“You haven’t answered my question yet. Why do they want me? Just because I’m one of the last Manipulators?” asked Lilian as she and Zephyr were on their way to her house. Zephyr was driving the car.
“Our Leaders believe that you have information so valuable which should not fall into the hands of the Council. That information will determine the future of Pleidus,”
“But I can’t remember anything can I?”
“The plan is to capture you first, find the Keeper of your memory, released the memory back to you and extract the information from you,” he explained brusquely.
“I heard you said about ‘The Keeper’ that night. Who are the Keepers?” Lilian asked curiously, ignoring the other part of Zephyr’s explanation.
“They are those who are able to keep a person’s memory in quartz crystals,” he explained. “So, after they manage to obtain the information, they will be probably kill you,”
“How could you utter such word with such ease? Are you trained to be so cold-hearted?”
Zephyr did not answer. He pretended to focus hard on the road. Lilian decided to change the subject.
“Where do you get this car?” asked Lilian. She had been wondering about it since Zephyr told her that they were going to her house by car.
“Let just say that we are quite organised,” he answered simply, refusing to reveal more.
“Where are your partners, anyway?”
“You mean my subordinates? They are guarding the portal and making sure that the legion would not reach us,”
“So, they are around us?” Lilian automatically scanned the surrounding.
"No. They don’t even know where we are,” said Zephyr. “It’s a procedure of the operation to ensure that the Readers would not easily read their mind to get to me. The Council’s Legion is her since yesterday, ready to retrieve you,”
“So, the Legion is here to save me?” said Lilian with a hidden eagerness.
“In a way, yes,”
“So, I should run to them,” said Lilian bluntly.
“I won’t let you go for now,” said Zephyr determinedly, shaking his head.
Lilian was exhausted by the flood of information and the arguments so she decided to keep silent. She rested her head on the headrest of her seat. They had been on the road for an hour now, managing to pass two police roadblocks without much problem. Zephyr had their forged identity documents ready before the journey. She did not realise how far she had been brought away from her house last night.
She recalled the afternoon news she had seen on the television in her room a few hours ago. It was on the tragedy which had befallen her last night. There were conspiracy theories and assumptions on the incident which none were near the truth.
Now only she understood why her parents were so scared when they heard news of anyone being murdered caused specifically by poison. According to Zephyr, those murdered people were The Gifted Ones who had run away to seek security in this dimension but managed to be found by the Resistant who would not let those people ‘taint’ this world with their freak powers.
Lilian let her mind mused on the insanity of her fate. What was actually happening to her? What would happen to her?
“Those subordinates of yours don’t really like you, right?” the question suddenly blurted out from Lilian’s mouth. Zephyr snorted but did not really laugh.
“You can see it too?” said Zephyr without looking at her. “It’s a question of seniority. The commander who almost kills you is ten years older than me. What would you feel being under order of someone who is far younger than you?”
Somehow, Lillian understood him but did not realise that thought into words.
The sun was already setting on the west horizon, ebbing by the minutes. The east side of the sky was already sprinkled with twinkling stars against the dark blue backdrop. Streaks of white clouds hung above, drifting idly across the twilight sky.
As Zephyr drove on along the deserted road, Lilian felt like they were chasing the setting sun. They went passed the small town and Lilian saw the familiar cafe she had always go for sundaes.
When finally the starry black sky draped over the town, Zephyr came to a halt. They stopped just across Lilian’s house. There were not many people out on the street at that time, probably because they were still scared about the murder of Jeremy and Maria that they decided to lock themselves in at the hour.
“Come on,” urged Zephyr as he got out from the car. Lilian obeyed without much thought. She could see that the house had been surrounded with long yellow tape which read ‘Police Line Do Not Cross’ over and over again along the tape.
They crossed the street and entered the house through the back door after making sure that no one was looking. Lilian was not surprised when Zephyr had the key of the back door.
As Lilian stepped into the dark kitchen, she was instantly reminded of the fateful night. She shuddered.
“Pack whatever you want to bring in a backpack,” Zephyr instructed. “I’ll search other rooms,” he added, placing a flashlight in her hand.
“What do you want to search for?”
“Anything useful. Besides, your Guardian told you to find something, right? So, go find it,” said Zephyr before he ascended the staircase. As Lilian followed him up the staircase, she glimpsed the dark spot on the carpet in the living room which was actually the bloodstain from Jeremy and Maria’s blood. Two white outlines of where Jeremy and Maria’s bodies had been were visible.
