the Boy in the Book

Chapter 3 ~Attack~

Chapter 3

The rest of the day went fairly normal. Cookie the kitchen maid yelled at her for her clumsiness a few more times and worked her just as hard as usual and right until sundown, and finally it was time for bed.

Arisa’s smile was weary but still very much in tact as she made her way to bed, pulling off the corset and overskirt as she crawled into the thin comfort of her lumpy mattress.

She picked up the diary; Ezio, from its place on her dresser and dipped her quill in the inkwell. She was careful with the well this time, putting it on the bedside table instead of resting it beside her on the bed. Her covers were still stained with ink, as was her under gown, from her incident the night before.

She flipped open the journal to the first page, expecting to see the black and green ink from the night before… but she realized with a start that the journal was blank. She frowned and flipped through the pages, thinking she might have started on a different page, but there was not a single drop of ink to be seen. Had she dreamt the whole thing? But then how on earth had she managed to spill ink all over herself the night before if it hadn’t been while writing in the journal? The whole thing did seem rather impossible though…

Nevertheless, she gave it a try.

“Ezio? Are you there?” she wrote, and waited for a reply. She sat there and stared at the page intently for a long time. Seconds turned to minutes. Five minutes, ten minutes… nothing. She wasn’t entirely sure what she had been expecting. Of course there couldn’t be any such thing as a book that allowed her to speak to a boy from who knows where… She was just about to close the book when suddenly a familiar sprawl of green ink lit up the page. Arisa surprised even herself when she sighed with relief.

“I’m here.” Ezio wrote. “Sorry, I was in the middle of something.”

“You weren’t sleeping, were you?” Arisa asked nervously, glancing out at the moonlit sky outside her tiny loft’s window.

“No, no, just attending to something.” Ezio replied. “How are things on your end?”

“Peachy!” Arisa wrote cheerfully, giggling a little to herself. “Well… normal really. I managed to escape some trouble on account of a very good friend.”

She proceeded to tell him about how her basket had been slashed, how the villagers treated her, and how Yakov had been such a wonderful friend.

“Sounds like a good lad, your Yakov.” Ezio wrote when she had finished. “I’d like to meet you both someday…”

“Who’s to say we won’t?” Arisa replied. “Don’t you believe in fate?”

“More than you’d think.” He wrote with an odd flourish that made Arisa think he might be laughing at her.

“What about you then?” Arisa wrote. “Can you tell me about yourself?”

There was a long pause.

“… I’m sorry, but it’s really best I don’t.” Ezio replied, and Arisa’s heart sunk with disappointment. “Please don’t take it the wrong way, it’s just… I’m not sure I’m someone you should be involved with.”

Arisa felt indignant all of a sudden and she bit back a horrid retort. Instead, she wrote “… Are you saying I shouldn’t write to you anymore then?”

“No, of course not.” Ezio replied. “It’s just… I can’t really tell you much about myself is all.”

Arisa felt relieved. It wasn’t often she found someone to talk to who didn’t scorn her very existence... she didn’t want to lose her new friend, as strange as it all was.