Author's Note: My bank account is pretty low. If I owned these characters, that wouldn't be so.

Thanks to: Tenethia South for yet another prompt!

The only sound to break the silence was the clink of silver on three bowls. It wasn't an uncommon ambience, but at the same time, there was something quite different about it. On the one hand, Alberta welcomed it. With her niece and nephew happily returned home as of a week ago, her home was in order again. But on the other hand, she hadn't yet identified what it was that had taken their place. She had tried to ignore the missing piece of this puzzle, but the quiet was so unbearably loud. Indeed, in looking down at her hand, she saw that her spoonful of turnip soup trembled. She took a deep breath and broke the silence.

"You were awfully quiet today, Eustace Clarence. What were you doing up in your room all day?"

Eustace Clarence started as if she had quite properly derailed a most steady train of thought, and looked at her. "Oh. I was… writing in my journal. And reading."

"All day?" Alberta inquired.

Eustace Clarence stirred his soup. "Oh, yes, and thinking."

Harold turned a page of his newspaper. "Looking forward to school, are we?"

Eustace Clarence didn't respond at first. Just studied his soup and stirred it around. "No…," he finally said. "I'm not looking forward to it."

Alberta nearly choked. Normally, her boy would have make a face and spit out his disdain for the inferior persons among his schoolmates before stating that he was anxious to interact with his like-minded mates and achieve academic honours.

"That's good. Very good," Harold murmured.

Alberta turned to him, horrified, before realizing that he was clearly distracted by a news article. She set down her spoon and addressed her son again. "Why ever not, Eustace Clarence?"

Eustace Clarence swallowed another spoonful of his soup, an act that struck Alberta of a sudden: her boy hated turnips. Perhaps it was the lack of his complaining that had made the previous silence so disturbing? But she forced herself to focus on him again when he opened his mouth to say, "This term will be very different, I think."

Alberta was stunned. Not only was his answer entirely unlike him, but so was his very face. So meditative and calm. It was all too much. She felt a headache coming on and rubbed her temples in an attempt to stave it off. The silence returned, though for better or worse, she couldn't tell.

"I miss Edmund and Lucy."

Alberta's eyes flew open. Neither his face nor his tone betrayed humour. Rather, he continued to eat his soup as if he had never made such a shocking statement. Indeed, he drained his bowl as naturally as his tiresome cousins would have. Alberta let her eyelids flutter closed again. Her temples pounded under her shaking fingertips. Something was wrong with the boy. She just knew it. He'd been acting strangely for a couple weeks now, but she had assumed that he would return to normal after his dreadful cousins had left.

"I say!" Eustace Clarence's alarmed voice suddenly broke through her thoughts. She opened her eyes again. He was leaning on the table, staring at her. "Are you ill?"

How very much like Lucy. She forced a smile. "I'm alright, Eustace Clarence, dear. Just feeling headachy and a little shaky, that's all."

"That's fine, dear," Harold murmured at his newspaper.

Alberta ignored him. "Nothing a bit of Plumptree's couldn't cure." She set her trembling hands on the table to help her stand up.

Eustace Clarence jumped up. "No, no, you sit, Mother; I'll get it for you." Her vision fairly spun along with him as he fetched the nerve food, Harold's spoon clattered loudly against the table, and it was all Alberta could do to suppress a cry.

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