Glocara-6

"Elaine's room is on the second floor," Elin said. "If you'd like, you can go up and take a look yourself."

"Are you going somewhere?" Glocara asked.

"Normally she should be home by now, I'll go check. Sometimes she wanders off with friends halfway and loses track of time. But it shouldn't happen today. I'll be back soon."

"Alright," she continued after Elin turned around. "Did you tell her I was coming?"

"Of course I did."

"What did she say to you?"

"Elaine hasn't met you yet, so she doesn't have much to say for now. Today is about fixing that. Listen, there's nothing to worry about. I'm glad you came today."

"So am I." In fact, today was Glocara's night shift. She had to take leave in her first week of work. The supervisor grumbled a bit, but she didn't listen to a word.

After Elin left, Glocara wandered around the living room. She carefully examined everything in the room—the windows, the table, the teacups—but her gaze didn't linger on any one thing for long, as if she were searching for something. The common thread tying everything together was Elin Tias, a man she still couldn't claim to know very well, and perhaps what she was looking for was another way to understand him.

One wall was covered with dozens of drawings, displaying a very clear timeline from left to right. From blurry sketches of scenery and disproportionate figures to clearly trained sketches and colored drawings. From small yellowed papers the size of a palm to real canvases. Each drawing was signed, and while the handwriting changed over time, the letters composing them never did. Elaine.

This was his daughter, Glocara thought. She still didn't know what Elaine looked like, but she had witnessed a part of the girl's life. Not trivial things, but rather her—important things fixed in time and space that she and her father had decided should stay on this wall. She struggled to find Elin in the earliest drawings, but she couldn't determine where he was, or which figure with features and limbs looked like him. However, in the recent drawings, she immediately found him. There were three drawings featuring him, each with a smile. As for the remaining drawings, she naturally didn't recognize anyone, but one of the sketches she thought might be Jorgen. The man in the drawing was sitting on a chair, his hand supporting his right temple, his eyes closed. It looked like Jorgen was visiting a patient but dozed off midway due to fatigue. In the bottom right corner of the picture, in addition to the signature, there was a date. This drawing was completed a month ago.

Although Glocara was alone in the room, somehow she suddenly felt that staring at them for too long was inappropriate. She walked to the right side of the living room and gently pushed open a slightly ajar door. It was a bedroom. Since Elin said Elaine's room was on the second floor, this must be where he slept. As soon as she entered, she saw a crumpled piece of clothing on the floor beside the bed. She picked it up and neatly folded it on her knee, staring at it blankly. After a moment, she suddenly wondered why she was doing this and quickly put it aside, standing up. At that moment, she heard footsteps approaching the door, so she hurriedly left the room and closed the door behind her.

Elin entered the room, followed by a girl with her head down. For a thirteen-year-old, she was a bit short, and Glocara could easily imagine her standing on a stool to put up those drawings on the wall. On the other hand, her hair was unusually long, as if she deliberately wanted to cover herself.

"Elaine," Elin put his left hand on the girl's head, "say hello to Miss Glocara."

The girl reluctantly raised her head, and Glocara finally saw her face, along with the small red pimples typical of her age.

"Hello," Elaine said, immediately biting her lip.

"Hello," Glocara smiled as naturally as possible at her, but the more she worried, the more she doubted whether she looked like a hypocritical adult. She could see the thirteen-year-old's gaze in Elaine's eyes: cautiously observing everyone around her, holding labels in her hand that said "He doesn't understand me" or "I want to avoid him." Not every girl her age would be like this, but this was the impression Elaine left on Glocara.

"I just looked at your drawings," she said. "They're all very beautiful."

Elaine didn't say anything and just turned to Elin, saying, "I'm going upstairs," then ran towards the second floor, keeping her head down as she passed by Glocara.

"You see, I told you, she rarely says more than three sentences. That was two just now," Elin remarked.

"It's nothing. She might be shy."

"She won't come out until dinner. I'll go Cooke. Come, help me."

Glocara hesitated about Cookeing, especially considering Elaine would be eating, as even trolls who weren't particularly picky had expressed concerns about her culinary skills. Fortunately, Elin only asked her to help with chopping vegetables or something similar. The kitchen was cleaner than any Glocara had used in Booty Bay or Sentinel Hill, but what really felt new to her was having someone else working alongside her. And he wasn't just some unknown restaurant chef. He was going to Cooke dinner for her and the girl upstairs.

She paused, letting the knife hang half an inch above the cutting board, and looked at Elin beside her. He seemed very focused, a look Glocara rarely saw on him at other times. Elin noticed Glocara's gaze and turned his face to her with a smile, saying, "What do you think?" while slightly lifting the pot in his hand to let her see the ingredients inside. She later forgot how she responded because it wasn't important. She wanted to ask about the drawings, but in the end, she didn't speak up.

