"You are not to make contact with my son again, do you understand me?"
"But we were just—"
"No buts, you've been leading him astray for long enough. Go, I don't want to see or hear from you again."
I watched as my friend looked at me with pleading desperate eyes from behind the legs of my Father, but I was powerless to help her, and only looked down in the dirt, ashamed of myself.
She wanted to say something but my father's glare intensified, and so eventually she turned and began walking away, casting one last forlorn glance towards me, before disappearing around the corner.
"And you!" My father spun towards me, grabbing me by the shirt. "What do you think you were doing sneaking into Mrs. Brodie's flower garden, huh? You think other people's property is a joke for you to do as you please with? She could have called the police! You could have been arrested!"
"But we were just—" I started in a small voice, desperate to change his mind about my friend.
"I don't care what you were doing in there! Ella's obviously been a bad influence on you ever since you two met, you've gotten into nothing but trouble. No more. You'll play with Alex and his friends or you'll stay home, do you understand me?"
"But why?" I could feel my heart breaking in my chest. "Why can't we be together? We'll be good, I promise."
"The time for promises is past, Ray. You have to learn that your actions have consequences. Now go back to the house. You're grounded for a month, and no video games either. You'll go to school and do your homework, and if you behave and I mean if, you'll get to hang out with some of your other friends. But you're done with Ella."
"Aggghhhh!" I roared, running back towards our house, tears streaming down my face. "Why can't you understand?" I said desperately, almost to myself.
I opened my eyes.
"Silvie?"
"Why did I…?" I rubbed my face, trying to get my bearings. "Remember that?"
"Remember what?" Rivi was by my side, and we were sitting on the floor of the clothing store's dressing room.
"Me and a friend wanted a throw a tea party in our neighbor's yard, but we got caught, and she got really angry with us, even calling our parents. After that we weren't allowed to see eachother again…" I looked down at the flowers on the black dress that I was still wearing. Did they…remind me of that?
It was such a small even insignificant memory, but for some reason it felt like it was just the start of a cascade of dominoes unlocking something in my mind. But I didn't feel like I had time to reflect on it.
"What are we…? What are we doing?" I rubbed my face, feeling suddenly exhausted after the effects of the panic attack.
"We were shopping for clothes, but we don't have to keep going if you don't want to, we can come back another day." Rivi rubbed my back, reassuringly. Rufi had also come over, and was laying at my feet watching a bug crawling on the ground.
"Mm, yeah, why don't we…do something else." I rose unsteadily to my feet, feeling like I had to move away from the vortex of memories that threatened to draw me back in.
"Ok, why don't we head over to the bath house then? A good soak, and I'm sure you'll feel right as rain."
I nodded absently, not having the mental capacity to make decisions, and started making my way towards the door of the shop.
"Uhh, I guess we'll take the dress she's wearing, the rest are still in the dressing room, so…" Rivi said, rushing after me with Rufi in her hands.
"You got it! Take care of your girl, seems like she's been through a tough time." Bellum waved at us from the counter, but I ignored them both and continued out onto the street.
"Which…direction?" I asked after looking around for a bit.
Rivi caught up with me "Oh, it's that way." She pointed to our right. "But let's not rush, do you want to take a hand-cart? You'd just have to sit back and relax, the bath house is a little far from here."
"Ok," I said, slumping against the wall as I waited for Rivi to make the arrangements.
She looked at me concernedly before going out into the street to hail one of the hand-pulled cabs.
The carts occasionally criss-crossing the dirt streets were all pulled by skeletons who seemed to have rather low levels of intelligence.
One came over to us after Rivi called it, and only rasped out hoarsely "Destination?" before turning and setting its eyes on the road ahead more like a construct than a person.
"The bath house," Rivi answered, as we both climbed onto the cart.
"Very well," The skeleton rasped, as it began pulling the cart in the direction of our destination.
"What happened in there?" Rivi asked, wrapping an arm around my shoulder and pulling me close. "You were doing so well. Was this like what happened in the jungle? Are things moving too fast for you?"
I didn't answer, but clung to her instead, wrapping my arms around her waist, and burying my head in her soft chest.
"Mmm," I groaned, not knowing what else to do. "You won't leave me too, will you?" I whispered.
"Leave you?" Rivi's brow furrowed as she tried to understand where I was coming from. But at last she sighed and pulled me closer into a full hug. "Not if you don't want me to." She rubbed my back again, and we stayed there like that, holding on to another for the majority of the ride.
"Ruf! Ruf!" Rufi at last broke us out of our trance, holding her paws up to the edge of the cart, as she looked eagerly at the large building the cart was drawing towards.
A four story tall Japanese-style building complete with gabled ceramic roofs at each floor, wrapped around with a small decorative stone wall. Steam was gradually pouring out of vents in the back of the building, disappearing into vapor just above the final roof.
Our cart pulled up right at the entranceway, where the skeleton stopped and rasped out "Welcome to the bathhouse."