"It's so nice to meet you all my children" said Lucinda's mother as she smiled and kissed Noey on the cheek as she was carrying him.
"And it's nice to meet you too Grandma" said Evie as she smiled
"Yes Grandma" said Evie
"Being called a Grandmother is the best thing I have felt in a long time" she said as she smiled.
"Aww mother, don't be so dramatic" said Lucinda
"But it's the truth" she said
"Well look at the time, I think that we should be going soon" said Lucinda
"Awww, what?? no mom can we stay here more??" asked Evie and her siblings agreed with her.
"Lucy I agree with them, this is also your home, why don't you all stay here for a few days?" she asked.
Living in this big house all alone was tiring, there was Sophie but it just wasn't the same, but now with her grandchildren around she was going to make sure to spoil them.
All of them look at Lucinda with expectant eyes.
"Not you too Luke" said Lucinda as she noticed that Lucas was looking at her the same was as they were.
"Fine" said Lucinda as she had no choice, she was sure that if she had said no they would have all ganged up against her, and along with her mother backing them, she would not escape.
"Yayyyyyyyyyyy" said the children
"Come on my children, let me show you your rooms" she said as she stood up and the children followed after her.
"*Sigh*" said Lucinda
"Haha dear don't worry, let your mother enjoy her grandchildren, she has been really lonely lately" said Sophie as she smiled and patted Lucinda's back.
"Do you want to stay in your old room?" asked Sophie
"Yes, Thank you Sophie" said Lucinda
"You are welcome my dear, let me go tidy it up" said Sophie as she walked out of the kitchen.
"What are you looking at" said Lucinda as she looked at Lucas who was staring at her.
"Well my lovely wife of course" said Lucas as he smiled.
"Mhmm what do you want?" asked Lucinda as she saw right through him.
"Okay fine, you got me" said Lucas as he admitted defeat
"Can you please ask Sophie for some more cookies?? they were just too sweet" said Lucas
"My gosh Luke, why don't you ask her yourself" said Lucinda
"Well I would, but I don't want to be branded as a sweet tooth" replied Lucas
"I never knew that the Vampire Prince is a coward" said Lucinda
"I am not usually, but when I am with you I can be as cowardly as I want" he said as he smiled and winked and Lucinda looked at him weirdly.
"So what do you say my dear wife?" asked Lucas
"Fine, I will ask her, when she comes back to the kitchen" said Lucinda as she sighed in defeat.
"Thank you darling" said Lucas as he smiled like a little child.
"Right, remind me again why I married you?" asked Lucinda sarcastically
"Because you Love me" replied Lucas
"I am starting to rethink that" said Lucinda
"Oh sorry Luc, but you are stuck with me" said Lucas as he smiled and kissed her cheek.
The sun had set, and it was almost midnight, the full moon shined brightly in the sky, while some were already sleeping other were just arriving.
"Elora where are you?" asked Sapiens as he entered the house angrily, he was still seething from what happened earlier in the day.
"Sophie where is she?" asked Sapiens as he caught sight of Sophie who was walking to from the kitchen.
"Ahh Good evening Professor, she is in her knitting room" said Sophie as she bowed.
"Alright" said Sapiens
"And where are you taking those too?" asked Sapiens as he noticed that Sophie was carrying some extra bedsheets in her hand.
"Ahh, to the guest room, Lucinda came to visit earlier and the madam suggested that she stay the night" said Sophie as she smiled
"I see, carry on then" replied Sapiens
"Thank you Professor" said Sophie as she bowed and walked away.
"You would not believe what happened to me today" said Sapiens as he barged into the room.
"A Good evening to you too Sapiens" said Elora as she looked up from what she was knitting and looked at Sapiens, she was sitting in a rocking chair that moved in an up and down motion.
"How was your day?" she asked, as she was used to his behavior by now.
Elora Hawknight, the wife of Professor Sapiens Hawknight, she was a quiet tender eyed woman, she looked like someone who endured and avoided trouble with her brown hair was tied neatly in a bun, it was clear that Lucinda got most of her gentle features from her mother.
