“And you’ve heard about me. The great and terrible Sea Serpent of the Mediterranean, yet you don’t know me. Speak to me, sparrow.”
He breezes past that remark so quickly that I can’t get a foothold in it. Can’t read his emotion.
If there is any at all.
“It’s my mother, myself and Eve. For most of my life, we also lived with my grandmother. But she…” My words catch in my throat. “She died. Three years ago.”
“I see. People have a distressing habit of doing that. Dying.”
“Well, yes. It’s sort of the way things work.”
“True.”
“My mom is a hairdresser. My sister… She does nails right now. Though, she’s the kind of person who gets bored very quickly with certain things, so I imagine that she’ll learn a new skill, and quickly figure out a way to make money doing that. She used to bake. Before that she did little miniature paintings of people’s pets.”
“Well, that sounds extremely enterprising.”
“It is,” I say.
“But you like science.”
“Yes.”
“An odd sparrow in the nest.”
I think of my mother and my sister. Both so pretty and colorful.
“Yes,” I say. It’s honest, anyway. I’m not sure that he deserves my honesty, but there’s also no point in me not admitting it.
“But you love your sister so much that you took her place? Or do you secretly yearn to be the one in the spotlight?”
The question feels like a spotlight. And he makes me question myself. I do yearn to be someone who makes an impact. Does that mean I crave attention more than I realize? I don’t want to be insignificant. I know that much.
But there is much to do first before I earn any sort of attention.
“I don’t yearn for the spotlight,” I say. “I…yearn for university.”
“To study biology.”
“Well. Yes. Medical research, that’s what I ultimately want to do.”
“Interesting. I will take that under advisement.”
Finally, we exit the endless spiral staircase, and are back in the big empty antechamber. I follow him to another corridor, and down a long hallway all the way to the end until we arrive at a large dining room with a table that could easily seat a hundred people.
He gestures to his seat at the end. “Take your seat. I will ensure that your food is brought directly.”
I think about arguing, but I don’t, partly because my legs hurt after running the stair gauntlet again. He vanishes for a moment, then reappears, taking his spot at the head of the table. I realize that I am at his right hand. I can’t tell if that’s significant or not. I’m having a difficult time figuring him out at all.
If he’s a madman, then there is no figuring him out.
That is something that must be taken into consideration.
But I certainly didn’t expect for him to be trying to spend any time with me. I figured that I would appear, and he would either wave a hand and send me to the dungeon, or he would kill me. He’s done neither, and I don’t know what to do with that as a development.
Now he’s sitting there, staring at me like I’m a puzzle that he wants to solve.
I’m probably looking at him in much the same way.
