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Chapter 7

The video kept playing in the dark room and her face was still hidden in the dark. Slowly but surely, it started getting brighter and brighter and Josephine got herself to be more comfortable. In the moment of reveal, suddenly a knock could be heard on the door. Stopping the video, she turned around to look, but the window was covered with blinds and in silence only the cat snoring in the other room could be heard. Standing up slowly she went to the door but stepping closer she stopped and turned to check the blinds on the left first. Josephine put them up slowly, as far as possible from the door and as the outside revealed itself – the only thing that could be seen was the empty porch under the dark sky. She got closer to the window and started looking around more broadly and seeing something in her peripheral to the left, she jumped up in shock – but it was just a leaf carried away fast by the wind. Sighing in relief, she closed the window and went back to the couch, pressing the button to resume the video. It kept playing and a bright white screen made her eyes appear in the dark – her curious, wide opened eyes. Someone behind the camera was filming a family – to be more concise, two kids in the courtyard, playing with each other sitting on the grass.

“Mary?! Daren?!” – Josephine said under her breath, quietly. She stood up and went to the shelf – to the photos of Mary and Daren who previously were in the video. Josephine collapsed on the ground.

“WHO ARE YOU?! HOW DID YOU FIND THIS VIDEO?!” – she screamed throughout the whole house.

A loud bang sounded on the door and this time she didn’t pay attention, closing her ears with tears fresh on her face. But she couldn’t escape the sound of the banging as it kept intensifying, getting louder and more repetitive. Tired of it, she stood up and left photos on the ground, pacing towards the door. Her face took a different shape as she opened it and saw the picture outside – it was empty. Looking to the right and left, she didn’t see anyone.

“Is everything good?” – someone asked on the left and as Josephine looked, it was a group of neighbors walking around the neighborhood. A woman with a baby carriage proceeded not hearing anything back – “Darling?!”

“Yes, yes. Everything’s fine,” – she answered, distraught. – “Just heard a knock on the door.”

A woman suddenly had a comforting smile on her face hearing her answer.

“It happens, darling. Don’t tire yourself out, get your sleep.” Correcting her hair and slowly coming back to her feelings, Josephine answered before walking inside:

“You’re right, I’m just tired. Thank you.” A woman smiled at her once again. Walking inside and closing the door, she made sure that the door and the blinds were locked and put her head on the door, totally lost. She walked to her phone and picked it up from the bed drawer, putting in a number. The ringing stopped.

“Hey, Jacob. Have a minute?”

“Oh, hey, Josey. Why would you call me this late? The kids are sleeping.”

“I’m sorry, it probably wasn’t the best idea. I’m just…” – she said and stopped before finishing.

“You’re just what? Is everything fine?”

“Never mind, you’re right, it’s late. We’ll talk another time.”

“No, it’s alright. You’ve already called, so you might as well say it.”

He chuckled in a friendly manner as Josephine proceeded:

“I don’t know. I found this videotape outside of my door and I watched it to see what’s in it.”

After a moment of silence, he asked:

“Are you in your apartment right now?”

“No… I’m taking part in this search.”

“Josey…” – he uttered disappointed.

“Yes.” – she paused, waiting for him to say something but he didn’t. – “He just asked me to help him out. This VHS tape shows a video of our kids playing in the backyard of our old house. Remember the one on the Lane street?”

“What?! Who filmed it?” – he asked with a slightly confused and monotone voice.

“I don’t know, let me watch it again. I think I saw someone’s hand in the video.”

The silence ensued as she put the video again as skipped to the part where she remembered briefly seeing a hand. Suddenly her eyes widened as she realized:

“I didn’t put the sound on! Hold on.”

Slowly increasing the volume, laughter and chatter echoed throughout the room more and more. The color drained out of her face, shock took over her, like electricity from the whole town was put through her body, she couldn’t open her mouth. Hearing the video too, he asked:

“Is that… Is that your voice?”

Looking at the screen, she saw a hand – a female hand with red nails and a golden ring on the finger – the ring seemed familiar. She quietly uttered couple of words:

“Yes, it’s me.” – taking a short pause. – “But what does all of this mean?!”

He didn’t answer this time either.

“Jacob?!” – she stated, aghast.

“You know what it means. Don’t pull our kids and me into this and don’t call me again, I’ll look after them. Bye.”

Before she even came up with something to say, Jacob ended the call leaving her with the annoying sound of the phone ring.

…

‘Why are you so calm, Margo?’

The sky is cloudy as it’s shown through the kitchen window and every top drawer inside of the kitchen is orange and red.

