NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 163: What is Reality
After that eventful day nothing really happened anymore while Anya and Claire stayed at my house. Anya seemed to make no advances in trying to tell anything about her lineage to Claire so I was not about to raise hell by coming clean, especially not after I had promised not to. Besides, she was still trying to keep up appearances, asking me several things she already knew about vampires, just to seem unknowledgeable.
As for our friends’ prolonged stay, it seemed as though the snow storm had finally come to an end and things were starting to normalize again. So on the evening, two days after Anya had come out to me, our friends could go home again.
The five of us, having walked together to the train station, said our goodbyes on platform 3 of the city’s station.
“Thanks a lot for having us. While we were stuck, it was still a lot of fun spending time with the three of you.” Claire smiled and started to hug us, starting by hugging my girlfriends first.”
“Yeah, it was really fun.” Anya agreed and hugged me first instead.
“I’m glad you liked your involuntary stay.” I chuckled. “Next time let’s plan it in advance, maybe I’ll have my basement ready for some games by then.”
“That’d be neat.” Claire agreed. “Maybe somewhere around spring. So we can go and jog together.”
“Or you could invite us to that castle of yours.” Anya replied.
“First I need to have Em’s family over, but I’ll put it on the agenda.”
The train Anya and Claire were going to take rolled into the train station with only five minutes of a delay. It was a signal to us to really wrap up our conversation though.
“I guess we’ll see you back at school?” I asked.
“Yeah… Sadly enough that’s going to start pretty soon, isn’t it?”
I nodded silently. Normally school would already have recommenced but thanks to the snow storm schools had basically given all the students another week of winter holiday because a lot of people were stuck in places they shouldn’t be at right now. Like our two friends just now. Therefore it had been decided that, to grant people some time to relax, another couple of days of holiday wouldn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. I was definitely not complaining.
We waved as our friends boarded the train and we were still waving at them as the train departed soon after. Leaving the three of us standing on the platform.
“I think I will be happy once school starts again.” Ria commented as the train left our view completely.
“That enthusiastic to go back and educate yourself?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I want to see our classmates again and there are definitely some courses I really enjoy.”
“And I’ll be happy when training starts again.” Em stated as well.
“Looks like I’m the only one who isn’t really interested?” I chuckled. “Well, Claire as well.”
“Isn’t there really anything you miss about school?” Em asked, nudging me along to head out of the train station again.
“Hmm. Let me think.”
As we started walking I thought about the things that I really missed about school which I couldn’t get in any other way. Of course I kinda liked fooling around with some of the teachers and some courses were pretty interesting, but to really say I ‘miss those things’... That’s maybe going a bit for in my opinion at least. That said, maybe I would start missing the rather unique social interactions one could experience at school after a while. But this rather short 3-week holiday didn’t really bring that sense of missing to an edge.
However, that was a bit long and roundabout to really start explaining to my girlfriends so I just shrugged and replied the following. “I suppose I miss the people. A bit.”
Both Em and Ria chuckled. “Fair enough.” They didn’t really press me any further on it while we walked home.
Sadly, our togetherness also had to come to an end. The time had come for my girlfriends to go to their families again. Especially Em was really looking forward to go back to her family for the time being. She’d been apart from her sister for quite some time already and you could definitely sense that she wanted to see her again. Ria was a bit less enthusiastic about returning home but she was still starting to miss her parents a little. Besides, they asked, not demanded, if Ria could come home after it was safe to do so. It seems like they were missing their daughter as well. I was happy to hear that at least. We were still anything but on good terms with one-another, but it’s yet another sign that they had started to improve.
And that’s how I ended up being alone in my house yet again, although one was never truely alone with a purry cat walking around ones property. -Sorry Shima, looks like I’ll be doting on you even more for a while.-
That being said, being alone in my house did give me some time to have a chat with my mom. So while I was getting cozy with a glass of red, I decided to give my adoptive mother a video call.
She almost immediately picked up, looking somewhat surprised at me. Probably as this was the first time I’d ever sent her a video call. It looked like she was having a cozy night herself. With a book laying next to her on the sofa she was sitting on. The flickering light of the fireplace reflecting just a little bit on her face. “Aurora, to what do I owe this pleasure?” She asked.
“I hope I’m not disturbing your peaceful evening.”
“Not really.” She shrugged. “I was reading a book about Chinese architecture, but I can continue that later on.”
“Ah good, I wanted to ask you something but I would like to ask you first to keep it somewhat close to your chest.”
“Oh?” She tilted her head. “Why?”
“Well… I’ve not exactly talked about the subject yet with Ria and Em because I promised I wouldn’t.”
“But it’s fine asking me?”
“Yeah, you are not as immediately involved with her.”
“This involves one of your friends then?”
“Mhmm.” I nodded and took a sip from my glass. “It does.”
“Then sure, go ahead.”
“Okay… I guess I’ll get straight to the point. Apparently Claire’s girlfriend is a descendent from a long line of Vampire hunters.” The moment I said that Alessia’s eyes went just a tad wider than usual. I had definitely piqued her interest.
“Oh, really?”
“Mhmm.” I nodded once more. “I was wondering if you knew anything about that?”
“Well…” Alessia sat up straight on the sofa. “I definitely know of their existence. There’s actually a couple of families like that spread throughout Europe. That being said, after the war a lot of things changed for us. You know a bit about that already right? I told you some of it when you first came to the castle.”
“Yeah. The ‘bad apples’ practically all got rooted out.”
“Exactly.” Alessia nodded in return. “It was predominantly their fault that those families of vampire hunters felt the need to… well… hunt vampires. So when, at least in Europe, those bad apples fell away, our previous leader, Jessica, sought out those families to bury the proverbial hatchet.”
“I imagine that wasn’t the easiest task.”
“I don’t think so either. Many of those families had lost a lot of people to vampires going back countless generations. To broker a peace in that mess would have required a lot of effort to say the least. But Jessica managed to pull it off anyway. How, I really do not know. After the war of course everyone was pretty darn tired of it all. But still…”
“Do you think some of those agreements included clausules for non-interference accords? That’s what Anya thought at least.”
“Of that I am certain.” Alessia replied with a confident nod. “I was there when the paper archive of those families was sealed. It’s locked up nice and safe in one of the vaults we have.”
“Huh… I guess it would have been nice to have been informed about that.” I pouted.
“Hey, young lady, don’t rush me. I was planning on telling you eventually during your training, but as it concerns a locked archive it wasn’t very high up on my priority list.” Alessia used her motherly tone to put me back in my place. “I didn’t know you were about to run into one of their descendents…”
“Considering my luck you might have been able to guess it’d turn up one day or another…”
Alessia stayed silent, wobbled her head around for a couple of moments before she nodded. “I thought your bad luck was just that, but maybe we should let you get tested on curses or something, just to be sure.”
“Wait… are those real too?”