Arcturus had sat down on the chair, but Sara wasn’t talking. She looked lost in her thoughts. He wondered what it was she wanted to say to him. He felt a little impatient as he looked at the monitor to see Nova in the kitchen. He had no idea Nova could cook and it made him want to go upstairs to help out and to try his cooking.

Sara then cleared her throat. “Arcturus, may I ask you a question?”

“Sure…?”

“What do you think about this house?”

Arcturus’s eyes glistened as he thought about how amazing Hilbert’s house was. “It’s incredible! It can run, fly and swim! Hilbert is clearly a genius and he’s younger than me! It’s such a shame that his talents are confined to an isolated island like this. If he’s able to spread his wings, I could see him overtaking Nathaniel Hope in a decade or so…”

He became surprised at how much he was fawning over Hilbert. While he also admired Hilbert, it was a different kind of admiration he held for Nova. For Nova, he admired his will to keep on living and how he’s able to grant wishes. It made him want to protect him. It made him want to stay by his side for as long as possible. His admiration for Hilbert was something much different. It was something similar to how he felt about his friends back home. It was a feeling of wanting to know more and wanting to be with him, but also wanting to maintain a safe distance and not overstep any boundaries.

He peered over at Sara to see her looking at him as if she was going to cry. This made him panic. He left his bag upstairs, so he didn’t have a handkerchief or a tissue for her to use. Sara seemed to notice as she wiped incoming tears and held her head back.

“Are you okay?” Arcturus asked.

“Yes. Sorry about that. I was getting emotional over someone praising Hilbert.” She took off her glasses before putting them on again. “Hilbert didn’t have the best childhood growing up as he had an inventor of a father who wasn’t that successful and his mother never really cared for him as she preferred keeping to herself rather than spend time with her own son.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, are you a relative or something of the sort? You sure know a lot.”

“I was a neighbor who used to be his babysitter at times. Hilbert would often tell me stories about his parents. It did break my heart that the kid grew up with parents that didn’t care too much for him. However, on the day Asteria killed her husband, she disappeared with Hilbert and she also burnt another neighbor’s house down in the process. The whole incident was the talk of the town for a while. I was sixteen when that happened.”

“How old was Hilbert?”

Sara started thinking. “It’s been twelve years since then, so I guess he was around eight or nine at the time.”

“Twelve years?”

“Two years after that incident, Asteria showed up at my house one day. She was persuading my parents about a special job offer that she believed would be the best fit for me. While I was a college student at the time, she did say that the job allowed me to juggle school and work freely, but I had to stay with her because of it. This was beneficial on my part because the commute to school was quite far from my house and I thought the extra money would help both my family and me. So, we accepted the offer without giving it too much thought.”

Sara leaned forward. “Asteria has quite the silver tongue, so don’t fall for her words. Ever.”

It’s not like I do…

She leaned back and continued, “Anyways, the job Asteria wanted me to do was to do double duty as her secretary and be Hilbert’s nanny. It wasn’t a bad job. She paid me well and I got to spend time with Hilbert. However…the experience got me thinking about something that persists today.”

“And that is…?” Arcturus raised an eyebrow out of curiosity.

“I got involved in this family drama unwillingly, but if there is something I desperately want, it’s for Hilbert to be able to live apart from his mother and have his talents be shown to the world. He’s just too good to be cooped up on an isolated island like this.

“I honestly agree.”

Sara also hung her head. “I also want Asteria to live a life where she isn’t so fixated on killing her family. She’s a pretty lady with many talents, yet she chose one where she will have a bad end. Staying with them for so long, they’re like family to me. I want them to be happy, but for them to achieve that happiness, they have to be apart from each other. That’s when I think I’ll finally be able to find some peace and think about my own future.”

She lifted her head up. “Arcturus, can you help me with this request? If you and Nova are going to go around to grant people’s wishes, please take Hilbert along. If that boy goes around to see the world, he can expand his horizons and be the person he is meant to be. That way, I can finally be at ease.”

Her request made him feel as if some sort of pressure was weighing on him. Arcturus could tell Sara never discussed this with anyone. It wasn’t his place to accept such a request–that was Hilbert’s duty. Yet, at the same time, he didn’t want to refuse because he was curious to see how far Hilbert would go with his inventions.

He cleared his throat. “That’s not for me to decide. You’re going to have to discuss that with Hilbert. I can’t just force someone I barely know to leave a place they’re all too comfortable with. What if Hilbert doesn’t want to leave?”

Sara slowly averted her gaze. “You’re right…you’re absolutely right…”

He could tell she asked that request out of desperation. She looked absolutely tired, yet she was still doing her best to keep on piloting this house. He wondered where she slept because he saw no traces of a sleeping bag or any type of furniture.

He just kept silent. Suddenly, he lifted his head up as he heard erratic noises from the upper floor. He took a good look at the monitor and saw that Nova was kneeling on the kitchen floor and looked as if he was in pain. Not only that, Murphy barged into the room he was in.

“Arcturus, Nova is in trouble!”

Those words caused him to run swiftly past him and dashed up the stairs as if he was floating. All he could think about was how Nova needed him right now. As he reached the ground floor, his eyes widened at the sight of Constance’s brother-bot functioning without an earring; he wasn’t the only one shocked.