Dyvina Sollena - Black Blood

It was a bold hypothesis and perhaps it didn't even make much sense, but I had learned not to take anything for granted and to evaluate every possibility.

«Hard to think. Claire disappeared ten days before Rose», he replied in a whisper.

I couldn't blame him; his reasoning was correct.

«Maybe she reached her. Rose may have disagreed and then changed her mind at a later time.»

«I would love to believe your words, Reb. The hope that my daughter is still alive would not be in vain, but sadly, we are preparing for the worst», he said, drinking half of the water contained in his glass.

«I find it really strange that nothing has been discovered yet. Hazycreek is a small town, how is it possible to disappear without leaving traces?» I considered, reflecting aloud.

«It happens sometimes. More or less every ten years.»

A hard sentence that redundant in my head like an echo.

I was seventeen when three girls mysteriously disappeared into nothing. Even then I couldn't understand it, I had kept the newspaper clippings that reported the news in a locked box.

It could have been a trail.

I vibrated with excitement thinking I was close to a turning point. I could aim high, write a shocking article that would lead me to success. I wanted to fulfil myself in journalism, the ambition was great and now I could show everyone what I was really made of.

I thought about going to my old house and look for those items. I had left them there, I just hoped to find them in their place.

Why haven't I thought about it?

I reflected silently, amazed by how everything seemed to me closer.

«I didn't remember. Do you believe this could mean something?»

«Who knows, people here believe in strange beings, looking like persons. And the punctuality with which these disappearances occur, suggests something malignant. Hazycreek is superstitious, Reb. Look at my sister Mary, exiled from the city, mocked and disgusted by the people of this town. She is considered crazy, just because she is different. We no longer know what to think.»

Frank let out a flood of words difficult to pronounce, there was despair in his voice, resignation and sadness.

Mary Weather was Hazycreek's “freak”, she was considered by everyone a mad visionary with schizophrenia.

She was convinced she could talk to the dead.

She babbled about future predictions, painful events, and sometimes her ramblings were not even understood.

I knew that she had been interned for a long time in a center for mental illness and that she had come back to her senses, but it seemed not to be the case.

«Did Mary express any thought about it?» I dared asking.

Frank clearly needed to let off steam and maybe he wouldn't hesitate to confess some little secrets.

Was I sneaky?

Maybe, but that was my job and I loved it despite the downsides.

Since I was a little girl, I used to play the journalist, I loved investigating, solving mysteries and bringing out little secrets.

In high school, when a rumor was born, I had to go to the bottom, understand what was true to confirm or deny it. Then I reported everything in the school newspaper, my friends were waiting for nothing else but reading my articles.

I thought it was my calling and, in the end, I made it a profession.

«Yes, of course she did. I have never abandoned my sister.»

«Did she speak with... Rose?»

Mr. Weather stared at me for very long moments, I had exaggerated, but I was convinced that in life you had to take risks, sometimes it was better to throw yourself without thinking too much.

I looked forward to his response.

«Reb, my sister is mentally ill, she has always been since childhood. Mary claims that Rose and Claire are still alive and that they were taken by the Thirsty».

I didn't sleep that night.

I had the constant feeling of being close to something disconcerting.

An idea perhaps, a suspicion that was anchored in me, feeding my desire to keep searching.

Maybe mine was just hope because, let's face it, Hazycreek was boring.

It was the first time that the city's balance was altered to the point of being perceived in the air.

Something was really happening, that feeling was standing still in the pit of my stomach taking on more and more consistency.

Chapter 5

Rebecca

The next day I convinced Hanna to come along with me, to scour Elinor and Bryan Cross’ house. My parents.

When they weren’t there, I was just visiting to water the forest of plants they had. My mother had a green thumb, she loved flowers.

So, while they were traveling on their research missions, I took care of that home garden with meticulous attention.

Entering Cross' house meant entering a high-tech laboratory full of plants. A Victorian-style villa that inside was transformed into a spaceship, futuristic and super modern even in its furnishings.

My parents were two Cambridge-graduated researchers with a Biological Science degree.

Dr. Elinor Cross was a molecular biologist and Dr. Bryan Cross specialized in medical, veterinary and pharmaceutical biotechnology.

Their work was never really clear to me, they spent whole days in the laboratory or traveling in search of any subject to study.

They rarely talked about it and I never asked.

It had always been like that and with time I learned to accept their secrets.

They said they couldn't share certain information, so I made up my mind even if it brought a certain detachment between us.

They loved me and I loved them, I had never questioned this, but those small shortcomings had an effect on me, making me grow quickly and alone.

«What are we precisely searching for?» Hanna asked me right entering the house's door.

I hurried to open a few windows, letting in some light and having the air circulating. I stopped to smell a white orchid, gently caressing its white petals.

It was my favorite flower.

«Do you remember my old casket where I was hiding my diary?» I retorted, asking her to follow me upstairs.

She obeyed.

We walked through the large entrance, completely white from floor to ceiling. To break that glow, a black carpet on the right traced the way to the stairs.

We walked along it until we reached the forty-three steps that would have led us to the sleeping area of the house.

My room was the only part being a little more human and less alien.

I was hoping that everything was unchanged. I perfectly remembered hiding the clippings of old newspapers in what as a child was a magical casket for me, where I kept a few objects inside, linked to some precious memories.

I had kept the articles about those disappearances from high school for no particular reason, I never thought they would come in handy ten years later.

We went into my room and turned on the light.

Everything was unchanged, as if time had stopped six years ago, when I had moved to live with Hanna.

I observed the environment: the bed was placed on the right wall facing the sun while the wardrobe and the dresser occupied the side wall. On the opposite side where my bookcase and desk.

I dived in the past, seeing myself bending over it, absorbed in writing my first articles for the school's journal.

They were good memories, the beginning of everything.

Every piece of furniture was smeared with sentences of mine. I had covered the surfaces with simple blue ink pens, a job that lasted years.

Thoughts, fleeting moments that crossed my mind, sometimes simple words without any sense, only the moment I grabbed and then wrote clearly in the wood.

I went near the desk and touched those tangled marks with my fingertips. A puzzle for anyone but it all seemed perfectly clear to me.

My attention was captured by one particular sentence, I had written it in italics along the right edge of the desk.