LAMIAE

CHAPTER FIFTY FIVE: CINDERELLAS

"Yes, Casper once took photos of us," admitted Arleta. "Last time, auntie helped me because I didn't know how to do anything with myself yet, but today I have something on my mind, and I can do some decent magic now."

Dagmara somehow preferred to remain silent about the issue of magic.

"And the guys? Do they dress up too?" she couldn't imagine Alan casting spells to make himself uglier.

"No, I mean yes, but they don't age. For example, Alan doesn't dress up at all, Alan doesn't know how to have fun at all..." Arleta grumbled. "Nikolai sometimes puts on a devil costume, Casper used to do it too, but he stopped since Victoria's gone."

Even though she was still saying something, Dagmara's thoughts were already on Alan, on the boy intended for Arleta. How could they be meant to be together if they didn't share the same pastimes? Alan didn't like making himself look like someone he wasn't, but Arleta, on the other hand, found satisfaction in it.

"Can you feel it?" she asked Arleta as she rummaged through her bag looking for her bushy eyebrows.

"What?"

"That Alan is meant for you," she didn't know how to put it without sounding inquisitive, or even worse, jealous.

"Not really," she pursed her lips, thinking aloud. "Sandra, for example, said that she felt it, but she felt differently because she had known her ex-boyfriend all her life. I once asked auntie how I would know he was the one. And she said that both the boy and the girl simply feel a magnet for each other. When they are separated in thought, they are still together. They share the same views and their characters complement each other. They cannot be the same, but when combined together they form a coherent whole. When I think about it, yes, I think I feel it. Alan is tough, I'm whiny. He's serious, I like to have fun."

Dagmara didn't know if this was exactly what her grandmother meant, but Arleta's explanation made sense. She had never seen Arleta and Alan argue about anything.

"You know you can see your destined one today," Arleta informed her after a while.

"How so?" her heart immediately started beating faster, not out of fear, but out of excitement.

Arleta smiled slyly.

"Every year there are more people attending the meetings. The boys seem to know everything since they were little, they know what magic is from the cradle, but only when they are fifteen do they start to be really interested in it. How old is he?"

Dagmara thought for a second.

"Probably sixteen, maybe seventeen soon, because I don't know what month he's from..."

"If he's seventeen..." Arleta suddenly became interested in this fact.

Dagmara listened attentively. She didn't understand why this was supposed to be so thrilling.

"I don't know if auntie told you what an oracle is," she said animatedly, but Dagmara had already heard about it, so she nodded.

"I know a little, it's some tool that releases a poem about a girl at a Council meeting."

"Yes, and it often happens on their seventeenth birthday. Nikolai had it exactly to the day, but for example Alan a month earlier and Casper somehow only got his poem after his birthday. So it's not a rule, but if it's close to your birthday, he might have read about you."

"Could I see the one about you sometime?" she asked politely, but Arleta waved her hand. "Sure, I'll show you, even today, when I catch Alan. He usually carries it in the car."

She wondered what might be written about her. The only poem she saw with her own eyes was the oracle about Victoria. She didn't remember all the stanzas of the poem exactly, but one part stuck out in her memory.