Boiling Isles: The Next Generation - Act I.

Chapter XXXII. - The Cave

"I-I think I know who the killer is." Lucia could barely hear her own voice, she was so shocked by her recognition.

"Who?" Celeste looked at her in surprise.

"Priscilla." Lucia whispered.

Her answer was met with grave silence. Caleb was the fastest to recover from his shock.

"What are you basing this on?"

"You said that if a witch tries to use a curse it affects her body negatively, right?" Lucia asked a little nervously.

"Yes." Caleb nodded.

"I spoke to Priscilla this morning and she looked pretty bad..." Lucia said, then her voice suddenly trailed off.

The brown-haired girl could not continue, because she was still trying to prove that one of her friends was the murderer. The killer who took the lives of four innocent residents and kidnapped her mother and Uncle Hunter...

Lucia then felt a slight pressure on her left hand. The brunette looked to the side and saw Celeste squeezing her hand a little and smiling encouragingly at her. Lucia then took a deep breath and continued.

"So I noticed in Priscilla that she was very thin and seemed quite sleepless, and she even had a severe coughing fit during our conversation, which she tried to treat with some kind of potion. In other words, she looked and acted exactly as a murderer would, at least according to Caleb."

"I admit that there is some basis for what you say, Lucia, but that doesn't prove anything yet." Caleb said after a while. "It is better to examine things as thoroughly as possible, so we won't draw wrong conclusions again..."

"You're right." Lucia said. "Actually, I asked Priscilla why she looks the way she does and she said that she is in this condition because Aunt Taneisha doesn't like the fact that a murderer is walking around freely and she often wakes up at night because of this. And Priscilla was with her the whole time..."

"That's not true." Paulina interrupted suddenly.

"What?" Lucia looked at the witch with ash-blond hair in shock.

"Priscilla lied to you." answered Paulina, wiping the dried tears from her face. "I recently went to the hospital to apply for a summer internship when I saw Aunt Taneisha. It turned out that a few months ago, Aunt Taneisha had a major seizure, which was so serious that she and her nurse, a certain Anaya, had to be taken to the hospital, because she was also quite injured. So Priscilla may have been by her mother's side during the day, but there was no way she could have done that at night, because visitors have to leave the hospital until seven in the evening."

"Okay, this is getting suspicious." Caleb said after some thought.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Zelmira raised her hands. "Do you seriously think that Priscilla is the murderer?! We are talking about Priscilla who, when she was nine years old, gave her pocket money to homeless witches so that they could eat. Can you imagine her hurting someone?"

Zelmira looked at her friends, but they couldn't say anything, and even Axel didn't even pay attention to Zelmira, but kept looking at Celeste and Lucia. Lucia also noticed this and started to feel embarrassed while a small blush appeared on her face. A few moments later, the brunette felt something move in her left hand. Lucia turns to the side just in time to see Celeste release her hand with a red face.

Axel then narrowed his eyes and kept looking at Celeste, who was visibly tensed by Axel's behavior. Lucia didn't understand why it bothered Axel that Celeste was holding her hand. It seemed so natural to her for some reason, although she didn't know why.