“What are you two doing? Who are you talking with?”
Freya and Lucille swiftly swerved, balking when they saw their mother step into the room. The phone on Freya’s hand dropped to the floor with a large thump, grabbing Sheila’s attention.
A frown masked Sheila’s face as she guessed who her girls had been speaking to; their sister. It would explain the guilty countenance on their faces. She wanted to laugh at their similar comical expressions, but they had disobeyed her. She wouldn’t take that.
“You both called Emma? I remembered tasking everyone not to. Or you both thought you were exempted because she is your sister?”
Lucille instantly retreated behind Freya, as if seeking protection from her mother. Freya kissed her teeth at her sister’s sharp act of falling back in the face of their mother’s anger, but didn’t move or call the latter out.
“We are sorry, mom.” She said rather, startled when she realized that in all her years with Leonarya, she had never addressed the latter with such humility, with such reverence. She had never felt this love-rebuke relationship that went on between mothers and their children. Her spirit then, has always known that she didn’t belong to Leonarya.
“But we hadn’t been the one to reach out first. She had texted my phone number, and well…”
Sheila piqued an eyebrow. She already knew the completion of the statement. ‘And well I had called her’ She stretched her right hand toward them, and tweaked her fingers backward thrice, beckoning on them to hand the phone over to her.
Freya, without hesitation, swooped to the floor, collected the phone, and handed it over to Sheila. She didn’t return to the bed however. Rather she stood before her mother, as if waiting for a sentence.
“You can return to your sister, Freya, unless she might cuss you to death.” Sheila said with a chuckle, nodding at Lucille who had a pout on her lips after her mother’s correct words. Truly, she had been mentally cussing at Freya for leaving her in the open, without any shield.
Lucille couldn’t believe herself nevertheless; she who had commanded the almost annihilation of a pack, was cowering before one woman. What they said must be true then-mothers were in another class of generals. Just one stern look, and a child would cower, would scamper if the occasion called for it.
Sheila opened the phone when Freya returned to the bed, and seeing the message, couldn’t stop the flow of shock into her facial features.
“We were surprised too mom-how the journey had taken so long. It’s why we had called her. The curiosity had been threatening to knock us over to oblivion.”
Sheila didn’t care for the exaggerated frustration in Freya’s tone, only that her daughter had spent two weeks on the journey that would have taken at most three days. Which route had Annabel taken?
“When you called her, what did she say?” Sheila asked, huffing when her daughters exchanged mischievous glances. Oh well, she knew they found it pretentious that she was curious now, after bashing them for calling Emma. She didn’t care.
She cleared her throat when they kept playing with their eyebrows, and snickering. A glance from her gave Freya no choice. “They had been followed. So, Annabel had gone through diverse routes to throw off their stalkers….”
“Was she successful?” Sheila asked, worry and apprehension riding on her features.
“Yes, after two weeks. According to Emma, Annabel only went ahead with the mission, when Prescott had finally discovered the tracing point on Amelia and destroyed it. The stalker had been the mage.”
Sheila sighed wearily, and folded her arms across her chest, wishing she had been there with Emma, but grateful that her daughter had arrived at the academy in one piece. “So, the academy…did she say anything about it? How did they welcome her?”
Lucille shrugged her shoulders. “Quite okay. She mentioned however that the elders were too stuck up. They had to rely on the truth serum to verify her claims, before letting her into the academy. Could you imagine? Annabel’s words weren’t enough for them?”
Sheila chuckled softly. The chuckle died however, with Lucille’s next statement.
“If only they knew that the serum didn’t work on her! Haaa! I can only imagine their faces.”
Lucille’s and Freya’s combined laughter stopped when they noticed their mother brooding. They exchanged glances. Had they said something wrong?
“Mom, what’s the matter?” They asked simultaneously.
“Did you say that serum didn’t work on her?”
Both nodded, confusion marring their foreheads.
