MELINOE

The Unrevealed

Chapter 11

A week has passed by in a snap of my helpless fingers. Feels like a decade since Nadiya has switched to no less than home incarceration. On the uncomfortable breakfast table, mom asked whether Nadiya had opened up to me about her weirdness. To my no-nod, dad sighed and gave an eye-sign to me to have the meal. I interrupted the clatter of the cutlery in the silence, "Dad, who was the owner of this farmhouse?"

Dad cleared his voice and adjusted his unstable glasses, "This belonged to Tim's elder brother Officer McClain, who was a cop and a single father. He and his druggie son used to reside here. You won't like to know but since you asked, the son shot himself dead due to the addiction he couldn't rescue himself of!" "What is his name??" my curiosity overspilled. With deep thick frowns on his forehead, dad said "I don't remember that. But Officer McClain couldn't tolerate son's sudden demise and died of shock as well as shame within a year. Tim, then, took over the house and all the property his brother left behind. But, since his work and family were in Budapest and also because he had made lots of money already, he gifted me all of this and left. He knew nobody else in this place, besides we were dearest playmates since our school days."

There was a five second pause when everything dad said was being repeated in my brain station in the effort to figure out something I don't know. Dad continued, "Well, that guy, as far as I remember, used to study in your University and must had been just a few years older than you and Nadiya..."

"Are you talking about me?" Nadiya's voice! I turned back. She looked fit and was quite overdressed for college than she does. She joined us at the table and wished all of us "Good Morning"!! Never have we seen such morning freshness in her before. We were amazed. A silver chain with an oval pendant hung down her neck and I don't think any of us had seen that before.

Mom, in a relief-filled haste, started to serve Nadiya's plate. She asked, "How are you my dear?? Is everything all right?" Nadiya said she just needed some time alone and that she is fine now. I swear nobody can get any more baffled than I felt about what all I was seeing happen. We started for University. The forever lifeless Nadiya was hopping around, smiling more and was terribly weird. Is she even my sister? I asked myself. We reached. I went to my class and she left for hers. My ears acted dead to the lectures as my brain decided to do the hyperactivity thinking about Nadiya, the new Nadiya, that night, and Nikki. It was recess. I came out of the lecture hall and found Nadiya and Nikki talking. I went close quietly and as their voice started to reach my ears, Nikki turned, "Hey!" Unprepared, I turned back and left from there quickly. My head felt a heavy burden and I decided to leave for home. With hands deep into my pants' pockets and eyes looking down at my feet, swing past the road, one after the other, I started to think about what Dad was saying and also about the New Nadiya, who was not like my sister at all. I looked up and saw a man, a Father. He looked familiar. The glimpse from behind the truck, of Nikki talking to a man at the Church that night, flashed in my mind and I got it that this was him. I went to him and on seeing me, he asked me the way to the farmhouse, which luckily or unluckily, was my current address. When I told him that, he gave an expression of shock! "Father!?" I called on. "Andrew. I'm father Andrew," he gave me an intense look and asked in husky voice, "Have you experienced things there which you haven't before?" I mildly shook my head and added, "But my sister has been acting very strange these days."

I got a gut feeling that  Father Andrew might be the one who can help me help Nadiya.