CHAPTER TWO

The last person I wanted to see when I opened my eyes were Bernice, my dad’s girlfriend. She was a spiting example of trying to do too much.

"Oh Luna, how are you feeling?’", "O Luna, do you feel pains?", "O Luna, we were so scared."

I wasn’t ready to be dotted on, so I asked her to stop. I wanted to tell her that she was not my mother and she should stop acting like one. Even though my parents divorced about a year ago, Bernice could not decide to step into my mom’s place.

Mom’s leaving, a year ago, didn’t really leave a gap in my heart as I expected because we spoke every other day. Since coming to this clinic yesterday, she had called in every hour.

"Bernice is only trying to help, Luna," Dad said. He had been watching her and it made feel sick to the stomach that he found her attractive.

Though curvy and auburn-haired, she had a permanent smirk on her face. Worse still she was at least twelve years dad’s junior.

Why would dad find her attractive at all? Was she not too young for him?

I looked at dad and at her, and then faced the other way. The clinic was clinic was a motel that had been renovated and it seemed the architect wanted to maintain the old look.

There were still wallpapers on some parts of the clinic wall. The reception area had a TV and the rooms were lined hostel dorms. The clinic had four nurses. A doctor comes every day, except Sundays. He was a handsome man in mid-forties who lives in the nearby town of Cherrywood.

Bernice was one of the nurses who worked here.

"How is my favorite patient doing?" the doctor announced as he walked into the room.

"Ah doctor, she has been itching to go home." Dad replied.

"And she will go home today, if she so desires."

The doctor had a smile to admire. His perfectly arranged teeth reminded of the male models whose posters adorned Angela’s bedside.

"Do you want to go home Luna?" the turned to me. I nodded.

He raised my eye lids, listened to my heartbeat and wrote on some papers, then declared that I was free to go home.

"What happened to her doctor?" dad inquired.

"We are not sure yet but we have taken her blood sample to check for any bacterial or viral infection. We will understand more when the results come back. For now she is free and her vitals are stable."

"Okay doctor. Thank you." My dad stood up to shake the doctor. Bernice had finished removing the drips from my wrist. I stood up and sat for a while before going home. Angela waltzed in and greeted the doctor, my dad and Bernice.

"How are you feeling now? Are you free to go home now?"

"Yeah."

"That’s great because mafia bimbo just approved a rematch of the basketball match."

"Really?"

"Yeah, she said so after the seniors begged today and served detention for their behavior yesterday. But I heard that she is going out with a parent of one of the seniors and she agreed to please the man."

"Is he handsome?"

"I haven’t seen this man they talk about but a parent came to school this morning to plead for his son, the one who threw the first punch."

"Was this parent handsome?"

"Well, he is a catch." We squealed and dad threw us a look.

When I awoke the next morning, Bernice was making pancakes. The kitchen smelt of burnt sugar and vanilla when I walked in.

"I’m sure you are hungry by now. I am making these pancakes to be extra fluffy for you." Her smile looked like the smirk on her face, I felt disgusted.

The refrigerator didn’t have what I was looking for. Apparently, Bernice must have used it for her ‘fluffy pancakes’. I just took a bottle of water and walked away.

Since it was weekend, dad was sure to be at home. I found him in the living room, reading the papers.

"Morning dad." I gave him a peck and found a spot on the spot to sink into.

"Morning moon pie." He responded and kept quiet. I knew he was looking at me.

"I feel better dad. Thanks to the medicines, I slept like a baby."

"I'm glad to hear that. You gave me a scare the other day. What happened?" he asked. I turned to look at him.

"I was leaving the games, when I saw these hooded figures and I heard ringing in my ears. The ringing came with migraines and next thing I found myself at the clinic."

His eyes betrayed a knowing look when I mentioned the hooded figures. Did he know about them or what they represented?

"What did these hooded figures look like? Have you seen them before?" he asked further.

"Yes, I have and the headaches started earlier this term. I had not felt them before; neither did I see the figures before then."

Worry lines formed on his forehead and I became concerned.

"Is there a problem? Am I going mental? I swear I am not taking drugs."

"I'm not worried that you are taking drugs. I know you are not. The hooded figures, the migraines and ringing are what worry me. But in the coming days, I shall find out what it all means. Your mom is flying in from Orange."

"Mom?!" I said excitedly.

"Yes. She grew concerned when she heard about your fall in school. She should be here within the hour."

"Mom!" I repeated. I had spent last summer with her in Orange, where the sun shines with a vengeance. Orange was a county, four hours away by flight. I don’t know how many hours by road. I had never gone there by road. It had beaches, bars and festivals, the tourist’s pleasure trinity. It was mostly warm all year and most people like to lie on the beach all day. Sometimes, you could hear music from the beach at night. Orange was like mom: warm, laid back and active.

Mom arrived two hours later. She blamed it on delayed flights due to torrential rainfall, a first after many months. She still had that hippie walk and her tan. When I hugged her, she smelt of cinnamon and salt. She exchanged pleasantries with Bernice and said hi to dad.

"Give me a moment baby; I want to speak to your father alone," She said to me.

"Alright mom," I responded. Despite her laid back nature, mom can be matter-of-factly in her approach to issues, especially those dear to her.

Mom and dad went into a room and locked the door, leaving Bernice and me.

Bernice, knowing that I never liked her and sensing that the conversation between my parents might take forever, picked up her coat and said something like being on shift.

I scowled as she left, "Hurry back to your hole, bimbo. My parents are having a conversation." I thought.

After a while of feeling alone and wondering what deep conversation my parents might be having, I decided to eavesdrop on their conversation.

Perhaps they were planning a comeback and didn’t want me to know. But when I got close, I heard mom yelling.

"You know they are coming for her."

Dad responded, in a calm voice. "Are you sure? We shouldn’t get ourselves overly worked out. It might just be stressed; the school year has been tough for her, adjustment to our divorce and all."

"It is not the divorce. It is the Revenant. I am sure of it," mom retorted.

"What do we do?"

"There is nothing we can do. They will find her wherever she goes to."

"So you mean we will sit by and let them kill our daughter?"

Mom said nothing in response. I froze. Kill me? Who’s going to kill me?