Chapter Ten – A marriage for Lydia.
The hunters were surprised to see the girls coming out from the forest like they owned the place. They looked healthy and strong except they had gloom faces.
Before any hunter could speak Lydia dragged his net that had little squirrels. The fearful squirrels ran away for their life the moment they were free.
“Isn’t this forest forbidden? Why are you catching animals from it?” Margaret pointed at the men.
Lydia spared them no dialogue as she targeted their catch and dragged it away, setting the animals free.
Some hunters tried fighting for their catch but one look at Lydia’s face made them realize she was meaning business.
Evelyn just watched in silence. She was careful not to make an outburst as it would be rude to the hunters.
They were just acting on their natural instincts, doing their jobs. It was rather their own fault for running to the forest. She now understood that the forest was forbidden for a reason.
The girls stood in front of their uncle with scowls on their faces. They watched him pay the hunters with silver coins they never knew he had.
He had always made them suffer in the farm with the claim that there wasn’t enough money for meals for the later days.
Did he get a breakthrough during the few days they were gone? Where they such a bad luck?
“Thank you, Sylvester. I hope you girls don’t go missing again” the head of the hunting team warned.
It sounded to Evelyn like he wanted them to go missing again so he’ll get such an impressive reward. She didn’t blame him.
Sylvester pulled a stern face from the cheerful one he had when the hunters were around.
“You are going to scold us, right?” Margaret rolled her eyes.
“Shouldn’t I? You girls kept me worried. I barely could eat knowing you were out there at the forbidden forest. Do you know where Timothy is now? We were all worried” Anger mixed with worry was in his tone.
Evelyn looked at their Uncle in disbelief. He, worried about them? It couldn’t be true.
He had always reminded them that they were the worst thing that had ever happened to him. Weren’t they doing him a favor by leaving?
“Don’t play your tricks cos I left to drop my bag in my room and saw the kitchen sink filled with your plates, dirty and I bet you are waiting for us to clean your mess up” Lydia pointed disrespectfully.
Margaret sighed, “We are here. I know you hate us. Act like we don’t exist and we’d do the same. We’d be making new laws around here. Your enslavement is enough”.
Lydia nodded in agreement. The both girls walked away from their uncle and bounced into their rooms.
Sylvester licked his lips. Those rascals were just hard to convince. He reminded himself that Evelyn was still I front if him so he stopped himself from cursing at them.
“Where had you guys stayed that was as comfortable as the bed you had at home?” he questioned.
“It wasn’t as comfortable as the bed we had at home. But it was more peaceful than the home we had here” she answered in a heartbeat.
He narrowed his eyes at her but looked away, “Lydia has been asked for her hand in marriage. A young nice man had asked me while you guys were away”.
Evelyn sighed. No wonder he dragged a whole hunting team looking for them. A marriage had been planned for one of them.Content from NôvelDr(a)ma.Org.
“Lydia would reject it, you know” she stomped off to her room.
“Make sure she doesn’t. Someone has to pay me for all the babysitting I did for you three since your parents foolishly died at war” Sylvester retorted.
Evelyn turned slowly to meet him, “Foolishly? They did what you couldn’t. You ran away from our village while other men where fighting. You are the coward in this story, not them” she shouted.
She bit her lower lips as she regretted the words that had came out of her mouth.
Sylvester’s eyes darkened and he strolled quietly to his room.
Evelyn cried silently for a bit before going to check on her sisters.
It was a message. And the whole idea excited Margaret. Whenever Evelyn cried, she was going to pull a mischievous card later.
While unpacking, Lydia found a flower in her bag. One with a very deep scent. All her clothes smelled like it. It had a juicy and sweet smell that was almost intoxicating.
No doubt it was Scott that kept it there. And it was clearly not a romantic gesture, at least Margaret could see that.
It was rather a way of tracking them, in case they needed rescuing. And they seemed like they would.
Evelyn was impressed by Scott’s kindness. He was unwilling to let them go and had been open about it. He was indeed more human to wolf.
Evelyn only worried that he wasn’t someone from her memory that was trying to get back to she and her sisters.
All the folks from her memories, as long as she couldn’t remember them, means they played a wrong role in her life.
If Scott is part of those young memories, then he must have played a wrong role. Maybe.
“I wish someone else can just marry all three of us instead. It’d be better, right? Maybe a general or a soldier?” Margaret suggested while holding the flower to her chest.
Lydia eyed her, “Marry all three of us? How comfortable”. Like Margaret could have just said she wanted a polygamist to marry her.
“Are you speaking of Scott again? Can that work out? Does he look like he needs a wife, more or less wives?” Evelyn brushed the thought off.
Lydia eyed Margaret more angrily, “So you really are into that wolfman?”.
She couldn’t remember everything about their stay there but she was really hoping her sister hadn’t been smooching around with him.
Margaret ignored her sisters and rather ran to the door to get it opened.
It was the third time someone had knocked. And it could be their cousin, Timothy.
They shouldn’t suffer him since he had been worried about them.
“Hey, Tim…” she trailed off.
Her face looked like someone had splashed it with mud because before her was Mrs. Lara and her teenage son with a bouquet of flower. Someone swore behind her.