“Girls take after their fathers, boys after their mothers. If he was my father, I’d be an Avalon.”
“I didn’t know that. Then they lied. They must have written that he’s your father just to have power of attorney or something over you. Like to be your imposed guardian. The whole affair is so sketchy!¨ Sophie ranted, suddenly feeling claustrophobic even in the large empty space of the lobby, a feeling brought upon by the realisation of just how much the Supernatural Realm was not to be trusted after all. If they could alter details of Boke's parentage just to try control her or cover up a crime, then where do they stop?
¨Gogo told me that one day people like me would come for me. That I was to run, and not make the same mistakes like my mother.¨
¨Then why did you come here?¨ Sophie asked her puzzled.
¨When I got that letter, and remembered gogo's words that my parents' killer still lived- how could I turn away from it all then? I'm the last Maiga, it's my duty to bring the murderer to justice.¨
Sophie crouched closer and wrapped her arms around Boke unbidden. Her body was so cold, stone slab cold, so Sophie squeezed her gently, willing some of her body heat into the smaller body.
Boke didn’t pull away, but neither did she edge closer. It was evident that she was unaccustomed to being held, and was uncertain what to do about it. But regardless, Sophie kept holding her. Everyone deserved a hug once a while.
¨What do we do now?¨ Sophie asked quietly.
¨You’d still like to help me?¨ Boke sounded surprised.
¨Of course! We have to get to the bottom of this.¨
¨Beside my gogo, you are the kindest person I ever met,¨ Boke unexpectedly confessed, her voice cracking under the weight of those words.
Sophie was momentarily stunned, unable to answer. Boke didn't cry though, but those words moved Sophie more than any teary faced words she’d ever received.
She wouldn’t call herself a kind person. She thought guiltily of how she’d only agreed to help Boke because she was looking for an adventure. Sophie gave her another squeeze as an unarticulated thank you for the compliment.
¨Research,¨ Boke said quietly, replying Sophie’s earlier question. ¨That’s what is next. We must find out exactly what happened around the time I was born. I saw the library has copies of old archived newspapers of the Supernatural Realm. Surely something must have been written of my mother's death or my grandmother, the terrorist.¨ She spat out the last part, in detest at the words she had to say.
Sophie wasn’t big on library research, or any kind of research there of, but never before had she come across an exciting reason to do it. Now there stood one before her, a chance to uncover a conspiracy and expose a murderer. For that, she’d willingly dive into a pile of dusty old books.
¨I’m free Monday after class,¨ Sophie suggested.
¨Me too.¨
¨I have a free period before end of class. I think I’ll go to the library then so as to avoid having to lie to my friends about what I’m doing after class. They would never suspect me to be in the library, so we can work there uninterrupted.¨
¨I’m sorry that I'm making you deceive your friends..¨
¨Nonsense!¨ Sophie said quickly, interrupting her. ¨In the end, when we expose the culprit, they’ll understand.¨
Boke smiled, probably glad that Sophie’s focus on this mission had grown to be nearly as strong as her own. Put in the same situation, robbed off a life with her parents, Sophie was certain she’d have gone down the same road, and could only hope that she’d have met with someone willing to help her through it.
¨Shh..¨ Boke suddenly said, putting off the red glow in her palms.
A couple seconds later, Sophie heard someone's footsteps approach, probably a matron making her rounds. She didn’t check their corner though, proceeding straight to the main staircase and climbing them. A door opened and shut, and the echo of footsteps was no more.
¨We better go to bed now,¨ Sophie whispered, still barely believing that a matron had just walked past them without glancing their way. Boke nodded.
¨Sleep well, Sophie,¨ she said quietly.
¨Good night, Boke,¨ Sophie answered, rising to her feet.
Chapter 19
Sophie had no problem slipping away from her friends to go to the library the next day. That was because all her friends, apart from Aimi, were in Spells 1 or AD, the Active Defence class.
