A Dark Destiny

Chapter 25

Diana's P.O.V:

Five years ago,
Butterfly Island

I tried rolling my tongue a couple of times to make the "rrr" sound. It's been over an hour, and Bob, with his arms folded and looking at me like I didn't know what I was doing, couldn't take it as he finally waved his hand, telling me to stop.

"Okay, okay, stop," he said.

"Huh?" I looked at him from where I sat. "I thought I almost had it."

"There will be plenty of time to know that one character," he said as he looked down at the huge book open in front of him on the lecture stand atop the small stone dais.

I take a look at the small library filled with tall bookshelves. The gray walls of the castle and the bookshelves seem to be one and the same, as if they carved the shelves on the wall. There were all sorts of books, and one thing they had in common was that they had pretty bright colours like the butterflies that flew around the room. Each colour had its own bookshelf, so that meant there were six bookcases in the circular room.

Bob stood in front of me on the dais with a black board behind him. The board looked like it was etched into the stone wall, with two of the book cases that held the blue and red coloured books standing on either side. On the four edges of the board, tiny green creepers with tiny white flowers grew out, making it look decorative.

The black board has the ancient alphabet written on it. We started working on that yesterday. As much as learning something new is exciting, it can sometimes be annoying, depending on who is teaching you. Bob just happens to be one of those people.

The language had twenty-six letters. But in this instance, Bob likes to refer to them as characters. They reminded me of Chinese characters, except that they weren't.

"Okay, I should say you're pretty good at pronouncing most of them," said Bob as he looked at me.

"That's good, isn't it?" I asked as I sat on the only wooden desk in the room.

"It is, but I want you to practice writing them down too. Consider that homework and hand it in tomorrow morning."

Homework. Great. I tried to put up a smile for him, though I felt the edges of my mouth twitch.

Bob closes the book, and I know it's his cue to leave. The words on the black board were quickly erased by the green butterflies. A question soon came to mind.

"I have a question," I said, catching him off guard. He sighed.

"I thought for this lesson you weren't going to ask anything."

"It's just the second session. Besides, you can't blame me for yesterday, can you?"

He shrugged his shoulders, admitting it. My first lesson yesterday in my room was tough. It's not easy learning a new language, and I had a lot of questions that focused a lot on pronunciation.

"What do you want to ask, Diana?" Bob asked, his eyes squarely focused on me.

"When will I be able to go home? I feel a lot better now. And I'm starting to feel this time difference between my world and yours might be a little sketchy."

"Don't worry; you'll be surprised when you get back how much time has passed. You want to leave us so soon? I thought you liked the place."

"That was until you people decided I couldn't get out by keeping me hostage." I made sure to glare at him.

"We’re doing this for your protection, Diana."

"Protection from who exactly? Lord Vandell?"

Bob knew where I was going with this as he took the book from the stand and made his way down the dais. "Stella will be here shortly. Make sure you do your assignment."