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Description
We didn’t exactly stop by the next bar, at least I had the impression that Morigan chose it carefully. The small place was named after the symbolic river separating humans from giants; Orsail. We could see the grey waters from where we were sitting; a wooden table against the wall, under a wide window. I was sitting on the edge, Morigan and Loëcë were facing each other close to the wall, and Curtis was sitting next to his cousin. Everyone was drinking a glass of beer, including me; Morigan took us to this bar because they served human sized portions.

The conversation started with Morigan’s work; I learned that she taught her brother weaponless fight and self-defense. Then it drifted on me; I kept talking, telling how how my parents couldn’t get along the past few months, and how I ended up here, but Loëcë became silent, and Morigan was more elusive on that topic. She didn’t told anything I didn’t already know, and when she was talking too much, I noticed her brother scowling above the rim of his glass in her direction. He looked like he didn’t want to talk about it, not with his cousin at least. Or maybe not with me.
Everything was fine, until Curtis spoke directly to me:

“You said your parents have been arguing for months, and that’s why you’re here.”

“That’s what I said,” I answered.

“I wonder why,” he said thoughtfully. “Did you ever thought you could be the cause of all that?”

I did my best not to scowl at him. “I wonder why too. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Of course not”, he smiled, and his smile looked fake. “Why did they send you here then?”

“Curtis,” Loëcë finally said, and it sounded like a warning. Curtis didn’t pay attention to him and just kept talking:

“They obviously needed some alone time to make things right. But they’re not the only ones to have problems.”

“Devon is our guest, Curtis,” Morigan interrupted coldly. “We agreed to take care of her. It’s a pleasure to have her here.”

I knew that tone of voice; she was always talking like that when she was about to get angry. It was like the calm before the storm. But once again, Curtis chose to ignore his cousins, and his eyes were only focused on me:

“Nobody asked Loëcë if he was ready to see you again. He’s the first one your mother should have asked. But she only spoke to Morigan. I guess she’s still afraid of him, even if she said she didn’t believe-“

Loëcë suddenly stood up, pushing his chair away, and I swore I heard a low growl above me, but the loud screeching noise of the chair against the floor covered it and made me wince. The two giants looked at each other for a short moment; the first one was scowling, while the other was strangely calm and still smirking. Morigan was silent, the atmosphere was tense, and I felt like a mouse among a pack of wolves. One of them –the one I barely knew- made me feel uncomfortable and curious all at once.

“Why would my mother be afraid of him?” I asked, though I thought I already knew the answer; I knew Loëcë had hurt me accidentally years ago. If the dream I had the other night was not an invention from my subconscious self, then maybe that was the answer.

“That’s part of the truth,” Curtis said.

“Devon,” Loëcë said and extended his hand close to the edge of the window where I was standing. “Let’s go home.”

“Not yet,” I snapped without looking at him. Instead I was looking at Curtis. “Tell me the other part.”

The giant chuckled with an amused glint in his dark eyes. “Why? Mori and Loë are the best ones to talk about it. Haven’t they told you yet about your brother?”

I froze. “My… I don’t have a brother,” I stuttered, even if I didn’t believe those words myself.

Curtis arched a brow, almost surprised. “Oh? So you don’t remember him either? How sad…”

“That’s enough Curtis!” Morigan snapped. “You’re not involved, so don’t talk about it like it was nothing!”

Her cousin turned his gaze toward the giantess; he was not smiling anymore. “Nothing? Not involved? Those are bold words, Morigan. You know I consider Loë like my own brother, and I watched him become more and more withdrew every day. Colder and colder with everyone, including his family. Including you and me. Because of them!” he spat the last word as his head inched toward me.

“Curtis, shut up!” Loëcë snapped coldly, but his cousin kept his gaze to Morigan’s. His expression was nothing like it had been a few minutes ago; it was hateful.

“I never thought he could be like that. Four years ago, your brother tried to put an end on his own life! Do you realize? A twelve year-old boy, stabbing himself in the stomach. I had to stop him… Well, at least he didn’t stab himself twice. He would have done it, you know. He was serious. I never told you anything because he asked me to keep quiet… I only told you he had fallen on a pointy tree branch while we were playing. Do you understand now?”

Everyone had fallen silent, and Morigan looked bewildered. Curtis’ dark, ominous eyes settled on me, and I shuddered as he showed me his true self.

