LAMIAE

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: GUESTS AT THE MANSION

"Is Alan at my grandmother's?" she asked, eyes wide open. Nikolai walked over to the Ferrari and leaned against it.

"Yes, he is. Didn't I mention that earlier?"

"No, you somehow forgot to do that," she mumbled sharply.

"Do you know who the rest of the cars belong to?" she asked after a moment.

"No," he replied quickly. For her taste - too fast.

Suddenly, the thought of coming home unannounced seemed wrong to her. After all, she could have waited for Casper forty-five minutes and now she wouldn't have to enter the house alone, as Nikolai probably won't come with her.

"Perhaps you'd like to—" she began. She knew she was on a last resort, but she couldn't help it. Nikolai chuckled under his breath. She knew his answer even before he announced it.

"No way. They're your grandmother's guests. I'll wait here while you look inside. Then you'll know who's there."

She dug her house keys out of her purse. She gave a curt farewell 'bye' to the boy and walked to the front door. She wasn't going to get nervous at all, but the idea of ​​fifteen or more strangers paralyzed her.

She had no idea where the guests and household members were, however, after opening the door, she concluded that it was not far away. She walked down the hall, guided by the voices, and reached the living room. As soon as she appeared on the threshold, all the voices inside suddenly fell silent. Alan, who was closest to the entrance to the living room and therefore the first one she saw, turned slowly. He didn't seem surprised that she had appeared, so it didn't escape her notice that Nikolai must have notified him beforehand that they were coming. But he was the only one who knew, and she was sure of it.

"Dagmara?" Arleta jumped out of the living room. Her eyes were the size of two flying saucers. "What're you doing here?"

And vice-versa, thought Dagmara, trying to remember if Arleta had told her where she had gone. Didn't the girl specifically say she was going home? The word home should include her own home, not Dagmara's grandma...

"I don't go to PE," she muttered so quietly she was sure no one heard her.

Genevieve came to her from the living room. She, too, was surprised by her granddaughter's arrival, but she tried not to let it show. She grinned from ear to ear, extending her arms to the girl.

" Come with me, since you are already here, I must introduce you."

Dagmara felt some indescribable cramp in the lower abdominal area. At first she mistook it for the fear in her stomach, but then she defined it differently. It was reluctance. She wanted to push granny's hands away and, go to the other side of the house, upstairs to her room. Even though she dutifully followed her grandmother into the living room, Genevieve's words were still echoing in her head 'since you are already here...' Grandma didn't want her here at all, she specially arranged the meeting at this time so that her granddaughter would not be present, she asked Alan and Arleta to come, but not Dagmara.

She looked around at the faces of the strangers. She recognized only two other people she knew - Sandra and Casper (as for Sandra, even dislike seemed to be an understatement, she despised Dagmara). Casper, in turn, made a place for her next to him on the sofa. There were plus or minus twenty people in the living room. And those twenty pairs of eyes were fixed on her.

"This is my granddaughter, Dagmara," Genevieve said in a sweet voice.

It seemed to her that these words should not make the slightest impression on those present, but she was wrong. All the women in the living room began to whisper among themselves. One granny somewhere by the radiator began to giggle, a distinguished lady to her left smiled, and another older woman waved to her. Only now did Dagmara notice that there were only two representatives of the opposite sex among those gathered, and they were Casper and Alan. She estimated that, apart from herself, Sandra, Arleta and the boys, all the women must have been in their sixties by now. Each of them must also have a car that happened to be outside.

"Nice to meet you, ladies," Dagmara muttered, confused by the whole situation.

"After so many years, we finally meet," said the woman whom Dagmara had previously called a "distinguished lady". She looked like the youngest of the newly met company. Like her grandmother's, the woman's skin looked as if it had been greased with something, perhaps a cream or some kind of oil. When the woman came closer to her, Dagmara smelled a nice smell. "You see, most of us saw you after you were born."

She wanted to ask 'so what?' Fortunately, she managed to hold back, bearing in mind one important fact - according to Dagmara's mother, she was born in Warsaw and for the first seven years of her life she didn't leave Warsaw.

"Most of you?" Did you and your grandma visit me in the hospital in Warsaw?" her disbelief was mixed with curiosity. Genevieve groaned and nodded, which she probably did only because her granddaughter went back to calling her 'grandma' instead of 'auntie.'

The women laughed, again whispering to each other. She caught a sentence: "Gena will tell her someday", but this sentence could have been as well: "She will find out anyway". The versions were too plausible for her to tell which was right.

"Alan, take Dagmara to her room, will you?" her grandmother's voice sounded suddenly, snapping the girl out of her thoughts. While what Genevieve said surprised her, she accepted Alan's answer with calmness:

"You might order others to do it."

"I'll walk myself," said Dagmara, and, making a good face, shrugged her shoulders.

"I would never dare to order guests in my house," Genevieve almost sang, narrowing her eyes slightly at the boy. "That's why I'm asking you to do it," she finished after a short pause.

"No, I'll really go alone."

Dagmara couldn't help blushing slightly, but she felt ashamed that grandma had treated her in front of these strangers as if she were still the baby they had supposedly seen once.

"Come on," Alan said calmly. There was no sign of anger, impatience, or embarrassment on his face. He waited for a moment, letting her go first, and probably to look at her grandmother again, but she couldn't see that anymore because she quickly wen to the corridor. She walked out into the courtyard through the kitchen door, past the fountain, but instead of keeping her cool, she started running.

I don't want to live here anymore! She screamed in her mind as she ran into the building. She slammed the door shut behind her, wishing no one would hear it. Maybe someone would finally realize that guests in this house were treated better than her.

She climbed the stairs straight to her room. She hoped Alan wouldn't follow her here, that he wouldn't know where she was. That she had lost him in the corridor or he had lost his orientation, and yet... she heard a soft creak and someone who had been outside the door peeked inside.