Mina ✓

•|chapter seventeen: the conversation of vesna and yvaine [present day]

The grey mist that hung over Yvaine's head made Vesna smile.

It felt strange to smile at it, she felt. But at the same time, she could not stop herself from doing the same. The confusion, the frown on the face of the young Yvaine renewed life in Vesna. Here was someone with questions, questions she so longed to answer. Finally, she would no longer have to carry the burden of her family secrets to her grave.

"What do you want to know, Miss Agan? Speak freely. I am here to answer all your queries." Vesna took a little sip of the tea from her cup. Yvaine merely clutched hers tightly, neither putting it down on the table nor drinking it.

"I do not know where to begin," she admitted. "It is a big hotch-potch."

"Start from wherever you want to start. We have all the time in the world and there is no one to disturb us."

The ceiling fan of the study whirred softly above the heads of the two women, who sat facing each other in utter silence. With the arrival of the trio to the house of the Roses, Vesna had asked the others, Oleander, Amberly and her daughter Gaia to leave her and Yvaine alone. She said that they must wait in the living room until they were finished with each other.

"So, does the chateâu where I live now once belonged to the Andras family?" Yvaine asked, at last, breaking the silence. "Is this the place from where Wilhelmina Andras had disappeared?"

"Yes, it is the same chateâu that the Andras family owned and yes it is the place where Wilhelmina Andras had died."

"Died? That means that I was right in thinking that she was killed?"

"Yes, you were. The knife you found last night is a solid proof of it." Vesna's eyes twinkled as the colour of the mist above Yvaine's head changed into a silvery hue.

"Does that also mean that one of her brothers had killed her?" Yvaine's heart thumped with anticipation. This, this discovery would clear so many of her doubts, she thought.

"Yes. But may I ask you something?" Vesna questioned.

"Yes?"

"How did you come to realise it, Miss Agan? I don't think you could have connected the dots just by reading what been left in the newspapers and those articles on the internet."

"You would laugh at me if I told you the truth."

"I promise I will not. Tell me everything."

"Last night when I held the knife," Yvaine paused, hesitation lacing each of her words. "I thought I heard voices. They were two distinct ones, one belonging to a man and the other to a woman. The woman begged the man to stop doing what he was about to do, she called him brother as well. And seeing the blood on the knife..."

"I understand," Vesna nodded. "It was not your imagination, I assure you. What is heard is called psychic remains. They are such strong whispers of the past that do not fade even after the passage of many centuries. That knife was used to commit a terrible murder, thus the memories of that event lie embedded in it."

Yvaine listened to Vesna's words with quiet attention. "Which of the brothers had committed the crime?" She asked after Vesna had finished.

"That is something for you to find out," Vesna smiled widely. "You know certain things. You have all the clues. All you have to do is look around and find the answer."

"Indeed," Yvaine gulped down her disappointment. "May I ask how Paisley Rose got involved in the matter? And why has no one ever found out where Wilhelmina Andras is or rather her remains are?"

"For your first question let me tell you that the Rose family and the Andras family were friends and Felicity Rose the sister of Paisley Rose was the best friend of Wilhelmina Andras," Vesna explained. "Also Felicity died on the night Wilhelmina disappeared. It was too much to be a coincidence. She hunted for the clues and found out the truth. But before she could reveal the truth to the world she was dead."

"Was she killed too?"

"No, if you have read about the incidences of her death, I don't think she was murdered like Felicity or Wilhelmina. What I think is that a confrontation took place between the brothers and Paisley Rose in which all of them died."

"And why were Wilhelmina's remains never discovered?"

"That is the true mystery. No one knows where it is. Even if Paisley Rose had discovered it we do not know due to her unfortunate death."

Yvaine bit her lip, falling into silence. Many of her questions had been satisfied by this session, many more had arisen. But all she knew was that she was near to solving this mystery. Just one, just one more connection was what was needed for the puzzle to fall into place.

"Thank you so much for all your help Miss Rose," she said, getting up from her seat. "I think I will leave now. Goodbye."

"Goodbye," Vesna greeted back as Yvaine turned to leave. "I wish you success on this great endeavour." She mumbled to herself.

***

The atmosphere in the living room was tense to say the very least. Oleander paced from one corner of the room to the other, while Amberly sat upon one of the couches biting her nails. Gaia was with them, standing near the steps in hope of hearing anything, something. She too had many questions about this disappearance, questions to which she had found no answer.

A crunch of footsteps broke this tension. All of them gathered around the stairs as they saw Yvaine climbing them down, their hearts beating like a drum to know what was the outcome of the conversation.

"Is mom still upstairs, Miss Agan?" Gaia asked, no sooner did Yvaine step into the living room. Following Yvaine's affirming nod she raced up the stairs in hopes that her mother will reveal something to her too. Soon it was just the three of them in the living room.

"What did she say? Do we now know where Wilhelmina Andras is?" Amberly's face was awash with childlike excitement. She moved close to Yvaine, so close that her hot breath fell on Yvaine's shoulders.

"She said a lot," Yvaine answered. "But we still have to figure out a few things to solve this mystery."

"Did she agree or disagree with our theories?" Oleander asked. "Has she confirmed any of them?"

"She did and thus we have an outline of what had happened," Yvaine's face grew bright like Amberly's as she proceeded to explain her conversation to the other two. "Basically Wilhelmina Andras was killed in the chateâu by one of her brothers for reasons we do not know and he hid her body somewhere which was never discovered. Paisley Rose, whose sister too was killed on the same night, followed the trails and might have discovered the full story but before she could reveal it she was killed in a skirmish."

"Hmm," Oleander put a hand on his chin. "That leaves us with two vital questions. Why did Wilhelmina Andras get killed and where are her remains? I wonder where to look for them."

"Maybe we should check out the archives again," Amberly suggested. "Perhaps we might find something there."

"Or maybe we study Paisley Rose's riddle," Yvaine proposed. "Something tells me it will answer both of these questions."