Secrets

Chapter Fourteen

The humming sound from the air conditioner was accompanied by the noise of the cicadas outside and the shuffling of feet within the house. The men and women present took their seats and waited for the owner of the house to enter the room. They were inside the spacious living room and had arranged every chair of the house into a circle. There were still a few seats empty as some attendees were always running late. The door opened and a tall man with pale skin and a balding head came in.

"Thank you all for coming today" the man said towards the other in the room after he had taken a seat close to the door.

"We're not as many today, but I understand it's the summer. We will just have to see how far we can get today" he announced.

The three men and two women each mumbled something as a response.

"So, has anyone made any discoveries since our meeting last month? Did we find out more about the hotel in Peru that burnt down last year, any articles, or hear-say?" he dived right into the topic.

A corpulent, dark-skinned man spoke up.

"I read the online articles we've found so far again that were in Spanish. But I didn't get any new insight. I believe we are on the right path, though. Something was fishy there. An old hotel burns down in the middle of the night, almost every room occupied, and no sprinklers, yet every single guest was able to get out safely aside from inhaling a bit of smoke and there were large amounts of forge-water inside the rooms despite the fact that the fire-fighters arrived late. No, there was definitely something going on" he explained.

"Yeah, if there are people who can control fire, why shouldn't there also be people who can control water? I also believe that one or more guests had those magic powers, and used them. Too bad there were no documents left about the guests who stayed that night" a small blonde woman agreed.

"Thank you for your insight, Mr Jackson" the house owner said towards the dark-skinned man.

"Please continue researching this topic. If our theory is correct, we have to look out more for the manipulation of the elements. Our goal is to find out what these people can do, and then find out how they do it" he continued.

The conversation went on about the manipulation of the elements and how to best study the topic. After a few minutes, a man came stumbling into the room without knocking and hastily took a seat.

"I'm sorry if I'm late, Mr Schulzenberger, I got into a small traffic jam on the way here" he said towards the house-owner, wiping sweat from his forehead.

"I just don't understand why we can't have this meeting in Atlanta even once" he added, but it sounded like he did not really expect an answer.

"You know why, Mr O'Hara" the house-owner said with a sharp tone in his voice.

"We are in the middle of nowhere and that's the best place to do research like ours" he explained.

"We were just talking about the hotel incident in Peru" he then continued to the newly-arrived man, who did not look excited at this statement.

"Again? I have something new to tell you all, that's way more exciting" he said and grinned at the others.

Every attendee suddenly had a surprised look on their face and looked at Mr O'Hara expectantly.

He pulled his laptop out of his bag and started it.

"So, I know this isn't something any of us pay attention to, so we could have easily missed it if it weren't for my niece. Around three weeks ago she showed me a video of a concert where an incident happened that apparently sparked an online discussion at the time. The attention has long died down, but that doesn't make it any less interesting. My niece loves this singer so she is very invested in these things" he looked up at the others who listened attentively.

He clicked on a bookmarked link and selected the video he wanted to show.

"The Wi-Fi in this house is still bad" he grumbled, but then continued.

"I will play you the video and then have you decide for yourself."

When they watched the video, the small blonde woman let out a scream as she saw how the singer hovered down the stairs in the middle of the stage instead of falling down as it had looked like only a second earlier.

"This! This is something!" she said in a high-pitched voice, pointing at the screen.

"The woman is hovering! This is unnatural! She must be a witch!" she continued.

Mr Schulzenberger gestured towards her to calm down.

"Well, this certainly looks like it could have something to do with magic. What was the discussion about?" he asked towards Mr O'Hara.

The small man with the sunburnt skin summarized the internet discussion he had read to the others.

"So either the singer hovered down the stairs by her own will, or someone from the audience wanted to keep her from falling" a brunette woman who had not yet spoken, concluded.

"This fits with what we know so far about the magicians. Someone wanted to help her" she added.

"Nonsense!" the small blonde woman spoke up again.

"It is unnatural. If it was God's will that an accident like this one or the fire in Peru happened, they should let it happen" she said agitatedly.

"Mrs Johnson, we've talked about this. We are not a religious organization and strictly dedicated to our research on neutral grounds" Mr Schulzenberger warned.

The woman tightly pressed her lips together and fidgeted in her chair, but didn't reply.

Mr O'Hara continued.

"As I've told you before, my family does not take our research seriously, so I tend not to talk about it with them. My niece showed me this, but she was making fun of me while doing so, and so I brushed the incident off as if it wasn't important. But I re-watched it later and as you can see, it seems to be of relevance to us."

His eyes scanned the other attendees in the room.

"So, how should we go about this?" he asked.

The question sparked a discussion on how to best approach the issue at hand. Everyone agreed to dig deeper into the topic, while also still researching the Peru incident as best as they could. They were a small group with limited resources, but everyone was motivated to bring results to their next meeting. Nearly two hours later, the meeting was dismissed and the attendees went towards their cars that were parked under the trees in the long driveway to go back to their families and go about the rest of their weekends. They were aware that no one else in their lives took them seriously, but neither of them seemed to mind. Outside, the noise of the cicadas was as obtrusive as ever, and the sun continued to burn down on the small southern town.