Crown of Thorns

At the same time as I was teaching him, Evan was trying to feel the light with closed eyes. He was already feeling it, Very naturally. Now, all he had to do was to lead the light that was falling on his body and have it move according to his own will. Then, I could teach in earnest.

I got up while looking at his still figure. I moved as quietly as I could in case I interrupted his meditation, but Evan’s red eyes were stuck on me. He looked at me with a puzzled look on his face, as if woken up suddenly from a dream.

His gaze focused on the corner of the tower. And when I took out the food, he followed me. He’s still young, so I don’t know whether he is just curious or if his personality is just like that.

When he followed my footsteps, I felt like a mother being chased by her baby bird. Still, he didn’t try to interfere with my actions.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m preparing for your meal. Go and finish what you’ve been doing.”

“But I’ll eat it eventually, anyway.”

Evan was right, so I closed my mouth and began to arrange the pre-on the table. Evan came up to me and helped set the table. The preparation was done quickly, as the two of us did it together, and Evan soon sat facing me at the opposite end of the table and began eating.

I fixed my gaze at Evan, who had lifted the spoon because I didn’t have to eat. Somehow, I felt like waiting for my test results. Because he had all but consumed all the food I had available, I tried cooking while Evan was back in town. These dishes were the result.

Even at a glance, it looked less tasty than the food he had before. Its ingredients were all crooked up, too. Evan was eating casually, his expression not betraying any of his thoughts. I felt relieved inside. When I tasted it, it seemed pretty edible, but I was worried still just in case it didn’t fit his taste buds. I couldn’t help but be afraid of what he was going to say upon trying it.

It’s true that it had been a while since I last cooked, but I was never very good with my hands to begin with. I could hear the voice of my sister laughing at my clumsiness and calling it a hereditary family trait. I was good at everything else but was especially weak at doing things with my hands. My parents also took advantage of their abilities and did not like to do things with their hands. Only the butler did.

I felt hopeless whenever I thought that I should continue to cook for him like this. But I couldn’t help it. If I don’t cook, I’ll have only the raw ingredients to feed him. And because there’s no way I could buy a ready-made dish from anywhere, I have no choice but to try to comfort myself that my cooking skills will improve gradually.

“I think this is different from the food I had before. Am I mistaken?”

What I’ve been worrying about has happened. Evan, who was eating quietly, asked in a quizzical voice. I didn’t know what to say, so I kept my mouth shut for a while.

“Does it taste bad?”

“No, it’s delicious.”

Unlike before, however, he didn’t look too bright and didn’t shout out that it was delicious every time he chewed on a mouthful. Though, there was nothing I could do about it.

“When you eat, you have to keep in mind that you eat together with other people.”

“Huh? What’s that all of a sudden…”

“Keep your mouth shut and chew slowly so that no food can be seen or heard.”

Evan tried to chew quietly with his mouth shut after hearing my words, with a look of embarrassment on his face. I continued to talk.

“If there’s food already in your mouth, avoid putting another mouthful in or talking as much as you can, and make sure you don’t make a sound when you put your spoon down or touch the bowl. If you spill it, don’t pick it up or wipe it off with your hands, it’ll be hard, but you should try not to spill it as much as possible.”

Evan was at his wits’ end, with only his glancing eyes, wide open. Since there are not only one or two things to pay attention to, such as how to eat, and being careful not to make a sound, the meal had naturally slowed down. There was no time for him to talk to me about how it tastes.

I felt sorry for him, but I deceived myself saying that I started lecturing him about food etiquette in advance because he had to learn basic manners anyway.

*

“E, van. E, s, te, van. Try to spell it out slowly while writing it down.”

“What about your name?”

“Ny, k, s with an x. This is it.”

“Nyx. So that’s how your name looks like.”

I began to teach Evan the alphabet, too. I thought I could start with him slowly, though he still had a long way to go to be able to read the fairy tale book I read in my childhood alone. I looked at Evan, who was learning the letters by following his name and the title of the fairy tale book, and then I turned to my own book. I also had to study in order to teach Evan. There were too many things I didn’t know. Evan’s attributes were the exact opposite of mine.

