Page 50 of Mama Si's Paradise

“Good evening, Fall Doll. I haven’t seen you in a little while,” Mama Si said with a wide smile, stepping inside my room while Assa remained by the door.

“I imagine you’ve been busy,” I forced myself to say, knowing very well what her presence here meant.

“I certainly have. Let me look at you,” she said, bringing her gloved hand close to my chin to tell me to raise my head without even touching me. I felt completely naked all of a sudden, even though I was wearing a gorgeous green dress that hugged every curve of my body without it being too tight. It was the closest color I had in my closet that matched the leaves of the forest, and I wanted to belong to that place in every possible way, so here I was.

“Mhmm, love the smokey green eyes,” Mama Si said with an approving nod. “Love the dress, too. And the hair.” Slowly she pushed my hair behind my shoulder, making shivers erupt on every inch of my arms as if she were touching me with her bare hands. She wasn’t—her dark red dress had the gloves attached to it. I could see it right now, same as most of her dresses—but those gloves sometimes disappeared. They just vanished into thin air, and I never saw how.

Before, I’d always assumed that she was just taking one off without my realizing it, but now?

Now I wasn’t so sure.

“Thank you,” I said with the best smile I could muster. “Adam’s a great teacher.”

“That, he is,” she said, folding her hands in front of her again. “Tell me, Fall Doll, how have you been?”

“Great,” I said, way too fast. “I’ve been great. I was feeling a bit tired today, so I stayed in most of the day.”

“Except the library in the morning,” she said, and I could have swornshe knew.The vibrant colors in her eyes said thatshe knew exactly where I’d been and what I’d done and what I’d seen…

“Yes. You have floating shelves. I climbed one and skimmed through a few books,” I said, and by some miracle, my voice came out steady. Same as always.

“And? Did you like my floating shelves?”

She knows, she knows, she knows, she knows…

“Yes. I love them, actually. I think I’m going back tomorrow.”

She nodded, pleased. “Good. As you should. Books are food for the mind, Fall Doll. And we never want to the mind to starve.” With a wink, she stepped back. “Come with me.”

“Where?” I asked reluctantly. “Is…is he here?”

She raised a brow. “Your client?”I nodded, swallowing hard. “No, Mr. Archer is not here tonight. I want you to join me in the spy rooms. I haven’t had the time to show you more, but you need to be taught, Fall Doll. You have a client now, and something tells me he’s going to keep coming back for more and more.” Slowly, her eyes scrolled down my body and I felt naked all over again.

“Of course,” I said with a forced smile, reminding myself that I couldn’t, under any circumstances, make her suspicious. Not even for a second.

Mama Si turned, waving at the open door, at Assa waiting for us in the hallway. “Shall we?”

I spentthe next two hours with her in the spy rooms, feeling like I was wearing someone else’s skin.

We spied on three girls—Nadia, Joy, and Eva, the first pole dancing for a guy handcuffed to a chair, and the other two having sex. It was the most uncomfortable feeling in the world to be watching someone fucking like that through a window when they didn’t know they were being watched, but I satthere with Mama Si anyway, and I watched until she had enough and let me walk out of the goddamn spy room.

My head was dizzy with so many thoughts, so that while we walked down the stairs and the silence got to me, I blurted, “What’sEnnaris?”

It was a way of both distracting myself from what I had seen until now and quenching my curiosity, even if I couldn’t tell her about the journal or the forest—because what if she thought I’d lost my mind?

Worse yet—what if it was a secret I wasn’t supposed to see or even hear about?

Too many possibilities. Her reaction was too unpredictable still because I didn’t know her well enough. I couldn’t risk it. Iwouldn’t.

Mama Si’s eyes lit up like fucking fireworks. Her red lips parted, and I could have sworn she gasped a bit, too.

Then, she slowly smiled. “The most beautiful land in all the worlds.”

I surely heard her wrong. “Theworlds?” Was that what she said?

“Yes,” Mama Si whispered, and for a moment there I thought she might start crying. “Yes, in the worlds. It’s a fantasy, Fall Doll. A myth. It only exists in stories.”

The next second, she was her usual, composed self.

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