some reason none of my friends are here. I know they're at school because we all drive to school in a carpool, but for some reason they're just... gone. Hmmm...
Anyways, here is the next chapter!
Adelaide was starting to grow worried. Her son and brother had been gone for hours, not that she could have hoped for any less, and ideas were beginning to plague her mind with the worst situations. She couldn't help thinking that maybe the fire had spread farther and it was getting out of control. Maybe her son was injured. Maybe her brother pushed her child into the fire and watched him burn! Adelaide cursed herself after thinking this. What a ridiculous idea. She thought. Cyrus would never do that to my son. Adelaide sighed deeply and looked at her son, drawing a picture. He didn't look like he was worried at all. Adelaide smiled as she watched her son and repeated his earlier words in her head.
Neah is strong…
Adelaide and Mana jumped when the door was slammed open to reveal Cyrus, Neah, and a man she did not recognize. She ran over to her son, kneeling down to his level and hugged him tightly.
"M-mother?" Neah asked in surprise as she squeezed the air out of him. Behind her Mana was laughing softly as he walked over and stood next to his mother.
Adelaide leaned back and let her hands grasp his. Neah flinched when she grabbed them. She looked down to inspect them and saw that they were red.
"Neah, what happened?" she asked as Neah pulled his hands away, refusing to meet her gaze. Adelaide looked up at Cyrus, who was scowling at the boy.
"Your son decided it was a good idea to search through the ashes, while they were still hot, to look for something that belonged to Mr. Archibald here," Cyrus said, pushing the unknown man forward. He looked guilty as he stared down at the boy.
"I am sorry, ma'am," he said. He flinched as Adelaide stood and turned a harsh gaze towards him. She stared at him for a moment before a smile replaced her frown. Archibald looked at her in surprise as she grabbed his hand.
"Please don't worry, Archibald. My son must have had good intentions to go through such lengths for you," she said and then looked the men over. "Now you boys get washed up. We are going to have a nice dinner with our guest here."
She placed her hand on both of her son's backs and pushed them towards the washroom. She saw as Neah snuck a look back as he and his brother walked away and she smiled. Her son smiled back.
Adelaide turned her attention to Cyrus and Archibald as her brother started to lead the man in the same direction as her sons. She reached out at the last minute and grabbed her brother's arm.
"I'm sure Archibald can find his way," she said and smiled at the man. He nodded quickly and wandered away from them. Cyrus stared warily at his retreating figure before turning to his smiling sister. He watched as her smile disappeared and her eyes lost their spark. She seemed to return to the persona she had when she had been excessively worrying about Mana.
"What exactly happened?" she asked him.
His hands were starting to hurt as he ran them under cold water. The sharp surprise of the lack of heat had caused a small throbbing throughout his palms. Neah flinched but did not pull his hands away. He looked at his brother who was smiling back at him. Neah couldn't help but grin at the thought that his brother was awake and standing with him.
"What was it like?" Mana asked, referring to his little adventure.
"It was really hot and I couldn't really breathe. Uncle wouldn't let me get too close, so I was stuck watching Archibald," Neah said, sticking out his tongue. "He told me an interesting story, though."
"What about?" Mana asked with a grin on his face.
Neah smiled. "He told me about how a man asked him to get something called "Innocence" so he could get some money to help his family. They're poor." Neah turned off the water faucet and dried off his hands. "He told me that it couldn't have possibly burned in the fire, so I wanted to look for it, but Uncle pulled my away."
"Is that how you burned your hands?" Mana asked. Neah smiled sheepishly and nodded.
"I want to look for it again tonight with your help," he said and Mana looked at him in surprise.
"Mother and Uncle would never let us!"
"They don't have to know," Neah said. "We could sneak out."
Mana still looked unsure, so Neah grabbed his arm and smiled brightly. "Imagine how grateful Archibald would be if we found the Innocence, Mana!"
Slowly a small smile formed on his brother's lips as he thought about it. Mana was always one to want to help everyone he came across, to make them smile. Neah felt a tinge of guilt at exploiting his brother's weakness to get what he wanted.
"Alright, let's do it," Mana said. Neah smiled again and nodded his head, the feeling of guilt slowly fading.
The two boys continued getting ready for dinner. Neah's dirty clothing was stripped and given to a maid to wash while another looked for bandages to wrap around his hands. Mana decided the best way to help was to stay out of the way. In only a few moments they were ready.
"What do you think 'Innocence' is?" Mana asked his brother as they walked towards the dining room. Neah was about to answer when Archibald walked up behind him. He had an eerie smile that sent shivers down his spine.
"What is Innocence?" Archibald repeated with a look of hatred in his eyes, venom in his voice. "It is a detestable power that should be destroyed." The man stalked off away from the boys without another word.
Neah was surprised at Archibald's reaction, and more than a little bit confused. At the scene of the fire, Archibald was begging that the Innocence be saved, but now he wants it to be destroyed? This guy really is crazy, Neah thought as he grabbed Mana's hand and followed Archibald. Still, it didn't keep him from wanting to look for the Innocence.
