273 The Return 5

Later, Kyro suggested they shouldn't waste time, and if she wasn't too tired, they should go visit Aunt Maddie straight away. Iris agreed with extreme reluctance even if she wasn't too exhausted after the long flight. Her problem was that she didn't know what she was going to say to her aunt.

Kyro rented a car, and Iris told him the address. It was always at the tip of her tongue, for it had been her home for many years. Yet…

"You don't look good," Kyro said while giving her a sideways glance.

"It's nothing." She pulled her lips in a flicker of a smile, then returned to staring out the window at the streets that weren't too familiar to her. Her aunt lived outside the city, so they had a couple hours journey to reach her.

Silence reigned in the car for a while, until Iris could no longer take it. She looked back at Kyro and sighed. "I had written an email to her when I thought I was gonna remain a fox forever and never be able to return home."

"And?" Kyro spared her a short look, then focused on the road again.

"And? I wrote some nonsense about needing a break, which resulted in my disappearance without a word, and she replied with an 'okay'. That was all she wrote."

As she said that, Iris remembered the heartbreak she'd felt at the time she received that email, but her heart was calm now. In comparison. She just didn't know how to face her aunt after such a thing.

"Are you afraid she won't see you?"

That wasn't it. They were family, after all. Although her aunt was cold and didn't like children, she had still done what she could for Iris.

"I'm more afraid of how I'm going to explain my leaving. Or if I should at all. Does she even want to see me?"

"She brought you up, didn't she? I'm sure she'll be glad to see you," Kyro said in a gentle, appeasing voice. He didn't know her aunt, but Iris still nodded as if she agreed. At least one of them was expecting something good of the upcoming meeting.

By the time they reached the outskirts of the city, Iris was a tittering ball of nerves. She was ready to bolt at any moment.

Was it really necessary to meet her aunt? Couldn't they just keep on writing one-word emails to each other?

Yet the old house was already before them. Iris stepped out of the car and looked at the dilapidated building. Once upon a time, it might have been beautiful, with arched doorway and a sense of ostentation from the baroque style architecture. It had belonged to some private school at one point in time, but it had long ago been turned into an apartment building, or at least an approximation of one.

Iris led the way, into the corridor on the first floor. The owner had once decided to renovate the place, but halfway through, he had run out of funds. The works had stopped then, and the walls had remained cleaned off paint, with patches of white here and there.

"Don't touch anything," Iris warned. "Not everything can be cleaned off."

Kyro gave her a look, but didn't say anything. They passed through the corridor, then went upstairs at the end. On the first floor, right on their left, there was a door that looked as old as the world itself. A stray breeze might kick it off its hinges.

Knowing that, Iris knocked with gentleness. The bell hadn't worked since the time she could remember it, and she didn't think her aunt had bothered to repair it since she'd left.

For a few minutes, there was no response. "Should we—" Kyro started to ask, but Iris shook her head. Her aunt didn't go to open the door nine times out of ten. She didn't have friends that would visit her, and she had no wish to entertain religious folk or sellers going door-to-door.

"Aunt Maddie!" Iris called in the end while knocking again, stronger this time. She didn't want to announce herself to the whole building with its paper-thin walls, but it didn't seem to be an option.

In a while more, the door finally opened. Behind it stood a middle-aged woman with large, black-rimmed glasses. She gave Iris a once-over, then motioned for her to enter. Her gaze lingered a second longer on the man behind her, but she didn't say anything.

She led them to the living room, which was covered in everything one could possibly think about. The couch by the wall was buried under so many clothes it couldn't even be seen. The coffee table next to it was hidden under piles of books with papers sticking out of them. Various sketches could be seen in the parts outside.

The rest of the room was taken up by dozens of boxes. They contained everything from old and broken headphones to an antique table set someone had gifted Aunt Maddie more than twenty years ago.

The apartment wasn't too small, with two small bedrooms and a living room, but when one didn't throw anything out, the space quickly filled up. Iris had no doubt that with her being gone for so long, her old room had become another closet.

"Find a place to sit, I'll make you some tea." With those words, aunt left for the adjacent miniature room which was the kitchen.

Iris followed her figure with her eyes, noting how it was as thin as ever. No matter how much junk food her aunt ate, she always looked like a stick. The fact that she always sat at her computer, drawing designs for whoever offered to pay her, didn't seem to matter either.

"Is she always like that?" Kyro asked in a whisper, leaning over. His tone was light, like he was asking about the weather.

"Wait a moment here, I'll free us some space."

What else could she say? That her aunt was an iceberg that wouldn't melt even under the desert sun?

Shaking her head to herself, Iris went on a rapid clean up session. She collected the clothes, separating them in a couple of piles based on color and type. The washing machine was in the basement, so she just carried the clothes to her old room. As expected, it didn't have an empty space anywhere, but she found a corner to drop the old clothes on a couple boxes.

Next, she found a clean cover and put it on the couch. While Kyro sat down, she moved the books. There were a few new ones she hadn't see, but most were those she'd seen her aunt using year after year. With her work being all over the place, she would sometimes need to draw animals and have to check up on their bone structure, or design a good-looking house for some game and take a crash course on baroque architecture.

Since the top ones had sketches in them, Iris brought them to her aunt's bedroom which served as a study as well while the rest went to her old room. She then cleaned the table and sat down by Kyro, who was looking around with interest.

Moments later, her aunt came out with three steaming cups. She placed them on the table and dragged a chair over for herself. Without a word of offering them the drinks she'd brought, she took up her own and drank a mouthful of burning hot liquid.

Her eyes behind the glasses were like those of a hawk as they fell on Iris. "So you're back."