6 Cranbrooke Avenue

Chapter 11

What did she mean by hunting?  My father worked in an office.  The most I knew he hunted was for papers in a cabinet.  Or was he being hunted?  But why would he be hunted?  I couldn't make sense of any of the options with hunting involved.  I had questions and I needed answers.  But I couldn't just walk up to my aunt and ask without involving how I eavesdropped to get the information.

I heard the settee move so I quickly and quietly tip toed up the stairs and into my bed.  I carefully pulled the sheets over my body and assumed a sleeping position.  I closed my eyes halfway.  Soon I saw my aunt walk in through the door and I fully closed my eyes.

"J, I know you're awake.  It's late.  Get some actual sleep.  Good night."  She kissed me on my forehead and turned to the door.

I wanted to ask what she was talking about on the phone, but I didn't want to seem too inquisitive.

"Ask her." One part of my brain said.

"No.  Don't." Another part said.

I struggled to make a decision.

"Aunty." I said and sat up on my bed.

"Yes." She replied.

I quietly breathed out then said never mind.

"I'll see you in the morning then." She said.

I lied back down in my bed and shut my eyes and drifted off into a land called my imagination.

The next day, when I woke up, the scent of bacon and eggs whacked me in my face.  I rubbed my eyes and then went downstairs.  My aunt was preparing breakfast.  On the counter beside the stove, there were two plates of fruit and even though I already knew one of them was mine, I still asked after saying good morning.

"Good morning.  You pick one." My aunt said.

Soon breakfast was completely finished and I ate and then got ready for school.  My driver arrived fifteen minutes after.  Classes went by quickly and I had no evening classes, so I called my driver right after school to pick me up, but he said that something had come up and he had to go out of town and that he spoke to my father about it already.  This caused me to have two whole hours to do nothing until he was back.  I decided to spend the time in the library.

The library was huge, but not Belle's library in Beauty and The Beast huge, and it didn't have much fiction books as the library was mostly used for research and studies, but that was where I went first.  I browsed the books on the shelves.  They were all relatively new except one and I found it strange that they still had it on a shelf.  It would have been safer in one of the containers at the back.

I pulled the book off the shelf and walked back to one of the desks.  I put the book on the desk then pulled out a chair and sat down.  Carefully, I brushed a thin layer of dust off the cover.  'To Eligathy and Beyond', was the title and it was written by some guy named Alexander Newman Jr..  The cover didn't look interesting at all, but I was still drawn to the book.  I opened the book began reading.

'Dedicated to my parents, Alexander Newman Sr. and Cathy Newman, who died fighting a battle not many people understood.'

As I read this I wondered what this meant.  Did his parents have a disease that was new to the population at the time?  The epigraph was even more interesting.  It read:

'No matter how bright your day seems, there are always darker days coming.  There are creatures lurking in the shadows at all times.  If you think all is well, wake up.  You are always a target.  Get ready.'

"Quite riveting." I whispered to myself.