“No word can express the hate I feel for you and your family,” he said with frightening slowness. “You persecuted him for something he hasn’t done.”

My mind was a mess; Loëcë tried to kill himself when he was only twelve, and his cousin hated my family with a passion. Was my family responsible? Curtis certainly saw it this way…

Before I could find my words, a huge, warm hand wrapped around me; its gestures were hasty, but I recognized its carefulness without turning around to see his face.

“Loëcë!” I screamed. “Put me down!”

“That’s enough,” he said, lifting me up to his chest. “We’re leaving.”

“Loëcë, I won’t repeat!”

“So just stop screaming.”

Morigan spoke up:

“Loëcë, don’t take her home. Leave her to me. If you’re seen with her in the town, you’re gonna have problems.”

“I already have problems, sister. Just let me deal with them.”

I barely had the time to wonder what kind of problems Loëcë would have –and why- before he turned around; his sister didn’t stop him. I saw her glaring at Curtis before the door closed behind Loëcë, and we were back into the streets of cobblestone. Still infuriated, I punched the giant’s fingers as hard as I could.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” I screamed high toward his head.

“Taking you far away from him.”

“Why? He may hate me, but he told me more than you and Morigan did in weeks!”

“He didn’t tell you that because he absolutely wanted you to know the truth.”

“Then why? And since when do you want me to know?”

“I never said I wanted that. Now stop screaming, you’re drawing attention.”

I laughed briefly out of disbelief. “I am drawing attention? Hey, I’m not the one who’s walking hastily with someone in my hand. Let’s go back!”

“No.”

“Loëcë, right now!”

“Shut up!” he snapped in a hushed voice, and I felt the pressure in his hand increase slightly.

I tense suddenly, but I decided to push my luck:

“Why are you doing that? What are you so afraid of? Why don’t you want me to know?”

“Please Devon, just wait until we’re out of town…”

I noticed we already drew too much attention while we were arguing. I didn’t know what kind of problems Morigan had been talking about, but I would ask that question to her brother as well.
He was finally leaving Townstride when I felt a cold drop on top of my head. Then another. And then dozens of them.

Loëcë brought his second hand above me, shielding me from the rain, and kept walking toward the woods. He didn’t even followed the traced way we walked on to reach the village and took shortcuts through the hills, abandoned fields and rocky shores. We reached the dark woods in no time.
The rain was thick and cold now, and Loëcë was soaking wet. Despite the shield of his curved hand, I was sure about one thing:

“We’re not heading toward the house.”

“I know,” he simply answered.

“It’s raining.”

“I noticed.”

I huffed. “Will you tell me where we’re going at least?”

He remained silent for a few seconds. “We need a shelter.”

I dared to hope he would be more talkative after finding that shelter. At least he seemed to know where he was heading; we soon arrived in front of a dark rocky entrance. It was an enormous cave, and it was slightly higher than the forest ground Loëcë had been walking on before; the place wouldn’t be flooded, even if the rain turned into another nasty storm.

The young giant had to bend down slightly to enter the cave, and he did without hesitation. He shielded me with his free hand and shook his head, getting rid of most of the water dripping from his black hair. When he removed his hand, I took a glance at my surroundings; it was dark, but I could still see what was inside. That’s to say not that much, but I was surprised to see an old mattress with some messy covers in a corner. Loëcë sat down on the mattress and set me down.

“Is that your den or something?” I couldn’t help asking.

“It’s just a place,” he answered. “I’m the only one who knows about this cave. Even Morigan doesn’t know where to find me.”

“Well I suppose we’re two now.”

He nodded, still averting my gaze, and took a fistful of his soaked shirt in the front to squeeze it above the rocky ground. It was drenched by the heavy rain as well, but my eyes stopped on something else. He had a light skin, maybe even lighter on his stomach, where I spotted the scar. A large, old wound, witnessing something terrible he did to himself years ago.
Twelve years old…

“What Curtis said… was it true?” I asked.

“Curtis said a lot of things.”

“About you, trying to… you know, I saw the scar and…”

Loëcë immediately covered his stomach with his shirt, then with one hand, as if the scar was somewhat still painful.

“Yes. He told the truth. But he isn’t exactly right about one thing: I wasn’t trying to kill myself.”

