Chapter29. Where did she go?

“Where did she go?” Michael muttered. He was finally able to let out a sigh of relief once Orchid had left. Boss shrugged his shoulders indicating that he didn’t know. He looked at the two young adults still dazed wondering if it was alright for Orchid to know. If no one from Gran’s household told her, there must be a reason.

Looking at the people still lost in thought Boss asked, “Don’t you guys have somewhere you should be going right now?” Everyone finally remembered that they had meditation to do in less than an hour. They quickly headed down the stairs and out of the Inn.

Boss was the last to leave the room, the bright balls that were illuminating the room dimmed as he tossed a block cloth over it and closed the door behind him.

The group of four paced themselves as they walked to Gran’s place, they didn’t want to show up early nor did they want to be late. Boss trailed from behind, he didn’t want to get involved in anything that they were planning because he believes it’ll be better if they make mistakes and learn from it.

Similar to a miniature fortress, the guards standing from above looked down and noticed the kid’s arrival and let them in without delay. Arthur thanked the gatekeepers as everyone else nodded their head and continued forward.

“Bark Bark!” A familiar bark could be heard as they looked at the animals grazing off to the side. “Barkie!” Arthur shouted; they had left their pets here as Boss carried them away.

The puppy was squatted on the head of a horse as it noticed Arthur’s arrival. It issued a command to the horse telling it to walk over to Arthur. A “moo” could be heard in the distance as a cow was also walking over.

“Mew” Silver was lying flat on the back of the cow as it arrived before them. The horse neighed as it eyed the cow beside it. Barkie immediately slid down the back the neck of the horse and hopped into Arthur’s arm, it then pointed upwards indicating it wanted to sit on Arthur’s head.

Arthur complied and left Barkie on his head. Silver did the same and hopped into Shelly’s arm and began to purr. The horse and cow followed along as they continued to walk to the house.

“Are they following us?” Julie asked as she continued to look behind her back, the two enormous creatures scared her a little as they were twice the size of any of the ones she’d seen. Noticing that the cow and horse was still following them, Barkie and Silver barked and meowed respectively causing the two animals to walk away.

Julie let out a sigh of relief as they walked away, she then looked at the kitten and puppy “thank you, they were making me feel a little uncomfortable.” Julie thanked the pets. In the future she would realize the animals that would make her the most uncomfortable are these two pets.

“Was their house always this bright?” Arthur asked as they arrived closer to Gran’s home. The brightness coming from the windows of the house was as bright as the Inn. “They may have brought out their bright balls from somewhere.” Michael reasoned.

“Strange, where is everyone? Are they already meditating?” Arthur asked, he then decided to walk to the room where they were supposed to meditate, it was a large empty room with nothing but four walls. There was only one bright ball at the center to illuminate the entire room.

“No one’s here.” Michael answered. “I can see that Michael, I’m not blind like you.” Arthur replied. “What’re you talking about? I’m not blind.” Arthur was about to retort but Shelly interrupted.

“Let’s go check on Roselyn, maybe something happened.” Everyone agreed to Shelly’s comment and made their way towards Roselyn’s room. There was not a single servant running about like how it was earlier this morning, their worry for Roselyn grew even more as everyone picked up the pace.

The group of four and Boss went upstairs and slowly opened the door open. They peeked their eyes through the opening only to see a standoff between three men and a woman. The four immediately turned their eyes in the direction of the group, an intimidating force caused Michael to instinctively close the door.

“Why did you do that? It’s just them.” Arthur replied as he tried to pry Michael’s hands away from the doorknob. Michael shook his head and didn’t reply, the look in their eyes was too intimidating.

“Come in you kids” Gran’s voice could be heard from behind the door. Boss walked forward and pushed Michael’s arm away and opened the door wide. Boss entered first followed by the group from behind.

Both Pebble and Cobble were still standing in the same spot as they kept their attention at the woman standing beside Roselyn. Gran sighed and walked over to the kids. “Can we talk about this later?” Gran’s words were directed at Orchid who had shown up.

Orchid looked at the kids who had shown up and replied “Fine.” Before teleporting away. Pebble and Cobble fell on the floor panting heavily the moment Orchid left. “What’s wrong?” Julie went over to help Pebble and Cobble up.

“Nothing” Pebble shook his head as he pulled himself up with Julie’s assistance “She’s just too scary”

Michael followed Julie and helped Cobble up. He looked at the big guy who they spent hours training with this morning. Cobble’s face was pale as he tried catch his breath “What happened?” Michael asked.

“We forgot to tell her about mother.” Pebble’s reply caused Michael to inwardly sigh in relief, he believed they had a reason to not tell Orchid, who knew they just forgot.

“At least she knows now, right?” Arthur asked.

Pebble shook his head, “not necessarily, Auntie Orchid and my mother is really close, she was here to bring my mom—”,

“—Pebble enough.” Gran interrupted. “I’ll discuss it with her later, let’s go begin meditating”

Gran lead the way downstairs, the employees that was never seen were found lying unconscious on the floor on the way to the meditation room. “Pebble, Cobble, you two bring them to their rooms I’ll take care of meditation.” Gran sighed in relief as he checked every servant, luckily none were dead.

“Did Auntie Orchid do this?” Arthur asked. “Yeah…, she got angry and took all our servants and maids.” Pebble replied. He hadn’t felt such a sense of helplessness ever since after graduating from Lumiere. To get all the servants of theirs kidnapped from right in front of them.

