The Golden Bond

Chapter 12

"Sofia!" William cried, relieved and entered the little house on the square unsolicited. It had taken him ages to find it. As he stepped inside, a curious combination of smells assailed his nostrils. In the tiny living-kitchen, the scent of herbs mixed with the scent of treated wood and books... and her, of course.

He'd noticed that previously in the shop, when they'd first met. Separate from the piles of paper, glue and other silly things he smelled a strong fragrance that he couldn't identify, a blend of lemon, vervain and the smell of spring and a fresh whiff of everydayness which could be special in a thousand ways. Sofia.

He sat down in a newly upholstered wing chair, which betrayed its age under the weight of his firm body by creaking. William glanced in her direction. Sofia hadn't even tried to stop him from entering. She trusted him instinctively somehow, even though she wouldn't admit it out loud, not for all the world. She was now standing in the kitchen, preparing tea, spontaneously. Green or black, he didn't care, the main thing was that he could see her alive and up and about on her feet.

He was about to start quizzing her when she asked: "Mucha or Klimt?"

Pardon?"Well, I do enjoy admiring beautiful ethereal women, but kissing surely is better..." he replied with an affable smile on his lips.

He knows art. Sofia grinned and when the corners of her mouth lifted upwards, a cute dimple appeared on her cheek. Just one, she had always had only one. "All right, so here is your Klimt, Mr. Nutty," she said and brought him an unusual set consisting of a wide cup standing on a little saucer, with a tiny tea pot ingeniously sitting on top. Steam was rising from its spout and its ceramic surface was decorated with an art work imitating the famous Kiss by Gustav Klimt.

"Nutty?!" William objected.

"Yes, if you were an aristocrat, you could be called William the Nut. Or how about a king – King William II. the Nut, the Crown of Impertinence?"

William shook his head disapprovingly and suppressed a smile. He had to admit she was witty. "I'm not impertinent, I was worried about you. After I'd been to your shop several times and hadn't found you and everybody was refusing to say anything about you. I became afraid that something might have happened to you." His face became grave. Concern and a type of shadow of peril settled in new little wrinkles around his eyes.

"Why must you worry about me?" Sofia asked and sat down on the sofa opposite him, with her green tea in a porcelain cup decorated with one of Mucha's ladies.

"We'll save that for another, longer conversation, Sofia. Now it's important that you're alive, healthy and sane."

"Sane?! Don't you think you're exaggerating a little bit?" she snapped at him and sipped her hot tea. "Green Diamond, have some. It will calm you down a little, at least I hope so."

Without saying a word, William raised the cup to his lips, he had to admit that the tea really was very tasty. It was sweetened with honey and had a subtle hint of mango and sunflower, the usually bitter taste yielding to the delicious extra ingredients. He put his cup down, settled deeper into the armchair and his intense eyes came back to rest on Sofia. "Have you, perhaps, felt lethargic or disorientated lately, Sofia? Have you been tired? Have you had bad dreams or cases of memory loss?" He got straight to the point.

How the hell does he know? "No," she lied. She didn't have to tell him anything. After all, he's a stranger and it's peculiar enough that he's sitting in her living room to begin with without being invited.

William could sense a change in her energy. Her eyes blinked faster, she gulped and her arms were crossed in a defensive posture. Her muscles tense in an effort to concentrate so she wouldn't give anything away to him. She was lying. He knew it. Even though he couldn't sense it with his charismagic, his everyday observational skills were enough to deduce that much.