LAMIAE

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN: SOLVING THE RIDDLE

Dagmara gave Tie food after the cat started fawning at her feet. She cleaned up the kitchen because she had made pancakes for herself, leaving some for Casper on the table as well. She knew the cat wouldn't eat it - after all, Tie was a gentleman cat and didn't jump on the kitchen cupboards. Then she went upstairs to her room, but she didn't close the door completely. She left it slightly ajar, as Casper often did, so that Tie could enter whenever he felt like it.

Saturday was getting unmercifully long. She turned on her laptop and checked on the Internet what Saint Lucy's Night was.

To her despair, she found nothing, not a single interesting reference. The only thing she managed to find was a song with the same title, the words of which explained nothing to her. Once she even thought she found something, but unfortunately she couldn't access the site. When she pressed the link, an error message popped up over and over again, as if the page was simply blocked.

She left the Internet, also closing a song which was sang by her mother's favorite artist. She remembered how many times her mother regretted that the song had been written long after her wedding with her father and dreamed of it being played at her daughter's wedding one day.

For the first time since her mother's funeral, she felt so sad that tears came to her eyes. Just then she felt something brush against her legs, and in a moment it gracefully jumped onto her lap.

"Tie, you always know when to show up, don't you?" she said to the animal, stroking it behind the ear. The cat purred loudly.

She took him in her arms as she went to bed. She knew that she would probably not fall asleep, but Tie fell asleep after a few minutes of stroking and slept until Casper came home late in the evening.

The boy found Dagmara in front of her desk and laptop and almost scared her to death when he sneaked up on her from behind, shouting, "Boo!" Normally she would have heard rustling, she was rather sensitive to such forms of play, as her father liked to tease her mother in this way, but the game she was playing was too loud.

"What is this?" the boy asked, watching her play some shooting games, like boys do. Surprisingly, she did very well.

"I don't know, I was bored," she answered truthfully. She lazily turned off the game, then looked around for Casper, who was sitting on the bed. Tie was no longer sleeping, just sitting stiffly next to the boy.

She looked at her watch, it was after eleven o'clock. She knew that asking the boy where he went was pointless, as was asking him if he knew what Saint Lucy's night was. Because he knew it. And he certainly wouldn't tell her that. He would come up with some story that would definitely have nothing to do with the truth.

Half an hour later she went to the bathroom. When she returned to her room, it was about forty minutes to midnight. She looked at a few websites and, although she wasn't a fan of them, today she allowed herself to see what was going on with her friends. And there was a lot going on. Her friend Mariah split up with her boyfriend, her other friend went to Bulgaria for five days last week. Fellow friend Tom bought clothes for the motorcycle that his stepfather presented him last summer, and Gabriela's niece was born. Another friend created his own piece of music and a friend from her former class invited her to her birthday party in two weeks. A birthday that she won't be able to attend because it's in the middle of the week, from Thursday to Friday.

She missed everything. The noise of living in the city, the fact that she always had something to do. Whenever she wanted, she could leave the house without worrying about coming back, because there was such a thing as a night bus. She missed the friends she had known all her life. With whom she grew up, experienced her first ups and first failures. With whom she went to her first parties without adult supervision. It wasn't much, but it was enough to give her something to miss.

Out of curiosity, she checked if she could find Alan on the website. She knew his name, so she could easily look him up. Unfortunately, without any result. However, there was Nikolai on Facebook with a profile photo of him winking at the photographer.

"You should sleep now", a window appeared with a message from Casper, who was also browsing Facebook in the next room.

She had already accepted him among her friends, because at the beginning of her arrival, he immediately sent her an invitation.

"Okay, dad :P", she replied to him, then obediently logged out of the website and turned off the computer.

Sitting at her laptop, she didn't even notice how quickly the minutes passed. She only realized this when her cell phone rang loudly one minute before midnight, in accordance with the alarm it had set. Dagmara turned on the sconce above the bed, turning off the chandelier, and then found the box with the diary. This was her moment of truth. Either it would turn out that she was right and the notes would appear when another 24 hours passed, or she would just give up because she had no other idea.

The first note was. This was to be expected, it always was there. She looked at her watch to make sure it was past midnight.

After confirming the time, she turned another page, another note. It was in its place. She smiled because it could only mean one thing. Since the previous note didn't disappear, another one appeared.

She turned the page, proud of herself for solving the riddle. It was high time to start reading the third note.