Chapter 6: Gianna

Opening the door to their rooms, Gianna sighed as she was greeted by the sight of Sophia tracing patterns from one of the books that she had found for her. She had said that there were some things that she had found that she wanted to try the next time that they go out. As soon as she heard the door open, Sophia stopped what she was doing and hopped up to hug Gianna. 

“You were gone forever,” she said, wrapping her small arms around Gianna’s legs. “What took so long?”

“Keres was telling us about another plan of his,” Gianna said, wrinkling her nose. “What are you drawing over there,” she asked, nodding toward the book and paper that Sophia had just abandoned. 

“I am practicing for when we go to the woods again. Can we go tonight,” Sophia asked hopefully.

“Umm..I’m not sure it will safe tonight to try sneaking out. Let’s try tomorrow night. I think I made Keres very mad today, so he might try having us watched or something,” Gianna admitted softly. “I will look tonight, and if everything is clear we can go tomorrow night. Deal?”

“You mean like the last time he came here,” Sophia asked. 

“Possibly,” Gianna said with a nod. “But I do not want you to worry about Keres. Okay? I promise to make it up to you though and take you to the woods again as soon as possible. Deal?”

Nodding happily Sophia skipped back to her book and drawings. “How do you say this,” she asked, pointing to a word at the top of the page she had been tracing earlier. 

Walking over and sitting by Sophia on the floor, Gianna took the book. “Are you asking about this word,” she said pointing to the top of the page.

Sophia nodded her head. 

“It says protection,” Gianna said with her brow furrowing. “Do you feel like someone wants to hurt you?” Sophia had a way of knowing when things would happen sometimes. Maybe she knew that someone was going to try to kill her. Would Keres really try to have a child killed? Gianna suspected that he had a part in his father’s death, but did not have any way to prove her suspicions. 

“No,” Sophia said, shaking her head.

“Then why do you want to learn this one,” Gianna pressed. 

“They told me to learn it,” Sophia said with her eyes welling up with tears. “Are you mad at me?”

“No. No, I’m sorry,” Gianna said, pulling her sister in for a hug. “I’m not mad at you. I just wanted to make sure that you feel safe here. You know that I would do anything to protect you, right” Gianna asked, looking down at Sophia in her lap. She waited a few seconds till she saw Sophia nod her head. Letting out a deep breath she pulled her sister into another hug and waited a minute before asking, “So who told you to learn this one?”

Sophia sat back and scrunched up her face while trying to put into words why she needed to learn this symbol. “I hear voices in here,” she said pointing to her head. “They tell me how to do things, and sometimes they tell me things to learn.”

“How do you know that they wanted you to learn this picture,” Gianna asked pointing to the one on the page just below the word protection. 

Sophia shrugged. “I turn the pages till they feel right or they tell me to stop.” 

“Oh, okay,” Gianna said, but not fully understanding. Remembering that Sophia does seem to have a natural way of knowing how to do things, maybe she does have an intuition or voices that are guiding her. “Will you let me know if you ever feel like you are not safe here or if the voices tell you that you are not safe here?” 

Gianna hoped that she was wrong, but in her heart she knew that Keres had something to do with his father’s death. Maybe it was her wolf that made her more intuitive or helped her to pick up on certain signs. One thing that Gianna did know was that if Keres was willing to have his own father killed to become king, what would stop him from trying to harm Sophia if he considers her a threat? 

“Yes,” Sophia said looking confused. “Are we not safe here?”

“I think so,” Gianna said carefully, not wanting to scare her sister. “I just never want to chance anything happening to you. I just love you too much,” she said, smiling. 

“I love you too.”

“You know what else I love,” Gianna asked, smiling mischievously.

“What,” Sophia asked excitedly. 

“I love tickling you,” Gianna cried as she began tickling Sophia. “The tickle monster is going to get you!” Sophia laughed and shrieked trying to escape from the tickle monster. 

Several minutes later they were both panting laying on the rug in their sitting room. Gianna was laying on her back thinking about what they should have for dinner when Sophia propped up on her elbows and looked at her. Gianna turned her head toward her sister so that she could see her. 

“I will always protect you,” Sophia said in a much older sounding voice. Her eyes appeared glazed over. It was almost as if she was looking past Gianna. 

“What do you mean,” Gianna asked, sitting up with her brow furrowing. 

Sophia blinked for a second and then shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said and then got up. She began looking through her book again till she found the page that she had been on earlier. Sophia began humming happily and tracing the image from the page again. 

That was weird Gianna thought to herself. Sophia has said weird things before, but this time she couldn’t help but feel like something was going to happen. Maybe she was reading too much into what her sister said, but with her argument with Keres still fresh, Gianna decided to make sure that she stayed alert and do a little snooping. She would wait for Sophia to go to sleep tonight and walk around to see if she could hear anything. There had to be a reason that she was this concerned. Hopefully she will learn something tonight.