In both instances in Hillary's conversation with Sybilla, by the time she acknowledged the comments about keeping her hands away from the snakes and also Sybilla not wanting to go on the pier because of her blindness and worry of splinters, Timea would have arrived back, essentially stopping those conversations for the time being.
[hr]
"Timea, there's these um... splinter rocks that are on the wood, Sybilla didn't want any splinters so she didn't come over. What should we do?" Hillary asked Timea, before putting her face close to the wooden planks again, looking in the gaps.