The mother’s pair of pale glittering yellow eyes softened at the melting frustrations on her daughter’s face and felt safe to continue: “I merely thought that I could give you some pieces of advice on how to read and marks the opening in negotiation.”
Kanari moistened her lower lip as she thought about the negotiation and her mother’s declaration. Next, she asked: “Seriously, mother, you are truly not favoring the recurrence of power and fighting?”
She lowered her eyes to look at the floor before she questioned: “Why? Don’t we have the upper hand? We can easily turn the table in no time.”
Kanari’s mother sighed, then leaned on the balcony, searching for a method to explain her view of the situation. However, she assumed that a wordy explanation wasn’t enough to convince her daughter why the negotiation was the best course of action she should follow for the time being. Maybe this kind of thing was better understood by experience and age rather than a told theory.
This choice of recurring to a peaceful negotiation before the use of power, she herself was never satisfied with when she was her daughter’s age. And no matter the number of opinions that advised her to take this long road, she never comprehended or believed in its advantage, instead, she used to consider it a waste of time as well as a valuable effort, till that day, when her mistakes backfired on her and lost someone very important. After all, negotiations were another form of a battle that fought around tables.
In other perspectives, she didn’t want her daughter to repeat her mother’s many oversights. If so, how she could call herself a good mother? For, Akila thought, what could it be the best method to teach the children about the importance of negotiation with minimum loss.
She signaled to Kanari to return to the room and proceeded to ask her: ” You must have finished reading the proposed treaty since you want me to check the revisions you have made?
“No. Not all of it. I became nauseous at the greedy advantages that man wanted to secure. He thinks that he is doing us a favor by returning back, the farm that it was ours in the first place.”
“Naturally, he will ask for as much as he can. It is the essence of any negotiation to aim high and raise your gain to the scoop so the minimum will be always near your expectation.” Akila gave Kanari a meaningful look before she continued: “Don’t you think that his conditions tell us something about himself?”
Kanari looked inquisitive as she didn’t find an answer thus Akila resumed: “The Count is not pampered little master who doesn’t grasp the way of the world as I have previously judged him a romantic dreamer based on his refined taste of aesthetic.”
Kanari nodded in approval, reflecting deeply as someone suddenly reached the pinnacle of awareness. Her mother was right. This man outsmarted Nicolai Hendrickson. There is no way he would be an ordinary romantic dreamer. Her mother was quick to capture the change in Kanari’s perspective, thus she asked: “Then, how about we read it together, before the arrival?”
Before they could continue their conversation, the two of them got alerted by sensing approaching steps behind the door.
Kanari picked the closest position to the door and leaned her back on the wall. Her almond-shaped pupil became narrow as her white curved fangs got more visible under her lips. She was resisting the pressure in her fingernail to grow and turn into claws. Her control became weaker and weaker as the jasmine scent got stronger.
From the corner of her eyes, she took a glimpse at her mother’s state. She didn’t understand why she was calm. The count never mentioned that he will contact them personally. He has always used mediators. By coming here in person, this didn’t bode well.
In the end, Kanari retreated after her doubt was appeased. She halted farther from the door, observing her mother opening it. Her face was painted with unfriendliness when she became lucid of Mr. Hendrickson’s identity. He was asking her mother to take a stroll with him in the garden.
She clearly appreciated her mother nodding with approval. The air between them was filled with questions and seriousness. And as much as she was indifferent to the matter, she experienced an intense need to accompany them. Her gut feeling informed her that this conversation will shed light on a lot of events on what had happened on this farm since the emergence of the one-way reflective force field. And maybe the reason why? And how? Mr. Hendrickson’s supply deteriorated before it got ceased for good in those last months.
****
The sky was dark, sunlight shined behind the inky clouds, and the wind was cold. Kanari cursed her impatience while hugging her body with her arms. She should have worn something thick before tagging along.
“Akila! I mean My Lady…” Nicolai’s voice resembled the voice of a convict whom he didn’t provide an alibi. Or that’s how it seemed to the Lady he was talking to.
“To be honest, I was shocked when you have sent Be-an to contact me. I thought for a long time that you were gone.”
Akila’s long dark hair frisked with the blowing wind. The breeze was cold yet it had craved a touch that stamped the impending smell of the spring. She was allowing Mr. Hendrickson her back, as she was a few steps ahead of him.
Her daughter Kanari was moderately behind the two of them, far enough to overhear the conversation, but not as close as to disturb it. It seemed that her mother wasn’t bothered by her presence.
“You look very pitiful,” Akila said as she kept the two of them behind her back as if she possessed a pair of invisible eyes guarding her.
Her daughter shifted her full concentration from her mother to Mr. Hendrickson’s frame. She eagerly waited for his reaction, answer, anything. While he stood leaning on the wooden cane that supported his weight. But to her failure to satisfy her expectations, he gave nothing.
“When I asked you before if your taste in aesthetics has changed, your response was: ¨NO¨.
When Lady Akila didn’t hear his voice, she shifted her head to the side to show her displeasure toward him. And asked the real question that she meant to ask since she set a foot in this house: “What happened then?”
She turned her full body to confront Mr. Hendrickson, an unending silence, then shouted,
“If you didn’t betray us, what happened then?”
Kanari was amazed at the ever-changing expression of that man; she never warmed to him before. And now she started to find reasons why she never liked him.
Her mother’s voice was carrying a fit of anger, that kind of calm and composed anger that she often used to scold her children with when they made a heavy slip. Yet, at the same time, this anger was a tiny bit distinct from the anger Kanari was used to challenge. Perhaps because that scolding anger was an important and a necessary one in their road to learning about this word. What she has found strange was that whenever they commit these heavy slips, their mother always seemed to have some kind of prior knowledge about it, so the casualties never were devastating. At that moment, she wondered what kind of consequence her mother’s anger will cause Mr. Hendrickson…
“What an excuse that you are going to present to me, so I am going to forgive you?”
A few moments passed in silence, where Mr. Hendrickson and Lady Akila exchanged ambiguous glares that Kanari couldn’t decipher its meaning. Neither she could understand Mr. Hendrickson when he finally said: “I believe that you already have an idea about my excuse. But mostly was my carelessness.”
Kanari complained in her heart as she watched this two-person play ¨They should stop talking in riddles, so I could grasp what’s going on.¨
And then, when her mother’s glares targeted the place where she was standing, she felt that she was experiencing a heart attack. As the cold droplet of sweat started to form on her forehead, a hazy scream inside her head became clear: “She knows, she absolutely knows about what I and my sister’s secret plan.”
