𝐒𝐜𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐇𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐚𝐭 𝐌𝐢𝐝𝐨𝐫𝐢'𝐬 𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐞
𝐂𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐀
Rosie gives me her classic eye roll with a pout followed next before shying away hiding her face in my neck.
She hates people for some reason.
As much as I hate people myself I have never taught her to be an anti-social yet she sulks away when it comes to new places and new faces.
We had admitted her to a private reputed school back in London, but due to her lack of willing participation and communication skills we had no other choice but to shift her to homeschooling.
And she actually loves studying and learning new things except the socialising part.
I was genuinely surprised when she initiated the first hi to our neighbour's son.
Zathrian.
Quiet an unique name like his charming face.
And may be my little Róisín experienced her very first crush at first sight.
People shy away from their crush and she gets bold infront of her crush.
The wooden glass door makes a creaking sound as I push it inside.
The smell of old wood and lavender scented candles enlightening the dark shop.
It's almost like an old library instead there are stacks of shelves filled with beautiful to weird antique items with their price tags.
I marvel at the antique jewellery collection.
Don't buy more jwellery.
But they're antique and classy.
Besides Marlon loves to see my neck covered in jewels.
I pout at the beautiful tiara studded with dazzling light emeralds.
"Wow."
I move onto the next item, a collection of brooches definitely heirlooms sold or auctioned.
I ignore the simple pearl item directly landing my eyes on the on the saxon collar choker with rubies and pearls with gold.
Damn I'm so getting this one.
"May I help you?" I break my dazed stare with neckpiece turning my attention to the old lady with graying hair and a smiling wrinkled face.
She offers me a kind smile.
"Yes, I would like to have this and this." I point from the necklace to the tiara and lastly to the brooches.
"Marvelous choice, we go this last month only." She carefully takes out the items her hands gloved. "There," She holds the necklace near my neck accessing. "I knew a rare beauty is born somewhere for this masterpiece."
I simper at her words knowing the beauty she sees is as fake as my identity for this world.
"This masterpiece used to be of Queen Mary of Scots."
I gasp.
"Really?"
"Uh-huh."
"And what about this taira?"
"Oh this one belonged to Infanta Luisa Fernanda of Spain."
"No way."
"I couldn't believe it either when my husband brought this from the auction last year."
"Mommy down!" Rosie tugs on my coat probably having enough of this lame conversation.
"Aww is this your daughter?" The lady smiles warmly at her but Rosie being Rosie she hides her face in my neck.
"Yeah. Love what's your name?" I tickle her side.
"Róisín Shira Savero." She mumbles half into my neck.
"Aww lovely name it is little miss."
I put her down smiling at the old lady's kind words.
"Say thank you."
"Thank you." She says shyly. "What's your name?"
"I'm Maria, sweetheart." She offers her hand and Rosie cautiously shakes it.
Improvement.
But she quickly pulls back her hand too.
She looks around and once she sees there isn't other people she wanders on her own towards the lame stuff her mouth forming a small 'O' at every sparkling things.
I let her wander knowing she won't touch anything without my permission and bring my attention back on Maria.
"So how long have you been running this shop?"
"Family business, my great great-grandmother Midori started it,she had an obsession with collecting dead people's stuffs." She guides me towarss the billing counter. "Your daughter is adorable, are you new here? I almost know everyone around this small town."
Almost know everyone huh?
"Yeah just moved here two days back." I nod returning her smile. "It was raining the entire afternoon, and we have been wanting to take a trip down the local shops. Scarlet the flower shop, it was the first shop I visited-"
"Aerona?" She nods her smile widening.
"Yeah."
"Oh I love that girl, such a sweetheart though don't ever call her sweetheart apparently she hates being called sweetheart for some reason." She shares.
I wonder why.
"She is a sweetheart." I agree on that part.
"Yeah, she always pays me a visit in the late evening leaving her homemade cookies, it reminds me of my grandmother."
I smile.
"Yeah she bakes good, she is my neighbour and as a welcome gift she baked us some skillet chocolate cake." I share.
"Neighbours?" She blinks her squinted hazel eyes.
"Yea-"
"Which house did you move in?" Her voice drops.