“Then what were you trying to accomplish by ripping your stomach open?”

He wrapped his arms around his folded knees and hid his face. I was almost shocked; I had never seen him so vulnerable and ashamed.

“My mind wasn’t clear,” he answered, his voice slightly muffled by his arms. “I… I can’t explain. So I will just tell you.”

A lump formed in my throat, and the atmosphere was so tense that I tried to do something about it:

“We can talk with Morigan… if you prefer.”

The young giant shook his head in his folded arms, his dark locks swaying around his elbows. “I’m tired of hiding. I don’t want to hide anymore. Every day since you came here, I live with a heavy weight in my stomach. When I close the door at night, when I wake up, when I open my door again, knowing I would be in the same room as you again… The weight is constantly here, and you… you keep wondering what’s happening.”

I didn’t even answer; I just stared at him with wide eyes. I knew something was bothering him since I overheard this conversation he had in his room with Morigan, but I was truly realizing his distress now.

Loëcë lifted up his head, but he didn’t look at me. “Curtis was right about your brother as well. I hoped your mother had told you about him… about Gabriel.”

Gabriel. The name my father had screamed in my dream. So Curtis hadn’t lied about him either.
I had a brother, and I didn’t even remember him. How could my parents hide such a thing from me?

“What happened to him?” I almost whispered, but Loëcë heard me.

He remained silent for a moment, then spoke in a raspy, broken voice. “He died. We were children when it happened.”

I didn’t even sat down, standing still on the mattress. I was beginning to understand what was so wrong about our families.

“We were playing,” Loëcë began to tell. “Near the lake. You, Gabriel and I. Our parents were chatting, even Gordon and Ryan were here. They were both playing with you and Gabriel in the water… near the waterfalls I think.” He paused, but his eyes remained unfocused, somewhere in the darkness in front of him. “Since I didn’t like Ryan and Gordon’s presence, I began playing with Morigan and Curtis, farther in the lake. Later, we heard Ryan and Gordon’s voices. They were arguing with our parents. We didn’t pay attention first, but then it turned pretty bad… My parents told us… told me to come back. I did.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. “My father painfully grabbed my arm and ordered me to tell him what happened. I was clueless… I didn’t know what he was talking about, and he just kept screaming “What have you done to Gabriel?” But it wasn’t the worse… The worse was your parents’ expression. The way they were looking at me… It’s still haunting me.”

I felt like it wasn’t actually the worse part. And I was right.

“Ryan and Gordon kept telling the same thing. They said…” His eyes closed hard this time, as if he was trying to block tears, and he swallowed a sob. “They said I had ki… that I had eaten Gabriel. I denied. But Ryan kept telling the same thing. “He ate Gabriel! He devoured your child!”

A long, heavy silence settled in the cave. The rain hammering on the forest ground was the only noise echoing in the cave, but I didn’t even heard it. Loëcë’s deep voice was the only thing I was focused on.

“He kept hammering those words in front of me, and even if Curtis and Morigan denied them before they were roughly sent in their room, my parents were quiet. Ryan repeated those things so often that I ended up believing them despite how much I was convinced that I would never harm your family. I had… promised my parents, when we really began playing together, I still remember. And I had promised myself as well.”

Loëcë paused and reached for something hanging from his neck; the strange pendant I had spotted a while ago. A smile briefly found its way to his lips. “I know you don’t remember, but that’s a gift from you and Gabriel. You both wanted to make it large enough for me, but… well, that’s all you managed to do. I liked it anyway. I still do.”

He hid the small pearls back under his shirt; his smile had already disappeared.

“And… of course, you know what happened next. The dream you told me about… You’re right, it’s a memory. It happened. I didn’t want you and your family to leave, and… well, I only managed to hurt you. I… I hit you in the head. The doctors say that’s why you don’t remember anything that happened before.”

I looked at him silently, my mouth slightly agape. I couldn’t believe what I heard. I just couldn’t believe what he had been hiding from me all this time. As if my mind didn’t know what to do with my shock, some of it turned into anger.

“Why?” I blunted loudly. “Why did you behave this way towards me?! You could have told me those things sooner! It would’ve been easier for you and me!”

“Easier?” he repeated bitterly, without looking at me. “It would’ve been the same, Devon. It wouldn’t have changed what I’ve done to your family.”

“What do you think you did to me since I arrived by hiding such things?”

