Eva's Sins.

VI

„We recognize the sins in other people, but we experienced them ourselves"

  „Weird feelings swallow my chest up at this moment. And these feelings are something I've never felt before - an amalgam of emotions, regrets, and hopes for a better future. But... will it be this way? Probably... not," was what Eva wrote in her diary before leaving the house which others said was her parents'home.

  Actually, Eva had never felt at home in that house. She even remembered that she felt so many times that her home could be everywhere, especially she felt that weird feeling of peace in so many other places they had lived before turning back to Image. That's why she always wondered why she felt that, even if her mind was telling her that it was her home, that village was her father's hometown and hers too, a place that she should love. But even so, even after so many inner fights, Eva had never got to love those places as she wished.

  But Eva felt that strange feeling even more powerfully at the moment she was returning from the lake and she saw Brian's black elegant carriage leaving their property. And the fact that he didn't look back, even for a second to see her, made her feel as if all her dreams abandoned her at once, rushing her to hit an unknown road, a one-way trip actually. Later, she felt that painful pressing on her chest even more killing than before when she spotted Alfred standing in front of his office window and staring with hatred and with a devilish smile behind the carriage that was somehow hidden in the shadow of those tall trees that were guarding the road toward the city.

  „What's this?" Eva wondered, touching her chest. „A mad fighting with the sky of an afternoon where even the sun is struggling not to sink into the horizon of the dusk?! A hunch maybe is pressing my chest? Or maybe is this the fear of leaving these places? But... I don't understand: why is my heart beating so fast while I'm seeing a stranger leaving without even looking back for a second? I saw him only for a few seconds. I don't think that I feel for him more than I would have felt for someone who I saw for the first time in my life. Yet: my heart beats as if I'm in love."

  But very soon, she understood that not her heart, that was madly beating in her chest, made that anxiety be felt so vivid. It was something she discovered in Alfred's eyes, who kept staring behind Brian's carriage that was leaving. And namely that devilish blink into her father's eyes made her shudder, from top to toe:

  „They are rivals!"

  And this thought broke her innocent heart at that moment, for the object of her adoration was someone her father considered his rival, and she couldn't understand why it was so. Also, she felt powerless because nobody told her anything and this made her think that she was completely out of reality. But even so, she felt that there was more than a simple rivalry between men: it was an unfinished story between the stranger and her father, a weird story that was still there, something that wasn't at all about her.

  But even if Eva wanted to spend hours or maybe days in a row, chewing that thought in silence while trying to find out an answer to each question born in her head, answers that would have helped her to discover that mystery, she didn't have time, for... right after Brian's carriage was lost at the horizon, another red one entered their yard, shortly after.

  Seeing that elegant carriage with a lot of red and black on it, entering their yard, Eva watched it for a long time till the teamster, a man about 40, stopped the horses. Then, the girl saw the man jumping from the driving box and approaching the carriage's door which he opened to help his master descend.

  But instead of a rusty old man or of a stuck-up lady, Eva saw in amazement how from that carriage a young lady about forty descended and, something in her movement while descending the carriage's stairs, supporting on the teamster's arm, caught Eva's glance.