Evan admirably looked through the fairy tale book to find the words he had learned. Comparing similar letters, he absorbed knowledge with great enthusiasm. I hated the world and its people for not teaching the boy who was so eager to learn.

It was only after the meal that the afternoon sun sank, Evan and I were busy studying separately in the peaceful passage of time. But soon Evan’s expression changed. He was so restless that he couldn’t sit still and even made me nervous watching him.

“Is there anything wrong?”

“Uh, nothing.”

“It’s nothing,” he said, lowering his gaze and trying to study again, but he eventually rose up. I suddenly got up too and looked at Evan because I was wondering what was going on. His complexion worsened. He was turning white and even sweating.

“Are you sick?”

Evan waved his hand hurriedly as I approached. I had no choice but to stop walking at his sight. It was an urgent and flat refusal.

“I’m going to go to the woods for a while.”

I couldn’t understand him at all; it happened so suddenly. The witch’s forest was dangerous. Why does he want to go there again when he felt uneasy inside my tower’s protective walls? He had to enter the forest and get back home soon anyway.

“What business do you have in the woods? It’s dangerous, so please come with me…”

“No! No, thanks. I’ll go alone.”

When I looked at him with a puzzled look, Evan, who was at a loss, blushed and shouted.

“Bathroom! I’m in a hurry!”

Then he rushed to the stairs, saying he would go and come back. There was a loud sound of tapping. It was almost as if a lot of people were running down the stairs because of the echo. But I didn’t have time to mind the urgent footsteps because of the noise I just heard.

I totally forgot. Evan is a human being and he has to discharge when he eats. Of course, even when I was tailing Evan, he went to the bathroom often. Whenever he did that, I would deliberately wander far away. No matter how young a boy he was, and no matter how hard I had to guard him, I still should respect his privacy. So when he went to bed, I just came back to the tower. It was not acceptable for me to do as I pleased just because he did not know that I was there. No, rather, I had more of an obligation to keep a certain level of boundaries up because he didn’t know.

Above all, I was a woman before I was a witch. I wasn’t confident that watching everything about Evan would go off without a hitch.

“What to do?”

It was difficult to follow Evan, who ran out into the witch’s forest, and it was difficult to make a toilet inside the tower. I gave up looking for a place to make a toilet. I, too, cannot use any ability except to move the darkness. At a time when it is difficult to bring in water and dig the floor, how can we make a toilet?

In the end, I was forced to teleport back to my old home. It was to find something useful. I thought there would be more things needed besides education and food, but I was embarrassed that this was the first thing he needed other than those two. There was no knowing how much more difficult things would become in the future, which led to anxiety.

I wandered all over the rooms and finally found something useful. When I came back to the tower, Evan welcomed me with his usual expression. However, his face was still red. I don’t know whether it’s because he was in a hurry, because the sun is hot, or because he’s embarrassed.

“Where have you been? Where do you keep disappearing to like that?”

Instead of answering, I handed over what I had brought. The object, about the size of Evan’s face, looked just like a jar, with the inscriptions on the outside making it look fancy and luxurious. Evan was looking around asking what this was. He checked the inside and tried to put his hand in it, so I hurriedly blocked it.

“It’s an object with a spell on it. You can’t see what’s inside, you can’t smell it, and you can’t spill it.”

“Wow, that’s amazing. But why would you…?

It was then that Evan’s face began to harden, as he was shaking the jar and checking whether it was full or not. I continued to talk.

“Use it in the future. You just have to wash it often. I think we can put it under the stairs over there. If it’s uncomfortable, leave it outside the tower. But not the forest. Because it’s too far and too dangerous.”

Evan, who took a short breath as if he were dumbfounded by my words, looked down at the jar, holding his mouth shut for a while. But soon he got up and went down the stairs.

I deliberately lifted my book again, pretending to be immersed in it. However, I burst into laughter and ended up shedding small tears. I’m shivering. I don’t know how long it’s been since I last laughed.

“What is this?”

More and more things were emerging in the witch’s tower. All the signs of life were engraved on it for all kinds of living things. I felt queer and covered my face with the book. But the smile that came up around my mouth doesn’t seem to want to go away.

The sunlight seeping through the window felt warm.

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