Tim approached slowly, his steps made noise among the branches and leaves on the ground, but the girl had not turned around yet, it seemed like she had not heard him coming, or maybe she didn’t care enough to look at whatever was making noise.

   He stopped almost next to her, just a few steps back, and looked at the ground, at what she was seeing, trying to understand what exactly she was observing among the dry leaves.

    It was an ant trail.

    “Interesting, is it not?” she said without looking at him. Tim wondered if she knew he was the one there and that he had been following her.

   She remained focused on the ants, their long trail extending to a nearby tree and disappearing into some hole beneath the crooked root. Most of the ants carried small pieces of leaves with them, some much larger than their own size, but the girl was more attentive to the ants that were carrying a dead insect, a type of beetle.

   Though it was small for a human being, it was like a giant to them, who took him in groups, walking slowly down the line to the anthill.

   “This beetle died and will now serve as food to keep the ants alive” she said.

   “Yes, I see.”

   Her face turned to him.

   “Don’t you think that would make him alive somehow?” she asked. Tim didn’t know exactly what the girl meant or why she was saying all this to him so suddenly. She didn’t seem to be much in her senses.

   “No, it’s just a piece of meat now.”

   The girl sat down on her knees, her fingertips calmly approached the beetle and grabbed it, the ants swirled desperately over it.

   “What are you going to do?” He wanted to know.

   “I’m helping them.”

   She got up and crouched again near the tree, carefully positioning the little beetle near the anthill’s hole, and they watched as the ants slowly pushed it inside.

   “If even after dying this beetle still had some purpose, even if it was just for feeding the ants, then it is somehow still alive,” she rambled. A weak breeze passed through her hair. “I like to think that the soul of every living thing is still alive somewhere.”

   “I don’t think that is quite how it works,” he said. “Creatures die, and then what’s left of them are just remains that decompose over time. Nothing beyond that.”

   “Really? How tedious, I still prefer my theory.”

   “Do you believe that?”

   “Everyone has to believe in something, Timothy.”

   She got up. The front of her dress now had some stuck twigs that she was trying to remove, the bow on her chest was poorly tied, but still, her appearance seemed almost angelic.

   And she remembered his name.

   “You remember my name” he said at the same time he realised. The girl let out a giggle.

   “Yes, you told me yesterday, silly, and it’s not like I have many names to memorise.”

   Yeah, she seems a little weird, he thought, and apparently she was a loner too. Her cerulean eyes stared at him, a cold blue, almost gray in the weak light of the forest, the kind of look that didn’t let him see any feelings behind them.

   She could be lonely and quite strange, but it didn’t seem like she minded that much.

   “You haven’t told me yours yet.”

   “Eliza,” she whispered, her dirt-stained hands rubbing together. She matched her name, the sound it produced in her voice was as harmonious as her face.

   Tim kept thinking about the questions he could ask, but none seemed to be the most appropriate.

   The sun had just set completely now, leaving some pink and orange clouds near the horizon. The blue sky grew darker every minute, and stars began to become visible.

   He had to go back soon.

   “I thought you wouldn’t show up again, not after yesterday. What are you doing here at this time?”

   “You haven’t told anyone, have you?”
   Tim shook his head, Eliza smiled.

   “Thank you, Tim.”

   She turned and started walking in the opposite direction.

   “Wait, where are you going?”

   “Home,” she replied, her face still turned away from him. Even though the day was almost over, she had stayed so little, there wasn’t even time to talk about anything.

   “And where do you live?” he asked another question before she disappeared like last time.

   Eliza hesitated for a moment, and then turned to him.

   “My house is not far from here.”

   “Do your parents let you be here at this hour?” he asked one more.

   “They don’t really mind where I am.”

   That was… confusing. What kind of parents would let their daughter stay outside alone in the night? He knew there weren’t many crimes on the village – that wasn’t London after all – but there could be wild animals in those woods, maybe they should be more careful.

   And he should too.

   “And you…” he ran out of things to ask “are you going to come back here later?”
   “I always come back.”

   She turned again, giving one last smile before disappearing through the flowering bushes, and Tim watched until the branches she passed stopped swaying.

…

The noise of conversations mixed with the sound of the radio turned on took away his concentration, he didn’t know for how long he had been trying to read the same paragraph.

   He had only been sitting there for a few minutes, having picked up a thin book that he had found on the shelf to pass the time. It had an eye-catching cover, there were few books that had an image on the cover, this one was of a big tree with a rabbit hole underneath, it was something different, and that made him want to read it to find out what it was about.

   On the right side of the room, in front of the armchair where he sat, a shelf displayed several dolls of different sizes, some made of cloth and others made of porcelain, resting next to each other. Next to the bookcase, against the wall, was a little wooden house with some cushions in front, where Sally, Anne and Beatrice were playing with small crochet dolls.

   The back wall of the little house was open, giving a view of all its rooms, with tiny pieces of furniture that closely resembled the furniture in the orphanage itself. The layout of the rooms was almost the same as the original house, its walls were divided into dark wood at the bottom and beige wallpaper at the top. Tim found everything very bizarre, it was as if the girls were giants causing an earthquake in the mini orphanage.

   Behind them, a large, round rug lay beneath several scattered toys. Some dolls, wooden cars, a spinning top and some construction blocks. Edmond was there minutes before stacking the blocks with baby Peter, but they left to try to find Stephen and Charlie and ended up leaving them there.   

   Tim held the book closer to his body in an attempt to focus more on what he was reading, he had already turned the page a few times, but the first chapter didn’t end, its language was still too elaborate for him to understand.

   The way he was holding the book, he ended up not seeing Norman arrive in the room.

   “Finally you showed up, I thought you were going to stay out there all night” Norman lowered the book that covered Tim’s face, he had some kind of board game in his hands. “What are you reading?”  

