The tinkling of wind chimes blended into the peaceful summer afternoon as the warm breeze caressed her hair. Crickets orchestrated a choir in the hedges. The trees in her grandmother’s backyard rustled, showing off luscious green leaves.
She sat on the side porch, making shapes with bands that would not obey her fingers.
“Rei, Rei,” she called, holding up a misshapen tangle. “Where do I go from here?”
Her older brother crouched next to her, putting down the book he was reading and smiling. “You missed a step. Here, let’s begin from scratch.”
He picked up two bands from the ground and showed her the steps, waiting patiently as she retraced his moves. The star she had been trying to make finally took shape.
“I did it!” She beamed.
He laughed at her excitement. “Let me show you something.” He placed their bands together and guided her fingers over the loops and twists. “Now look, what is it?”
She cocked her head. “A flower?”
He laughed again. “No, silly.” He stretched his end. The bands pulled out into an intricate, layered pattern. “A spider web.”
“Oh! That’s pretty!”
Rei took the bands from her hands. One of her fingers slipped, and the bands straightened out, the pattern ruined.
Aw, they would have to redo it -
Her brother was gone.
“Rei?”
She was no longer in the backyard. The wind became a gale, whipping around her, and the rustling grew louder and louder, filling her ears.
Oh, no.
The trail of bright red blood in front of her invited her somewhere.
Not again.
Her body moved despite her protests, following the trail.
No.
She could see from the corners of her eyes. The scene she revisited over and over again.
Stolen story; please report.
Wake up.
In the middle of a Magic Circle, there was a limp figure. The figure looked up. It was her brother’s face – pale, drained, hollow.
She scrunched her eyes tight.
The image of his face burned into the back of her eyelids –
Wake up!
– which distorted and morphed again into a pallid mask floating in the darkness –
*
The alarm clock went off. The noise shrilled throughout her room, breaking the silence of the serene morning and hurting her ears.
A hand fumbled for it and managed to find the correct button.
Rin blinked dazedly at the sunlight streaming through her windows. Then she caught sight of the time. Half past nine.
She sat up, only to find her sheets holding her in a determined tangle. Her game console slid off the bed and landed on the floor. She had fallen asleep at four after matching thousands of tiles, and now her head spun.
When she went down to the kitchen to grab some breakfast, the television was on.
“This makes the fifth person reported missing within the last two weeks. Local authorities are growing increasingly concerned over the incident, raising the possibility of the involvement of Seeds. Council Hunters on site refused to comment on the incidents, citing that nothing conclusive has been obtained -”
The broadcaster’s voice was interrupted by the occasional thuds Mirelle made. She was ironing wrinkles out of a shirt as though it owed her a hundred years’ worth of wages. This was probably one of the rare occasions she was fighting with Cnaris.
“He thinks he knows everything about cleaning, does he?” she muttered under her breath, her arms moving in and out sharply. “The ungrateful clean freak. I will empty those shelves of books. Books he keeps for collecting – collecting dust. Now, what is wrong with the iron today?”
Rin inched behind her. “You forgot to switch it on.”
Mirelle looked at the iron, at the switch, and then at the shirt. She drew a deep breath and set the iron down on the board so hard that it nearly fell over. Rin jumped.
The doorbell rang – very loudly, very rudely, and with very bad timing.
A pause, and then it rang again.
Mirelle’s expression grew darker. Whoever it was, the unfortunate soul was going to face her wrath if she opened the door. People who hardly got angry were the scariest when they did.
“I’ll get it,” Rin said quickly.
The bell rang again. The noise reverberated through the walls. There were only two types of people who would resort to ringing the doorbell in such a manner: an impatient client with a self-proclaimed emergency, or a foolish delivery man with a death wish.
“Who in the hell is trying to break my doorbell?” Cnaris roared from his study.
Rin opened the door. The bell stopped.
There was no one outside.
No client, no delivery man.
Instead, a simple envelope lay on the doorstep. The edges were rimmed with gray lines.
It was addressed to her:
Rin Elziel
Shortbread Factory
Behind Hillstone Lane
Creave
Rin picked it up and opened it. Inside was a piece of paper that bore a message in elaborate, cursive font:
This receipt is hereby a confirmation of your transaction of xxx heart in return for xxxx. Our collectors will be retrieving the set amount of heart in due time. Thank you for your patronage.
Sincerely,
The Heart Shop
P.S. Transaction details are blanked out to safeguard the client’s confidentiality in rare occasions where the receipt falls into hands other than the client’s.
She stared at it for a whole minute, reading the words over and over again.
How did the shop know her real name and address when she disclosed neither?