“Who knocked?” Laura asked Diana again, taking a sneak peek through the curtain. We just noticed that Peter was no longer in the sitting room.
“Uncle Dim. I don’t know why he is here though.” Diana answered calmly as if she was talking about the weather, as if she didn’t just utilize a gift that was impossible to humans, to ordinary werewolfs, to me.
A gift of prophecy? I was not sure what to term it.
When Laura’s mind processed the name that her daughter had given her, she stood up agilely from her seat and strolled out of the dining room.
Well, I was unsettled too. If Dim was anything like his deranged wife, whom I had met in the market, then there was a need to be out there too. Who knows? Possibly Lourdes had reported to Dim what had transpired today at the market, or maybe he had come to lay his grievance on Peter for usurping the queen’s intention for me, or possibly both.
I looked at a not-concerned Diana and furrowed my eyebrows. Why wasn’t the girl perturbed? From the way she had spurted Dim’s name out of her mouth like it was a curse, it was obvious that she wasn’t oblivious to the hatred her parents had for the couple. Diana must know something else.
“Diana, what are you hiding?”
“Well, Dim is just here to talk and rant. He won’t be able to do anything. This is because the Queen’s order to my parents, to look after you, comes with special privileges. For one, they are protected from unnecessary assaults. But of course, people will always banter.” Diana replied, and I inhaled sharply.
Diana’s style of speaking and diction-which surpasses that of a normal six year old-still fazed me, but it wasn’t what left me gawking. What did it was the content of her speech.
The queen had granted my new family special rights. Special rights like freedom from assaults. Could other families be assaulted then? Are there situations where people were bullied like I had been bullied in the pack?
“Not at all, Maya. It’s just that, although this community is peaceful, there can be times when some certain hooligans of the community-that’s what I call those bullies who think they are better than anyone-rise and begin to embarrass themselves, not the queen.” Diana mentioned, and I piqued my eyebrows, aware that she had just defended the queen again.
Why this ardent love and defense for the queen? Could it be because the woman personally taught them about loyalty and trust? Apart from the fact that it was weird that a queen would teach six year olds that subject, when other people could do the same, I wondered if that should even be a topic meant for the palace? Wasn’t the school a good enough place for teachers to do that? Why would the queen take up the responsibility?
“They take things from people that they are hierarchically better than. So we are exempted from all of that.” Diana continued.
I sighed again.
If the queen was aware of this, why hadn’t she stopped it? Yet I didn’t ask Diana that, instead I walked out of the dining room, aware that she was staring at me, probably surprised that I hadn’t taken her words for truth.
But that was not so. I knew she was telling me the truth; I was just curious to see who Dim was. I wanted to see how he looked, so I wouldn’t misplace his identity in case I saw him on the road. A girl can never be too careful.
When I reached the sitting room’s door, there was Laura standing by the doorpost, watching with a fisted hands at an exchange that I was sure was going on between her husband and the said Dim.
I tuned in with my amplified hearing even before I took a sneak peak at the Dim from behind Laura. She stiffened when she felt my presence, but didn’t turn, rather she relaxed and let me watch the proceedings going on between Peter and a man who looked just like him.
Were they twins?
My mouth opened as the realization dawned on me. Dim was Peter’s family. His brother, and probably a twin.
“Who do you think you are, trying to work at my position? Isn’t your position as your wife’s errand boy enough for you, farmer?” Dim dished cruelly.
Although he and Peter looked alike, watching him more closely, their differences were beginning to pop out like popcorn to me.
Whereas Peter had a shaggy blonde hair, Dim’s were a light brown, though still shaggy. They were of the same height, but there was a certain gait to Dim’s step as he moved like he had an injury on his left leg. His voice too was different from Peter’s.
I could deduct from the way that he spoke that he was a military man. He might be in charge of the queen’s war forces, if I would take a guess. I thought, as my eyes caught the scars on his bare arm covered barely by the sleeveless top he was sporting.
If put to battle with Peter, I was sure that he would win, but I could see something Peter had that he didn’t; a gentle mysterious aura. It might not mean much, but for me, it put Peter on a higher pedestal than his brother, who the more I looked at, was beginning to fit into the mold of being Peter’s twin.