CHAPTER 6 --
The Next Transaction
In the morning when I woke up, I was on the couch, and the living room was full of police officers, with special detectives convoluting the scene of the murder. Going outside, there was an ambulance service and several police cars. Inside our lawn, I saw a police officer talking to my sisters; who were crying beyond consolation. I ran over to them and embraced them all. The whole while we kept thinking about how life had suddenly taken a 360 degrees turn for all of us. We all sat in the lawn, waiting till the detectives cleared our house. My mind was mute and I didn’t want to think. I wanted to breathe it all in first. Annie laid her head on my shoulder and would occasionally sniff. Joe, Roxanne and Delilah were all quiet by now, and I was in a complete catatonic state, as if in a trance. Then the officer told us about a relative who had come to pay her condolences…
‘A relative?’ I thought…and everyone began to slowly move away from our huddle to have a closer look at whoever the ‘alien’ person might be. For us, our family consisted of only mom, dad, and each other. We of course knew our family extended a little beyond our known perimeter, but were never told to indulge in on that fact, ever. We were soon about to know why. The ‘relative’ who walked up to us in the most unsympathetic demeanour was our Aunt Sora.
‘Oh my dear! You poor little darlings! Oh my God!’ She pretentiously ejaculated, standing mid-way in our lawn and gesticulated drama, by moving her hands occasionally to her mouth. None of us knew what the correct way of responding would be, so we just sat there on the grass, staring at her. She moved closer, and sat down in front of us, only getting up immediately and dusting the grass off of her black skirt, seconds later. She looked incredibly chic, too chic for an occasion where her sister was… … She wore a huge polka dotted hat that leaned forwards, covering half of her face, with big, rather, huge shades that hid the upper portion of her profile completely. The latter part had large sums of make-up pastried all over it, so a definitive glance of her features could not be observed. She then took out a red polka dotted handkerchief and pretended to blow her nose.
‘Um, excuse me but, who are you?’ Joe asked, since we had never been formally introduced. All my sisters turned towards her, and then back at the strange woman.
‘Oh, it’s me, your mother’s sister, Sora.’ She answered, not the least bit affected by our obliviousness. Fixing her hat, against the wind that began to blow fiercely, she added, ‘Now, does anybody know how exactly ‘the thing’ happened?’ Ending on a severe matter-of-fact way that irked me senseless.
‘Yes, Aunt Sora, our parents were murdered!’ I replied defiantly. I wanted to evoke some natural sympathy from her, but her persistent indifference made me resist any possible extractions of emotion, further.
‘Murdered? Oh!’ She moved her hand to her heart and faked panic, later fixing the glasses that shook due to her frenzy. ‘Anything else?’ She added calmly, and business-like.
‘Yes.’ I added, ‘The creature that murdered my parents…is now coming after us.’ This was the first time I had broken the news to my sisters as well.
‘CREATURE?’ Joe shrieked. ‘What do you mean by CREATURE? And US?’ She completely lost it.
‘Yeah Carr, none of us ever asked what the heck you were doing down there when our parents got stabbed. An interrogation was carried over you too, by the way. To see if you were the one behind it; only because you were found there.’ It seemed everything was springing out on the surface, as Delilah charged at me with this interesting piece of news.
At that point, I began to narrate exactly what happened, or at least, everything that I knew about. I also told them about the gypsy and her weird predictions earlier on. When I glanced towards Aunt Sora, her countenance had changed all of a sudden, as if the latter part of my discovery was…surprising.
‘This is all happening so fast!’ Joe broke out. This was a double-whammy for all of us. First, losing our parents, and now our home.
Annie and Roxanne stayed quiet, but their looks were moulded in the semblance of terror.
Aunt Sora, finally snapping out of the fixed, crooked stare she gave our grass, looked at me and asked seriously for the first time ever since her arrival, ‘What are you going to do now?’
Her voice made me shudder. I don’t know why. It was like enveloping me in an emergency of action. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked, solemnly, slowly.
‘I mean, if, as you mean to say, something is after you…all of you – instinctively glancing at Annie, ‘all of you must move away from this place. Somewhere you can be safe.’
‘There’s no time as well…if she’s coming for us, then it means we run risk of getting found tonight too, right?’ Joe asked me, apprehensively.
