Knock knock knock.
Agatha turned around lazily, still in her sleep.
Knock knock knock
The knocking continued. Agatha woke up with a start, realising someone was knocking.
It was still dark. Her eyes felt tired and her head hurt.
She raised herself off the bed and walked out of her room, to the living room, stretching herself. She looked up at the wall clock. It was almost 6 o'clock in the morning.
She walked to the door and peeped out of the window beside the door. She saw Lisa standing there, biting her lip and knocking incessantly. She quickly opened the door.
"Can I come in?" Lisa asked, hugging herself and clearly shivering inside her sweater. Agatha wondered why, it wasn't a particularly cold night.
Agatha nodded and let her in. Lisa sat on the couch and fiddled with her fingers.
Agatha went in and brought a glass of warm water from the kitchen. She handed it over to Lisa, and sat down opposite her.
Lisa drank up the water in one go and put down the glass on the wooden coffee table between them.
"Anything wrong, Lisa?"
"Yes," she said nodding. Her eyes were red and swollen. "I think I killed Ashley."
"You think?" Asked Agatha doubtfully, an eyebrow raised.
She nodded again. "I'll tell the police tomorrow, but I wanted you to know first."
Agatha shook her head and opened her mouth to speak, but Lisa held up her hand and sniffed before speaking again.
"I found a diary of Ashley's. I was sure she didn't kill herself. I don't want to go into the specifics, but I have reason to believe it was me."
A fresh shock of tears took over, rolling down her face.
"No, Lisa, I don't think you did it—"
"No, I did!" She cried, "I've done things I don't remember at all! I think I did this in the same way!"
"What?"
"I just have these lapses in memory! And I'm sure it was me."
"That doesn't prove anything."
"But, I have a strong feeling that I did it."
"Lisa, calm down, you didn't do it."
"How can you be so sure?"
"You're such a nice girl, you really loved Ashley. It couldn't be you."
"No! I've been someone else. I've done things that I wouldn't imagine doing!" Lisa buried her face in her hands and sobbed. Agatha looked at her, a sad look on her face.
"Lisa, you didn't do it!"
"No, I did it! I need to be punished."
"Lisa, it couldn't have been you." Agatha walked over to her and patted her on the head.
Lisa looked up from her hands and shook her head. "It was me. I am ready to face the consequences."
Agatha took a sharp breath. "Lisa, I did it."
Lisa stopped crying and looked up at Agatha in shock. Then an understanding look crossed her face.
"You're lying," she said, eyes downcast, "To convince me. To ease my guilt. It's not necessary— I—"
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"No, Lisa, I really did it." Agatha's tired green eyes looked at her unblinkingly.
One look into her eyes told Lisa she wasn't lying. She was appalled. "Why? How could you kill your own daughter?" And then she remembered Agatha's behaviour, on the day they had found her. She wasn't devastated over her daughter's death. It was guilt. And suddenly gears engaged in Lisa's brain and everything clicked together.
"Why?" She asked again, calmer now. Tears dried on her cheeks, making her feel cold.
"Ashley wasn't my daughter," said Agatha. Lisa stared at her in disbelief. But then, she had often wondered at how different they looked.
Agatha got off the couch and walked to her room. Some shuffling sounds were heard and drawers were opened and closed. She returned with a photograph in hand, which she handed to Lisa.
Lisa held it with shaking hands and regarded it carefully. It was a picture of Agatha when she was much younger. She had lot of make up and was wearing long earrings. Her face was lit up in a smile. Next to her was a blonde haired man, smiling happily, an arm over Agatha's shoulder.
The man looked exactly like Lisa. The resemblance was striking.
"That was your father," said Agatha, "And I'm your mother."
Lisa didn't say anything. She didn't know what to say. "It's just a resemblance. How can you be so sure?"
"You look like him, but your eyes— they're just like mine!"
Lisa reached to her clear green eyes and looked directly into Agatha's glittering green orbs, that were now brimming with tears. "So what? That still doesn't prove anything." All this while she knew that green eyes were a rare trait.
"Ashley also said you had an Indian accent, and I was convinced."
