Chapter 148 - TAKING CHARGE

"So, this is your room. You will be staying here, at least till we've found out who is after your sanity and life." Melvina said, opening a door which led to airy interiors of a beautiful room, as she held on Emma's backpack with her left hand, glad that the human had followed them voluntarily, without protesting.

"I thought I would have been staying with Maya in her room.." Emma implied, walking into the room and looking the room. The room was the same as the others, or well Maya's, since her friend's room was the only one she had been in since her stay here, that and the hospital room. The room was neither large or small, just tethering in the middle, with its deep blue washed walls and peachy dots. It was just like mixing a male favorite and a femaley; blue and peach. 

She wondered if there was a belief behind that. She also wondered if Derek's room would have the same wall paints. She would have to visit it later. It reminded her that she hadn't really known where Maya and he had gone to. The only thing Eva had mentioned was that they had gone out. She hadn't also gotten around to asking Anthony about it, since her had mind had been crowded with a lot of thoughts through the drive to her place, especially the events of the previous night, and her life had been berserked with another round of saga when she had finally gotten to her place. She had thought that they had gone for a small errand or something. It was almost twelve noon, and she hadn't seen either of them.

"I had thought so too..at first.." Melvina was saying, breaking into her thoughts. 

"But then I thought that you would prefer your own space. And if you ever need some company, her room is close to yours." She concluded, earning an aloof nod from Emma. The girl was thinking, perhaps calculating, but was also listening to her. And her next reply confirmed it.

"That's very considerate of you. Thanks Melvina. I really appreciate." She stated, with a small smile at the latter, before taking her eyes around the room.

"I like it." She added, racing back her eyes to Melvina.

"I'm glad you do." Melvina mentioned. "Just take a deep breath, and settle in. Everything would be fine. And if you need anything, you know where to find me." She said, with a small smile of her own, before turning around, and leaving the room bereft of her presence.

Emma flung herself on the medium sized bed immediately Melvina left, letting out a deep sigh. She needed normalty. She needed her life back. Things were spinning out of control. And she hated it. She hated not being in control of her life. She had known that being shipped off to England had removed some reins of control off her hand, but when she had settled her in her new house, she had thought that she had gotten things in control again. She had started school, and had even gotten a work. She had even gotten a boyfriend. And then things went spiral. 

She now had a cause to believe in witches, and for some reason, is being threatened by some macho bastards, psychoish enough to leave butchered animals, ghastly butchered animals in her refrigerator, and now she had lost her house, temporary or not.

"Did I perhaps offend the gods?" She spoke out loud, anger coursing in her veins, as she thought again and again on why her life was going out of her control. She hadn't planned her life in England to go this way. No, she had planned a lot of house parties, tours with her new friends, adventures. Oh she had really planned a lot, wanting to bask under the freedom that her father given her. 

She knew that her father must have thought that bringing her here would humble her and tame her wildness, well the humility had threatened to rear its head over her, but she knew that she would have resisted it. She had drafted out so many plans in her mind, that hadn't included laying low or bemoaning her lonely fate outside the confines of family.

Getting out sharply from the bed with stark white bedsheets, she trudged towards the location in the room where she had kept her bags. She had packed two backpacks, having a feeling that she might stay here for a while.

She opened a side section of the bag, and picked out her diary and a pen. She needed to write. She needed to throw out some pent up feelings. Writing always seemed to make it easier for her, to loosen some of the emotional burden on her.

And so, after trudging back to the bed and sitting on it with her one leg tucked underneath the other, she picked up her pen and started writing succinctly in her diary, sometimes mumbling the words as she wrote.

She wrote on her first day in the county, about the dreadful house, and the rude cleaner who had later turned out to be a son to the governess of the county, whom she had first meet while on a stroll.

She wrote about her first day in college, and then her first day at work, not forgetting to write about the siblings which she had met on the driveway, one of whom had turned to be her best friend.

She wrote about Derek. His possessiveness and raw jealousy, of course his romantic skills. She giggled, a smile creeping on her lips intermittently, as she wrote about the first time they had kissed, and the shabby introductions she had made about him to her sister, about the kisses and the touches here and there, especially whenever he saw Clem watching.

Then her face tightened unknowingly to her, as she wrote about the party, when he had cheated on her under the influence of drugs, as she wrote about the next day when she had gone off to see him, how he was holding up after looking distraught over his act of betrayal the previous night, under the pretense of seeking Melvina, and then she wrote about the forest and the phanthom.

Her face squeezed and her heart boiled with fury and confusion as she wrote about the lies they had told her, about the witch,Zipfara, about the fact that she could hear whispered and perceive certain scents, about the glowing painting, about the dreams, then about the carcasses in her refrigerator that had rendered her slightly homeless at that moment.

She ended with a short paragraph. 'I am lost, Diary.'

Looking at her writings, she loathed herself for being a tad bit weak in many of these events. Something was up, and it was her duty to fix it once and for all, so that she could be in control of her life again, in charge of her everyday living, and so that she could get back to her house.

With that firm resolve to be strong and to be in charge of her life, she tore out a paper from the diary, and began to list out some things that she would do. It was true that someone was after her, for reasons only known to the person and God, but she will damned if she just stays still like a waddling duck, doing nothing.

School and work tomorrow. She ticked, making sure to commit to memory the fact that she should bring along her pepper spray incase she was attacked, and her judo skills weren't enough.

Then call her sister. 

No better time than now. She thought, dropping the diary and paper on the small wooden table close to the bed, and getting out from the bed again, walking towards her bag, even though she couldn't remember putting her phone inside it.

"Where's my phone?" She asked out loud, after ransacking the bags and finding nothing.

She paused even as she stayed squatted, her mind going to and fro. She remembered that the last time she had seen and held her phone had been when she had gone to see Melvina, before the forest event. She remembered that she had also gone into the forest with it. It had been in the left front pocket of her white shorts. But after the forest incident, she didn't reoccour holding it again. Had it fallen off when she had fainted?

She didn't know, and it was frustrating the hell out of her.

She hurriedly walked back to her bag, opened it and fished out the white shorts after some searching, but the pockets were empty.

She placed her index finger and thumb at the inner corner of her eyes as she tried to take even breaths and calm her fear down, while sitting down tiredly on the floor. She didn't want to think that those barbarians that had invaded her house had possession of her phone. She didn't think it was possible, but she couldn't erase the slight possibility. And the latter could put her sister at risk, for she hadn't locked her phone with a password.

She suddenly shot up her head, remembering her earlier resolve to be strong and not cowardly, and scrambled to her feet, making a decision to either get a phone call successfully to her sister through Melvina's phone, or go into the forest to search for hers.

But as she turned the knob of the door and opened it, in the heat of making that quick decision, she came up face to face with an unfamiliar female.

"Hello Emma.." The woman said.