The Dancing Ghost ★ Edward Cullen

xviii. Devils

Anastasia threw away one more stack of papers down the recycling bag in the kitchen, pushing them down to make them fit before walking back inside the room down the hall.

"Don't pick that up" Anastasia said anxiously, taking away the pile of books from her Aunt's hands.

"Just sit down, let me do the work." She insisted yet again, placing the pile into a cardboard box.

Meredith was now on maternity leave and had decided to start cleaning up this room for the arriving baby.

It was initially James' office back when he used to work from home but ever since he changed jobs, it just became a storage room filled with unread books and random files.

"It's not even two kilograms" Meredith chuckled, and though gladly sat down onto the old couch.

"Still, you shouldn't do much effort" Anastasia insisted as she continued emptying the shelves. "Why is there so many books here, I've already filled like three boxes."

"Well it's kinda my fault, I got lazy and avoided cleaning up this room and just threw everything I didn't need here." Meredith explained, sorting the files. "James will drop the boxes off tomorrow for donation."

"You should remind him to get the paint, you know how much he forgets" Anastasia chuckled, sorting the children's books into a box and taping it.

"Of course he'll forget, I'll have to write it on his glasses for him not to." Meredith rolled her eyes in amusement.

Anastasia laughed as she stood on her tippy toes to reach for the books on the highest shelf, causing a couple of books to fall and almost cause a concussion in her head.

Kneeling down to pick them up, a particular book caught her attention.

It looked old and the back was sewn by hand, it was more of a journal now that she got a good look at it.

Curiously, she picked it up and flipped through the pages. Her brows furtowed at the weird illustrations and hand written paragraphs, her eyes widening when she read the cursive writing at the last page.

From Roseanne, To the church of st. Veronica II, Italy.

Anastasia turned to her aunt, "Hey, what's this...?" She asked, holding out the book.

Meredith examined the book with confusion before familiarity crossed her. "Oh, that's just a book Roseanne had forgotten here a couple of years ago. A fire had happened in her apartment at the time so I invited her to stay here until everything was fixed, she forgot some of her stuff."

She handed the book back to Anastasia, shrugging, "I always forgot to give it back to her, I guess it just ended up here."

"Oh right..." Anastasia nodded absentmindedly, her mind running with thoughts. "Well I guess it's too late now."

"It is, she so suddenly left" Meredith's brows furrowed, "Weird gal."

"Weird gal indeed" Anastasia chuckled, checking her watch for the time. "I should get going now, they changed the practice hours"

"Again? They're going to make you go at five a.m. one day at this rate" Meredith said in exasperation.

"Oh god don't, I don't think I can psychologically handle Oksana screaming at me any time earlier than four p.m." Anastasia said not so sarcastically, placing her phone and house keys in her bag.

Hesitating slightly, she also placed Roseanne's book into her bag before grabbing her house key, saying goodbye to her aunt and leaving the apartment.

The train was surprisingly not crowded once she stepped in, easily finding a seat for once. She checked her watch then took out the little journal from her bag, opening the first page, starting to read the messy cursive writing.