A Fifth Day With Olivia and Claudia
The Jung Estate, Fernest
In order to keep the promise Olivia had made to Sasha on their trip to the beach, Claudia made her way to the garden.
“Shall we get down to it, then?”
“Yes, let’s! Who’ll be ‘it’?”
“We’ll be hiding from Claudia, of course,” Olivia said promptly. Claudia frowned. She wasn’t sure what Olivia meant by that.
“Why am I ‘it,’ General?” she asked.
“What? Because you’re a yak—” Olivia began, then clapped her hands over her mouth in horror. Seeing this, Claudia couldn’t help but be curious.
“Because I’m a what?” she asked
“B-Because,” Olivia stammered, then went on more firmly. “Because! You’re Sasha’s big sister, aren’t you?”
“That is certainly true. And does that have something to do with my being ‘it’?”
“Of course it does. The older sister is always ‘it,’ that’s how it’s been done since long ago,” Olivia said, nodding with the air of one imparting wisdom. Claudia stared wordlessly into her eyes and she turned away, her neck moving like a stiff, rusted gate.
“I smell something fishy,” Claudia said pleasantly.
“Fishy?! Nothing fishy here!” Olivia replied a little hysterically, waving her hands.
Yes, there’s definitely something funny going on, Claudia thought, and she was just about to interrogate Olivia further, when Sasha tugged on her arm.
“Come on, let’s play hide-and-seek,” she pleaded.
Claudia hesitated, then said, “Yes, all right.” They could only stay for so many days. For the sake of Sasha, who spent so much time feeling lonely, she would pause her inquisition of Olivia for now. And so, in the end, Claudia became “it.”
“Ready?” she called.
“Ready!” The other two’s distant voices chorused back, and Claudia slowly opened her eyes.
All right, then. She surveyed her surroundings, then immediately set off walking toward a tall tree.
“Found you, General.”
Olivia laughed. “Oops. That was fast.” She leapt down lightly from the top of the tree, rubbing her head. “I’m impressed you noticed me hiding there, though.”
“These little ones told me.”
Claudia pointed at a gray squirrel that sat on Olivia’s shoulder. A whole scurry of squirrels had gathered around the base of the tree, likely after the trail of cake and cookie crumbs Olivia left behind her. It was as though Olivia had been asking to be found.
Olivia laughed again. “Is that right? You hear that, Mr. Squirrel? It’s your fault I was found.” She put a crumbled cookie on her hand. The gray squirrel shoved it all into its cheeks, then scurried down Olivia to the ground before dashing away along with its companions.
“So that leaves Sasha...” Claudia said. She had been so convinced that hunting down Olivia, who could perfectly mask her presence, would be next to impossible that she felt light-hearted going into the next search, sure they would find Sasha at once. And yet...
“I can’t see her anywhere.”
“Me neither.” The Jungs’ garden was relatively large, but for Sasha to remain nowhere to be found after the amount of searching they had done was undeniably odd. A bad feeling took root in a corner of Claudia’s mind. She can’t have gone beyond the fence, can she?!
Vicious beasts had never been sighted in the vicinity of the Jung estate, but it was still dangerous—Sasha was only seven and did not know how to defend herself.
“General, I’m calling off hide-and-seek.”
“How come?” Olivia asked, a picture of unconcern. Claudia felt herself growing irritated.
“Because even after this much searching we still haven’t found her. She may have gone out beyond the fence.”
“You surrender, then?”
At first, Claudia couldn’t work out what this meant. Olivia repeated herself.
“General, do you by any chance mean that you know where Sasha is?”
“I do,” Olivia said as though this should have been entirely obvious.
Before she could stop herself, Claudia found herself shouting. “If you knew, then why didn’t you tell me earlier?!”
“Well, if I told you before you surrendered, it wouldn’t be hide-and-seek, would it?”
“You’re right, but...”
“Yes, I’m right,” Olivia said. Claudia subdued an urge to run her hands through her hair, then formally declared her surrender. Olivia, a gleeful smile on her face, laid a hand on her shoulder.
“You lost, Claudia,” she said.
“Yes, yes, I lost. Now, where has Sasha been hiding?”
“Take a look behind you.”
“Behind—?” Claudia turned. Behind her stood Sasha, an impish grin on her face. “Sasha? How long have you been there?”
“I was hiding behind Olivia since partway through.”
“Behind General Olivia? But that can’t be...” Olivia was one thing, but it wasn’t possible that Claudia had failed to sense Sasha’s presence.
When she looked doubtful, Olivia, who stood behind Sasha, smiled and said, “Go on, show Claudia.”
“Okay!” Sasha said enthusiastically. A golden glint appeared in her eyes, growing brighter. It was a glint Claudia knew all too well—letting out a strangled cry she grabbed Sasha by the shoulders.
“Since when?!”
“Since yesterday.”
“Yesterday?!” Claudia was shocked, but what Olivia had to say next shocked her still further.
“I’d actually been curious ever since I first saw Sasha, so I taught her control over her Odh, to see what would happen. And here we are. It seems to be a little different from your Heaven’s Sight, though.”
“You mean also Sasha has high levels of Odh?”
“Yes, very high,” Olivia said, then to Sasha, added, “You could be an excellent knight, with some training.” Sasha didn’t look displeased at the idea.
Sasha, a knight... I’d never even imagined it, but... The Jungs were a distinguished warrior family. There would be no objections if Sasha were to set her heart on being a knight.
Here, all of a sudden, was a future knight-to-be. Claudia stared at her little sister, her heart full of complex emotions.
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