Dinah

Oma

When Constantijn awoke, Rolf was gone. Katrin was clinging to his leg instead, mouth hung open, moonlight illuminating her light hair plastered to her face with drool.
Carefully, so as to not wake the six year old, Constantijn extracted his leg from her grip and tiptoed out of the room.
He didn't bother getting dressed, something told him it was still in the earliest hours of the morning. The wood floor was chilled and lifeless beneath his bare feet, and he treaded lightly around the creaky spots that he knew from a lifetime of living in this home.
He didn't know why he was awake. But Rolf was gone, and he had to find Rolf.
He reached the bottom of the stairs and a dim light shone from the living room, flickering on the walls and casting a lond, eerie shadow behind him.
Constantijn entered and found Rolf on the couch, curled up tightly on himself, shoulders rising falling quickly with harsh breaths. The lantern sat by his feet, dying slowly as it licked up the last beads of kerosene.
"Rolf!" Constantijn hissed, "What happened?"
Rolf shook his head, and then moaned, "Con', I'm sick," He muttered.
"Well, that's obvious, idiot," Constantijn came and sat down next to him, "Are you nauseous?" He touched the back of his hand to his forehead, "I could fry an egg on your forehead if I wanted to,"
"Don't talk about food!" Rolf gasped, "I already threw up everything I've eaten in the past month, it feels like."
"Can't you get back upstairs?"
A fervent shake of the head, "I could hardly get in from the outhouse,"
Constantijn frowned, "Did you eat something?"
"Nothing that stands out," He muttered, dropping his head against the back of the couch, "My stomach hurts,"
"Let me see, if it's swollen or something," Constantijn offered. He was desperately trying to remember his first aid training - but that had mostly been for battle wounds. He pulled Rolf's arm away from his stomach.
"NO!" Rolf burst, much louder than he had intended judging by the regret in his eyes as his hand shot out and knotted around Constantijn's nightshirt, trembling. "God, Con', that hurts. It hurts really bad,"
Constantijn stood, "I'll get Mama,"
"No, don't!" He gasped, "She's gotta sleep. I'll be okay, I promise,"
A voice from the entryway startled them both, "You idiot, you can't promise away a sickness,"
They both looked at their grandmother, standing in the doorway clothed in a ghostly flowing, yellowed nightgown, leaning on her cane that she could easily do without - but it worked great for waving about and scaring people. Considering she was the woman who had raised General der Pieter Rot, Odelia hadn't the best morals, or character, but neither boy had ever been more grateful to see her than in that very moment. "Rolf Johannes Rot, you let me look at you," She demanded.
"He says his stomach hurts real bad and he was just throwing up and he's all feverish," Constantijn reported.
She nodded curtly, "Go get some blankets. Bundle him up."
"But Oma, I'm already hot," Rolf moaned.
"I know. But that's what you're supposed to do," Oma said authoritatively.
"But why?" Constantijn asked, befuddled.
She glared at him. "Don't ask silly questions like that. Go get some blankets - we've one or two spares in the linen closet."
So Constantijn scampered off to do as he was told.
When he came back, Oma took them in her arms and tucked them around her unhappy charge. Rolf gasped and whimpered with pain with each tuck of the blanket, and then Oma said, "You watch him, Constantijn. I'm going to get a washcloth," Oma stated, and left the room in a swish of stale-smelling nightgown.
Constantijn sat down again next to Rolf. "You'll be fine, Rolf. It's gotta be just the flu or something. Your stomach hurts 'cuz' you've been throwing up or something."
Another emphatic head shake, "That's not it, Con'. It's like - I can feel my insides. Like they've all been skinned and now they're rubbing up against each other and everything's on fire."
"Oh," Constantijn sighed. "But Rolf - you're not gonna die. It doesn't make sense."
"Neither did Pieter's passing!" Oma was suddenly in the room again, carrying a pan of water with a damp cloth in it. She set the pan on the end table and draped the cloth over Rolf's head, "Death doesn't make sense sometimes, Constantijn,"
Water from the cloth ran down Rolf's pinched features, running down and dripping off his chin, "Don't talk like that, Oma, you're scaring me," He whined.
She sighed and seated herself in the rocking chair next to the couch, "Constantijn, you'd better get to bed. You need all the rest you can get before leaving,"
Constantijn shook his head, "I'll help you take care of him. We'll take shifts,"
"Alright," She sighed, "But sleep. I'll wake you up in a few hours,"
"Okay. Thanks, Oma," Constantijn's last words died in his throat as he sank back into the gentle softness of the old couch.

True to her word, when Oma gently shook him awake, he could feel that time had passed.
"Is he any better?" Constantijn whispered, glancing at Rolf. He was sleeping, even if his breaths were harsh, his face flushed, and he murmured things too low and soft to be intelligible.
"No," Oma said. She didn't say he was worse. She didn't have to, "You watch him, now, just take the cloth and resoak it every ten minutes or so. Get fresh water when it gets too lukewarm,"
Constantijn nodded, and traded places with her, and within minutes she had fallen asleep.
Striving hard not to drift himself, Constantijn kept a constant watch on his little brother and, finally, when he felt he would drop, stood and paced the living room, doing mundane things like reciting the multiplication table, or reciting the alphabet backwards, or mentally organizing his whole family by alphabetical first name, height, physical features and so on.
When he checked his watch again, fifteen minutes had passed.