“You’re enjoying your meal, Margo?” – a deep male voice utters and gets her attention from the drawers to his big bald head, sticking out of the table with other parts comparatively smaller as he’s slurping the soup. She looks down at her portion – a medium plate with green soup in it, looking right into her soul. Big chunks of bread were calmly swimming on top with small portions of beef. Also looking down she sees her newly washed white dress.

“That bread is there to make it tastier and faster to eat.” – he says seeing her stare the soup, without much amusement on her face. The woman sitting to her right is also eating. She puts her hand on Margaret’s shoulder and is inviting a strange feeling.

“Why does it feel so familiar?” – she thinks to herself.

“Eat, dear.” – she stated, taking her hand off a minute after saying it with a raspy voice. She seems quite fit as Margaret glances over – evenly proportioned and well looked after and even though she seems in her 40’s she could very successfully pass as a 25-year-old. Almost doesn’t look real with her hair – perfect blonde, not a noticeable deviation towards black. Margo picks up the spoon and starts eating afterwards, forcing a smile on her face. She looks once again into the window that only has the view of the sky – her smile disappears as she’s just watching clouds move into the distance.

“How great, no one’s forcing you to into any direction or the other. You just go.” – Margaret says and her eyes squint as she realizes. – “Well, the wind tells you where to go, but it’s more of a cooperation.”

She puts the spoon down and picks up her arms to put them on the table, leaning forward towards the window, not looking away from the sky. They both notice her and without saying anything, return to what they were doing – he keeps violently slurping while almost using soup as a snack for bread while it should be reversed. She’s eating green soup with mashed potatoes on the side and even if you put your ear to it, you could not hear anything.

…

“What about your supporters?!”

“They would have to forgive me at first but will thank me later.”

“Ok…”

…

Agitation of the crowd

The car turned off after Smith just parked it in the parking spot near the building. He rushed to leave the car to see what was going on, but before doing that, he turned his head to the right, where his dog was sitting and said:

“Come, Atlas. Let’s see what’s going on there.”

Opening the door, Atlas jumped out and Smith, standing outside, after seeing about 100-200 people outside standing in the entrance of the city, he put the files that he held in his hand in the car and closed the door.

“Wow.” – he said quietly under his breath, but his monotone voice made it a little louder.

People standing in the crowd were mostly female – about 65-70% and were screaming together in unison:

‘JUSTICE FOR MARGO!’

‘JUSTICE FOR MARGO!’

One of the posters stated:

‘FIND HER OR WE’LL TAKE THE MATTER IN OUR HANDS.’

“They’re some die-hard fans, I’ll tell you that.” – stated a man, who appeared from behind. Smith turned his head in a little bit of a shock after being fully emerged in watching this grouping and the person standing before him was the leader himself – Isaac.

“Oh, it’s you.” – Smith said and immediately left with the dog walking right beside him.

He kept looking at him walking away and eventually just shrug his shoulders while Smith was far in the distance. Isaac walked towards the group and put his inviting and ‘happy-to-see-you’ smile on.

“What is this trailer?” – Smith asked himself out loud.

Trees sway side-to-side as the wind approached and played with Smith’s brown hair. Coming near it, Smith stopped for a second turned around and pressed the button on the car key to make sure that it’s locked. Seeing the yellow-orange lights of the car turn off, he turned around and went over to the trailer. Climbing the stairs that were built for it – especially for the trailer, he looked at them carefully before stepping and saw a person’s head move out of the sight from the small window to the right. He looked behind him and saw just a couple of people walking and most of them, as he looked to the left, were going to the gathering, to see what’s going on. The trailer was standing before the big part of the field covered in bushes and couple of trees, but bushes were so tall that even climbing on top of the staircase he couldn’t see the group.

“Well, it doesn’t help that I’m not that tall.” – Smith thought to himself.

He looked at Atlas who was waiting for him to approach the door, or he just thought so – the dog was just looking at him and sometimes at the door. Facing the door and coming closer to it while the wind was at times violently pushing him to the left, he eventually knocked on the door.

“Whose trailer is it? Is it just press? Why am I knocking then? That’s so stupid of me. Or maybe is just security they sent to protect the houses when people go on the search.” – he thought anxiously to the door, waiting for an answer. No getting any reaction from the inside, he raised his hand covered with a bandage and put it towards the door to knock again when it opened quickly and quietly, so Smith looking away reached and almost started knocking on the person’s face standing in front of him and only Atlas quietly howling made him turn his head. Looking at the person in front of him, he slightly blushed out of embarrassment – a woman in her 30’s with an unfazed face stood before him, she was of an African descent. As Smith wanted to say something and was figuring out what, he felt a constant daunting pressure from her stare, but he considered himself a man’s man, so he tried to play it off and not notice it while noticing it even more at the same time. He put his head up and said:

“Good day, umm, I’m sorry for knocking almost… forget about it, I’m Smith… Smith Harper.” – he said and proceeded to stretch his hand in a way that would propose a strong firm handshake. Looking at his hand she stretched hers and gave him a firm one, which changed his face a bit.