   “I don’t really know, it seems like fantasy.”   

   “Ah, then you won’t want to play with me.” He placed the board on the small table next to the armchair.

   It was an edition of Snakes and Ladders, one of the games he used to play with his mother sometimes. He always thought it was amazing how he always managed to win — or rather, he now thought, it was his mother who always let him win.   

   “Are you better from your cold?”

   “Not quite, but it won’t be a problem, I’ll hold back the sneeze as much as possible, I promise!”

   Tim was still afraid of being close to Norman, and it was no surprise, but he could not refuse an opportunity like this, no one ever invited him to play anything.

   Ever since Uncle John got sick, everything he did to keep himself busy was always something he did alone. And now, he had someone who was willing to spend time with him.

   “Actually, I can’t read properly, so I would love to play,” he closed the book. Norman smiled.   

   “Oh, that’s good, because this is my favourite game!”

   “I thought it was football,” Tim remembered.

   “Favourite board game,” he corrected. “God, you remember everything, don’t you? I wish I was like that!”

   Norman took the board and placed it on the floor mat, removing the assembled blocks from their place. In one hand he held a white dice. The two sat cross-legged on the floor.

   “It’s really fun, you don’t need to think too much. Come on, let’s roll the dice to see who starts.”

   He threw the dice across the board and landed on number 4. Tim rolled next, landing on number 5, which meant he would start playing.

   The game didn’t have any pawns, one of the children must have lost them years before, so the two decided to take one of the building blocks, a blue block and a red one, to replace them.  

   In just a few minutes of play, Norman was already in the last few squares close to the finish. It was almost impossible for Tim to win at that point, the only way would be if Norman was unlucky enough to land on the last square that had a snake that would take him further down the board, that would give him time to get closer to him.

   All he had to do was get 3, if he didn’t get it, he could already declare himself the winner.   

   Norman rolled the dice, and to his surprise, it landed exactly on the number he was thinking of, the number 3.  

   “I can’t believe it!” He shouted. “Not even when I think I’m winning do I win.” Tim laughed, even he didn’t expect there to be any luck left with him.  

   They were so focused on the game that they weren’t noticing the girls talking behind them, at least not until that moment. Anne and Sally’s voices got louder, they complained to Beatrice, who was whining.  

   “Let me have this one!” she said, trying to pull the doll from Sally’s hands, her red face was about to scream.  

   “I want to play with Dorothy now, you can have Abby,” Sally pointed to the doll on the floor.   

   “I don’t want that one, it’s ugly!” protested the girl. “Give me yours!” She turned to Anne, who held her doll tightly.

   “But I just got this one!” argued Anne. “I think you’re just tired, Tris, why don’t you go to bed already?”

   Beatrice’s face tightened and she burst into tears. Anne and Sally continued to play as if they weren’t hearing her cries, hoping that she would stop, and after a while, the crying stopped.

   It stopped suddenly, a very strange silence followed. Tim and Norman continued to play, but finding the sudden silence quite odd, Tim decided to look back. It was then that he saw Beatrice hanging on the doll shelf, trying to climb it to get a porcelain doll that was on the last shelf.

   It was probably the prettiest doll of them all, which was why Beatrice wanted to get it so much. Her long, golden hair was tied with a hairslide at the side of her head, and her long, pink dress covered her feet.

   Sally and Anne looked at the same time as Beatrice began to lose her balance, their first reaction was to let out a scream that echoed throughout the orphanage. Norman got up running to try to catch her, but Sally thought faster and managed to break her fall with her telekinesis before she hit the ground.

   What she hadn’t seen, however, was the doll that Beatrice was trying to reach almost falling off the shelf. Its porcelain face had fallen forward, and the weight was carrying the doll down. Tim had been the only one to notice this, and dove to the ground to catch it before it fell.

   “I did it, did you see that?” exclaimed Sally after recovering from her fright. “I’ve never done it with something so heavy before.”

   “What is the matter here?” Mrs. Parsons appeared distressed at the door, accompanied by Stephen, Charlie and Edmond who were trying to peer behind her.

   “It wasn’t my fault, Mrs. Parsons!” said Sally.

   “Mine either,” said Anne, pointing to Beatrice. “she was the one—”

   “I just wanted the doll up there!” Beatrice said in a crying voice. Mrs. Parsons immediately looked up from the shelf, despairing to see that the place where the doll was now was just an empty space.

   “Where is the doll?” She asked, searching the floor with her eyes.

   “Here, I managed to catch it before it fell on the floor.” Tim handed it into the woman’s hands, who sighed with relief.

   “I’m sorry, Mrs. Parsons…” Beatrice placed her hands behind her back, looking at the floor in embarrassment. 

   “What have I told you about this doll? Or any of the dolls on that shelf?” she glared at her. Tim had never seen her look so serious.

   “That I wasn’t supposed to take them” Beatrice muttered softly.

   “Yes, it breaks very easily in the hands of a small child, so I don’t want to see episodes like this happening anymore, are we clear?”

   “But why not this one? I wanted her, she is so pretty—”

   “Ah, ah, ah,” she interrupted. “And without further questions, remember?” Beatrice sniffed, nodding. “Excellent. There’s nothing more to see here, lads. Go, go!”

   Stephen, Charlie and Edmond, who had been spying on the entire conversation, ran out of the door at the same moment. The girls went back to playing while Beatrice was still wiping her tears.

   Mrs. Parsons was still holding the doll, her fingers gripping the dress tightly as if she was afraid of the doll falling if she didn’t.

   “Come on, let’s go back to playing.” Norman called his attention.

   Tim nodded, still watching as Mrs. Parsons carefully returned the doll to its place on the shelf.