LAMIAE

CHAPTER FORTY: SURPRISE

That day she went to bed very early, but when she got up she didn't hear her grandmother's voice echoing around the kitchen with the words dandelions, kites, wind... a world far from the concrete... like paralyzed... It was her favorite song, sung practically every day at this time, so since there was no song, Genevieve was still absent.

Dagmara looked at the alarm clock. She had some time so she dug out Victoria's diary from the shelf and started reading the next note. Even though the style and handwriting had not changed, there was something different about this text. Not even so much in the content itself, but in Dagmara's attitude when she read it. The knowledge that the girl wanted Dagmara to do this every day gave her wings, as if in this way she was fulfilling the last will of Victoria, and not just satisfying her curiosity.

I remember my first visit to Kielce. I got off at the last stop, at the bus station. I remember it like it was yesterday - this flying saucer, an archaic camera, shops, people and, of course, an old witch on a broom with a crooked nose and a red cape, hanging under the dome. A telltale sign, although I didn't understand it right away.

I moved into a new block of flats on Joanna D'arc Street. As it later turned out, my friend lived near me, in Northanger Abbey.

I started going to school and met a lot of people. Genevieve came to me on her own, one day she asked if she could talk to me as my mother's former mentor. I agreed, even though I had never heard her name spoken by my mother before.

Genevieve knocked on my door at 4 p.m. and left at 1.30 in the morning. The time passed so quickly that I didn't even have time to ask about everything. The next day we saw each other again and talked again for several hours. It was then that I met Sandra, and a few months later Arleta also joined our group.

I had a lot to learn. My shortcomings had their origins in my ignorance. If only I had become interested in the signals coming from my body earlier, I could now focus on absorbing knowledge instead of adapting it.

Time is against me. Every day brings me closer to the latter, and the material I need to learn does not decrease. The great bell has already begun to toll the alarm, and I am not even dressed in the proper attire to face the invader. I'm wearing old rags and leaky shoes, while they're wearing purple.

My friend is afraid. I'm even more afraid, but I don't want to show it. I have the impression that if I show my fear to the world, my friend will try to reverse his decision and finally, after all our joint efforts and hardships, join the Council. And I don't wish that for him. I do not wish this to everyone, because the process in which the Council destroys people is irreversible. Once a mind is poisoned, it will remain polluted forever. Once hailed as a member, you will always be one of THEM...

"Dagmara!" she heard Casper's scream right at the door to her room. Even though she didn't have to do it, more out of reflex than out of spite, she closed the diary. She looked behind her, then invited him inside.

"Get dressed," the boy ordered as soon as he appeared in the doorway. "You can't go out like that."

"I have to go to school at 8:50," she said, slightly embarrassed that she hadn't had time to put on her clothes yet and was sitting at her desk reading the diary in her pajamas.

"You're not going to school today, I'm taking you with me," he replied.

She didn't know what to do; whether to ask why or simply say nothing and accept the news as calmly as she could.

"Can I ask where?" she started, but she immediately knew that Casper wouldn't tell her because he started shaking his head.

"Surprise," he said, winked at her and left, giving her time to change. It seemed to her that he couldn't even see the edge of the diary, which she covered with her entire body. She was aware of the boy's approval of her having this item, but she still preferred not to flaunt the moments when she reached for it.

Putting a blue shirt on her shoulders, she realized that she was wrong about Victoria. Just recently, when she saw the girl in the photo, she thought that she was reconciled with her fate. Today she found out that Victoria was only pretending. The pretenses she created so that Casper wouldn't regret what he had done; so that he would not regret his decision.

As soon as she came downstairs for breakfast, Casper immediately asked if there was anything about him in the diary today. At first she didn't even know what he was talking about, she was too absorbed in her thoughts, but remembering the moment Casper entered her room, she replied with a faint smile:

"It was. You always show up."

He seemed to like her reply. However, he made no further mention of his dead friend, and she didn't return to the topic either.

Two hours later, after a hearty breakfast and feeding Tie, Dagmara got into Casper's car. Of course, she didn't find out where the boy was taking her, but during the ride she concluded that it was to the largest shopping mall in Kielce. Once there, he parked in the underground parking lot and then led her up the escalator to the first floor to the "Helios" cinema, where he suggested watching another of the seven parts of the series about the wizard. Dagmara agreed to this; she had watched each of the six "Harry Potter" films so far and was glad that she had someone to see the next one with. After crossing the threshold of the room with a large popcorn in her hand, she felt uncomfortable. The film she was waiting for gave her mixed feelings - when she watched subsequent parts as a child, she never doubted that magic did not exist. Today, as a teenager, she was much more skeptical than a few years or even months ago.

She sat down in her seat in the penultimate row and with each passing minute of staring at the screen, she thought about everything that had happened to her in Kielce. Meeting new friends, changing school and environment, living with grandmother, who certainly didn't resemble the canon of an old lady with woolen slippers on her feet and glasses on her eyes... Mysterious deaths, a group that didn't resemble the mafia and yet is the same or even more dangerous. The diary, Genevieve's young friends, Alan's photo editing skills and her grandmother's secret departure. One hundred and forty-six minutes of the film were definitely not enough to sort out the many ambiguities that have been bothering her for three months.