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Chapter 4
‘Margaret is alive?’
The bright balcony at the seaside was lit in a very moody way; Limned by the Sun someone’s figure appeared like a shadow in the room. The beach full of people was in action before the still picture of this room not that far away from it and only the journal pages with the pen scrubbing on its surface passionately could be heard which disturbed the beautiful silence of the room, but with a purpose.
“Summer’s coming.” – she said and looked out the window after writing the last word in the diary:
‘Amen.’
Sounds reached the room from downstairs – steps, heavy steps. She took the diary and instantly put it in the crack between wooden flooring. Steps now could be heard clearer with the floor creaking, intensifying the suspense, but deciding to take her time she opened it once again, writing something in a rush.
…
“Listen, I’ll send you my help to find that diary, ok?”
“What? What do you mean ‘I’ll send you my help’? Can’t you clarify?”
“I need to go, Charlie, I’m in a hurry. You’ll find my guardian where my diary is in the room, ok?”
Margaret fleet in the distance, leaving him with no time to say anything.
“Margo! Damn you! Always doing it your own way.”
…
The door to the room bathing in sunlight opened and a man walked in.
“Good day, Ms. Margaret. The food is ready, we’re waiting.”
A tall figure stood in the doorway, halfway in. His deep voice broke the silence and solitude and was continued by him uncomfortably staring at the ground.
“You two can wait.” – she said and sat back down. He glanced at her once again and closed the door.
…
Atlas was running through the open field – a new part of the forest was discovered by the group.
“Hey, look!” – a little girl screamed; The sky was totally occupied by the birds.
“Something’s not right here.” – Isaac stated standing by Smith. He was in his 40’s but looked younger.
“What is it?” – Smith asked.
“Birds… They do not fly south this time of the year, something is happening.”
…
A sad tale of the birds
The sky caught her attention. Birds, freely flying, brought her to walk to the window near the balcony – the window was almost as big as the door leading to it.
“Wow.” – she said quietly. The Sun, standing near the horizon, was ready to disappear into the unknown, to be substituted by its grey sister. Mesmerized by their dance she unconsciously started imitating them, walking to the balcony, and flipping her hands desperately. Wings slowly started showing through her skin and feathers around it started forming – beige feathers with brown spots. They rapidly formed leaving even Margaret in shock, but it stopped as the metal corset which appeared to be around her back held it in place. And as she looked back at the sky, in despair – the birds were in the distance, not recognizing her existence even slightly anymore, heading right to the south.
“Why, God…” – her mouth uttered, shaking from frustration with head dropping low under the moody evening sky colored in dark blue tones.
Chapter 5
A sad smile appeared on his face as he was looking out of the car window, at the sea standing motionless and the horizon above it; owls were hooting nearby.
“Everything’s good, Atlas, don’t worry. Just going to be in there for 15-20 minutes and we’ll come back.”
“Come on, Josey. Where are you at?!” – he thought to himself.
A car came closer on the left side, colored in the orange colors of the Sun. It was Josephine, looking at him, smiling. She rolled down her window and Smith rolled it down simultaneously.
“Hey. How’re you doing? Let’s check it out, don’t really have a lot of time today, got to go to the cinema.” – she said loudly.
“Cinema? What are you, in your teens?”
“Just on a date. I think it’s quite cute, you don’t think so?”
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 5th, when she found the tape. It shortly said:
‘August 19th
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.
“Good day, Isaac. I appreciate your honesty and will to find her, I really do.” – he said as a man with slight wrinkles on his forehead who cried just 2 minutes before turned around weirdly fast and stared at him.
“Oh, I appreciate you for your kind words.” – Isaac answered with an amiable smile suddenly appearing on his face.
Smith looked in his face as there was not really sadness in his face but kind of joy.
“Are you holding up good?”
Smith caught himself in his thoughts as he was just staring at him for a minute.
“Yeah, yeah. I just wanted to thank you.”
Smith backed away. Turning around, Isaac said to the guy waiting for him with a tablet in his hands:
“The north-west side of the forest is fully observed, we’ll move to the central sides. Ask for permission from the officials.”
“Why is his face so straight like it wasn’t him crying 10 minutes ago?” – he thought to himself as Isaac walked past him with the calmest face he’d seen.
He walked back to the main door to exit the building as Josephine met him halfway with a family. As Smith looked over – there stood a husband and a wife with a kid of somewhere 12 years old.
“Hey, Jeffersons just wanted to show their support for what you’re going through.”
Wife had blonde hair with dark patches in some places and her husband was a little taller, about 5’10. The husband had dark hair with a lot of dandruffs as Smith weirdly recognized. He saw that she was standing with a cake in her hands, reaching to give it for a moment and quickly grabbed it so it wouldn’t be weird.
“Thank you.” – he uttered and walked away not indulging in a conversation, leaving Josephine blushing and seemingly embarrassed. She briefly apologized and ran to him.
“What is wrong with you?!” – she exclaimed.
“What?! I said thanks!”
“Really? You couldn’t have said more?!”
“Look, what do you even want from me, huh?! Did I ask for your help to find Margo, or DID I EVEN ASK FOR YOUR FUCKING EMPATHY?!” – Smith snapped.
Josephine stood lost for words, moving slightly over to let people exit as the meeting was over. He was distraught.
“Wow…” – she answered quietly. Grabbing her forehead, she walked away.
“Fuck!” – he said to himself, before exiting the building with the cake.
…
‘The first warning’
It was raining outside as Josephine was looking through the front window of her house in the temporarily built neighborhood. Not one other house could be seen by her from the window, because her house was on the front and was facing the main road. A stolid expression covered her face, some might say vacant as she was fully covered by a long warm blue blanket with white stripes that her grandfather bought her as a present for her graduating and getting a master’s degree in criminology. A phone on the bed cupboard was ringing as she was staring into the dark blue sky of the sad afternoon; she stood up, putting the blanket down – Josephine was wearing a white tee and was very skinny with quite long and smooth legs that were exposed because of the grey shorts. Looking at the phone ringing, she turned it upside down and went over to the couch.
“Fuck off, Smith.” – she stated while looking at the table in front of the TV and grabbing the tape.
“Well, you proved to be useful still.” – Josephine thought to herself as she put the tape in and walked back to sit on the couch.
The room got very dark as she refused to turn on the lights and the TV started playing the video. A dark image with white random dots all over it appeared on the screen.
…
“They’ll get all of your friends, relatives and ANYONE who’s associated with you, DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND?”
“Will they get mine and MY PEOPLE’S freedom?!”
“I’m… sorry that you don’t get it, Margo…”
“Oh, I DO! BELIEVE ME!”
…