Lisa looked at her biological mother unbelievingly.
Agatha's eyes had clouded up with tears now, but not a single drop left her eye. "I was only 18 at the time. My parents disowned me. Rihann didn't leave me. He was always there for me. He said he'd take you to India, meet his parents and grandparents, and then arrange for me to come there."
"But he left me! He left me at an orphanage!" Lisa was surprised by the bitterness in her voice, "I grew up in an orphanage." She didn't know she had such strong feelings in the matter.
"I don't know what happened," said Agatha shaking her head, "I never heard from him again. I think he is dead or maybe he abandoned both of us. I don't know. I've spent sleepless nights over him, over you! I didn't even have a job, money, anything. There was only Rihann's empty house, where he had left me."
Lisa nodded. She could hear Agatha's bitterness for her own helplessness in her voice.
"I was distraught. I just wanted to lay there all day. I had no one but myself." At this point the tears broke the flood gates and flowed down in thick streams. "At around the same time, I found Ashley. She was a baby, abandoned on the street. The way she looked at me and smiled, it gave me back the hope to live, the will to go on. I took her in, worked several jobs and I was doing so well." She took a break at this point and sat down next to her. Lisa wanted to shift away from her, but she didn't.
"And then last year, you came home, with his face and I just knew." She said. Tears we're streaking her face now.
"But why did you kill Ashley? Why? Even if she wasn't the daughter you birthed, you raised her as one! You had no right!"
"She was a criminal, Lisa. She was going to kill you. She was writing it in her diary."
"Ashley?" Lisa didn't believe it.
"Yes, her."
"So you were the one that tore the pages?"
Agatha nodded. "She's done it before, Lisa. That girl, Alyson. She did it. Her and Elaine."
"You mean they really did it? And you knew it, all along?" The mixture of feelings in her mind was driving her mad.
"Not until recently, no. At the time, I just thought she was being falsely blamed. Elaine was moving with her family and they offered us a place too, abd a decent income. I thought they were just being nice, but they were keeping a watch over us. Over Ashley— so that she doesn't spill." There weren't tears in her eyes anymore. She stared blankly at the empty glass on the coffee table.
Lisa was afraid now, but she was also curious.
"What happened?" She asked.
"They killed Alyson and threw her down the stream. I thought Ashley was at home at the time. She wasn't. She escaped somehow."
"Sounds like her, alright." Lisa murmured to herself.
Agatha nodded again. "That night, I walked in on her writing her diary. I couldn't help but notice your name and the word kill. I wanted to read it and she wanted to hide it, and in our tussle, I happened to tear of some pages. She pushed me out of the room and outside her door, I read the diary. My blood ran cold."
"What did it say."
"She wanted to kill you. For Daniel. I laughed at her. I thought it was a joke. That seemed to have enraged her, because she immediately began telling me— no, boasting to me about how she had killed Alyson. How she had done it. She described it." Agatha broke into a sob. "She said she would do the same thing to you too. I couldn't take it. I pretended not to believe her and left her room."
She wiped her eyes. "She laughed when I left. I heard her. She was awake all night. Planning— it was chilling— what kind of monster had I willingly brought home? When I heard her fall asleep, I went into her room and looked everywhere for her diary, but I didn't find it." There was a long pause before she continued again.
"And then, she woke up and looked at me menacingly. She threatened to kill me as well, if I was going to be meddlesome. There wasn't a trace of guilt in her voice. And that did it for me. I killed her."
Lisa nodded. "And those cuts on her skin?"
Agatha nodded and sobbed heavily. "It broke my herat, but I did it!"
Lisa didn't know which was more wrong. What Agatha did, or what Ashley did. She sat motionless, not knowing what to do.
She heard the door break open and the sound of running feet. Jeff and Dan entered the room.
"Lisa," said Dan, pulling her into a hug, "it's okay, we know."
"We called your phone. Martha picked up and said you were gone. I just wanted to-uh—" began Jeff.
"Make sure Agatha was safe?" Asked Lisa with a wry smile.
Jeff nodded. Lisa laughed.
"It wasn't me." She said simply and pointed to the sobbing mess that was Agatha.
