LAMIAE

CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT: MYSTERIES

Suddenly, the smell hit her - not rust, as she thought, but blood. She looked at her hand again. The blood on it was not hers. And yet, it looked fresh, as if the wound that caused it to flow had just been forcibly opened.

Dripping... Looking around, Dagmara noticed blood stains on the floor. This image scared her, she had no idea that it would look like this, that the ichor was hidden under the residence. Slowly, she began to approach the dimly lit room, which she thought was a candle dungeon.

In fact, it resembled a dungeon. The only source of light was an old, fancifully shaped chandelier hanging from the ceiling, where the last candle flames were smoldering. Here and there, thick chains were attached to the walls, banging ominously against each other, even though there was no ventilation in the room and no draft could move them. They looked like invisible children's hands were playing with them, nudging them every few seconds whenever they returned to them. The smells of damp, blood and mold were consumed and it was only through sheer force of will that Dagmara stopped herself from covering her nose with her hand.

In the very center of the room, under the chandelier, there was a book with a hard cover on a pedestal. As she approached it, Dagmara felt some warmth spread throughout her frozen body. It was an incredible feeling, the fire that glowed from the ceiling, as if it had spilled over into her. Her hair and clothes, although still wet, felt dry to her. Nothing hurt her anymore, although she saw wounds on her hands - she didn't feel any. Headache, spine pain, all gone within a few microseconds. The hunger she had been feeling for some time turned into abundance, and thanks to her eyes that no longer watered, she saw everything more clearly. Her body was freed from everything she had experienced in the tunnels. She felt as if she had never entered them, as if the drowning, the thorns, the heaviness had never happened; like a figment of her imagination.

Tie lay down next to the pedestal and started licking his paw. This was probably a sign for her to look at the book. But before she could do that, a familiar voice came to her. That voice almost gave her a heart attack, she had the impression that it was the cat that had spoken, because she didn't expect to find anyone else there. She jumped when she heard:

"At least nothing happened to you."

Seeing her grandmother in such a place made her both happy (now she would definitely get out of there) and angry (because of her grandmother's words). The words spoken by Genevieve were like poison seeping into her heart. Were the wounds that grandma saw on Dagmara's body really nothing at all? Could this not have been prevented?

"I wouldn't have to be here if you were honest with me, grandma," she decided to be cheeky. This was the only way she could learn her relative's true intentions.

"True, I wasn't honest with you," Genevieve admitted, walking up to the book before her granddaughter did. Dagmara noticed that her grandmother must have just reached the mansion, she was wearing a traveling cloak that reached down to her calves. "However, you were supposed to find out everything in due time."

"I'm curious," the girl said, shrugging. Everyone who knew her knew that she hated secrets. It wasn't her fault that grandma wasn't one of those people.

"No, you're nosy," Genevieve replied, which made Dagmara sad. She lived in the residence for a few months, and it didn't occur to her grandmother that when combining the facts she learned, more and more new topics, more and more questions, and more doubts emerged. It was obvious that one day she wouldn't be able to bear it anymore - that she could either find out the truth on her own, or she could pack up and leave the house. Before choosing the second option, she gave the first one a try. Apparently, wrongly.

"Each girl learns the truth at the right time. I thought time would be on my side, but I couldn't fool it. I was wrong," she looked like it really bothered her. For the first time, Dagmara heard her grandmother admit her mistake.

"How did you know where to find me?" she asked politely. Even though she was boiling inside with the number of questions she wanted to ask, she didn't let it show.

"Casper let me know that you disappeared. As soon as he realized you were gone, he sent Tie to you."

They both looked at the cat, which was lying on its paws, closing his eyes sleepily.

"Who is he?" the girl asked a question, to which her grandmother looked from the animal to her granddaughter in astonishment.

"A cat, and who is he supposed to be?"

Dagmara shook her head in disbelief, she heard a lie again. No normal cat could materialize when needed or commanded.

"I find it hard to believe that he's just a cat," she said through her teeth.

"True, he is different from his other fellows," admitted Genevieve. "However, it's not a supernatural animal. Like I told you, I found him some time ago, but it's with Casper that he has the most contact with. He listens to him. He plays with him. He has an excellent sense of orientation and can sense the emotions that people experience. As you can see, it's nothing a regular alley cat can't do. However, he's a rare breed of cat because he has all the above-mentioned features intensified, so he would not be able to live away from people. In the past, such cats were taught to do all sorts of things, with greater or lesser success.

Dagmara still didn't understand much of it. The only thing that was going through her head was the thought that Casper had sent his pet to her, and that he had listened to him, found her and led her to the designated place. She glanced at Tie again. She further claimed that there was something wrong with him.

"Let's move on to this room," grandma said, breaking her thoughts about the animal. "That's why you came here, right?" Even though it was a rhetorical question, she nodded her head briskly so that Genevieve would have no doubt that she still wanted to discover the truth about this residence. "The book you see here is very protected by me," she began, and although Dagmara snorted as a sign that she probably already knew it, because it was not easy to find it, she continued to listen carefully. "It contains old stories, descriptions, ingredients and words that are passed down from generations in our family. One of them is undoubtedly the description of the sculptures you saw on the door to this room."

That wasn't what interested her. She was curious about the blood on her hands, the mysterious murders and the Council, but she continued to listen, hoping that her grandmother would get to that point in her story.