“Luckily she’s your auntie.” Boss replied. “Yeah…” Pebble replied, he’s so grateful that Orchid didn’t do anything to harm the servants. He glanced at his father and felt thankful that auntie had a huge crush on this father of his.

“You should, do something about that though, it’s way too defenseless against her.” Boss stated. Pebble nodded his head “Our mother usually stops her immediately when auntie causes a ruckus.”

“Well, she’s not here right now, you should always have backup.” Boss’ childish voice was schooling Pebble. “Yeah…” Pebble completely forgot the backup was his father, if it was anyone else besides Orchid, his father most likely would’ve dealt with them.

Gran glanced at the Boss who smiled back at him and chuckled. He couldn’t believe his own son forgot of his existence.

“You can come in and enjoy the meditation too if you’d like.” Gran stated as he opened the door to the room they were in earlier. Boss smiled and stood before the door. “Nah, I’m good.”

The door to the meditation room closed as the group of four and Gran walked in. A small stick could be seen held in his hand as the door closed behind them.

“Feel free to enjoy yourself, I’ll get the rest of the servants to their room, knowing Orchid she probably hid a few.” Boss nodded his head to Pebble’s reply and then looked at Cobble who was silent this whole time.

“What’s up with you?” Cobble looked down at Boss and replied, “Prodigies are strong.”

Boss laughed at his response. “Then go become a prodigy yourself, want to come with us to Naturelle?” Cobble became lost in thought as he heard Boss’ nonchalant voice. A newfound look of determination burned in his eyes as he shook his head. “I’ll go later.”

“Alright. I’ll go check out your kitchen.” Cobble almost stumbled to Boss’ reply, the kid before them ate a quarter of everything they had in the kitchen and then took a nap. “Okay, but don’t eat too much!” Cobble said with a serious voice.

“Alright, alright, I won’t.” Boss waved Cobble off. Pebble had already left to look for their remaining servants.

A bundle of food could be seen wrapped around Boss’ arm as he walked back to Roselyn’s room.

Plop

Orchid dropped the unconscious Dr. Galil on the floor of Roselyn room and looked at the boy who had entered. “Oh? It’s you kid? What’re you doing here?”

“Nothing, just eating.” Boss plopped some food into his mouth as he ate. Steam started to flow out of his mouth as the meat within his mouth began to cook. An astonished look could be seen on Orchid’s face as she stared at the boy. The wig on his head was slightly off centered revealing his purple hair.

She then realized he wore a wig and sunglasses every time they had met. “You’re an Exotic?” She asked.

Boss nodded his head in reply, there was too much food in his mouth for him to speak. “What a strange power.” She said as she looked at the meat that was being cooked.

“Gran and the kids are meditating?” She asked Boss, the little kid before her was amusing with his strange abilities.

Boss gulped and replied “Yeah, they’re going to be there for an hour.” He began to stuff more food in his mouth and cooked it. “How come you’re not with them?” she asked.

“Boring” Boss stated with his mouth full. Orchid became lost thought as she looked at the kid before him. A kid that looked no older than 10 was already able to use his powers and didn’t even needed to meditate with Gran?

Boss continued to eat until the rest of the food in his arm was gone. Orchid waited patiently as she looked at the boy. There was so many questions she wanted to ask him about his powers. Like, does cooking food with his mouth make it hot on his tongue? Or can he cook food without using his mouth?

“Yes.” Boss first response threw Orchid off. Can he read my mind?

“No” Boss said again after a short pause, his words confused Orchid even more if he couldn’t have read her mind then he wouldn’t know what she was thinking to say no.

“No” Boss repeated, this time Orchid was floored, she didn’t even think anything yet and he said no.

The little kid before her started laughing extremely hard as he looked at Orchid’s confused face. “I was just saying yes and no because you looked like you had a lot of questions for me on your mind.” He giggled.

“And then, and then you, your face looked so confused like I had answered correctly so I waited and then said no.” Boss was laughing himself silly, he was easily entertained when it comes to messing with people.

Orchid began to laugh along after Boss’ explanation. The anger she had felt earlier regarding Roselyn’s condition and how they forgot to inform her about it diminished a bit.

Wiping away the tears in her eye Orchid looked at the kid before her. “Thank you, I needed a good laugh today.” Her bright smile was enough to enchant anyone who saw it. She then walked over to her older sister and a complex look could be seen formed on her face.

“Are you thinking of taking your sister back home?” Boss asked. This time his question felt as if he had read her mind. Orchid looked at him in shock however Boss immediately shook his head “Pebble has a big mouth.”

Orchid sighed and said “Yeah, I followed my sister because I loved both her and Gran. I promised her I won’t interfere with their relationship if they were doing okay.”

“However, does this look okay to you?” She pointed at her unconscious sister. “She almost died!”

“I think this warrants my interference.” Her hand was shaking in anger as tears started to well up in her eyes. She loved her sister and never wanted to see her sister suffer any problems. In their home it was mainly just her and her sister. Their parents didn’t even bother to raise them, they just decided on their marriage. To her, Roselyn was both her mother and her older sister.

“Your sister will be fine.” Boss replied nonchalantly while fixing the wig on his head.

“How do you know?”

“Because I did it.”

“…”

“…”