The hallway opened up to the dining room where the table was set like it usually was when the Campbell's had guests. The maids had pulled out the family's finest silverware and gold-lined plates, and instead of setting it for four people, an extra set was placed at the head of the table opposite of Cyrus. Archibald, Cyrus, and the children's mother were already sitting in their seats and Neah and Mana rushed to sit at the seats on their uncle's right side, across from their mother who sat on his left.
Neah watched Archibald as they waited for food, wondering why his attitude was so different from before. The man's eyes were also trained on him and they watched each other in silence. There seemed to be a strange tension in the air, which Adelaide took notice of. She smiled at her younger son.
"Neah, why don't you tell us about your day?" she asked.
"Why me?" Neah asked, breaking away from Archibald's gaze to look at his mother. He felt a kick from under the table and glanced at Mana, who smiled sheepishly. "Mana," he whispered sharply in complaint.
"What?" Mana asked, feigning innocence.
Neah looked at the others; his mother was chuckling at the two, but when Neah looked at his uncle, he was met with a cold, hard stare. His smile faded and he looked down.
"Um, I ran into Bennet and his friends..." he trailed off. Adelaide and Mana looked at him in confusion, while the other two looked indifferent.
"Aren't they your friends, too?" His mother asked. Neah shook his head and scowled.
"I don't want to be their friend anymore," he stated as he remembered what had happened.
Bennet and the others had been standing outside of Mr. Wiley's butcher shop, chatting up a storm while seemingly waiting for Neah, but as the boy approached them, they suddenly grew quite. Neah asked a kid named Jacob what was wrong, but he shrugged his shoulders and looked to Bennet for help. The rest of them looked to him as well. Bennet crossed his arms and looked at the ground.
"You shouldn't keep thinkin' Mana's gonna wake up," he said. Neah looked up at the slightly taller boy in surprise. "It's not like he's goin' ta, anyways."
"What do you mean?" Neah demanded. Bennet looked at him with cold, hard eyes, and Neah took a step back.
"He ain't never gonna be an adult," he said. "It's been a month since he collapsed, 'asn't it?"
"That doesn't mean anything!" Neah shouted, still trying to keep holding onto the hope that his brother would wake up soon. He felt tears start to form in his eyes and he looked down so the others wouldn't see them. He shoved his arm up to his eyes to wipe them away before letting it fall to his side.
"Neah-"one of the smaller kids named Sammy said as he reached out to touch the boy's shoulder, but Neah shrugged his hand off and stepped away.
"Do you think he's never going to wake up?" he asked Jacob and Sammy in a dangerous tone. "Do you believe Bennet?" The boys looked at each other before staring down at the ground.
"It doesn't seem like he's gonna wake up," Jacob said quietly. Sammy nodded beside him, his eyes still trained on the ground.
Neah backed up a few steps before turning around completely and walking away from them. His hands were clenched into fists as he walked, his eyes trained on the ground. None of the other boys tried to stop him as he made his way back to his house.
Neah flinched inwardly at the memory. His "friends" had lost hope in his brother's awakening, unlike him and his mother. His eyes saddened as he looked at her. She was at Mana's bedside for almost the entire time he had been asleep, not resting for a moment so she could be there when her son awoke. Neah had stayed there by her side for the first couple of days, but it seemed as if he had slowly been giving up hope as they dragged on.
Adelaide seemed to take notice of her son's distress and smiled softly at him. Neah looked up at her and smiled back in reassurance.
"Why don't you go out with Mana tomorrow afternoon and find your friends? I'm sure they'd like to see Mana again," Cyrus said, leaning an arm on the table. Neah glared at the man.
"I just said I don't want to be friends with them anymore," he said in annoyance, thinking that his uncle hadn't been listening to him.
"Neah, don't speak to your uncle like that," Adelaide said with a frown. Neah looked down at his hands and muttered an apology. He felt a hand on his shoulder and he looked up. Mana smiled at him before turning to their uncle.
"It's fine with me if we don't go, uncle," he said. "I want to get caught up with everything that's been going on here first."
Their uncle sighed and looked on silently as they waited for food. In no time the table was filled with glorious deliciousness as their kitchen staff brought it out. Neah and Mana's eyes shined as they stared at the food. Adelaide beckoned for their guest, who had stayed strangely silent so far, to take his food first, to which he obliged.
"Thank you for inviting me," the man said and smiled at the Cambell family. When they all got their food the boys started eating straight away. Adelaide had a small conversation with her brother and their guest while they ate, consisting of many questions about Archibald, though they received their fair share of questions in return.
"Mr. Archibald?" Mana suddenly asked. "Why do you want to find the Innocence?"
Cyrus looked to Neah and frowned. "Did you tell him?" he asked. Neah looked away and narrowed his eyes at nothing in particular.
"Maybe," he replied.
"You said that it should be destroyed, right?" Mana continued. "Then why do you want to find it so bad?"
