Chapter 20
“How hard could it be?”
Yes. How hard indeed…
Silva remembered thinking just that this morning. How hard could it be to find a suitable outfit for an outing with a friend?
As it turned out, it was an arduous and exhausting ordeal. It had taken the better part of her day, and she had yet to find what she was looking for.
The shopping centre was too big for her taste, but at least here you could find almost anything you would want to.
Worst yet - she could not use her ability while shopping. Or at least not always. There were moments here and there when the shop was too big for any of the staff to actually notice if she took something to try out.
Silva diligently returned the piece of clothing afterwards anyway, which was harder than it looked. You could never fold anything back the same as it was before.
At the very least, she had narrowed her search to a few specific garments she liked enough to remember. The search had been exhausting, but it had paid off.
In the end, it probably did not matter what she would wear. But Silva herself wanted to look nice. She had not tried to do that for who knows how long. At least everything else was already prepared for tomorrow.
Silva once again circled the current shop with some kind of a fancy name, but everything was too expensive. Another reason for the prolonged suffering. There was only that much she could spend, and some of the nicer pieces she had found had been thrown aside because of the price.
It was not even that the clothes here were much better than in the other shops, so why were they ten times as expensive? Silva suspected it was some kind of a scam.
In frustration, she left to head back to a shop which did not have a rge selection but at least was reasonably priced. Silva did not want to say cheap, but that it was.
On her way there, something caught her attention. As usual, she was walking while concealed from the attention of others. When walking past a group of men, she heard an unpleasant word – Refuge. And it caught her attention immediately.
Six men, all simirly dressed in bck jackets and jeans, huddled together in a conspiratorial pile. All six had a blue symbol of a shining object on their clothes. However, the pce differed from man to man.
The whispers between them did not travel far. And the passerbies were avoiding them. The only reason Silva happened to hear them was that she had not been careful of where she was walking, only paying enough attention so as not to run into someone or something.
Silva’s first instinct was to recoil away from them, but right after, she recalled there was no way for them to detect her.
After another look around, she made sure that there was enough distance for her to not be noticed by a random person outside of her effective zone and tried to listen in on them.
Arguably, Silva did not have much time for eavesdropping. But she wanted to make sure they were not up to something nefarious.
After a couple of minutes of listening, she had learned nothing besides that their base was undergoing some kind of renovation, with many things being rebuilt.
That was when she remembered her quest to get a blouse. She already had one in mind. There was no time to dally here eavesdropping.
After carefully disengaging herself from the men, who were now heatedly discussing an actress, she briskly found the shop she had in mind.
To her relief, the blouse was still there. It was a very loose blue peace of garment that looked too thin for her. But at least it was not transparent.
It also helped that the looseness would help to mask her bony body. She would have to wear a jacket over it, but at least she had one already home. One which she had yet to wear when meeting Mika.
And that begged the question – Was she trying too hard? Silva contempted the question while paying for the blouse.
It was not even that big of a deal to meet her friend. They did it all the time during the week and sometimes on weekends. Although Steven was usually also present at those times.
It would be very sad if she arrived at tomorrow's meeting all dressed, only to find Mika in the usual attire.
“Now that I think about it, it will probably happen…” Silva sighed but still headed for the next shop, where she saw a nice skirt that was the right size and length for her.
At least Mika was not a person who would ugh about her, and Silva wanted this occasion to be at least a little bit special.
Sure, they met after school regurly. And sure, they had spent a lot of time together, but it was still the first time she had gotten an invitation of this kind. The kind that had everything pre-pnned and took most of the day.
It would serve as a good way to rex her taut nerves, and she was thankful that Mika had suggested it. She was sure her friend wanted to get out of her house for a while to have fun. All the worrisome events had taken a toll on the three of them.
The invitation did leave out Steven, and Silva was not sure why. It had probably something to do with the fact that he was a man. Maybe.
Mika had no real female friends other than her. She probably wanted to have quality girl time with Silva.
Whatever that included, Silva was not too sure. Probably some talk about boys? Cosmetic? Diet? That did not seem quite right, but all that was left was to wait for tomorrow and see for herself.
When she arrived at the pce selling the skirt, she was again lucky to find them still there. A simply designed bck skirt that reached down to her ankles.
The simple look appealed to Silva greatly. These kinds of skirts could go together with all kinds of clothing, making them a great budget choice.
Upon exiting the shopping centre, Silva noticed two of the men she had spied on previously walking together down the road while animatedly discussing something. Still, their voices were quiet, and that piqued Silva's curiosity.
Silva’s earlier attempt had not given anything useful. And tailing after them went against the warnings that her friends had given to her. “But they are walking the same way I have to.” Silva made up a justification.
Despite not wanting to go too close to her targets, Silva soon found herself just behind them. Their body nguage was animated, but they were talking in a very subdued way. It was not strange for people to be careful when speaking outside, but this level of tone was too low to be called ‘being careful’ and bordered paranoid.
Silva ignored her being a reason for them to be paranoid and got even closer. She did not forget that she still had to be careful as she was outside and had to keep at least some distance to not look weird to someone who would see her from further away. The numerous passersby helped her with that.