"The old Bungalow Black Ivy." I say slowly and watch the colour drain out of her washed up features.
"Oh dear lord." She murmurs crossing her heart. "Haven't you heard the house is the root of all evil, no one in the last two decades had ever stepped foot in that cursed house after....after...." She shudders leaving me hanging from the cliffhanger.
"After?"
"Oh my poor girl," She urges me to come closer and I lean down to her height. "I have never said this aloud but there are sixty dead bodies or more buried under the ground and in the walls. You haven't heard have you?"
I shake my head.
She speaks hushed and scared, telling me all about what I just heard and saw in the flash.
As she speaks I discover, that she was actually one of Ivy's closest friend before the incident but after Donaver came in scene Ivy distanced herself from Maria.
Which means she could be a reliable source.
"Why did they kill the girls?"
"A sadist. Donaver was a sadist. He was a runaway serial killer who had taken shelter in the bungalow under the disguise of a robbed traveller. Oh my poor Ivy, I had warned her you know, that guy was all kinds of trouble but she was so blinded by love. They say Mathew, Ivy's dead husband still haunts the house for she had killed her husband-"
"But didn't he die from tuberculosis?" I ask.
"Yes he did have TB but Ivy killed him so that she and Donaver can have all the Thompson property. It was all because of that damn bastard." She shakes her head disappointed and angry.
"But didn't Ivy meet Donaver after Mathew passed away?" I ask confused.
"No no, I was there I watched it all happen. Donaver first befriended with Mathew then brainwashed that innocent poor girl of mine. They killed Mathew and then both of them started the Girl's Home named it Black Ivy."
Ah....now that makes sense.
"Why did they start the girls home when they were going-"
"It was Ivy's idea." She lets out a weighted sigh. "She loved kids. Especially girls. She loved braiding their hair, dressing them up. Making their favourite food. Teaching them cello. She loved the girls to the end of the world but....."
Her face falls as her lips turns flat.
"Donaver was the death of her." She concludes half-heartedly.
"What happened?"
"Donaver as I said, was a sadist....he used to get off by killing innocent girls."
A hedonist serial-killer.
"And so when Ivy turned the bungalow into a girl's home it was heaven for him. When Ivy found out who Donaver was behind the mask, she wanted to leave him, but she was trapped. Donaver was a good manipulator, he turned that sweet innocent girl into someone I never knew could exist. She even tried to kill me once."
She closes her eyes probably recalling the awful memory shaking her grey beruffled head.
"Every full moon or so they killed as many girls as they could burying them in the underground dungeon, behind the bungalow, until one day they both killed each other."
They didn't kill each other.
Donaver killed Ivy cause with the remainder of her little conscience left, she had the epiphany of wanting to redeem herself and went ahead to kill Donaver thinking it would end it all, but it resulted in her getting killed the same way they killed the girls.
Choked or drowned and then buried.
Donaver buried her right where the Black Ivy stands, grown from the dead cadavers of her and the girls.
Ivy was lucky she didn't share the same fate as the woman he had burnt tied to a cottage she called home.
"How did the bodies ended up getting buried in the wall?"
I know it but I want to know if what I saw is reliable.
"I don't know after I heard the news of Ivy's death I had left Malachi but it's rumoured, that Donaver renovated the house top to bottom as a so called last gift for his dead betroth," she scoffs her jaw clenched. "But that's most probably how the dead bodies got buried in the walls. The dungeon was apparently too small."
I soak in the conversation trying to connect the missing pieces.
How does she know the dungeon was too small?
"You have been to the house a lot haven't you?"
"Yeah, ofcourse Christopher's dad used to be mine's bestfriend. So yeah I have been to the house a lot. Though I haven't stepped foot it for even once after the renovation."
And it doesn't take much time to connect the dots.
"Wow, you knew Christopher?"
She shrugs.
"Does everyone know about-"
"Shh!" She hushes. "I have never talked about that cursed house, but you moved into that damn house, I felt like I needed to warn you. Move out. That place is no good."
She chants some holy prayers holding her rosary beads.
I can understand why she has never told anyone anything.
What if she got wrapped up in whatever shit Donaver and Ivy was wrapped in and now with both of them gone, she could have been an easy suspect.