After several tens of minutes, the meal was ready, and Elin went back to the living room, calling upstairs, "Come down for dinner, I'm only saying this once." Elaine didn't come down immediately. During this time, Elin returned to the kitchen, hugged Glocara from behind, and gently shook her while saying, "We did it. We made history. Look at this magnificent achievement."

He was referring to the dishes in front of them. The dishes were simple, but to Glocara at this moment, they were not just a collection of ingredients and seasonings. They were something else entirely. After rainwater seeped into the soil, it ceased to be rainwater and became the harbinger of flower buds. The branches that flying birds returned to their nests were no longer just branches, but an indispensable part of a home.

After Elaine came down, they sat at the dining table, and Glocara began to distribute the plates. When Elaine reached out to take hers, Glocara noticed many clearly visible intersecting grooves on the girl's hands. They didn't look like knife wounds but rather as if something malicious had once penetrated her skin. Not to mention holding a paintbrush, even years of hard labor wouldn't leave such marks. Most of her skin was still smooth, but it was precisely because of this that those marks were so glaring. After a few seconds, Glocara realized her inappropriate scrutiny and quickly looked away, smiling at Elaine's eyes.

"Your hand smells weird," Elaine said. "Like you touched a dead person."

"Elaine!"

Elin's reprimand didn't work.

"This kid," he frowned, rubbing the edge of his plate with his fork.

"It's okay. Let her eat alone," Glocara said, then looked down at her own hands, sniffing silently. This shouldn't have happened, she thought. I prepared for this today. I washed my hands with disinfectant at the hospital. Maybe those thousand bodies just weren't willing to let her go so easily.

After finishing the meal and tidying up the tableware, Elin said to Glocara, "Go sit in my room for a while. I'll talk to her and be down soon."

"No need to scold her, she's just..."

"Just what? Glocara, tell me. Just what?"

"She's just a child."

"That's the problem. Children shouldn't talk like that. Anyway, wait for me, I won't hit her, don't worry."

Glocara nodded and entered Elin's room, sitting down by the bed. At first, she tried to concentrate on listening to what was happening upstairs, but to no avail, so she gave up. She began to continue her interrupted observation of the room. Although it had only basic furniture, the room still felt a bit cramped, especially with the wardrobe and desk too close together, and the window on the other side meant the desk didn't get enough sunlight during the day. And there was too much wasted space next to the bed. Glocara thought it would be better if the positions of the bed and wardrobe were switched slightly. She also noticed that every drawer of the desk was locked. Perhaps it was necessary for his work.

There was a glass on the bedside table, several scattered playing cards, a stack of newspapers, and two old books. One was an introduction and comparison of several famous schools in the city, while the other was about cheese-making techniques. She frowned. What was he looking at this for? But then again, she couldn't imagine which books a detective from the Seventh Ward would read for leisure.

After about ten minutes, Elin returned to the bedroom.

"I've talked to her," he said. "She promised to apologize to you. I asked her to come down now, but she absolutely refuses."

"That's fine," Glocara said.

"She also told me she wants me to take down most of the paintings on the wall. Don't worry, she doesn't have any thoughts about you."

"Why... it's a shame to take them down."

"There are very few guests in this house... so actually not many people have seen those paintings. Like Jorgen and Shelley, they've been watching her paint since Elaine was a child, so it's normal for her. But now she might be..."

"Might be what?"

"Don't rush, I'm thinking about how to say it. Maybe she's... dissatisfied, so she doesn't want to display them so prominently anymore. She said her paintings before June this year, they don't... don't have a soul."

"No soul?"

"Yes."

"Your daughter said her paintings have no soul."

"That's what she said."

"Your thirteen-year-old daughter."

As soon as she finished speaking, Glocara laughed. She covered her mouth to muffle the sound, leaning her forehead against Elin's chest.

"Okay, stop laughing. I knew... having a daughter who likes art would be troublesome."

"I saw the books over there. Are you thinking of changing her school?"

"Sort of. I want to find a place more suitable for her to paint. Anyway, I can already see her future, probably spending all day painting things that will never sell, living off my pension. No, I've changed my mind. I'm going to send her to study law, or architecture. Provided I can persuade her. Still laughing? Had enough?"

"Okay, okay, I'll stop laughing. So, did you agree to take down the paintings for her?"

"I told her to do it herself. I said if you're willing, do it yourself, so you won't blame dad later."

"She definitely won't do it."

"I think so too."

Elin leaned close to Glocara, lightly patting her cheeks with both hands.

"Enough about her. Let's talk about you. Are you staying tonight?"

"What are you saying?" She caught his hand. "I'm not going anywhere."