Loëcë looked down at me. I could read sadness and regret in his eyes. He wasn’t going to fight this time. “I’m sorry, Devon. I know how stupid it is to say it now, but for what it’s worth, I’m sorry…”

His voice wasn’t cold anymore, but broken, and his eyes were actually showing how he felt this time. I think it was the same with me.

“Did you…” I hesitated, my anger turned back into shock and bafflement. “Did you really do that to Gabriel?”

Once again, the young giant averted my gaze, ashamed. “Why would have Ryan and Gordon said such a thing if I hadn’t? Maybe… I don’t know, maybe I did it without even realizing it.”

“So that scar…” I breathed. “The wound you inflicted yourself in the stomach, it was-“

“I was out of my mind.”

“But you still did it.”

I didn’t insist, but I understood. He had somewhat been trying to reach Gabriel, even years after the accident.
I looked at him for a moment. I tried to blame him for my brother’s death; I wanted to curse him, I wanted to hate him… But I realized I would just pretend, just like he did with me when I came to live here. I didn’t want that. I was fed up of that. I couldn’t hate him.

“Loëcë,” I said softly, putting my hand on his tight. “That’s not your fault. I can understand why you didn’t want to tell me that story, but whatever happened, it was an accident.”

“So far, hurting you is the only thing I was able to do. Accident or not, it doesn’t change anyth-“

“Well it does for me!” I interrupted him. “I can’t see you as a murderer. If I can forgive you, then you’ll have to forgive yourself. Take the time you need, but please… don’t let it destroy you.”

His eyes flickered to my hand touching his leg through his cargo pants, then came back to my face. He looked like he hadn’t been sleeping in days. Maybe it was true.
Something was different now. I knew that our common past could still have secrets from me, but now that Loëcë had told me all those things, I could understand him better, and see him differently. It felt like a second first meeting, and I almost wanted to say “hello, my name is Devon. What’s yours?”
I noticed it was strangely silent, then I realized the rain stopped.

So I just said: “Let’s go home.”

Loëcë nodded, and I climbed back into his hand; we left his hiding spot, crossing the drenched, green forest to reach the Sullivan’s house.

Description
We didn’t exactly stop by the next bar, at least I had the impression that Morigan chose it carefully. The small place was named after the symbolic river separating humans from giants; Orsail. We could see the grey waters from where we were sitting; a wooden table against the wall, under a wide window. I was sitting on the edge, Morigan and Loëcë were facing each other close to the wall, and Curtis was sitting next to his cousin. Everyone was drinking a glass of beer, including me; Morigan took us to this bar because they served human sized portions.

The conversation started with Morigan’s work; I learned that she taught her brother weaponless fight and self-defense. Then it drifted on me; I kept talking, telling how how my parents couldn’t get along the past few months, and how I ended up here, but Loëcë became silent, and Morigan was more elusive on that topic. She didn’t told anything I didn’t already know, and when she was talking too much, I noticed her brother scowling above the rim of his glass in her direction. He looked like he didn’t want to talk about it, not with his cousin at least. Or maybe not with me.
Everything was fine, until Curtis spoke directly to me:

“You said your parents have been arguing for months, and that’s why you’re here.”

“That’s what I said,” I answered.

“I wonder why,” he said thoughtfully. “Did you ever thought you could be the cause of all that?”

I did my best not to scowl at him. “I wonder why too. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Of course not”, he smiled, and his smile looked fake. “Why did they send you here then?”

“Curtis,” Loëcë finally said, and it sounded like a warning. Curtis didn’t pay attention to him and just kept talking:

“They obviously needed some alone time to make things right. But they’re not the only ones to have problems.”

“Devon is our guest, Curtis,” Morigan interrupted coldly. “We agreed to take care of her. It’s a pleasure to have her here.”

I knew that tone of voice; she was always talking like that when she was about to get angry. It was like the calm before the storm. But once again, Curtis chose to ignore his cousins, and his eyes were only focused on me:

“Nobody asked Loëcë if he was ready to see you again. He’s the first one your mother should have asked. But she only spoke to Morigan. I guess she’s still afraid of him, even if she said she didn’t believe-“

Loëcë suddenly stood up, pushing his chair away, and I swore I heard a low growl above me, but the loud screeching noise of the chair against the floor covered it and made me wince. The two giants looked at each other for a short moment; the first one was scowling, while the other was strangely calm and still smirking. Morigan was silent, the atmosphere was tense, and I felt like a mouse among a pack of wolves. One of them –the one I barely knew- made me feel uncomfortable and curious all at once.