"It was horrible, utterly horrible" said Sapiens as he answered and sat in a chair right in front of Elora.
"But first, I heard that Lucinda is here" said Sapiens
"Yes, she came to visit me with her husband and children" said Elora as she smiled
"And you invited them to stay?" asked Sapiens
"Of course I did, is this not my house too?" asked Elora with a raised eyebrow as she looked at Sapiens
"Whatever you say, but you would not believe what happened to me today" said Sapiens
"Well do tell" said Elora as she focused her attention back to her knitting.
"It's that Annie girl, do you know that she asked me about Alice today" said Sapiens
"Really?" said Elora
"Yes and she asked me some questions, in the end she said that I valued the memory of a dead person rather than that of my wife" said Sapiens
"Can you believe that??" he said
"That girl had the effrontery, the audacity to say such to me, me? Professor Sapiens" said Sapiens
"Can you believe that?" asked Sapiens once again
"Yes I can" said Elora
"You see.. Wait you can?" asked Sapiens as he was shocked.
"She's right you know" said Elora as she kept her head down and knitted.
"What do you mean she's right?" asked Sapiens
"You do value the memory of a dead person more than that of your living wife" said Elora as looked up to meet Sapiens gaze, her expression was non-chalant and calm.
"What do you mean?" asked Sapiens
"I remember back when we were in university, you always only had eyes for Alice, everything in your world rotated around her" said Elora as she began to knit and rock her chair.
"I always followed behind you, I always looked up to you, to me you were the smartest man in the room, but you never paid any attention to me" she said
"It wasn't until Jake and Alice got together, that you started to pay attention to me" she said
"It was all part of your twisted plan, to make Alice jealous and I knew it, but I didn't mind, I was excited, I thought that you would eventually come to like me, like you loved Alice" she said her head still down.
"To you it was all just a game... a competition to see who would break first, but you were just playing yourself"
"When Jake and Alice got married, you proposed to me and I said yes thinking that you were finally coming to like me, oh how naïve I was" she said in a still voice.
"We were married for more than 10 years before we actually did something, it's still a surprise to me of how Lucinda came along" she said as she laughed.
"You should have seen the way Lucinda looks very happy with Lucas and her children" she said as she smiled.
"She got someone who really loved her, unlike me, I remember when Lucinda told us about her relationship and how she was getting married"
"You got very angry and immediately disowned her for having a relationship with a vampire, when the wedding invitation came, I begged you to forget the law and we should go together"
"But you refused, and you banned me from even attending, because of that I never got to see my only child's happy day, that's one of the things that I regret most, listening to you at that time" she said as Sapiens sat and listening in silence.
"Let me ask you something, why do you think I started knitting?" she asked
"I don't know, I thought you liked knitting" replied Sapiens
"No wrong Sapiens, I started knitting as a way to cope, a way to vent out all my frustrations from you on the wool, knitting became my escape, and I was started getting good at it too in the process" she said
"It's quite funny, you actually helped me learn something very useful" Elora said as she laughed, but it wasn't a happy laugh.
"What I don't understand is why you waited so long to tell me all this?" asked Sapiens, they had been married for almost 50 years and she had never said any of this, she was always the quiet supportive wife who never disobeyed him, but what she had said proved that she had been suffering all this time.
"Then why did you stay? why didn't you leave me all these years, when I treated you horribly?" asked Sapiens
Elora was quiet for a while until she opened her mouth and said,
"Because you stupid dum-dum, I love you" she said as she stood up and dropped what she was knitting on the chair.
"Always have, always will, and that's what I hate most about myself" she said as she muttered under her breath and walked away, but Sapiens was still able to hear her.
He was stupefied, she loved him? He had never known, to him she was always just his junior who followed him around back in his university days, he never looked at her as someone he would love.
"You Love me?" asked Sapiens to himself as he was all alone in the room.