The Raven Conspiracy

Chapter 24 - Some Interesting Observations

Chapter 24 – Some Interesting Observations

 “Kai and the Maya!”

I jumped. There was only one person who called me “the” Maya. Anna Hallow. She sat on one of the bar-stools in front of the counter, smiling as we walked through the coffee shop doors. She was dressed almost normally in a flowing, knee-length black skirt, black pumps and white satin blouse. If it wasn’t for the look in her eyes and, as before, the pen-marks covering her arms and legs, she appeared to be an ordinary office-worker on a coffee break. But this was Kairo’s sister, and she would never be that simple.

“Is this what came up?” I asked Kairo.

“It is. She refused to take her tablets when my aunt gave them...I asked my aunt to bring her here so that I could convince her.”

Behind the counter, Jared was explaining something to Nicky.

“No, you don’t put the sugar in with the coffee beans. Not everyone wants sugar in their coffee, and the machine can’t process that,” I heard him say, on the edge of his patience. He kept glancing at Anna while he spoke to Nicky. His eyes flickered to us as Kairo and I sat down on either side of Anna.

“Hey, Nicole...Why don’t you go and...count the number of light-bulbs in the shop? I need to know how many energy-saving ones to order,” he tapped her shoulder. “I’ll finish up here.”

“You’re going to change them? Really? You are doing so much to save the pandas,” she said seriously.

I smiled to myself. The one thing Nicky wasn’t completely clueless about was the environment. She was always supporting some cause or the other. While she disappeared, Jared came over to us. He folded his arms on the counter, in front of Anna, and leaned forward.

“Your aunt looked very tense when she brought your sister in,” he said to Kairo. “I gave her some chamomile tea and sent her home – I offered to keep an eye on Annie.”

Anna lifted up her arm and pointed to a simple sketch of an eye on her arm.

“Jared’s eye,” she laughed.

“Yes, that’s lovely, Anna. Now, will you please take your tablets?” Kairo said gently.

“No. No way.”

She shook her head vigorously,

“Tablets make me funny. Don’t like them. Trap me.”

“Anna, you know you need to take them. Doctor said so.”

“Doctor’s wrong. I’m not sick. Jared, tell Kai to stop listening to doctor. I don’t want tablets.”

Her eyes were full of pleading as she spoke.  She clutched Jared’s arm, almost terrified.

“Hey, it’ll be okay,” he murmured to her, stroking her hair.

“Kai – maybe you should let Annie miss out on her meds today. It won’t harm her, will it?”

“I don’t know...She needs to take them every day...There might be side-effects if she doesn’t.”

“Jared,” she asked again. “Tablets are bad.”

“I know, Annie.”

He took her hand,

“Kai, you can see they’re not good,” He dropped his voice to a whisper.“You know what they do to her. They trap her and she knows it too. It’s as bad as putting her in the asylum again.”

“I don’t enjoy doing this to Anna, but it’s for her own good. These pills are not as cruel – if she doesn’t take them, she will have to go back there.”