Too bad she is still a suspect.
"I have one last question." I shoot her an apologetic smile, handing her my credit card. "What happened to Donaver?"
"He hanged himself that's what happened. I don't know more." She says defensively.
"But didn't you say they both killed each other?" I ask slowly watching her freeze for a good ten seconds.
"Oh did I?"
I nod.
"Sign of old age." She shakes her head.
I bet.
"Look," she hands me back my card along with the bag full of the antique pieces I got. "Be wise and don't make the mistake Ivy made, while no one has been hurt eversince the bungalow was closed and became abandoned, it doesn't mean whatever lurks there won't hurt you. You have a child, for her sake leave that house."
"Okay." I nod to assure her and reassure myself that I'm not leaving until I get to the bottom of this deaths. "Do you know anyone named Elvis Thorif?"
I cross my fingers under the counter.
"Elvis?" She repeats.
"Mhm."
"Yeah, if you're talking about the wealthy real estate agent Elvis Thorif then yes I have heard about him." She nods. "Why?"
"Actually, he was the one who um sold the house to my husband. Just curious." I wave off.
"He is okay, he lives in Lilura another cursed thing in Florida." She grumbles the last part. "He comes to Malachi every now and then once in a while, never personally known him but yeah....he did once buy an antique green bracelet which was believed to have the power of an amulet. It was quite a ransom."
"Oh wow."
No wonder he would buy an amulet bracelet for protection when he sells haunted houses and other dark shit.
"Thanks for shopping."
"It's my pleasure." I smile calling back Rosey, she comes back grinning ear to ear for some reason slipping her small hands in mine.
"Who got you blushing love?" I feel my own lips strech at her toothy smile.
"Killian."
I freeze.
My smile disappears as soon as it had came.
"Who?" I could barely hear myself but the blood in my ear and the heart in my mouth.
"Mommy he said he fights bad guys and saves lives."
Oh hell no.
This wasn't planned.
I wasn't supposed to face him this early.
Hell it's not even a week I'm here.
"Love get in the car." She frowns at my lack of acknowledgement but she gets into her car seat and I strap her belts.
"Mommy are you mad?"
"No love."
"You look mad."
I close my eyes, my unforgiving memory relapsing on the old memory of the person who used to ask me that.
“𝑲𝒆𝒏𝒏𝒚 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒎𝒂𝒅?”
“𝑵𝒐.”
“𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒌 𝒎𝒂𝒅.”
No don't fucking lose your shit, Celia.
You got this.
You would have faced him nevertheless.
"I'm not mad baby." I press a reassuring kiss to her head before closing the door and call the person who could help me in the dilemma.
I'm about to dial the number and that's when I see him exiting Midori.
Fucking-
I turn around facing my tinted car windows making to sure to keep my face neutral and smiley for my girl and call.
I force myself into taking deep breaths as I bring the phone to my ear.
The call gets answered almost instantly.
Someone's been waiting.
"Hel-"
"Do as I say right now." I silence the pleasantries as I tell what needs to be done.
"Okay so do I com-"
"Yes now, this instant." I punctuate. "Hurry and please don't mess it."
"Got it. You are lucky I'm close by."
I cut the call and without looking up I call Sydney.
"Yeah?" She answers.
"We got a Code X."
I hear her groan.
"Not so soon w-t-h. Wait I'm comi-"
I don't get to hear her complete sentence cause the next second I'm getting harshly pulled against a brick of a chest and the blaring horn of a black Ford driving past in a blur grazing past me.
Goddamn it stupid car.
I breathe hard my mouth hanging open as I watch the car drive out.
"Are you okay?"
The smoky guttural voice sends a chill down my spine right where the fingers I know all to well are pressing against my back.
I thank the coat for eliminating any skin to skin contact though the bridge of my nose rubs against the base of the protruding Adam apple.
God. Goddess.
I seethe under my breathe before forcing to look up, the ᴼ² molecules in my lungs crystallizes at the sight of the shrewd whiskey honey coloured eyes pinned on me.
The moment seems transpire into something endless, what feels like an eternity after I finally give myself the liberty to stare at him.