“Impossible.” Sheila muttered, shaking her head. “How did she know that it didn’t work? She is supposed to be in daze, not in control of her emotions.”
She turned aside to her daughters who were swimming in confusion like her, even though for entirely different reasons.
“She didn’t tell them all that happened, and she wasn’t in a daze. She was conscious of her surroundings, of the elders murmurs and decisions which had been made because they thought she was unconscious. Mom, is there a problem with that? Shouldn’t that be good news?”
Sheila wasn’t sure. “The truth serum isn’t medically or scientifically created, it’s not similar in any way to the ones made by humans, except by its function. It’s made with magic. As a matter of fact, it is produced from the sweat glands of a rare human. No one has ever being immune to it. That’s why it is used to taste any invader, to know the person’s intent and purposes. It’s why there are rarely issues at the academy. If Emma had been immune to it, it means that her body system…”
Sheila didn’t want to call her daughter a freak. She almost cut her tongue for even thinking along those lines. Freak was a word used by humans for a phenomenon they didn’t understand. She wasn’t gullible as they were. But her daughter was in another class, than them, than other supernaturals. Kane had been right to call them gods.
She looked at Freya and Lucille. Would they be immune too? What others things were they immune to?
“Mom, it shouldn’t surprise you really…you know we are not the same like the others. I’m sure that’s why you had tasked Aunt Tempest to keep us safe. You must have been warned.”
Sheila nodded to Freya’s statement. Her daughter was right. She shouldn’t be surprised, but yet she was. She sighed, and inhaled deeply. “Was there anything else she said?”
“Yup. She spoke about the professors who tried to talk down on you…”
“Which birdbrains are that?” Sheila interrupted, her eyebrows raised in incredulity.
Lucille laughed. “Professor Brooks and Quinn.”
Sheila hissed. “Those fools. What happened next?”
“Well, you know Emma, she didn’t take it lying low. She dished back to them their own meal. They didn’t like it, so they had tried to humiliate her by asking her to pick a student to duel with, when the Prince hadn’t authorized that…”
Sheila balled her fists, already imagining the scenario. Her daughter, though powerful, was still unskilled in terms of battle. She was reluctant to ask what happened next, until she saw the duo snickering.
“What happened next…” She dared to ask, tapping the excitement her two daughters were exhibiting.
“You wouldn’t believe it mom! She picked the professors to duel with!” Lucille screamed, laughing and throwing her legs up. Freya wasn’t left behind.
Sheila however didn’t understand their happiness. Emma dueling the professors couldn’t have ended well, unless the Prince had put a stop to the nonsensical show.
Freya, seeing her mother’s somber face, smiled widely, before flinging her hand over the latter’s shoulder. “She beat the two to shame, mom. And then when the Brooks tried to fight back again, shifting to a cougar, she beat him too, but in her wolf form. She dealt him till he submitted.”
Sheila opened her mouth, then shut it, finding it hard to believe what her daughter was saying. She almost took up the phone to confirm for herself, but for Emma’s words during the last meeting; her little girl didn’t want to speak with her and Nathan, till they stood face to face. The day seemed far off now.
“She beat them to submission…?” She finally croaked out in disbelief. Then she sighed in relief as a realization set in. Her daughter could take care of herself: she needn’t to worry. With that realization, came a smile which blossomed rapidly across her lips.
“I’m happy.” She truly was. Partly because Emma had defended her name even without meeting her, and because her daughter was safe. She stood up from the bed and inhaled deeply, chuckling thereafter, then laughing boisterously.
Freya and Lucille exchanged glances, then joined in the laughter. Their laughter attracted Shane who had been rushing to the clinic for the news he heard. He took a detour and stepped into the room whose door was open. The three females died their laughter when he came in.
“Is there a problem Shane? Where are you heading to?” Sheila asked without preamble, her second question stemming from the sweat she saw pooling on Shane’s forehead.
Shane swallowed. “Nothing Aunt. I was just heading to the clinic. Esther is awake.”