9. Mother’s Inquiry

Vaelora’s POV

Hastily, I threw myself down on the couch and tried to look as if I was immersed in one of the novels that I’d left stacked on the end table.

My mother recognized reading as a sacred pastime and usually wouldn’t interrupt me in the middle of a book, even to yell at me.

The door opened with a loud thump. It was Alaric, his arms full of what looked like big cartons. He set them down, straightening up, his eyes meeting mine. A smile on his face.

“Hello, Unc—hello, Alaric,” I greeted. He’d warned me about calling him Uncle Alaric about a year ago, which is hilarious because he claimed that it made him feel old. Besides, he had reminded me that he wasn’t my uncle, just a close friend of my mum who’d known her all her life. Sometimes, I wish they were dating or getting married soon. But I know how Mum gets. She prioritizes my own well-being and life more than anything.

She thinks that by friend-zoning Alaric, it makes her pay much more attention to me, which is true, but it’s so annoying due to the fact that she still sees me as a baby—her baby. Still, I’m a twenty-one-year-old lady. I can take care of myself.

“Where’s Mum?”

“Parking the car,” he answered, straightening his lean frame with a groan. He was dressed in his usual uniform: old jeans, a black shirt, and a bent pair of silver-rimmed glasses that sat at the bridge of his nose. He looked like a bookworm professor.

“What are the boxes for?” I asked.

Alaric’s smile faded. “Your mum wanted to pack up some things,” he said, avoiding my gaze.

“Okay? What things?”

He gave me an airy wave. “Just, you know, some unnecessary stuff lying around the house. Annoyingly always getting in the way. You know how your mother is: she never throws anything out. Always sees another potential in them. So uhm, what are you reading?” He changed the subject.

I squinted my eyes but didn’t say anything. He plucked the book out of my hand and adjusted his glasses. It reminded me of Andrew.

“Danger clung to him like smoke, yet there was something devastatingly irresistible about the man who hunted monsters for a living,” Alaric read aloud. “Jesus! Vaelora!” He lowered the book and looked at me over his glasses. “Did you write this for a school project or you’ve suddenly picked an interest in fantasy writing?”

Oh, Lord. First, I drew him, and now I’ve started writing about him with words.

“No. School’s not until a few weeks.” I snatched the book from him. “Maybe I’m actually starting to pique an interest in writing. We will see how that goes.”

I dropped the book back on the table, then reconsidered. I stuffed it into my bag, not wanting Mum to read it. She’d ask me a thousand and one million questions, and I wasn’t ready to tell her about my ordeal with my stalker. Knowing her, she might think me crazy.

I put my bag aside. “Uh, Alaric?”

“Uh-huh?” The book already forgotten, he was rummaging in one of the cartons next to the dinner table. “Ah, here you are.” He pulled out something that glowed at the end when he switched it on. I was curious to know what that was, but I didn’t want to interfere. Alaric loved tools, especially mysteriously looking ones. He had a billion of them back in his penthouse, and I got tired of asking him where they came from. He always said it’s from one of his little adventures, and that’s it. No other special information.

“What would you do if you saw something nobody else could see?”

The tool fell out of Alaric’s hand and hit the tiled floor before bouncing off and landing between the cushioned chairs. Only its glow was what I could see.

He knelt to pick it up, avoiding my gaze.

“You mean if someone were the only one to witness, uhm, a crime or something like that?”

“No, I mean, well, kind of.” I shifted to the tip of my seat, grateful that I had his full attention. “I meant if there were other people around, but I’m the only one who could see them, feel them, and even associate with them. It’s like they’re invisible to every other person except me.”

He hesitated, still kneeling, the tool tightly gripped in his hand.

“I know it sounds like I’m crazy,” I ventured nervously, “but…”

He straightened, walked towards me, bent down so his eyes leveled with mine. They were very green, a beautiful emerald colour that reminded me of healthy trees clamped together in the forest. Very natural. They rested on my face with that look of firm attraction I always loved right from when I was a kid.

“Vaelora, you’re a painter and an artist—traits you got from your mother, and being with her makes me realize just how much she views the world differently from us. Maybe the same goes for you.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s not that…”

He cut in. “It’s a gift, Vaelora. Your gift. To see beauty and wonder in ordinary things. It doesn’t make you crazy, just different. The unique kind of different. There’s literally nothing wrong with being different. Okay?”

I nodded, pulling my legs up and resting my chin on my knees. In my mind’s eye, I saw that little storage room, Xyrelle’s silver whip snaking out from her long sleeves, the blue-haired boy convulsing in his death spasms, and my stalker’s mysterious eyes. Horror and beauty evident in them.

“If my father were alive, do you think he’d have been a painter too? Seeing the world not only in black and white but in different beautiful colors.”

