They came back home ,Mia who had a narrow escape from getting grounded till the rest of the summer , didn't utter a word and simply went off to the kitchen ,after cleaning the dining table.
Since; she had been on her best possible behaviour which was a rather 'rare' occurrence in her Mother's opinion , Josephine Campbell didn't give Mia a hard time .
Discarding the dirty dishes in the sink Mia let out an agitated sigh as she made her way towards her next hurdle she hadn't eaten (though it didn't mattered she never had her fill) she was tired ( constant hunger could make anyone weak) but still she needed to clean those dishes while everyone else slept in their rooms .
The drizzle soon became fat drops like bullets , the swirling mist now looked like thick fog that might not clear for days yet Mia could make out the outline of the houses lining the other side of street, wiping and cleaning without paying the slightest attention , Mia looked out of the window though there wasn't much to see but atleast it was still better than the half cleaned plates .
Maybe it was her lack of attention but she dropped the ladle and had to bend double to pick it up but she straightened up suddenly, looking around the now empty kitchen , funny prickling on the back of her neck had made Mia feel that she was being watched, but the street appeared to be deserted, she was quite sure that the residents of the house were all asleep and she was the only living creature awake in there at the moment.
Mia jerked her head immediately and a shock of whether fear or amazement she did not know cruised through her . There the stranger stood on the roof in this heavy rain on one of their neighbour's house whose name Mia didn't knew ,exihibiting what Mia swear was a thick balaclava .
The stranger looked weirdly crooked but it wasn't the balaclava or the fact that he/she was standing on a roof in the middle of the night,maybe it might was the heavy rain or the thick fog but the stranger's eyes seemed to be glowing, a warm redish glow quite similar to that of amber and was watching Mia continuously without moving ,without pausing the stranger kept staring at her. The fog appeared to have thickened because now only the glowing amber eyes were visible and the stranger's body looked suddenly distorted .
Furious Mia bent forward determined to see who it was ,wiping the window pane she looked at the place once again but the roof top was already deserted the stranger waa gone.
****())
Mia punched her pillow in a more comfortable position position but sleep wouldn't come , she had tried to think of countless theories , trying to sense any reason from what she had experienced through out the day .
Was her insomnia finally getting to her , making her imagine things that weren't even there ? Her insomnia was another thing that she had inherited from her father . She knew that she shared a lot of features with her father including her dark emerald green eyes , she wished she knew her father, as a child she had waited for him , hoping that one day he will come and get her out of this place yet he never did .
For thirteen years , she had lived miserably under her biased mother and bully of a sisters for as long as she could remember and never once she got a chance to know who her father was . Her mother never told her about him and of course the topic of her father was completely forbidden in this house . Neither were there any photographs of her father in this house.
Sometimes Mia tried to strain her memory and force out whatever submerged memory she had of her childhood but the only thing that came to her mind was a chilling voice , colder than ice as it speaks ' You will bow to me ..-resistance is futile ' and Mia knew that this sentence must have been from that of a some stupid horror movie that she might have watched as a child . Though she didn't know why she broke out in cold sweat whenever she remembered that voice . But apart from this , she couldn't remember her father at all .
For the next hours , Mia couldn't help but ponder over what happened to her maybe what she saw was merely an illusion but what about that old man ? That ice cream she ate couldn't be an illusion can it ? , but maybe what if it was said her mind yet a part,a closer part to where her heart resided wouldn't agree to this theory of her, the stranger appearance had definitely illuminated a familiar warmth and Mia couldn't help but think in silence whether or not she knew that stranger.
But logic didn't sided with her nor did common sense why in that heavy downpour anyone would stand on a rooftop?
Mia sat up straight on her bed glaring out of the window . Moon shining brightly on the velvety dark sky , through the gaps of the curtains , it lit up the floor boardings of her room .Maybe she was thinking too much , maybe it was some freak accident .
However , something resisted , not agreeing with her way of thinking . And then a sudden sentence from her conversation with the old man surfaced in her mind , ' if only young miss could see the veil , then the magic will unravel itself to you ' . Heart beating wildly , Mia did something , something she can't explain . As the faint memory of this morning became stronger and stronger , Mia closed her eyes coercing her concentration , determined to see whatever veil , about which the man was talking about .
" meow "
Mia jumped with a start , a cat was sitting right next to her bed , licking its paws , it stared at Mia hauntingly. Except the cat , her room was completely the same as it was before , old furniture shoved in the corner , faded sky blue curtains , spiders hanging from its room and there was no such thing as lifted veil , seriously what was she thinking believing a freaky old man ?
No sooner had she thought this , the cat turned on it spot ( to Mia's horror) , twisting and twirling looking throughly distorted .
" Wait ! Wait , I believe , I believe what lies behind the veil !" said Mia as she stared at the controting cat, her heart beating with a speed of hundred km/ h .The cat finally stopped , reverting back to its original docile yet haughty profile. It mewed in an affronted tone .
With her heart quivering in excitement , Mia realised something else , the door and the window to her room were locked , so how can a little black cat come inside ?
She looked at the cat with a new found attention , her gaze drifting from its hind limbs to its front claws and to her surprise , a little leather pouch was secured on its neck and sticking out from its gap was a letter.
With trembling fingers Mia reached for it , she half expected the cat to take a furious swipe at her but it didn't instead it looked at her imperiously .
Mia unfolded the letter which was so black it looked almost purple , addressed in silvery white to her. She had no friends yet the letter was still , addressed plainly to her and no one else .
Dear Mia , it said .
We are coming to get you , the time of awakening is near . The wait will soon be over .
p.s :-remember to stay hidden from the known
on the bottom of the letters were the initials ' S.D ' , Mia thought hard trying to remember anyone with the same initials of their names but no one came to her mind .
And what did they meant by the time of awakening? And who exactly was this ' known ' everyone kept talking about ?
Mia had so many questions that she felt her head was going to burst open . She bowed trying to see the name of the person who owned the black cat , but when she did ; Mia realized that the cat was gone just like the stranger and the old man , it merged into the darkness itself .