At the hotel that day, I sat on a chair near the side table, thinking critically about what Lolly had said, "Did you think she was telling the truth? And my dad somehow has a hand in this?" I asked, unsure about everything.
Then Lila stood by my side, sighed, and said,
"I don't know, but did you notice a strange presence hovering around that girl?"
I shook my head, and she went to sit on the bed. "It's weird. I have a really bad feeling about where this is going."
Meanwhile, when Ferda and Lolly got back home, they found Bia already setting the table for lunch.
"Hey, Mum," Ferda said tonelessly as she walked like a corpse towards the kitchen to quench her thirst with a soda.
Lolly walked motionlessly to have her seat and dropped her bag on the seat next to her.
"Hey, girls, how was school?" Bia asked, feeling a little excited. She was finally accepting Clovet's death and slowly moving on, hoping that her remaining two daughters would move on too.
Ferda, already two bottles down, belched and replied,
"Same as always."
Then Bia turned to Lolly, who sat quietly, patiently waiting for food, and asked,
"What about you, sweetheart? How was school?"
Ignoring the question, Lolly raised her head slowly, looked at her mother with an expressionless face, and said,
"We saw Zack today."
Surprised, Bia froze, looking at Lolly with fright in her eyes as a wave of memories hit her like rocks. She asked slowly,
"Wh-where did you see him?"
"On our way back," Ferda chimed in as she took her seat next to Lolly. "He was with some girl and looked really okay, as if he wasn't the one who battled Zhebel months ago."
"Oh no," Bia gasped. She thought that I was dead and that she had finally gotten rid of me.
"Hey, Mum!" Ferda called, dragging Bia out of her pool of thoughts. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," she replied hastily as she took her seat and began to dish out the food for them to eat.
The next day, at work, we had very few customers. Lila was clearing the tables of customers who had left, Rick was serving some new customers, while I was in the locker room, trying to figure out where we could spend the night. Our stay at the hotel had expired, and I didn't have enough money for another day. I still didn't have the courage to go back to my apartment.
Just then, Reta entered for a water break. She took a big bottle of water from her locker and had a gulp.
I noticed her staring at me, so I turned and said,
"I think you should slow down when drinking." I smiled, and she smiled back, dropping her gaze. "So, where are you from?"
"Erm... New York," she replied quickly. "Why do you ask?"
"Nothing really, just curious," I said, taking my gaze off her. It was as if she was avoiding eye contact.
"So, what are you doing back here?" she asked, putting the bottle back in her locker and closing it.
"Nothing much," I replied. Then she turned to face me.
"You know, Rick told me all the fun things you guys did together, the sleepovers before you lost your sister. I'm truly sorry about that," she said. "But I was wondering, when are we going to have a sleepover at your place again?"
I was surprised by the question but had to hide it and replied, trying not to sound weird,
"I don't really know. Right now, I'm still figuring some things out."
"Okay," she said, a bit disappointed. "I was really looking forward for a party."
"That's okay, we can host it anywhere," I said, and she nodded and left.
There was something awfully strange about her. It was like we had met before, but I couldn't ignore the fact that her face wasn't familiar to me. Above all, she reminded me a lot about Tesla. Oh, I've missed her so much, but I don't have the courage to go look for her.
After a while, I came out and joined Rick in serving the customers.
Later that day, when Jerry got back from work, he found Bia sitting at the dining table without a smile on her face. The table was filled with different kinds of food and was well arranged. Jerry greeted her when he entered, already relieved to see the food because he was hungry. He hung his coat on the hanger behind the door and sat down hurriedly to start eating.
After serving him the food on a silver plate, Jerry began to eat quickly. Then Bia asked,
"What happened to Zack?"
This caught Jerry off guard and almost choked him as his heart began to race. Soon after, Ferda and Lolly joined them at the dining table.
"Good afternoon, Dad," Ferda greeted as Jerry smiled at her.
"Good afternoon, dear." He felt relieved, using her greeting to escape answering the urgent question. But Bia was still insistent.
"What really happened to Zack that night?"
"I-I don't know," he replied. He hadn't seen me since he returned from the shadow realm and I was still too messed up inside to visit him.
"What do you mean you don't know? You're the one who went back for him that day, weren't you?" Bia yelled, demanding an answer.
"Why are you even asking about him?"
"Ferda and Lolly said they saw him on their way back from school," Bia broke out, which scared Jerry, but he chose not to show it.
"Well... Am I responsible for his movements?"
"He seemed different, Dad," Ferda said. "I guess he too was affected by Clovet's death."
"Or he had something to do with it," Lolly chimed in, looking at Jerry with a piercing gaze. "Tell us, Dad, what were you doing at the hospital that night? Who were you with?"
All eyes were now on him, and there was no way to avoid the topic so he broke down and told them the truth.
"So I was right all along," Lolly said, still not satisfied. She stood up and slowly walked towards him. "But there's no way Zack could have survived that fight with Zhebel."
"Maybe you underestimated him," Jerry said, clearing his throat wanting to put a spoon of rice in his mouth before Bia asked, looking at him closely,
"What are you not telling us, Jerry?"
"Dad, who's Luva? Why does Lolly keep calling her name?" Ferda asked, but Jerry tried to stay put, cutting off their questions one by one as they bombarded him with more and more questions. Lolly stood in front of him, shifting his food aside.
"Can't you women just let me eat in peace? I had a bad day at work, okay?" Jerry said, almost shouting.
"You'll eat after you've provided answers to all our questions," Lolly said, sounding different.
Recognizing the person speaking through her, Jerry asked, frightened,
"What do you want from me?"
"The truth, Father. Tell us the truth."
Compelled by all this, Jerry broke down in tears as he confessed.
Hearing this, Bia and Ferda were both stunned. They couldn't believe what they had just heard.
"You did what?" Bia asked with a shaking voice. "You traded my baby girl's life for that abomination?"
"It wasn't intentional," Jerry cried.
"How could you?" Bia asked, almost whispering, as lumps gathered in her throat, preventing her from talking. She just stood there, crying it out.
Ferda, unable to process her father's actions, looked at their faces one by one until she caught Lolly at one corner, smiling weirdly. It appeared that Jerry's confession brought an appealing feeling to Lolly, as she smiled wildly. Her eyes became thin, and Ferda immediately knew that Lolly was gone.