“Why would my mother be afraid of him?” I asked, though I thought I already knew the answer; I knew Loëcë had hurt me accidentally years ago. If the dream I had the other night was not an invention from my subconscious self, then maybe that was the answer.

“That’s part of the truth,” Curtis said.

“Devon,” Loëcë said and extended his hand close to the edge of the window where I was standing. “Let’s go home.”

“Not yet,” I snapped without looking at him. Instead I was looking at Curtis. “Tell me the other part.”

The giant chuckled with an amused glint in his dark eyes. “Why? Mori and Loë are the best ones to talk about it. Haven’t they told you yet about your brother?”

I froze. “My… I don’t have a brother,” I stuttered, even if I didn’t believe those words myself.

Curtis arched a brow, almost surprised. “Oh? So you don’t remember him either? How sad…”

“That’s enough Curtis!” Morigan snapped. “You’re not involved, so don’t talk about it like it was nothing!”

Her cousin turned his gaze toward the giantess; he was not smiling anymore. “Nothing? Not involved? Those are bold words, Morigan. You know I consider Loë like my own brother, and I watched him become more and more withdrew every day. Colder and colder with everyone, including his family. Including you and me. Because of them!” he spat the last word as his head inched toward me.

“Curtis, shut up!” Loëcë snapped coldly, but his cousin kept his gaze to Morigan’s. His expression was nothing like it had been a few minutes ago; it was hateful.

“I never thought he could be like that. Four years ago, your brother tried to put an end on his own life! Do you realize? A twelve year-old boy, stabbing himself in the stomach. I had to stop him… Well, at least he didn’t stab himself twice. He would have done it, you know. He was serious. I never told you anything because he asked me to keep quiet… I only told you he had fallen on a pointy tree branch while we were playing. Do you understand now?”

Everyone had fallen silent, and Morigan looked bewildered. Curtis’ dark, ominous eyes settled on me, and I shuddered as he showed me his true self.

“No word can express the hate I feel for you and your family,” he said with frightening slowness. “You persecuted him for something he hasn’t done.”

My mind was a mess; Loëcë tried to kill himself when he was only twelve, and his cousin hated my family with a passion. Was my family responsible? Curtis certainly saw it this way…

Before I could find my words, a huge, warm hand wrapped around me; its gestures were hasty, but I recognized its carefulness without turning around to see his face.

“Loëcë!” I screamed. “Put me down!”

“That’s enough,” he said, lifting me up to his chest. “We’re leaving.”

“Loëcë, I won’t repeat!”

“So just stop screaming.”

Morigan spoke up:

“Loëcë, don’t take her home. Leave her to me. If you’re seen with her in the town, you’re gonna have problems.”

“I already have problems, sister. Just let me deal with them.”

I barely had the time to wonder what kind of problems Loëcë would have –and why- before he turned around; his sister didn’t stop him. I saw her glaring at Curtis before the door closed behind Loëcë, and we were back into the streets of cobblestone. Still infuriated, I punched the giant’s fingers as hard as I could.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” I screamed high toward his head.

“Taking you far away from him.”

“Why? He may hate me, but he told me more than you and Morigan did in weeks!”

“He didn’t tell you that because he absolutely wanted you to know the truth.”

“Then why? And since when do you want me to know?”

“I never said I wanted that. Now stop screaming, you’re drawing attention.”

I laughed briefly out of disbelief. “I am drawing attention? Hey, I’m not the one who’s walking hastily with someone in my hand. Let’s go back!”

“No.”

“Loëcë, right now!”

“Shut up!” he snapped in a hushed voice, and I felt the pressure in his hand increase slightly.

I tense suddenly, but I decided to push my luck:

“Why are you doing that? What are you so afraid of? Why don’t you want me to know?”

“Please Devon, just wait until we’re out of town…”

I noticed we already drew too much attention while we were arguing. I didn’t know what kind of problems Morigan had been talking about, but I would ask that question to her brother as well.
He was finally leaving Townstride when I felt a cold drop on top of my head. Then another. And then dozens of them.

