Chapter 87: Who are you?
Because Sienna usually woke up at six in the morning for her workouts, it had become a tradition for most servants to rise just as early to prepare for the day. However, this morning, everyone was up earlier than usual. At 5: 44 a.m. a scream came from the back yard.
It awakened both Sienna and Elias. He got up swiftly, opened a window and leaped out, taking on his full fox beast form before his paws touched the ground.
Sienna moved as quickly as she could, grabbing a robe that she tied as she rushed downstairs. She was in such a hurry that she forgot to put on shoes. When she reached the source of the noise, a small crowd had already formed. Servants, guards, Elias, grandpa Corven and two of her uncles.
"What happened?" She asked.
It took her eyes a moment to adjust and notice that the small garden she and Ali had planted had blossomed overnight! It had not sprouted, it had overgrown, producing huge plants!
Sienna rubbed her eyes, tuning out the sound of the horrified crowd. Her small garden had turned into something that resembled a monster’s buffet. The beans had shot up like rocket launchers, their vines taller than her. The cabbages had ballooned into small crimson umbrellas, each leaf wide enough to shade an ant colony. The strawberries were the most amazing ones. Each fruit was the size of three medium sized apples put together.
Grandpa Corven spoke anxiously, "Sienna, I don’t know what happened. We were flying out to buy some things in the trading hub when we saw this. I was worried that it could be weeds or pests so I decided to take a look. I have never seen anything like this."
Elias had to agree. Not even genetically modified foods grew to this size.
Whispers traveled furiously.
"Are these weeds?"
"Could it be a mutated variant?"
"Maybe some kind of biological weapon left behind by Princess Evira."
Just as confusion reached its peak, a buzzing shadow descended. Honey Thunder, the queen bee herself descended. She swooped down like a thief, and without ceremony, latched onto a strawberry. The strawberry was attached to a vine so strong that it made the bee wobble like a drunken balloon. It made a pop as it detached, and then the bee flew off with the spoils of its war.
Mrs. Miller stumbled into the backyard with Soren, Eli and the two clingy adopted daughters. "Sienna, what happened? What kind of seeds did you plant?"
Sienna shook her head and responded with confusion, "Mom, I don’t know either. I just picked them up from a random vendor who promised that they were the best in the world. I just thought it was an exaggeration." She couldn’t very well say that they had come from a system. "They should be edible, Honey Thunder would not be attracted to the fruit if it was poisonous."
Many people nodded. Some hands stretched to follow the example of the bee.
"Disperse! All of you! Go back to your posts or beds." Elias barked.
The servants scattered like frightened pigeons. The Rocland’s left. Mrs. Miller and the children remained back, as if they were waiting for a different set of instructions.
"Everyone." Elias glanced at the children.
With a sigh, Mrs. Miller took the children back to the house.
Elias turned to Sienna, a single tail lashing. "Explain, and don’t lie to me about some mystery vendor whose name or face you don’t even remember. If this are seeds you acquired illegally from an agricultural research base, tell me so that I can make up a story and pay the price before it gets out. If you used some kind of growth acceleration serum, share it with me. I need to know such things so that I can have an explanation ready when someone accuses you of something." He knew someone would say something about this.
Fruits this size! Sooner or later, word was going to get out about them. When it did, a lot of jealous people would come of the woods to stake a claim or destroy the seeds. Much as Sienna had changed, he knew her capabilities and agricultural research was not one.
She was an ex-dancer turned live streamer. He also knew all of her past expenses and seeds had never made the list, not until recently. And, he highly doubted that those seeds had led to this monstrosity,
Sienna shrugged, "I told you, I don’t know anything."
Elias stepped up to her, grabbing her neck without being too rough. He forced her to look up, into his eyes. With his mental strength, he tried to compel her to spill the truth.
But, she just blinked and slapped his hand away. "What are you doing you bastard? I told you not to pull these neck grabbing moves on me."
Elias tilted his head, narrowing his eyes. He knew his mental abilities just as he knew Sienna’s lack of such abilities. How was she resisting his compulsion?
He clenched his jaw and tried again, trying to control her through a mental link. But the link didn’t form. It fizzed out quickly, as if it had come into contact with some kind of electric shield.
He dropped his hand, gasping softly. Her mind was guarded by a shield! "Impossible." he whispered. His hand shot up, grabbing her neck again. His eyes flashed as crimson as the cabbage leaves. "Who are you?" he barked. This time, his grip was much firmer than before.
Sienna’s eyes widened. Both from the pain of having her neck squeezed and the sudden questioning of her identity.
"Who are you?" Elias barked again, pushing her up against a bean stalk. "You are not Sienna. I may not have known her well but I knew enough to know she didn’t have any mental strength." All these sudden changes in her attitude. Her willingness to divorce him. Her closeness to the children. The adventurous attitude and pan swinging. Most of all, the niceness to her own family, dieting and exercising to lose weight.
No, the biggest change was her lack of eagerness to be intimate with him. Her hesitation when he suggested the bite. How she kept a distance from him in the tub!
The old Sienna was none of those things. This was not the woman he had married.