Chapter 47 Being short sucked.
When he first heard her words he thought that perhaps he could have misheard her but when she said it again, he looked into her eyes and realized that she was dead serious.? "You are crazy." Esong said.
"No, I am very sane and I regret not coming to this decision a long time ago. You don't need to give me an answer right now. Take your time and think about it, we can bargain and make concessions. Until you come to a decision, I want us to agree not to openly expose any animosity that may exist between the two of us. Our lack of a cordial relationship is taking a toll on Justin's psyche. I don't need our four year old son worrying about our mental well being."
"You are unbelievable." Esong said.
"Yes, for our son I will be unbelievable, I will be crazy, I will be shameless and I will be every other thing that may cross your mind in the next few days. But like I said, you can take your time thinking about it. I have to cook right now so if you are interested in having a warm home cooked meal let's talk about something lighter like the business proposal you have for me."
She turned her back on him and resumed her cooking. To Esong this appeared exactly like a dismissal of a superior officer to a junior one. In this case he was the junior officer and she the senior.
"Are you dismissing me?"
"I am asking you to move on to a new subject." she answered. "Don't you have any more requests to make of me concerning food or my space bracelet? It's not illegal to own one you know, my teacher crafted it for me."
He had no choice but to drop the subject which concerned their personal lives. He could not talk to himself after all. What she said about the storage bracelet also drew his attention.
"Your teacher crafted it, was he a mecha craftsman?"
"Yes." she replied.
She shook the pearly bracelet on her arm. "Don't bother asking to take a closer look, I will not let you."
She added a little paprika and salt to the chicken breasts. Then she added two table spoons of butter into the pan and placed the chicken in.? As it fried, she measured some rice and put in a rice cooker.
"You have no mental strength." he stated.
"That's what you think." she replied.
He grimaced because getting an answer out of her was like questioning the commander of enemy forces. Every answer was cryptic and indirect. It was really exhausting. Had she always been like this? "So, you do have mental strength." he asked directly.
"It's recovering." she told him.
She drained the water out of the potatoes and mashed them by hand and transferred them to a mixer. She turned on the mixer and added some milk.? As the mixer whisked away, she added some butter.
"I have heard of mental strength recovering after an injury but? these cases are rare. You want to tell me that you are going from zero mental strength to some degree of mental strength."
"Yes." she answered. As she explained to him how her teacher had cured her and taught her about plants and mutated beasts, she removed the chicken from the pan and placed it to the side.
She discarded of the little butter left and chicken fat in the pan. She melted one table spoon of butter, added chopped garlic cloves, one cup of chicken broth, some heavy cream and parmesan. She squeezed juice out of a lemon and added it to the mixture. She added some thyme and chopped spinach leaves. .The chicken was added to all this and placed in an oven to bake.
"What is all that stuff?" Esong asked her. All of the tins and containers were labeled by hand and he could not recognize any of those things except for the chicken.
"Products created from plants." she answered.
"Was that knowledge also passed to you by this mysterious teacher?"
"My father knows where my teacher used to stay, you can ask him to show you around if you wish."
"How did your teacher learn about edible plants and animals?" He sniffed the air after asking this question.
She placed the mashed potatoes in a warmer to keep them warm and tasty till dinner time.
"I don't know, he never revealed his background to me."
He scoffed and said, "So you followed a stranger into the forest just because. He could have been someone afflicted by the darkness or a space pirate. Even little children know not to follow strangers."
"Yeah well, when you spend your entire life feeling ill and someone says they have the cure you jump on the option, trying is better than doing nothing. Look at me now, I am a much different woman from before. I don't have dark thoughts, unexplained sudden fits of rage, hysteria, mania , depression and panic. I am normal person and Justin finally has a normal mother."
He took one step close to her suddenly, a second, and then a third step. Out of nowhere he increased his speed until he was standing in front of her and he suddenly placed his hand on her head.
She was startled and for a whole minute she did nothing. She just stared up at him even though her eyes could only see his chin. It was hard enough being on the shorter side among the older siblings of the family but standing next to him made her feel like a dwarf.
Being short was a nightmare!!!
She ducked down away from him and stepped to the side. "What do you think you are doing? Didn't we agree to have boundaries?"
"What you just described sound like symptoms of the darkness." he said.
"And you decided to touch me as what, a doctor?" she retorted.
"I was just scanning your mind to see if you really are suffering from the darkness." he told her.
She covered her head with both hands, "You jerk, the mind is a personal space. You cannot scan my mind without my permission. It's a crime."
"Under which penal code does that crime fall?" he reiterated
As someone who had no answer because Scarlet barely paid attention in class, her mind drew a blank and Esong laughed at her.
"Tsk, tsk, you should have paid more attention in class."
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