Luckily, Aimi was busy flirting with a Werecat boy in their class, as always. Sophie smiled at the sight as she quietly slipped away. If she ever needed boy advice, Aimi was the one to ask. The beautiful Faery had half the boys in class wrapped around her finger. She told them this morning that she’d already been asked twice to the school's Formal Dance, which was about three months away! Considering this was their second week in school, that was very impressive!
Sophie headed for the main stairs, and then branched off at the second floor landing into the library. She couldn’t help but feel dwarfed as she walked through its large doors, and the feeling was only intensified inside the library itself. The giant pillars in the open plan floor and the towering shelves in what appeared to be never ending rows was very intimidating. She felt overwhelmed, and had absolutely no idea where to begin. She searched for the librarian's desk.
¨Hi,¨ she began when she was standing before the desk. It was a massive assortment of rich dark wood that looked as old as the school building itself. She had to stand a few steps away from it, or she wouldn’t be able to look over it and see the man sitting behind it.
¨Hello child,¨ an old Faery looked up from his books with the kindest smile Sophie had ever seen. She immediately answered his smile.
¨I was interested in reading old newspapers about the Supernatural Realm, to find a little more information about our kind,¨ Sophie said.
The wrinkles around the librarian’s eyes made him look very endearing- what a loving grandfather ought to look like. Sophie wouldn’t know though, for she’d never met her grandfather.
¨How are your parents, Miss Leighton?¨
Sophie stared at him startled. How had he known whom she was?
¨Don’t be terrified,¨ he said kindly. ¨You are your father's spitting image. He was a very curious man too, just as you are,¨ he continued. Sophie smiled again.
¨My parents are fine,¨ she said, easing up to his kindness.
¨That's good to hear. I warned them when they left that it wouldn't do them any good to keep this world a secret from you. Now here you are venturing to find out more. The Leightons were always the most curious of us Faeries.¨
¨You knew my parents well?¨ Sophie asked with great interest.
¨Too well than I’m comfortable with, having caught the two sneaking about my library and kissing behind bookshelves.¨
Sophie giggled.
¨I can't believe they did that,¨ she responded good naturedly, imagining the looks on her young parents’ faces at being discovered.
¨Lachlan was a good enough boy that avoided trouble. Stubborn, but good. That little lass though! Siobhan was happiest when chaos and drama followed her. I watched years of Lachlan's embarrassing attempts at winning over your mother. He finally got the girl though, and for that, I am proud of him.¨
¨My name is Sophie, Sophie Leighton,¨ Sophie said, extending her hand. She’d already decided that he was her favourite staff member at Drachenburg. He took her hand into his warm wrinkled hands.
¨Everyone calls me librarian, but you may call me Tom, as your parents had.¨ Sophie’s smile grew even wider.
Tom released her hand and reached for something behind his desk. She heard a rustle of papers, before he placed a simplified map of the library on top of the desk. Sophie had to half tiptoe, half prop herself on the desk with her arms to see it.
¨At this corner are all newspapers and periodicals, filed according to their publication dates. I am sure you can easily find it with this map,¨ he said, handing her the map when he was done marking the spot
with a yellow highlighter.
¨Thank you Tom.¨
She easily enough found the rows and rows of shelves filled with old newspapers and publications, dating way back to what could be the fifteenth century. She had no interest in those however. Her interest lay in the previous decade, particularly between 1994 and 2001. The years when their parents had attended this school, to right after they were born.
Sophie eventually found the shelves in question, and so began by bringing down all the publications of the first week of January 1994 onto a nearby desk. They formed a very large stack, and Sophie realised for the first time just how painstakingly slow this research process would be. There appeared to have been five newspaper houses back then reporting on the Supernatural Realm. Each printed a daily paper, and in addition, two weekly periodicals were printed and three monthly ones.
Sophie perused through the stack as quickly as she could, searching for any mention of a Witch terrorist, the Maiga family, or the Leighton’s. She came up with nothing. And so she moved to the next month, and the next.