It took her a bit of an effort to cobble together the snippets of dialogue she caught. For one thing, these men talked in a way that creeped her out. They were speaking about their leader as if he were some kind of a saint. They implied that he had done something that made him look like one.
Silva had already suspected it. A magical item like that in the basement indicated something more going on in that base. They also seemed to be looking for someone.
At first, Silva thought they were still searching for her. But after another couple of hundred meters of careful listening, it turned out they were after someone else.
It made her curious about who was more important than someone who had found your biggest secret. Then again, it had been a couple of weeks since she had done that, so maybe they were reasonably sure that she would not start any trouble for them.
Which, in fairness, Silva was not pnning to do… For now.
At this point, these men had left the more poputed area they had been in before. Silva somewhat begrudgingly dropped her following act as it was getting too risky with so few people around. She watched the men leave as she turned left at the next intersection.
Silva was still in a great mood - despite not learning anything concrete from these men. It was barely past four pm, which left her with enough time for some practice with her ability before she had to make dinner.
After some more deliberation, she also decided to send a reminder to her friends to be careful of Refuge members. Silva half expected a call from Mika to remind her to be cautious. But all she received was a message from Steven affirming that he understood.
When Silva finally got home and dropped her stuff, she got the deyed message from her other friend.
As expected, Mika was not happy with Silva’s decision to tail dangerous men. It was still a small wonder that there was no call, but the next time she received a message, there also came an expnation. Her friend was with her parents and was visiting retives.
Even if Mika made sense and had reason to worry, Silva still felt her friend was overly cautious.
Sometimes, it was cute to see her fuss over something irrelevant. But at points, it was a bit stifling. Despite how she looked, Silva was still almost an adult. “Despite how I look…”
Another sigh escaped her mouth and went unnoticed by her. She looked at her reflection in the mirror she was walking past. She kept looking until she finally shook her head and went to make sure she had everything ready for tomorrow.
Silva slowly went through a list she had made, ensuring everything was there. She also had reserved the bathroom for this evening, which had elected some compints and inquiries from her father.
It was hard to tell if he was disappointed or relieved when Silva revealed it was Mika she had an outing with. He still had his suspicions, which he proudly decred as well as adding a warning that any boy should be introduced to him before she dated them.
Of course, Silva pnned to do nothing of sorts. There was no way a potential romance option could get through such a potentially disastrous meeting.
If Silva ever dated someone, she would make damn sure her father found out about it as te as possible. After she is sure it is going well, preferably.
But that was in the future. For now, Silva decided to use her time more productively. She set an arm to interrupt before she had to make dinner. She feared she would lose time while experimenting. Or… To be more accurate, she feared she would fall asleep.
After doing so, Silva id back in her bed and tried to rapidly access her inner world. It usually took a bit of time, and it bothered her.
Spending time in her inner world left Silva with no connection to her surroundings. She would rather shorten the time she was closed off.
Her attempts did not bear fruits, but she would keep trying. When she finally started to observe her energy flow, calmness and serenity overcame her, helping her concentrate on herself.
There was nothing really different from all of her other attempts. Silva still had no success in influencing the flow. Other than the way to increase the energy spent on her ability, that is.
That had been a giant leap for her. It was useful, and it proved she could use the energy. It was just one method for now, but there ought to be more. She carefully exited her inner world and started to run her ability on full power.
Silva resumed her meditation after running out of energy. She re-entered her inner space and examined the change.
The inner flows had gotten smaller and weaker, just as she had expected. What she wanted to do was to see how her energy returned to her.
If she could manage to do that, she could find the source. And with a source, she could try to feed her currents. She could try to be more purposeful. For example - increasing her recovery speed and possibly the size of the streams.
For now, it was only a fantasy, and despite her tries, there were no actual results even after an hour of trying. Not that she had expected any.
From the meeting in the forest, Silva had learned she had taken the first step. And if there was a first, there had to be a second and a third.
Silva was not sure how many steps Esha had taken. Probably several, as he seemed to be able to do much more than he let on and what he had shown was plenty already.
If she and her friends were taken as a base, then his ability seemed to be able to do many different things, while theirs was rooted in where they had started.
Specution only, but not baseless. Silva also wanted her friends to discover this inner pce in them and pnned to talk in more detail about the process and sensations it involved if they did not manage by themselves.
When the phone finally reminded her of the time, Silva started to move. It was already evening. Her father would be home soon. She was getting hungry as well.
The rest of the evening went by as expected, with her father giving out uncalled-for advice concerning dates. Silva had given up on trying to correct his misconception of her tomorrow's outing, giving cursory, noncommittal answers.
After Silva was done with the bathroom activities and returned to her room, she double-checked if everything for tomorrow was still in the pces where she had left them.
There was some time until midnight, and she did not have to get up early. Silva decided to continue where she had left her practice before.
Letting her ability run at full power, she once again emptied her energy reserves and started to inspect the process of its recovery.
Soon, Silva started to nod off. Even if this meditation was close to actual sleep, it was not the same, and her brain was requesting a proper rest.
Despite that, Silva kept her attention on the slowly recovering stream. Before she finally fell asleep, she noticed a small dust-like particle joining the ever-present river in her inner world.
It was progress.
Enkiari