Alaric cut his gaze away from me and turned sideways. “Your mother is here. Go help her.”

Of course, he’d never answer any question I asked that included my father in it. I’d thought he wasn’t comfortable talking about the man my mother once loved, but now, I was starting to think he might be helping my mum hide something from me.

They hid a bunch of secrets to the point that I got tired of trying to find out what they were. And the worst part was, they sucked when it came to lying their asses off.

It became infuriating day in, day out.

The door swung open and my mother stalked into the room, her boot heels clicking on the tiles. She tossed Alaric a set of jingling car keys and turned to look at me.

“Good day to you too.”

My mum was a slim woman. Her hair was darker than mine and twice as long. At the moment, she had rolled it up into a bun, stuck through it with what she called a granite pencil. She said it was handy for her whenever she came up with any ideas on what to draw.

Looking at her now, I knew she had been painting. She wore overalls that were smeared with paint while her boot heels were caked with old and new paint. Those were Mum’s “work” clothes.

Her face was smoother than mine. No signs of freckles or dark spots. People said I looked like my mother, but I just couldn’t see the resemblance. Maybe it was the hair, in which hers was a few shades darker, or was it the figure? We both bore a striking resemblance in that. She was slender, and I was too, with small chests and full hips, although Mum’s was fuller. I knew deep down that I wasn’t nearly as beautiful as my mother. To be classified into the beautiful group, one has to be tall and exude a unique type of gracefulness. When you are short as I am, just over five feet, you will be classified into a group called cute. Not pretty, not beautiful, but cute. Between the smooth face of my mother and my freckled face, I was nothing compared to my mother.

Lest I forget, Mum had this graceful way of walking that made people turn their heads again and again just to watch her go by. Unlike me, who always tripped over little and big things on the road. Things so visible to human eyes. The only people that watched me go by were people who were amused by my clumsiness or when I’d fall face-flat on the ground and tears were about to drop out of my eyes.

“Sorry, Mum. Hello.” I couldn’t tell if it was still morning or the early hours of the afternoon. I’d been asleep and forgot to check the time when I woke up.

“Thanks for bringing up the boxes, Alaric.” My mum said to Alaric, who went to her side to help her take off her overalls. Now, my mum stood in front of me wearing jeans and a yellow top. She took off her boots too and kicked them aside, walking barefooted. “Sorry, it took me so long to find a place to park the car.”

“Mum?” I said. “These boxes… what are they for?”

She bit her lip and glanced at Alaric warily, who flicked his eyes towards me. He gave Mum a gentle push as if urging her on for something. With a nervous twitch of her ankle bracelet, she pushed a dangling lock of hair behind her ear and came over to join me on the couch.

“You have been asleep all day.” She held my hand. Up close, I could see how exhausted she looked. There were bags under her eyes, and her lids looked like they needed time off opening for as long as possible.

“For a week now, you’ve been waking up very late.” She drew closer to me. “Are you having any nightmares or dreams lately?”

Nightmares, dreams. Where should my ordeal with my stalker be put into? Is it a nightmare that I stay up all night waiting for him to show beside the oak tree outside my window? Or is it a dream that I can’t seem to close my lids without seeing those two glassy, mysterious-looking eyes in my mind? He keeps appearing even when I finally get hold of sleep to the point that I drew him last night and now, I’m starting to write about that night. My writing consisting mainly of the part he played.

“No.” I shook my head. “I’m fine. I don’t dream or have any nightmares. Maybe I’m just a little tired.”

“You can’t be tired,” she said. “I mean school hasn’t resumed, and you do nothing besides going out with Andrew, which you haven’t done throughout this week. I saw your drawings, Vaelora.”

My breath seized. “My what…?”

“I’m the one who takes out the trash. Did you think you could hide it from me? When did it start again?”

I tore my gaze away from her. I thought she wouldn’t have found this out.

I had always been drawing in my sleep, but it wasn’t as intense as it was this past week. My eyes turned back to look at hers.

“It started six days ago,” I said finally.

Mum glanced at Alaric, who nodded at her. “You need to tell her, Lyrielle,” he said.

I turned to him and back to my mother. Her reaction made me grind my teeth. They started with their secret-hiding again. Always finding ways to communicate to each other with their eyes. “Can you guys for once not talk about me like I’m not here?” I said angrily. My head snapped to Alaric. “And what do you mean, tell me? Tell me what exactly?”

Mum sighed. “We’re going on a vacation.”

Alaric’s expression went blank, like a canvas wiped clean of paint.

“I noticed I haven’t treated you to a little holiday, and that is not good. Things might go wrong.”

Things might go wrong. I didn’t understand her words. I hated it when she spoke this way. What did she mean by things might go wrong if I didn’t go on a “vacation” with her?