The first few papers she opened were filled with pictures of new year celebrations, balls and politics. Sophie immediately got a clue of the high status families in the realm, for the names Sanguine, Rheinhart (which she knew to be stuck-up-Klaus' surname), Nakamura (Aimi's surname), and others she couldn’t particularly remember at the moment. Klaus’ mother was in the council back then, and his grandfather had held the seat before.
The Sanguines appeared to be political blue bloods too. There were even speculations been made on whether young Jan Sanguine would take over the chair after his father the Count.
Young Jan? Sophie could barely imagine the school principal as young. It was quoted somewhere that he’d been nineteen then. That would make the current Drachenburg Principal about thirty nine years old. That couldn’t be true! Surely he was much older than that! She thought back to the skinny shrivelled Avalon she’d only ever seen once, during the welcome dinner.
Sophie quickly sifted through the delicate yellowed pages. There were talks of upcoming elections later that year, but nothing much of interest. Just politics and reports of what was going on in the human realm. She found nothing of particular interest to their case in the next bundles either. Her arms were already starting to ache at the amount of muscle she was using to pick bundles and return them to the shelves.
Sophie checked her watch- Boke would be out of class in a minute or two. She didn’t want Boke to go ask old Tom the same question she had, as the old man might suspect their intentions. Sophie instead walked out of the corner and headed towards the doors.
She caught sight of Boke just arriving. A few rows of shelves separated them, but Sophie was certain Boke had seen her. She turned and lead her to the corner where more piles of newspapers awaited them.
¨Hallo,¨ Boke said when they were finally free to talk. There was no one in that end of the library.
¨Hi,¨ Sophie greeted her with a smile.
¨Did you find anything yet?¨
¨Not particularly,¨ Boke answered.
They spent the next couple of hours bent over old dusty newspapers. They managed to go through the March to May publications before the dinner bell sounded.
Of particular interest was towards the end of May, when a section of Law Enforcers reported to have retrieved a child in danger. This particular Law Enforcement team was led by a young Avalon, Jan Sanguine, son of Councilman Count Gregor Sanguine, and direct descendant of Rothrak Sanguine, after whom the Avalon tower was named, the papers quoted.
It was in the Serengeti, Mong’ena area, that the team, with the help of a team of powerful Witches, had been able to finally save the young girl.
Sophie summoned Boke at that point, and the two of them soaked in all that was written hungrily. In the next paper, more information was provided of the particular rescue, including a picture of what could be the spitting image of Boke, though stockier with a face emitting fear, being held by a much younger Principal Sanguine.
“It must be your mother,” Sophie whispered.
“It is her,” Boke confirmed.
They read every detail of the story in all the publications. It was believed that the child- not really a child as she was sixteen, but they claimed her a child repeatedly, had lowered the protective spells put up by her mother to escape. Her mother was the known terrorist Nyangwi Maiga. Apparently the Sup Realm's powers-that-be had previously found Nyangwi unfit to be a mother due to her criminal past, and had asked her to give up her child to the society to be provided for a better home. Nyangwi had instead run away with her child and cast very strong invisibility, cloaking and protection spells around them. No one heard from them ever since.
More and more papers showed the face of a very young, scared and confused Maseke, being paraded through court cases and social gatherings or meetings of sorts. Papers from the last days of May revealed the Sanguine family's intention to adopt the young girl, triggering mixed reactions. Some Witches believed it was they that ought to keep her, as they searched for a way to bind her unnatural magic as a Wailer Witch.
¨I’m not leaving,¨ she announced calmly after the sound of the dinner warning bells.
¨You can’t stay. The library is closing now,¨ Sophie reminded her.
¨You go ahead. I’ll hide here and read on.¨
¨Please don’t read on without me,¨ Sophie said, not wanting to miss any part of this now. Boke debated her request for a while, but finally agreed.
“Alright, we do this together.”
“Yes,” Sophie agreed. “We do this together.”
