The two men and Macrena followed where Noraya was pointing. She said there was a deer at the entrance of the woods. However, when the guides checked, they saw nothing.
"Ah ha! It ran away, hehe." Noraya idiotically laughed when she saw the confusion on their faces. 'That was so weird. What is going on with her? She thought she saw a deer.'
Macrena stared at Noraya with suspicion. Something was strange with her.
Noraya mouthed a silent 'what?' to her that she answered with 'are you okay?' look. Noraya just nodded in response to her silent question.
Macrena looked around. Because the leaves have grown already, the area was denser than what she saw in the photos. The guides had to cut branches that were on their way as they tread along the forested area.
"This is where we last saw Owen." The man called Marco said when they reached a clearing in the middle of the woods. The trees were taller and bigger in that area, making a natural shade from the rays of the sun to where they were standing.
"Owen was a regular in this area, so he already knows his way around. We let him wander, but we made sure that we can quickly get to him if something happens." Bok said and pointed towards the deeper part of the woods on their right side. "He went that way, and that was when he went missing."
Macrena started walking towards the area, not minding the three people behind her. She tried to remember the images on the photos that she saw this morning and compared them to what she sees now.
She walked between the tall trees feeling the warm air, where it is supposed to be cold, observing any markings or anything unusual.
The surroundings were very foreign to her, but the atmosphere, the air, and even the woody smell felt so familiar. As if she was walking on the ground of forest of fireflies in Akijam.
While Macrena was so immersed in her world, the two men were silently watching, thinking that she probably missed her missing fiance, and kept silent.
She stopped on her tracks and looked around. She recognized the area from the photo where it is the exact place where Owen fell unconscious, according to the witness from the report.
"This is where his friend left him unconscious, but when we came here, he wasn't here. We searched around the area, but we couldn't find him." Bok said, confirming her thoughts.
Macrena nodded, not really paying attention to what the man said, disturbed by the images of the scenes of that day that was playing in her mind. One particular tree two meters away from her caught her attention.
She approached the tall tree. It is where Owen's body hit the second time she whipped a wind on him. She believed that the wind was not strong enough to throw a human's body to a distance of couple meters.
Macrena creased her brows. "What is this?" She got closer to the tree trunk. It was not visible from afar, but there was a small mark engraved on the body of the tree.
The two men inspected what she was pointing. "It looks like a lightning mark," Marco answered.
Macrena reached out to the mark. In an instant, a rippling sensation passed through her body, giving her shivers. She was flustered and quickly pulled her hands away from the tree.
'That was a strong force! That is not from nature's lightning!' Macrena thought. She kept a straight face to hide her discovery. These ordinary humans wouldn't understand her, anyway, if she voiced out her mind.
Meanwhile, since they arrived at the island, Noraya's senses became sensitive. Something that she can not explain. She thought she saw a deer when the others didn't notice it. She was having some flashbacks too.
The image of the card that she drew when Mrs. Harvey visited her in her shop keeps appearing in her mind. She tried to shake off the thought, but the image keeps popping in her mind. 'The man is alive.' That statement repeatedly whispered in her ears.
While Macrena was busy inspecting the surrounding, she was busy shaking off some strange feelings that was giving her chills. She hugged herself while looking around, attempting to help Macrena find some clues, even though she doesn't know what she was searching for.
"Waah!" Noraya gasped in surprise. The quite atmosphere was disturbed by a cracking sound and her scream.
"What is it?" Macrena and the two guides quickly ran to her in worry and asked in unison.
She slowly looked at her feet, thinking that she stepped into some animal. She did not dare to move from her spot.
Under her feet was a dead tree branch that was split into two. The cracking sound was from the tree branch when she stepped into it and broke. "Ehehe...that gave me a surprise." She lowered her face in embarrassment.
"Go on, just continue what you are doing, and don't mind me." She kicked the broken wood on the ground. She felt her face heating up in embarrassment 'Gosh! Gather your senses, Noraya! What is going on with you today?' She scolded herself.
"Are you okay, Noraya?" Macrena asked her. She noticed that she was acting weird since they arrived at the place. 'Maybe, she saw something? Or felt something?' She suspected. Noraya is a psychic in the first place.
"Ah, Yeah. I'm okay." She kept her eyes on the ground and toying with the broken pieces of wood on the ground with her right foot.
"Are you sure? If you are not feeling well, we can go now." Macrena suggested. She wanted to look around more, but seeing Noraya, not being herself, she decided to go back now. Maybe she was not feeling well.
"Hmn?" Noraya was toying with the broken pieces of the wood that she stepped on the ground when she noticed an unusual stone stuck on the ground. She curiously kneeled and picked up a twig and started picking it.
"What are you doing?" Macrena asked and went closer to her, curious about what caught her interest.
The two men with them also went closer to Noraya. They all gathered around her and watched her took out something from the dirt.
"What is that?" Macrena asked.
"Oh, it's a ring!" Noraya exclaimed. She wiped the soil around it. It is was a graduation ring, with the logo and engraved name, 'Queen's School of Medicine.'