‘Our payments haven’t come in yet. Ricky won’t give us any advances. Till we can accumulate enough cash, we have to stay somewhere else.’ Delilah said, blackening the situation further.
All of us began to stare at each other’s faces, worried, until of all people, Annie asked, ‘Aunt Sora, why don’t we stay at your place, till we can make ends meet?’
Aunt Sora, illuminating all of a sudden, quickly answered, ‘With me? Oh no dear girls…my entire apartment is FULL of cats. Full of my precious little furry twenty-four cats. There’s just no way, they’d not mind you.’ She added unapologetically. ‘However, I know…this um, place that was my friend’s…is my friend’s, but she’s gone on holiday and is free. It’s a Manor.’
Ruminating, I added, ‘Why bother you so much? The girls and I can stay at my friend Tracy’s house. Not a problem.’
‘Oh but I insist! The place will be all to yourselves. Besides, would you still be comfortable residing inside a town where the witch…’
‘Gypsy.’ I corrected.
‘Err right, the um, gypsy, knows you live? Think about it. The Manor I’M telling you about is pretty far away from this place. It’s a journey of six hours from Alistan Town; you’ll be taking a train to a place that’s also half an hour away from it! No one will find you. Make your ends meet,’ looking at Annie, ‘or whatever you want to do. But for the time being, there is no better alternative than Holstridge Manor.’
‘Holstridge Manor? The name seems very familiar…’ I asked, but absolutely nothing ringed a bell.
‘I’m sure you must have read about it in your history books, darling!’ Aunt Sora replied with a toss of her head. ‘I would advice you to go there before it begins to get dark. That is my best intention for you girls. My and your Aunt Cora and Aunt Nora’s best intentions.’ She passed a thin smile that silently slid across her face.
‘Aunt Cora and Nora?’ Roxanne’s forehead projected ripples. Clearly nothing had monotone answers for us.
‘Yes, sweetums. Cora and Nora are my sisters…and your mother’s.’ She added dryly, that silenced us for a while.
Aunt Sora seemed to linger on with wanting us to go to the Manor. Roxanne and Delilah thought it considerate of her, while I, pessimistic as I still am, smelt something positively weird brewing. Joe was beyond distraught. Moving to Holstridge Manor meant a lot of things; saying goodbye to the life she knew and well loved at Alistan Town, the house she grew up in, dividing herself further from mom and dad’s burials and a place she had always aspired on attending, the Alistan Sports League University. Annie felt she needed the most protection – and she felt right too, for when she heard, the visit to the gypsy had direct implications to her dreams, it made her stomach writhe. She later told me how she had no such dream the night our parents got back, and felt more perplexed than ever, though had a sense of respite sweep over her none-the-less. Hurriedly, we all packed our immediate belongings and took off. The Alistan Train Station was to be our transport, and Aunt Sora had given us the instructions to the Manor, once we’d get off Marlowe Davis Station, at the west end of London.
Two people had come to drop us at the station: Aunt Sora and Ricky. Aunt Sora dropped us off at the station and bid us her goodbyes. Again, I was amazed at her, al
most, desperate interest in getting us onto that train uninterrupted. Ricky was Delilah’s 24-year-old boss, and an art major. He was adored by nearly every girl who came across him, for his tall height, scruffy hair, handsome face, and above all, bad-boy demeanor. But with Delilah, he was different. He insisted on helping her and offering any possible assistance, and would melt into cream on talking to her. He came all the way to our house and paid his condolences to us. So deeply affected and moved, he even asked Del, if she’d like any apartments he could rent out for her, but due to the abnormality of our situation, she politely had to decline. He drove us to the station, and told her to have no hesitation in contacting him in any time of danger or trouble. Ignorant Delilah had no idea, how much Ricky was in love with her.
She waved goodbye to him and boarded the train, with the rest of us. Seated, I felt this strange sense of loneliness. I felt as if we had entered the Rubicon, the gates had been sealed, and there was NO turning back. So, when the train started, not only was it goodbye life at Alistan Town, forever, but the welcome of a darker, sinister and more obscure road, that paved its way ahead of me.
-- CHAPTER 7 –
Destination Holstridge Manor