The Vaticinator

by Namita Singh

therian is probably the only thing that’s thrill driving in my life, I still do not enjoy myself as a complete animal. And since I am not mature, I can only convert to a full animal. Not to be mistaken. I am very much a testosterone driven guy and enjoy the flight and the outstanding capabilities of my animal form. But I also prefer to be considered as a normal pure human. So, though I enjoy my adventures in my animal form, I still never fail at thinking that I am practically displaying a form of a monster. Therefore, it must be understandable why I detest not being a full mature therian as of yet. Full maturity will allow me to flux only parts of my body. I wouldn’t have to convert whole of my body then. Even if in a small amount, I may still be able to retain my humanness in that form.

  The second exceptional trait of mature therians is their ability to sense the auras of people around them. That is what Aakir and I were insinuating while talking of ‘sensing’ Neal. Since I am not mature, I do not know what it is like to sense someone’s aura. From what Aakir and the elders at home tell me, you are just able to feel the exuded personas of people in the form of very low wavelength electromagnetic waves. Subtle for even the sensitive technology these days but enough vibrant for our mutated senses to catch. As these are nothing but energy waves and can be caught by our body cells, they are absorbed by us and we usually end up sensing the emotions that result into that particular wavelength of the wave.

  Very technical, in my opinion.

  And usually useless in the opinion of my mature family members. Because as they tell me, all the therians exude similar range of energy waves in their aura, which could only be classified as ‘power’ in terms of a palpating sensation. Therians are powerful beings, very much more so than humans. So, usually this ‘power’ overpowers any sort of other emotional sentiment that may characterize a particular therian. As for humans, they aren’t as powerful and so their auras are usually weak, attenuated forms of their emotions. Not enough significant to be characterized individually.

  Yet Aakir finds Neal’s aura exceedingly ‘different’ and ‘suspicious’.

  It has only been over a month since Aakir has matured. Suddenly able to sense the auras of surrounding people has become quite overwhelming for him. He tends to get easily paranoid. He is a devout fan of The Plutocracy, always enjoying the witty ingenuity of Neal in his writing. Yet, since a month, Aakir has become wary of Neal’s exceptional aptitude expressed in his paper, owing it to Neal’s ‘very bizarre and distinctive aura’, as he says. I’ll admit, I was curious. The fact that I was not mature, and couldn’t sense it for myself was a major tick off. But over the span of a month, I have grown accustomed to Aakir’s demeanor towards Neal, which is quite exaggerated now that I think of it. What I have interpreted is that Neal’s aura is a little bit stronger than most of the humans. Hardly a reason for Aakir to be paranoid. I learnt to ignore it.Aakir manages to ignore it as well. It usually takes a lot to shake Aakir and even if something does affect him, he makes sure it is not long lasting. And in Neal’s case, Aakir’s complaints definitely do not matter.

  Especially when Aakir’s paranoia doesn’t restrain him from spending every second of his life hanging to Neal’s paper and the blog. Aakir’s devoted likeness for The Plutocracy is not at all affected by the ordeal.

  “I win.” I hear Aakir say as we stop at the opening edge of the forest.

  Frowning, I look at him to see him grinning.“I didn’t realize we were racing.”

  “Aren’t we always?”

  I shake my head. We start to walk at a human pace towards the road opening into the Peter’s market. My thoughts kept me fairly occupied and it feels I have reached this end of the forest faster than usual. Especially faster once we had crossed our house. It doesn’t take us long to reach the antique looking shop. It is built with old medieval stones and has a cozy looking wooden door with an amulet hung on the top. It is so positioned that while opening or closing of the door it tinkles, giving off mellifluent sounds expected out of wind chimes. The rest of the girth of the shop exposes the glass pane windows. Various decorative and sparkly items are on display at the window, attracting the customers, especially women. Shining, thin elegant copper wires twisted in cursive writing express the name of the shop at the front top‘Happiness Reincarnated’both in Lettish and English. My parents are originally from Siberia, but living for so long here, the Latvian language has rubbed on them.

  “You boys are late today.” My mother speaks as soon as she hears the tinkle of the amulet as we enter.

