Chapter 95: Everything Heals

“Arthur, I’m going to solve this. Somehow.” Lily pulled away from Arthur and walked towards the door. “Finish your snacks.”

“Wait, solve it how?” Arthur asked.

“No idea. But I have more experience with problems than you do,” Lily said.

I hate the fact that that’s probably true.

Lily made a fist with her hand. “And I’m going to solve it. Just wait.”

She left. Arthur worked on his drink a bit. He felt a little better, despite the fact that Lily now knew a part of why he couldn’t leave. Maybe because of it. That part of things, at least, was now out in the open for both of them.

He walked around town for a few hours after that, watching people celebrate the drawing and gathering his emotions up into something more manageable, something he could carry around without being crushed. It took a while, but eventually, he felt he had a mental state that would hold together well enough that he wouldn’t end up getting upset Ella, Milo, and the others.

And then, gathered, he went home. He hesitated a little bit at the door before opening it and going in.

This is a problem you made for yourself. Just rip off the band aid and apologize. They’ll forgive you.

Things weren’t how he expected them to be when he entered the house. Instead of there being dinner, everyone was just sitting around the table. Nobody was laughing or joking. It was just Milo, Ella, and Minos, mostly still and turning to face him as he entered with concerned looks on their faces.

“Guys, I’m really sorry. For storming off like that. Especially to you, Milo. I stole your moment.”

Milo looked confused and surprised for a moment. “No, Arthur. That’s not a problem. It would be weirder if the Earth man didn’t get confused about some part of this. We understood. That’s not an issue.”

“Nobody is mad at me?” Arthur looked at Ella and Minos, both of whom shook their heads. “Huh, thanks, I think? But then, why does it look like a funeral in here?”

Ella stood and walked over, grabbing Arthur in a hug. “Because of Lily, Arthur. She’s very sick.”

—

She wasn’t very sick. As it turned out, Lily wasn’t sick at all.

“Ella Kitchenmaster. I am a professional of this city,” the doctor stated. “And you are going to stop flicking me.”

“You can’t just say she’s not sick! Look at her.” Ella motioned at Lily, who was soundly asleep despite all the noise and action in her room at that moment. “She won’t wake up. We’ve tried everything. Something is wrong.”

“Ella, I’ve explained this. If she was in danger, I would be able to see that. If she even had a case of the sniffles coming on, I’d notice. I’ve used every skill and diagnostic item I have, and they show a healthy child. She’s not sick. If anything, she’s the strongest child I’ve examined this week.”

“People just don’t pass out, Doctor.” Ella wasn’t giving up an inch. “You should have seen her. She was ranting about Arthur and her, and then she just sat down. And slept. And wouldn’t be woken up. I had to carry her up here.”

“I know. You’ve told me.” The doctor grabbed Ella’s shoulders and maneuvered her to a chair, pushing her down into it. The fact that she let him do such a thing was a testament to how worried she was. “I’m not saying something unusual isn’t happening, Ella. It’s obvious that’s true.”

Arthur looked up from stroking the top of Lily’s head. “If she’s not sick, then what?”

“It’s not a problem with the physical side of things. Nothing I can help with directly.” The doctor held up a hand to cut Ella off. “I’ll be back here every two hours for the foreseeable future, Ella, just making sure that doesn’t change. Because we don’t know what’s going on, I think that’s prudent. But for now, there’s nothing to be done but to wait.”

The doctor pickup up his bag, took another look at Lily, then left.

“This feels like my fault,” Arthur said. “Because I got upset.”

“That’s not how something being your fault works, Arthur. Or what being upset does. Justifiably upset, I might add,” Ella said from her chair.

“All I know is that I got sad, she said she’d figure out how to fix it, and now she’s like this.”

“And apparently safe, for the moment. Arthur, I am officially banning you from blaming this unprecedented situation on yourself for having a completely normal reaction to going through too much change too fast.”

“You can’t do that.”

“I can. Think about if it were Milo, Arthur, and he cried because his shop blew up. And then Rhodia got sick after seeing that. What would you do when he started blaming himself?”

Arthur hated that she was correct on this.

“I’d convince him it wasn’t his fault because it wasn’t,” Arthur admitted.

“Good.” Ella patted him on the shoulder. “Blaming yourself isn’t very productive. It keeps you from thinking of solutions to the problem.”

“True.” It was true, too. Arthur hadn’t put much thought into actually fixing things just yet. He tried to and came up blank. “Do you have any ideas? All I can come up with is feeding her some pills. Some alchemist must have something that shocks people awake.”

“No, that’s a bad idea. The doctor would have said to do that if it was an option.”

“Then what? I’m not sure if giving her boba is a good idea either.”

“Well, you heard what the Doctor said. It’s not a physical problem.”

“So?”

