HIS EVENING STAR

Chapter VIII

Elijah

The morning sun cast long shadows across the worn wooden floor of the kitchen, its warm light filtering through the slightly dusty windowpanes. I stood at the sink, my hand submerged in soapy water as I methodically washed the breakfast dishes. My movements were practiced, efficient, but my mind was elsewhere.

She had been staring out the window all morning. What is she looking at?

I found my gaze drawn to her more often than I cared to admit. The girl sat at the kitchen table, her slight frame hunched over, eyes fixed on some distant point beyond the glass. She hadn't moved from that spot even after I'd finished my own meal and begun the cleanup.

A part of me had expected her to ask permission to leave, to retreat to the living room like the submissive creature she'd been conditioned to be. But she didn't. Her silent vigil, this small act of autonomy, stirred something in me – curiosity, perhaps, or maybe just surprise at this deviation from her usual behavior.

I dried my hand on a nearby towel, my brow furrowing as I considered the girl. I didn't like change, didn't like unpredictability. And yet, I found myself holding my tongue, allowing her this moment of quiet observation.

Even after I'd trudged upstairs, the old floorboards creaking under my feet, and changed out of my night clothes, I returned to find her in the same position. The constancy of her gaze was almost unnerving.

I moved to stand beside her, my own eyes tracing the treeline visible from the window. The forest stretched out before us, a sea of green under the clear morning sky. I'd seen this view countless times, but today, seeing it through her eyes, it felt different somehow.

A thought formed in my mind, slow and deliberate. "Have you ever been in a forest before?" The words left my mouth before I could fully consider their implications.

For the first time since she'd begun her vigil, she reacted. She turned to me, eyes wide with surprise, as if she couldn't quite believe I was addressing her. She did a double-take, her gaze flicking between me and the space around her, as though checking to see if there was someone else I could be talking to.

"N-not until I got here," she responded, her voice soft and hesitant. "We... We weren't allowed outside the walls often."

Her words hung in the air between us, heavy with unspoken stories of confinement and control. I felt a twinge of... Was it sympathy? I pushed the feeling aside, uncomfortable with its implications.

"Would you like to learn about it?" The question surprised me as much as it did her. I wasn't one for spontaneous offers, especially not to... well, to someone like her.

She peered up at me, her expression a mixture of surprise and something that looked dangerously close to hope. It made me shift uncomfortably, unused to being on the receiving end of such a look.

It had been a week and a half since she'd started recovering. Her fever had broken, her coughing had decreased, and she no longer grimaced silently with migraines. She'd been moving around more, but nothing too strenuous. Perhaps it was time to expand her recovery, to let her experience more of the world beyond these walls.

I caught myself in mid-thought. Why did I care about her recovery? I didn't care – I don't. If anything, I was already planning to head out to the forest anyway. I couldn't leave her alone for hours, but I also couldn't delay my tasks. It was purely practical, I told myself.

"Learn about... the forest?" Her question pulled me back from my internal justifications.

I scoffed, more out of habit than any real derision, and walked closer to the kitchen table. "I have to head out to the forest and get more logs. I can't leave you here alone while I'm gone. You can steal things and run away to sell them, and I wouldn't be able to catch you."