Noraya stood up just to be baffled by the sudden thought that came to her mind. 'HE IS HERE!'
Noraya felt a cold shiver ran through her whole body. She sent a meaningful look at Macrena.
'Did somebody just scream?' Macrena thought she heard a scream. No, that was not a scream. She heard Noraya's mind!!
'HE IS HERE!' Yes, that's what she said! Her eyes met Noraya's eyes.
"T-this ring belongs to Owen, right?" Noraya asked Macrena, handing her the ring. Her eyes were never peeling off from hers. 'My senses are telling me, he is here!'
Macrena, who was silently talking to Noraya, nodded. She took the ring from her, keeping her eyes on her. Their eyes were communicating in a language that only them could understand.
Luckily, the two men with them did not notice their weird interactions.
Macrena turned to the two guides, "You said, only members can have access to this island, right? And there is no way he can leave this island without taking a boat?" she asked.
The man, called Bok, nodded. "There were only four of us on this island at that time. His friend said he left him unconscious here, but he wasn't here when we came. Our distance was not that far from each other. He couldn't have gone far if he was already conscious and decided to leave. It felt strange for us too."
"We searched the whole area, but we didn't saw any signs of him. The police even searched the other islands." The other guide, Marco, added. "They even had divers to search the lake, but they didn't find anything. With his mysterious disappearance, nobody dared to visit this island, since then. You were the second after his parents and the police."
Macrena released an exhausted sigh.
"Let's go back now, Macrena. I am already exhausted." Noraya said. With all the creepy feeling she felt, she ran out of energy.
"Yeah, me too." she agreed, and they walked together out of the woods.
Nobody dares to break the silence during the entire boat ride. Even the two guides remained quite.
After saying their gratitude to the two guides, Macrena and Noraya headed to their rooms.
"I am taking a warm bath first. I was so cold the entire time we were on the island." Noraya said when they arrive in their suite.
Macrena just nodded and took out a bottled water from the fridge. Her mind was still wandering from what she experienced in the island, and what she heard from Noraya.
She dug out the ring from her pocket. It probably fell from Owen when she threw him out of balance. Or, it fell when he was forcibly taken from that place.
If Noraya's hunch was right, it is possible that Owen was taken to Akijam. Someone saw the incident and made the wrong report to the counsel. Someone hid the victim so that she couldn't prove her innocence. Who is that someone? She will soon find out.
"Ah, that feels better." Macrena heard Noraya went out from the bathroom and was wringing her wet hair with a towel.
"My body hair were standing the whole time we were there. I got chills all over." Noraya blurted out. She flopped her body beside her and drank the rest of the water from her water bottle.
"Is that you were acting weird the whole time?" She asked.
"I couldn't explain it too. I even thought I am going insane. The moment we arrived there, I got the sudden chills all over me." Noraya adjusted her seating position and faced her. "And, you know what, the image of the tarot card I read for Mrs. Harvey keeps on popping in my mind!"
Macrena now understood that the psychic ability of Noraya was activated, the moment they stepped on the island, without her realizing it. That might be the reason why she was acting strange.
'She is not a fake psychic, after all! Maybe it wasn't a coincidence that she met Noraya.' She thought.
"And I felt that I was in a different world. It was the feeling that I was so distant to the real world. Ah, I don't know!" Noraya shook her head. "I am not going back to that island again." She rubbed her arms that had goosebumps again while shaking her head.
"I didn't know that your psychic ability is actually strong," she commented. She is impressed that she can casually narrate her strange experience previously and was not affected by it.
"What do you mean? My psychic ability?"
She nodded to her. "You sensed the energy from another world. I am impressed."
"Do you mean we actually stepped into your world?" The dark pupils of Noraya became dilated.
Macrena smiled in amusement. Over time, she was always entertained on how animated Noraya reacts. She tends to overreact.
"Not literally, but knowing that it was the boundary between Akijam and this human world, I am impressed that you sensed it."
"Ah!" Noraya nodded, then abruptly looked at her again. "That means I have a special power? I am different from a normal person!" Noraya was more than happy to know that she has the psychic ability like her mother. Her life is not going to be boring anymore.
Macrena chuckled. "Your mother was a psychic, so I guess you too." Her face became serious this time.
"Can you explain what do you mean earlier that 'he is here.'" She asked about the unspoken words of Noraya at the island before they left.
Noraya's face became serious as well. She relived what she felt at that time, and why did that specific thought came to her mind. "I am not sure, but my senses just felt the strong aura of Owen in that place. It helped that I saw his photo before we went there."
She nodded, believing what Noraya said. "It was confirmed then that he did not die. Someone took and hid him so that there was no evidence to prove my innocence."
Noraya crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Meaning, someone witnessed what happened in the forest aside from your two servants."
She nodded in Noraya's statement. "It is also possible that someone lured Owen to cross the boundary. Now that I saw it, the wind I threw at Owen was not enough to put him into death, so that someone hit him with his own magic. That explains the mark left on the tree trunk."
Now, she is starting to fit the pieces together. Whoever that someone is, it was clear that they intended her to use her powers against the human. They might have planned their actions and followed her moves to frame her.