“I see. But there is more. I sense it” said Maira, now that Emily had paused to take a sip of water.
“Yes, there is more. But isn’t this enough for now?” Emily said, a brief smile upon her face.
Maira raised her brows. “You know me. No, it isn’t enough. I want the full scoop.”
Emily sighed. She knew Maira wouldn’t stop until she got the full story from her. She was ever insistent. She did not know why the matters of other people enticed her but it did. It was a strange obsession. She never understood it.
“Come on, complete the story, Emily. I am wanting to know more.” Maira said.
-$$$$-
That was an awkward meeting Emily thought. She never surmised that they would ever talk to each other. She had been insistent on not talking to him ever but the other force was too strong and it’s will far surpassed her own.
After that encounter, she had sped away from him and he had watched her run with a sober interested face. She had felt his eyes scrutinizing her as if she was his case study. It was uncomfortable but she dared not speak.
It was only three days later that she met him next. It was in a small garden and he sat on a wooden bench, sobbing, his face cupped within his hands. She had never seen a boy cry before. Watching him shed his precious tears, her prejudices against boys began to show the signs of disappearing.
She walked towards him, he not even getting a hint of her coming. Her footfalls were noiseless. That art she had perfected and it had improved since the forest.
It was in silence that she sat next to him. Placing her right hand upon his left shoulder, she asked, “What is wrong with you, today?”
He arose, his face clearly startled. She could hear his heart pumping.
“How?” he stuttered.
“I just saw you hither sitting on the bench, shedding tears. I understand. You have suffered and lost. But why must you sit here thus, sad and morose?”
“Nothing, it is nothing.” He replied.
“Some wise man told me that talking is the only way of letting go. You are riddled with the thoughts your wife. Let her go.”
“Let her go?” he asked in a raised voice. “I am tired to people asking me to let her go. From one side, I hear let her go and from the other side, she asks me to let her in. I am going insane.”
“No, you are not.”
“Yes, I am. I see her everywhere and she keeps asking me to let her in even though at the Church she told how wrong she had been at that thought.”
“Let her in? Even if it is a ghost that you are seeing, it would not ask you to let her in. A ghost does not need to ask permission to possess a person. I do not think you are seeing your memories, Roger. You are witnessing an entirely different supernatural phenomenon, something stronger than a ghost.”
Roger’s face went from startled to bewildered. “What? How do you know that?”

“What?” asked Roger, he clearly wants to know more.
“Nothing.” She replied, her tone wearied.
She could feel the eel crawl across her spine. The feeling of a strong itch grew.
“Tell me, please. I need to know.”
Emily rose from the bench and with a tone which betrayed that she would speak no more of it, “I cannot tell you more. Whatever force that has been haunting you is a strong force. The fact that it talked with you in front of the God in the church says much about it. It might be a servant of God but we never know. Sorry, I need to go now. You will have to find your answers elsewhere.” Saying, she walked away briskly from him.
The information she had gleaned from him terrified her. The eel started crawling faster and her body became torturous. The other force knew what was coming. The answers were revealed to her. It cannot be. The other force was adamant that they leave town immediately. She laughed at that thought.
The other force started pounding at her soul, driving it deep inside. The eel crawled into her brain and her eyes shone with hellfire then. She knew what it was that hunted Roger. It was a servant of Heaven. It was an angel.
-$$$$-
“An angel?” asked an interested Maira.
“Yes, an angel.”
“Did you see the angel then?” asked Maira. She was ecstatic now.
“I do not remember.”
Maira raised her brows but said nothing.
“How did you know about the angels? As far as I know, you have never been interested in the supernatural before. You used to pass it off as telltales. Remember the tales of the nightly terrors your grandmother used to tell us?” asked Maira.
“I do not know. I just knew.” Emily fell silent for a while.
“You say you do not remember much of your past.”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps I can help you.”
“How?” asked Emily.
Maira strode towards a sad Emily who was having difficulty accessing her past. Maira knew that there was a dam in her mind and it just needed to be broken. Her will was weak now and this was the right moment she was waiting for.
Maira’s fingers caressed her forehead and said, “Like this.”
She snapped her two fingers and clapped it upon her forehead. It made Emily drop down onto the ground. Her eyes were closed. It was like she had swooned.
-$$$$-
She was brought back to her house after they had caught her snooping around the forest. Her mother was sobbing all the way along while her father just remained silent. She could sense the fury in his heart.
She was made to sit upon the couch which had a deep brown color. Her grandmother eyed her, the anxiety evident upon her face.
Her father scurried into his bedroom to keep his rifle to the place where he usually hung it but at just the next moment, he was back into the room, his eyes boring into her. Anger fleeted on his face for a while but he calmed down after her mother gave him a pleading look. He just shook his head and sat on a chair opposite her, his head bent towards the marbled floor, the palm of his right hand holding his forehead.
Her mother was still crying. Looking at her family in such a state, she felt guilty. The storm had been nigh but despite it, she had ventured outside. At that moment, all her notorieties drifted through her mind and watching them unfold before her dreamy eyes, her heart grew heavier.
She felt an itch grow stronger down her spine and felt something crawling through her flesh. She had been feeling that all the way. Something was wrong with her. She knew that deep inside.
She cursed herself in her mind. Why had she to break every rule in the book? Why could not she just be like everyone else?
Because you are different. Because you are like me.
She jumped on her couch. There was a cold touch to that voice. She did not like it. Something or someone was trying to speak to her.
The jump had evidently made her grandmother frown. Her father looked at her with concern and her mother wore an ever growing anxious look.