Loëcë brought his second hand above me, shielding me from the rain, and kept walking toward the woods. He didn’t even followed the traced way we walked on to reach the village and took shortcuts through the hills, abandoned fields and rocky shores. We reached the dark woods in no time.
The rain was thick and cold now, and Loëcë was soaking wet. Despite the shield of his curved hand, I was sure about one thing:

“We’re not heading toward the house.”

“I know,” he simply answered.

“It’s raining.”

“I noticed.”

I huffed. “Will you tell me where we’re going at least?”

He remained silent for a few seconds. “We need a shelter.”

I dared to hope he would be more talkative after finding that shelter. At least he seemed to know where he was heading; we soon arrived in front of a dark rocky entrance. It was an enormous cave, and it was slightly higher than the forest ground Loëcë had been walking on before; the place wouldn’t be flooded, even if the rain turned into another nasty storm.

The young giant had to bend down slightly to enter the cave, and he did without hesitation. He shielded me with his free hand and shook his head, getting rid of most of the water dripping from his black hair. When he removed his hand, I took a glance at my surroundings; it was dark, but I could still see what was inside. That’s to say not that much, but I was surprised to see an old mattress with some messy covers in a corner. Loëcë sat down on the mattress and set me down.

“Is that your den or something?” I couldn’t help asking.

“It’s just a place,” he answered. “I’m the only one who knows about this cave. Even Morigan doesn’t know where to find me.”

“Well I suppose we’re two now.”

He nodded, still averting my gaze, and took a fistful of his soaked shirt in the front to squeeze it above the rocky ground. It was drenched by the heavy rain as well, but my eyes stopped on something else. He had a light skin, maybe even lighter on his stomach, where I spotted the scar. A large, old wound, witnessing something terrible he did to himself years ago.
Twelve years old…

“What Curtis said… was it true?” I asked.

“Curtis said a lot of things.”

“About you, trying to… you know, I saw the scar and…”

Loëcë immediately covered his stomach with his shirt, then with one hand, as if the scar was somewhat still painful.

“Yes. He told the truth. But he isn’t exactly right about one thing: I wasn’t trying to kill myself.”

“Then what were you trying to accomplish by ripping your stomach open?”

He wrapped his arms around his folded knees and hid his face. I was almost shocked; I had never seen him so vulnerable and ashamed.

“My mind wasn’t clear,” he answered, his voice slightly muffled by his arms. “I… I can’t explain. So I will just tell you.”

A lump formed in my throat, and the atmosphere was so tense that I tried to do something about it:

“We can talk with Morigan… if you prefer.”

The young giant shook his head in his folded arms, his dark locks swaying around his elbows. “I’m tired of hiding. I don’t want to hide anymore. Every day since you came here, I live with a heavy weight in my stomach. When I close the door at night, when I wake up, when I open my door again, knowing I would be in the same room as you again… The weight is constantly here, and you… you keep wondering what’s happening.”

I didn’t even answer; I just stared at him with wide eyes. I knew something was bothering him since I overheard this conversation he had in his room with Morigan, but I was truly realizing his distress now.

Loëcë lifted up his head, but he didn’t look at me. “Curtis was right about your brother as well. I hoped your mother had told you about him… about Gabriel.”

Gabriel. The name my father had screamed in my dream. So Curtis hadn’t lied about him either.
I had a brother, and I didn’t even remember him. How could my parents hide such a thing from me?

“What happened to him?” I almost whispered, but Loëcë heard me.

He remained silent for a moment, then spoke in a raspy, broken voice. “He died. We were children when it happened.”

I didn’t even sat down, standing still on the mattress. I was beginning to understand what was so wrong about our families.

“We were playing,” Loëcë began to tell. “Near the lake. You, Gabriel and I. Our parents were chatting, even Gordon and Ryan were here. They were both playing with you and Gabriel in the water… near the waterfalls I think.” He paused, but his eyes remained unfocused, somewhere in the darkness in front of him. “Since I didn’t like Ryan and Gordon’s presence, I began playing with Morigan and Curtis, farther in the lake. Later, we heard Ryan and Gordon’s voices. They were arguing with our parents. We didn’t pay attention first, but then it turned pretty bad… My parents told us… told me to come back. I did.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. “My father painfully grabbed my arm and ordered me to tell him what happened. I was clueless… I didn’t know what he was talking about, and he just kept screaming “What have you done to Gabriel?” But it wasn’t the worse… The worse was your parents’ expression. The way they were looking at me… It’s still haunting me.”