“Well, I kind of saved this from becoming a” – he thought to himself quickly.

“My name is Feline – Feline Marcel. A newly signed detective on this case. You guys made a lot of noise out here.” – she said, while looking around.

As Smith looked at her, he noticed her black hair staying firmly and organized on her head, without any detail out of place and her uniform – blue colored t-shirt of some police department.

“Why are you looking me up and down? I know I got a great figure but be a little respectful please.” – Feline said with very calm, almost robotic voice.

Smith raised his eyes and started right into hers, with blush coming back.

“Oh, I’m sorry, was just assessing what kind of a person you are. I’m really sorry.” – he said and stared into the ground. Noticing it, a tiniest smile formed on her face which was wiped immediately so that he couldn’t see it.

“Nice to meet you, Smith Harper. Don’t do that again.” – she said and give a warm smile. – “See you soon!”

“See you.” – he said and turned around as the door closed behind him. Atlas slightly howled and looked at him as Smith commented. – “Yeah, I know buddy, I had better social interactions, trust me.”

Atlas ran forward to couple of people standing near the group – Josephine was there.

…

The realization that the balcony was way bigger than she expected or even realized made her experience more amusing for a split second. Margaret walked to the left side of the balcony – one that’s closer to the sea and its waves dancing near the shore and the cold wind reminding her of spring. Grasping it and taking it all in for solid 10 minutes, she turned her head around and looked inside to see if someone’s there and not seeing anyone Margaret snuck to the right side of the balcony and at the end of a guardrail greatly hid under the roof, she slowly pushed a coin. In a way that it was not in the reaching of a wandering eye, but also in a way that the eye searching for it would find it easily. She stood there, turning her body towards the sea, and looking onto the horizon after which tapped in a calm manner on the foundation of the guardrail and went back in. As she stepped in, a voice echoed throughout the room:

“Did you sleep well, my highness?”

It is a deep voice, his voice.

“Would you stop calling me that, Gilbert? What’s wrong with you?”

“It’s her orders, my highness. Can’t do anything about it, my highness.”

She shrugged her shoulders after staring at him for some time. Her face was still like a rock as she went down the small stairs far away from the room; the cement of sand color was destroyed in some parts while some parts of the floor were covered in dust that came off the walls. She went down on the bottom floor and opened the dark red door in a weirdly cold hall to go outside – it was bright; the sea on the right side calmly went back-and-forth and the sand covered halfway to their house, almost all of it until their house’s territory’s wall stopped the Saharan paradise from moving further and instead territory was a dream of a biophile – color green dominated the whole territory inside even the brown newly colored bench had plants climbing on top grabbing to its legs. Margaret stood there with her hair standing still as there was no wind and her corset hardly showing under her zip-up jacket. She was looking at the sea for a while, it might not have even been acknowledged by her as she sat down on the bench with that same look – an inexplicable uneasiness with a sprinkle of curiosity. Seeing people in the distance walking by the sea brought her attention – they were walking, at times jogging along the empty beach and strangely both were wearing red clothes – one of them had only red stripes on her white clothes. Grinning from ear to ear and walking in the distance, suddenly they both developed wings – one of them grey, the other white with grey undertones – gracefully flew into the sky as Margaret was following them with her eyes. There were no other birds in the sky, only very far away.

“Can I sit here?” – a female voice softly sounded on her left. Margaret turned around and it was her – one with perfect blonde hair. Margo nodded her hair and she sat beside her. She softly put her hair back and sat down with attentiveness looking at the bench for any dirt.

“How is your day going, Margaret?” – she asked, sighing in the middle of her question.

“The sea is beautiful.” – Margo stated, looking at her after finishing.

She looked at the sea and chuckled:

“So, you don’t want to stay?” – she asked and paused continuing after. – “You don’t want to help me?”

The sun was beaming and waves slowly nearing the shore, forming right there. A light warm summer wind brought whiff of the sea to the house as it was getting hotter and hotter.

“No.”

Her decision was announced. It was as confident and strong as it could be. Margaret smiled and turned to the sea – her hair was all over the place because of the wind that picked up this moment. A woman turned too and the smile on her face didn’t go away even though it changed for a second.