Zephyr went into the master bedroom while Lilian went into her own room. She went straight to her wardrobe but stopped dead when she saw her satin lime green dress hanging outside the wardrobe.
She touched it.
At the moment, the satin felt so unreal under her fingers. She blinked mindlessly, staring at the dress before finally jerking opened the wardrobe and searched for comfortable attire to wear. She only packed two pieces of t-shirts and a pair of jeans.
As she turned to the rest of her bedroom, she noticed her favourite novel on the bedside. She packed ‘The Historian’ by Elizabeth Kostova into her backpack which instantly became heavier because of the book.
She zipped the backpack and carried it into Jeremy’s study. The dim moonlight provided a dull glow to the study room.
The study was still neat and arranged. Apart from the missing laptop which might have been taken away by the police for investigation purpose, everything else was still quite intact. There a few racks of Jeremy’s precious books which mostly were on anthropology. Now, everything seemed to make sense on why Jeremy loved to study anthropology so much. Was he curious about the difference of the people’s culture here?
Lilian pulled opened the drawers under the study desk one by one. All drawers had been emptied. She was left puzzled. The chest Jeremy had mentioned about must be here, she mused.
Lilian had switched on her flashlight to see things clearly but there was none. She had pulled out the drawer completely from its place and let them on the floor.
She randomly flashed the light from her flashlight around the study room. She slumped to the floor behind the study desk feeling frustrated. But then, she saw it. In the darkness of the drawer’s case, there was something gleaming when the light from her flashlight touched it.
She reached out her hand to feel it. It was made of wood and she felt the irregular shape of something like a stone, maybe a crystal attached to it. There were duct tapes which made it stick to the back of the drawer case. Lilian yanked the object out.
It was a medium-sized wooden chest, with an irregular shaped emerald attached to its cover. There was a hole in the middle of the emerald. Lilan ran her fingers over the crystal before finally realising that the hole was actually a small keyhole. She had to find the key.
Lilian placed the chest on the desk and gazed intently at Jeremy’s book collection. Sure enough, she found that there was one book which had been arranged not according to its category. Amidst a collection of Jeremy’s anthropology encyclopaedia on the tenth row of the book rack, there it was, a thin, innocent book of one of her favourite bedtime stories.
She quickly fetched a stool from the corner of the room and climbed on it to reach the tenth row of the book rack. She pulled out the ‘Hansel and Gretal’ book and flipped through its pages.
There, on the picture of the evil witch, Jeremy had taped a small key carved from emerald on the picture. Lilian carefully took the fragile-looking key out and tried it on the keyhole of the chest. It clicked opened.
Lilian switched on the desk lamp and the light poured onto the content of the chest. The inner part of the chest itself was lined with a piece of metal.
The contents looked messy. As told by Jeremy, there was a pouch in there, secured by a rope tied around it near the opening. Lilian did not check the content because she knew it was not hers. There was also a piece of small parchment, a letter from Jeremy, but Lilian did not want to read it now. There was also a journal which she flipped through quickly, revealing loads of Jeremy’s writing and pictures which she did not pay attention to. She placed it back in the chest.
Finally, there was a small wooden box. She opened it. There were two necklaces there, both were probably handmade. The first one had a thick black fabric chain attached with a carved locket made from wood, stones and shells while the other have thin gold chain attached with a single cloudy green moss agate.
She closed the box back and placed it gently into the chest, uninterested of any accessories for the moment.
Lilian closed the chest back. She slipped the emerald key into her pocket and switched off the desk lamp. She sighed and sat down on the chair. Her ear caught the sound made by Zephyr who was probably busy rummaging Maria’s wardrobe.
Lilian turned to look at the window. She could see the crescent moon, struggling to keep shining behind the clouds which drifted passed it now and then. Lilian got up and touched the window pane as if touching the moon.
*****
Zephyr pocketed a few objects he had found in the master bedroom. As he moved to the guest room, he felt something was amiss. The house was incredibly silent except for the sound of his own breaths.
He quickly checked Jeremy’s study where he last heard noises made by Lilian who had been searching the room. It was empty except for the empty drawers lied around the floor. Cold breeze caressed his face. He turned. The window was wide opened; the thin black curtains billowed by the night breeze.
-End of Chapter 7-
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