I felt like it wasn’t actually the worse part. And I was right.

“Ryan and Gordon kept telling the same thing. They said…” His eyes closed hard this time, as if he was trying to block tears, and he swallowed a sob. “They said I had ki… that I had eaten Gabriel. I denied. But Ryan kept telling the same thing. “He ate Gabriel! He devoured your child!”

A long, heavy silence settled in the cave. The rain hammering on the forest ground was the only noise echoing in the cave, but I didn’t even heard it. Loëcë’s deep voice was the only thing I was focused on.

“He kept hammering those words in front of me, and even if Curtis and Morigan denied them before they were roughly sent in their room, my parents were quiet. Ryan repeated those things so often that I ended up believing them despite how much I was convinced that I would never harm your family. I had… promised my parents, when we really began playing together, I still remember. And I had promised myself as well.”

Loëcë paused and reached for something hanging from his neck; the strange pendant I had spotted a while ago. A smile briefly found its way to his lips. “I know you don’t remember, but that’s a gift from you and Gabriel. You both wanted to make it large enough for me, but… well, that’s all you managed to do. I liked it anyway. I still do.”

He hid the small pearls back under his shirt; his smile had already disappeared.

“And… of course, you know what happened next. The dream you told me about… You’re right, it’s a memory. It happened. I didn’t want you and your family to leave, and… well, I only managed to hurt you. I… I hit you in the head. The doctors say that’s why you don’t remember anything that happened before.”

I looked at him silently, my mouth slightly agape. I couldn’t believe what I heard. I just couldn’t believe what he had been hiding from me all this time. As if my mind didn’t know what to do with my shock, some of it turned into anger.

“Why?” I blunted loudly. “Why did you behave this way towards me?! You could have told me those things sooner! It would’ve been easier for you and me!”

“Easier?” he repeated bitterly, without looking at me. “It would’ve been the same, Devon. It wouldn’t have changed what I’ve done to your family.”

“What do you think you did to me since I arrived by hiding such things?”

Loëcë looked down at me. I could read sadness and regret in his eyes. He wasn’t going to fight this time. “I’m sorry, Devon. I know how stupid it is to say it now, but for what it’s worth, I’m sorry…”

His voice wasn’t cold anymore, but broken, and his eyes were actually showing how he felt this time. I think it was the same with me.

“Did you…” I hesitated, my anger turned back into shock and bafflement. “Did you really do that to Gabriel?”

Once again, the young giant averted my gaze, ashamed. “Why would have Ryan and Gordon said such a thing if I hadn’t? Maybe… I don’t know, maybe I did it without even realizing it.”

“So that scar…” I breathed. “The wound you inflicted yourself in the stomach, it was-“

“I was out of my mind.”

“But you still did it.”

I didn’t insist, but I understood. He had somewhat been trying to reach Gabriel, even years after the accident.
I looked at him for a moment. I tried to blame him for my brother’s death; I wanted to curse him, I wanted to hate him… But I realized I would just pretend, just like he did with me when I came to live here. I didn’t want that. I was fed up of that. I couldn’t hate him.

“Loëcë,” I said softly, putting my hand on his tight. “That’s not your fault. I can understand why you didn’t want to tell me that story, but whatever happened, it was an accident.”

“So far, hurting you is the only thing I was able to do. Accident or not, it doesn’t change anyth-“

“Well it does for me!” I interrupted him. “I can’t see you as a murderer. If I can forgive you, then you’ll have to forgive yourself. Take the time you need, but please… don’t let it destroy you.”

His eyes flickered to my hand touching his leg through his cargo pants, then came back to my face. He looked like he hadn’t been sleeping in days. Maybe it was true.
Something was different now. I knew that our common past could still have secrets from me, but now that Loëcë had told me all those things, I could understand him better, and see him differently. It felt like a second first meeting, and I almost wanted to say “hello, my name is Devon. What’s yours?”
I noticed it was strangely silent, then I realized the rain stopped.

So I just said: “Let’s go home.”

Loëcë nodded, and I climbed back into his hand; we left his hiding spot, crossing the drenched, green forest to reach the Sullivan’s house.