“If it’s not a physical problem, and it’s still a problem, it’s something else. And who deals with something-else problems?”

Arthur snapped his fingers. “Itela.”

“Itela is right. If this is a gods thing or a system thing, she’ll be able to see that.” Ella turned her chair towards Lily, who was snoring softly in her bed. “I’ll watch this child. Just go.”

Arthur bolted across town to the shoebox-plain building that housed the church. He had never, in all his time here, attended a service. Ella and Milo didn’t go, which meant he didn’t either. That was apparently pretty normal, as such things went. Religion was an optional thing here, more a way of knowing about the world than an actual form of worship. And, to the church’s credit, that didn’t mean a speck of difference when it came to asking for help.

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Itela said after listening to Arthur’s jumbled explanation for what had happened. “Sit down.”

“But Lily…”

“Is sleeping. And a doctor wasn’t concerned about that. Believe me, Arthur. I’ve been doing this job a long time. She’s fine for a few moments.” Itela poured a glass of water from a pitcher on her desk and handed it to Arthur. “You know, the last time you were in my office, it was for the same reason. A sick little owl girl needed your help.”

“Oh, huh,” Arthur said. “Sorry if that’s… boring, I guess.”

“It’s sweet.” Itela drank some of her own water too. “But most people come to my office for themselves, you know. That’s what I’m here for. To help people with their own problems. But there’s always a small percentage of people who never actually thinks to do something like that. You’re one of those. So tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

Ella sighed and put her water down.

“Arthur, I’m a cleric. A pretty good one. I can sense unease in people. I don’t usually talk about that because it’s rude, but I can actually see the unease boiling off you. You are as upset as I’ve ever seen you. At least when Mizu was sick, you’d talk about it. If you think I’m going to let you bottle all that up, you are wrong. Very, very wrong, Arthur Teamaster.”

Arthur sighed, and decided to spend a few words explaining why his week was turning out hard and weird. Before he knew it, those few words turned into a lot of them. By the time he looked back up at the clock, ten minutes had passed and he had let Itela know about every last little nuance of his worries, at least to the extent he knew them.

“So outside of Lily being sick, you are worried about the drawing. And worried about how you feel about the drawing, if I’m hearing you right,” Itela summarized.

“I just feel like I’m about to lose a lot of friends,” Arthur said. Then, looking for something to do, he put the glass of water back on the table.

“You are.” Itela noticed Arthur’s shock and laughed. “What, you thought I’d lie? You won’t lose them permanently, Arthur, but they’re talking about leaving. You being the age you are means you’re going to see a lot of your friends move away. And perhaps some of your support. That’s part of growing up. Your circumstances change. You may not know this, but Karbo and I are thinking about leaving.”

“Wait, you can do that?” Arthur said. “What would the city do without you?”

“They’d get along, Arthur. They’d get along just fine. Do you think I’m the only cleric in this town? My level is very high, but there’s plenty of people who could replace me and grow into the job themselves. There would be some changes, but there always are.”

“But the drawing only comes around once a generation, right?”

“I’m not talking about the drawing. I’m talking about always. Things are always changing, Arthur. Do you think if there wasn’t a drawing, there wouldn’t be change? There would. People your age move around constantly, Arthur. They follow opportunities. Sometimes, they stay in other towns for years and come back. Sometimes, they go and set up new lives for themselves and never return again.”

“This is not making me feel better,” Arthur said. “But I’m guessing that’s not the point.”

“It isn’t. Not exactly. You can make yourself feel better later. Right now, I’m just trying to give you a fact about the world. Did you know I’m older than you, Arthur? I know I look very youthful,” She tossed her head, playfully, bringing her middle-aged face into profile. “But I’ve seen some things. And say your friends all left. Your entire crew. And Ella, and Karbo, and Me. Everyone. You know what I’d see when I came back a year later?”

“What?” Secretly, Arthur hoped that she’d say that nobody was actually leaving, or that staying behind wouldn’t hurt him. The only catch was that he knew that was impossible.”

“I’d find you with new friends and a new family. Because you are a kind, nice boy, and because this is a kind, nice world. Change happens, Arthur. It happens all the time. And it doesn’t always feel great. I’m a cleric, and I wouldn’t lie to you about something that simple. People are excited about this expansion, that’s true. But that’s not the only emotion they feel. Every mother is worried. Every child is wondering what this means for them. That includes Milo. He’s not as calm as he looks.”

“Really?” Arthur lifted his eyebrows. “Because he looks pretty calm.”

“He’s good at making jokes to cover things up but yes, really. This expansion is going to stir up the entire world. That’s going to cause a lot of good. It’s also going to cause a lot of bad, at least for a while. I’m not going to pretend you should feel completely good about that, Arthur. Or that all change means good things for every single person. But everything, given enough time, heals.”