Archibald chuckled and intertwined his fingers with each other. Leaning forward, he smiled mischievously. "You see, I promised a man I would find Innocence so I could help my family," he explained. "I'm not particularly a big fan of the stuff, but I found that I could put that little problem aside." He rested his head in his hand. "Why are you looking for Innocence?"
Both Neah and Mana paused what they were doing in surprise. "You heard us?" Neah asked, slowly lowering his fork, his voice laced with guilt. He ignored the shocked glare he was receiving from his uncle and continued to stare at Archibald. The man laughed lightly.
"It was hard not to," he replied and looked at the children in amusement. Mana sunk lower into his seat, hiding from the wrath of his uncle while Neah sat up straighter as he turned his gaze to his uncle, unaffected.
"Well, we're going to," he said. Before Cyrus could insist that they most certainly would not, he was interrupted by a soft chuckling from the children's mother.
"It sounds like fun," she said as she sipped her tea. Neah looked at his mother in surprised as she smiled at him behind her cup. Mana sat up in his seat in excitement.
"You'll really let us, Mother?" he asked.
Adelaide chuckled. "Yes, but of course, you have to finish your vegetables," she said and then turned her gaze to her brother. Cyrus was currently staring stoically at her, possibly deep in thought. Suddenly, he turned his head to look at Archibald.
"Perhaps Archibald should accompany them," Cyrus said. "After all, they are looking for a piece of his 'property' that for some reason they believe to have survived the fire." Adelaide gave him a sharp look, but before she could say anything, Archibald spoke.
"I would like to inform you that Innocence cannot be destroyed so easily, especially not within a common fire," he said, waving his hand around. Cyrus eyed him as he continued to speak. "I've heard that there are… special beings that have the power to destroy Innocence with their bare hands."
"Is the Earl going to destroy it?" Neah asked. Archibald looked at him and chuckled.
"Maybe," he said and eyed the boy. Neah frowned in return and returned to his half-eaten dinner. He drowned out the new conversation that was brewing between the adults, leaving him to his own thoughts. There seemed to be a change in personality in Archibald; he seemed less like the crazy person he had been before and more like a dignified gentlemen. Neah glared at his food, pushing around some beansprouts with his fork. It puzzled him how a person could just change like that.
"Neah?" Mana whispered. Said boy looked up to see his brother's amused expression. Mana grinned. "Did the beansprouts do something to make you mad?" Neah took on a look of confusion and stared back down at the vegetable that littered his plate.
"Ah, no…" Neah said and then smiled. "I was just thinking." He stabbed a few of the beansprouts with his fork and stuffed them inside his mouth. He made a face. They tasted so bland. Neah looked up at his mother with a curious expression, his previous thoughts forgotten. "So, is Archibald going to come with us?"
Adelaide thought for a moment before shaking her head. "I would like to have a word or two with Mr. Archibald, if that's alright. Besides, I would be surprised if you boy's didn't know the area like the back of your hands." Cyrus stared at his sister, his initial shock fading into confusion. Adelaide caught his eye and smiled. "I'd like to talk to you as well."
"Right…" Cyrus mumbled. Neah thought he saw his uncle's eyes dart over to their guest, but it had been too quick an action for him to be sure. He picked some more beansprouts up with his fork and placed them in his mouth. As he chewed them, he watched his family (and their guest) with curiosity as they spoke about other matters. Both he and his brother remained quiet, their excitement growing as they time drew nearer for them to find Mr. Archibald's "Innocence."
As the skies of daylight bled in the colorful dawn that usually graced the evenings of most every day, the two boys waited by the door for their mother to see them off on their "little adventure," as Adelaide had decided to call it. It was a mother thing, Neah had decided when she had kindly refused his request for her to stop. She was a little too excited for his liking, but at the same time, a little too worried. By the end of dinner, she seemed to be second-guessing her decision on letting the boys go off on their own to look for something that likely didn't exist anymore after the fire, but it was growing too late for her to change her mind; Neah and Mana were already ready to go.
"Neah, make sure you and your brother come back here right away if he has any dizzy spells," Adelaide said as she handed the brothers' their coats. "I don't want him to tire himself out after he just woke up."
Mana made a face. "Mother, I'm fine," he insisted. "I don't feel tired or anything." Adelaide chuckled and bent down to mess with the front of her son's coat.
"That may be so, but I still want you to be careful," she explained and put a hand on Mana's cheek. "You'll do that for me, right?" Mana nodded.
The two boys exited the house, both waving and saying goodbye to their mother as they left, who in return waved back. They giggled as they started running towards the scene of the fire.
Neither child had noticed the glazed look that had passed over their mother's eyes.
I have to say, I'm not the proudest of this chapter, but oh well. I hope that it is enough for you guys to enjoy reading! I came up with a certain idea about Archibald (that will be revealed in the next chapter) in the beginning-middle when making this chapter, so I'm sorry if he seems very different from the last chapter.
Thank you reader and author12306 for reviewing and followers! I hope you guys are enjoying this story!
Please review or message me about your thoughts for this story. I really appreciate any feedback or thoughts you have for this story!