So up close taking up all my breathing place.
Just like the first time.
“𝑱𝒆𝒔𝒖𝒔 𝒎𝒊𝒔𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒐𝒌𝒂𝒚?”
I swallow staring at the face I hate.
God I still hate him just the same.
His dark chocolate brown hair tapered cut, with curls falling down over his eyes.
The picture on tv didn't give any justice to the face I have once woken upto.
But then again the hero they portray of him doesn't give justice to the villain I tried to kill.
The five o'clock shadow on his jawline hiding the acute ninety degree it cuts.
Ah I see the nose is still crooked in the middle.
Good.
Who knew the ring he had put around my finger would turn out to be such a good weapon.
"Yes. Thank you." My voice comes out like steel as I step back.
He nods watching me intently I know what he is thinking.
"Have I seen you bef-"
"I just moved here so I don't think so Mr?" I pretend as if I don't know his last name.
As if he didn't almost put it next to mine.
"Officer Neil Killian Fox. FBI agent."
And I thought you accused me of ending your career.
"Well thank you officer." I offer one of my many fake smiles. "I think I saw you on TV."
One of his thick fat eyebrow raises with a quirk of his lips at one point I used to like.
"Well I'm flattered I didn't know I was famous."
"Famous as in an angry badmouthing officer." I let him know.
"Well I do have a temper." He nods nonchalantly though intrigued. "I think I have seen you on TV too."
I bet.
"Oh really?"
"Mrs. Savero?"
Good to know you keep tabs.
"That will be me. Nice to meet you."
Not really.
"Weren't you just in the antique shop?" He asks pointing his thumb back at the shop.
"Yeah."
Ninety-eight percent chance he fucking eavesdropped the entire conversation between me and Maria.
Bastard.
"Róisín...." He takes her name his eyes moving towards the car and I know it's a stupid stunt but I step back further to sheild her from him despite the windows being tinted black.
He catches the subtle move undoubtedly.
"Is she your daughter?"
"Why doesn't she look like me?"
He smirks at my question.
That arrogant smirk I liked and then hated.
And still hate.
My hand grips the polythene bag in vice grip as I try not to wipe off that smirk.
"Does she?" He challenges his whiskey eyes glinting.
She doesn't.
She looks like my mother and her father.
She has my mother's light blonde hair those eyes.
Her father's sass and attitude.
"Leah?!" I hear Sydney's out of breathe voice as she jogs up the short distance, her eyes doing a once over of Neil Killian Fox.
"Sydney, this is Mr. Fox a FBI agent-"
"Please call me Neil."
I ignore.
"Oh any problem officer?" Sydney smoothly pretends.
"Nope, she was just going to get hit by a car."
He puts it like it's no big deal.
"Oh my gosh, you okay?" Sydney turns to me and I nod.
"Thanks to the officer." I motion my head towards him. "Well thank you officer, we will get going."
"You didn't answer my question." He stops me as I move to open my door.
"Excuse me?"
"Is Róisín your daughter?"
No don't glare at his audacity.
"What kind of a question is that officer?" Sydney prompts. "Ofcourse it's her daughter. She is my neice."
"Just a question." He shrugs. "Will you give this to her then?" He brings out a golden oyester necklace with a lone white pearl attached to it, the sunshine peeking from the dark clouds shinning on it. "Though she called every thing lame in there. I think she liked this lame stuff." His whiskey eyes sparks as a natural smile takes over his serious features.
Something knocks at my heart something soft and though I refuse to answer the knock I delicately take the necklace.
"Ofcourse."
Róisín's first ever gift from her birth-father.
And even if I hate this man, how can I refrain Róisín from her first gift from her real father.
"Thank you and tell her I'm glad to be her friend."
And I wonder why does God hate me so much?
"Sure."
.
.
.
.
.
.
Code-X is a serious issue okay?
Lmao so muuuuch! SO DAMN MUCH HAPPENED IN THIS CHAPTER?!!
Comment your wild thoughts would love to hear your theories :)
And also who was the mysterious person Celia called?
Don't forget to vote cause you don't wanna get on Celia's bad side ;)
See y'all at Sunday.
♡
-Love
Moon🌙