  Her sing song voice comes somewhere from our right. She has her back to us. She is arranging a few silvery, sparkling artificial flowers in a vase on the shelf. It leaves me befuddled how she can always guess without lookingthat it’s us. Our shop receives a good amount of customers. So even if we come to the shop on time, I do not see how she should be able to guess that it’s us who are entering the shop. She is not even a pure therian else I could have simply blamed the therian senses.

  Yes, my mother is not a therian. She is a pure human.

  She is also the epitome of a perfectionist. A slight wrinkle in your shirt and she’ll run towards you with an iron in her hand. The point to be focused on is that she is absolutely happy while perfecting things. Meaning that while running towards you she’ll be wearing a smile, almost as if she is proud she’d be the reason for your spotlessness.

  Aakir kisses my mother on her cheek, “Ask your son.” He intelligently says as my mother smiles back at him inquisitively. But distractedly, she starts straightening Aakir’s ruffled t-shirt as if he is still a kid who doesn’t know how to wear clothes.

  Aakir, used to with my mother’s bizarre attitude, retreats to greet his own mother. Only, Rufina aunt is busy interacting with a customer.

  I take that as my queue and kiss my mother on the cheek too. Shepinches my cheek happily. Yes, I know, I know. She is always happy and vivacious. The phrase ‘bubbly blonde’ suits her aptly.

  “What happened?” she returns back to putting things back on the shelf, the smile a permanent fixture on her face.

  I shrug, “Just took a longer detour.” I say, glaring in Aakir’s direction. He should know better than to hint my parents that I got involved in a fight.

  “But definitely in the forest.” Another jocose voice announces from behind me. I turn to see Faith. She casually picks on some wild leaves stuck in my hair.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, my smile widening as I engulf her in a hug.

  Faith shrugs, “Just thought to help in the shop. It’s anyways the weekend, so I had to be home.”

  “Enough talking you two.” My mother smiles at us. “Come on, come on, and let’s get on to work. Customers usually increase after this time of the day.”

  “I’ll never understand, Aunt Nina,” Faith says to my mother, “how you’re always this enthusiastic for work!”

  “Sweetheart, when you do the things you want, the requisite effort becomes insignificant.” My mother replies.

  Faith and I roll our eyes. Aakir, Faith and I indulge in a quick lunch at the manufacturing unit at the back of the shop. This section is inevitably bigger than the front of the shop and divided further into various sub-sections. Our shop receives the raw materials from various dealers, which is then prepared into the final products. Nothing in our shop is made with the help of technology. The workers use solely their hands and the strength of their backs to make all sorts of hand-made products. One unit is filled with endless stacks of paper which are scented with some powerful perfumery and then bound with hand-decorated cardboards. The girls, especially, come to like such hand-made diaries. A few workers in another unit work on preparing the artificial flowers. Not the vernacularly available flowers, but unique looking teal, golden, silver and some other weird colored flowers.Another section obtains shelf decorating items like a pen stand, or maybe a clock. Those are then painted and handedly decked, with several additions for its embellishment. Another enclosed section is devoted for the production of very uniq
uely available perfumes from various scented items, and bottled in even attractive bottles. There are other countless small things which are worked upon and very much liked by the customers as they exude a very homely feel. Our favorite section, however, is that of the confectionaries.

  Confectionaries are probably the only thing made from scratch in our shop. It was for what our shop had been started in the first place. My mother and Rufina aunt have a knack of brilliant cooking abilities, especially that of the sugary ones. Back in the days, both the ladies used to work themselves in the kitchen and develop various chocolates and candies, which are again very different from the norms of chocolates and candies in the world. Over the time, as the customers grew, so did the shop. The ladies hired workers and taught them their expertise.

  The three of us heat the packaged food in the oven and eat it at the island as various workers work around us. We have come to know each of them on a much personal level and the conversation is fluent as we eat. Some workers are lenient enough to let us taste some of the chocolates being made.

  The shop’s most selling occurs on the weekend, as is obvious. Sadly, that is when Aakir and I, and sometimes Faith, help our mothers in the forefront shop. Usually the