Smith got ready to get out of the car and she continued shortly.
“You should really see someone. I can set something up for you if you want to?”
She stopped and looked at him with a slight grin on her face. He kind of froze with his hand on the handle of the door and looked at the ground.
“Yes.” – he said calmly.
“You want me to set something up? Really?”
Her question followed very fast, strangely fast, like she was waiting for that answer. Smith’s answer followed:
“I hope I see her soon.”
He got out of the car with his dog and went straight for the house on the side of the road, a little further into the woods. Her forced grin disappeared instantly as she got out of the car. But before doing that, she got back in and wrote something in the diary. The previous note was about 4 days ago, on June 5
, when she found the tape. It shortly said:
‘August 19
I hope I’ll see you on your day, Margo.’
The tape slid into her hand from the bag. Silent glare of hers slid on the surface of it, analyzing.
“I’m waiting!” – Smith hollered standing near the house.
She put it all down and kissed the picture of two kids before getting out.
‘They thought they could hide everything.’
The backyard of the house was surrounded by tall trees that could withstand any weather judging by how they looked; Atlas met and started running laps around her. As she looked up 10 steps away from the stairs to the front door, Josephine noticed beige half-destroyed walls, the front side was colored in cardinal red but the paint on the wood went away as the house was built a long time ago. Not thinking anything at that moment, she in trance like state went into the house; Smith was already nowhere to be found in the house. A scream came out of her as he was roaming the house:
“Hey, Smith, what’s this place? It’s kind of nice.”
She walked to the second floor and saw him in the room right by the staircase. The door was wide open as Josephine entered, putting her hand on the door, and saw Smith on his knees.
“What… what is this?!” – she said walking closer and looking at something lying right before Smith, which totally consumed his attention.
…
“Aviation is a big part of my life, Charlie.”
“Look where it brought you, you know too much.”
“Stop it, let me handle this information.”
“It’s bigger than you, Margo.”
Menny welcomes acts of betrayal, the forest is left without God. It’s forbidden. Will he punish those who dare to go against him?
…
Chapter 6
Schizophrenia of reality.
“You want to explain what this is?!”
A chill ran down her spine looking at a big swamp of feathers which resided before Smith, so much so that it was bigger and taller than him staring at it on his knees.
“Remember what I told you? It’s enough to understand.” – he said with a monotone voice.
“They… they kept her hostage?”
Atlas started howling louder and Smith stood up, saying:
“Let’s get going, I saw everything I needed to see. I have mixed feelings about this place.”
Seeing he was not very responsive, she just walked out of the room after him, without saying anything.
“So, it’s all true?” – she said to herself.
…
“You’re telling me she has wings?”
They were sitting by the water at the bay. The weather was calm without any waves in the sea. A slight wind picked up his black hair and wiggled it around.
“Yeah, I know. It’s not easy to believe in.” – Smith answered, leaning at the end towards Josephine; she chuckled.
“Yes, of course, how am I supposed to believe you?”
“Do you believe me though?” – Smith said and looked in the distance, above the calm sea. But when he turned back and looked at her, she was staring at the ground, silently.
“Yes,” – Josephine answered calmly and confidently. – “I do believe you if you say that that’s true.”
Smith smiled while his arm moved and gently landed on her shoulder. They looked at each other and smiled, looking away shortly after. The Sun looked out once again from behind the clouds blessing Atlas with the light who jumped on the bench and sat down beside his loyal friend.
“You know,” – she turned and spoke. – “I’ve known and heard about things like this when I was a child.”
“Well, we all hear about these things when we are children, don’t we?”
“It’s different. Let me explain – my mom went into a forest once with her uncle, to just walk around. I was twelve at the time, that was the last time I saw her. My uncle would never do anything to her, he loved her, so I didn’t even think about him. He said that he looked away for a second while they were talking or went to pee, I don’t really remember, but when he looked back, a big creature was dragging her into the forest and she could not scream even though she was looking at him.” – she kept talking as the weather got a little colder, it was getting late. – “He screamed her name, but the creature was already far away, and my uncle froze at one place because of shock. So since then, there were so many stories about that creature in town, that I was in a way relieved.”
Her last words took him by surprise.
“Relieved?” – he questioned.
“Yes. At least my Mom wasn’t alone at the place where she went.”
Silence emerged. Atlas started sadly howling and went over to her, to comfort her by rubbing his head on her arm.
“I’m sorry about your loss, I never knew that.”
“Thank you. It’s nothing anymore, I got over it, you know. Learned how to move on.” – she said and smiled, looking at him while petting Atlas. – “Let’s go, it’s getting darker.” – she continued shortly after. The wind got stronger as they walked away, and a gloomy afternoon fell upon the streets.
…
The sixth day
A big crowd gathered inside the walls of the church once again, leaning on the dark brown wooden chairs. Only kids ruined the solitude from time to time, deviating, as kids do, but were brought back to the norm by the elders. Isaac climbed up the stairs to the stage, the floor’s creaking revealed his location. The room was almost full – even more people came in comparison with the first day. But this time journalists and people with cameras broadcasting also stood by the stage.
“Hello, dear friends.” – his voice sounded with almost zero enthusiasm, with glimpses of it at some points of with starting or ending the sentence. – “Today is officially the sixth day,” – he took a pause once again and someone could be heard blowing their nose in the last row. Some people turned to look at him or just simply turned their heads to the left or right as he proceeded to talk. – “We are so interested in this search, that we got just kind of isolated in the forest.”
Smith observed his face and was speechless when he saw that Isaac was crying. He pulled himself together eventually and continued:
“And… I start to lose faith because we can’t make any progress.”
“Well, not the best words to say at church.” – Smith said to himself. Josephine turned and looked at him, commenting:
“Yeah, right.”
She turned her head back to the stage, leaving him in shock about how she knew what he said in his head.
“But we won’t give up. We still have time and I’m sure some people here will spend their own time in the future to search for her because they’re so involved.” – Isaac proceeded. But no one in the church seemed to pay attention, they were involved in different things and collectively gathered themselves to clap while he was walking to get off the stage; Smith took off. As Isaac wanted to walk in the room behind the stage, he slowly tapped on his shoulder.
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