Kingdom of tears

Chapter Four

When she finally came to, there were people standing over her, but her vision was still too blurry with tears to recognize them. One of them was still rubbing her back. She blinked back the last of the fuzziness to find Pike and Erebus standing over her. Off in the corner of the room she could find Victoria, her gaze tilted down.

“Wh-what happened?” Zillah whispered without lifting her head off the couch.

“You started freaking out when your parents were mentioned, and wouldn’t respond to anyone. Couldn’t snap you out of it,” Pike answered. He took his hand off her back, and brushed her hair out of her eyes.

“Oh,” her voice was small.

Pike turned to his grandson, “Will you go get her some water, please?”

Erebus nodded and strode off towards the kitchen. Pike turned back to Zillah. “Are you ok?”

“I think so,” she looked away from him, not being able to look him in the eye after all that had gone down. He nodded.

She was about to curl up in another ball when Erebus came back into the room. He helped her sit up before handing her the cup of water. She thanked him, and downed half the glass in one go. It thankfully eased the headache she had from crying that much, and she was starting to feel a bit better.

She was about to try and make up an excuse to leave, but, to Zillah’s dread, Victoria came back over. She almost seemed to wither in her presence. “I am so, so sorry.” Victoria started out.

Zillah was taken aback. Victoria was apologizing to her? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Victoria continued, “I should not have accused you of anything. I just thought you were faking to not get in trouble. I am so sorry.”

Zillah didn’t want to believe that she was sorry, but by the look on her face, you could tell she was. “It’s ok. I didn’t really make it easy for you to believe me.”

“No, you didn't. You never lied. You owned up to it. I overreacted and I’m sorry.” She looked down in shame.

“Don’t worry about it, you're fine,” Zillah said. Everyone went quiet, not knowing what to say. After a moment of the silence Zillah finally spoke up, “I guess that's my cue to go… I suppose. Thank you, guys.”

Pike and Victoria nodded, but Erebus offered, “If you're not busy tomorrow, we could all meet up somewhere to discuss what to do next regarding the king. As long as you're fine with that,” he backtracked, in case the day's events changed her mind about it all.

“Yeah, that works. What time?”

“Does twelve o’clock work?”

“Yeah. The outdoor cafe on Merchant Lane?”

“That’s good.”

After that no one really knew what to say, so Zillah excused herself. As she walked out the door silently, and started down the street, she heard Erebus call out, “Bye, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow,” she called back.