Chapter 20
Sophie spent the next afternoon before tennis practise in the library again.
The Sanguines succeeded in adopting Maseke into their family. It was also announced that she’d be attending Drachenburg School at the start of the next school term as a freshman. Some argued that this could be a political move by the Sanguines. If it was, it worked, for Gregor got re-elected into the council in June that year.
More reports of Boke's grandmother filled the papers soon after, and where she was mentioned, attacks were mentioned too. The terrorist had been seen in London, another eyewitness placed her in New Zealand. Reports that she was being helped by a faction of the Witch society to get her daughter back began buzzing. Notices of warning were plastered everywhere, anybody found harboring the fugitive would face a very tough sentence for Aiding and Abetting a terrorist. k`1`2
More reports of attacks ensued - Frankfurt, New York, London, Tokyo, Barcelona, Seoul, Lagos, Chicago, Toronto, Rio, Helsinki, Johannesburg, Paris, Warsaw, and many more. The attacks were strategic, aimed at the main businesses financing the Supernatural Realm, and those owned by Supernaturals. She attacked nightclubs frequented by members of the Supernatural Realm, and even exposed Supernaturals in their human realm jobs, especially cover ups of something wrong done by a Supernatural or that could expose a Supernatural.
Nyangwi lived up to the terrorist title she bore. She took responsibility for all the attacks, and promised more. Each time she left behind a single clear message-
Give me back my daughter!
Supernatural members began to panic, and a division rose among them- those for and against the child been taken away from her mother. Arguments in her favour were voiced, that Nyangwi had stopped all terrorist acts when she had her daughter with her. For ten years she’d left the Supernatural Realm in peace.
Those against argued that the child had gone against her mother to lower the cloaking spells as a cry for help.
Another journalist, Chu Mana was the name written, argued that after having interviewed the child; she determined that the child had lowered the veil by mistake and not as a cry for help. Maseke missed her mother and wished to go back home. Over two dozen reporters wrote articles discrediting the reporter Chu Mana.
A red light went off in Sophie’s head. That was how to smoke out cover ups. If Chu Mana had been lying, all the reporters, includi
ng those from the same newspaper she/he worked for, didn't need to gang up against him/her that much. They were trying to stifle the story, and that only made Sophie believe it. Maseke might very possibly have lowered the shields by accident.
When the terrorist attacks against the Supernatural Realm kept going on despite all attempts to stop her, the High Council suspected that some Witches were helping. Even Faeries were suspected, as they’d always been considered sympathisers of Wailers apparently. Inquiries and witch hunts began. That seemed to work, for reports of terror attacks were now lessened, but they continued.
On her way to Tennis practice one afternoon, Sophie ran into the head-girl. She’d dreaded this meeting for days now, but it was inevitable.
“Your name is Sophie, Sophie Leighton, isn’t it?” The head girl purred her words, her movements lithe as she stopped in her tracks and turned Sophie’s way.
“I am.” Sophie struggled and failed to control her thundering heart. The head girl narrowed her eyes, smelling her fear and hearing her racing heart.
“Is everything alright? You seem nervous.”
“I am,” Sophie saw that lying would only make Monica more suspicious.
“Why?” Monica queried, folding her long fingers before her.
“B-because that day when I came to your music room you.. I think you were asleep, and maybe I made some noise and woke you up, as you- it was like an angry growl and purr, a sound between the two, but I was certain you were angry. I’m so sorry for waking you up, only-” Sophie kept talking, the words tumbling out of her mouth, her stuttering working for her case. “Lola told me you said I come that day. I thought you were expecting me..”
“Relax, newbie. You’re swallowing half your words, and I must warn you, you’re awfully close to a heart attack, if your heart keeps beating at that pace.” Sophie swallowed, but her heart seemed unwilling to slow down. She was honestly frightened out of her mind.
“And I was expecting you, only-” she stopped to purse her lips thoughtfully here. “I think someone attempted to play a trick on me and spiked my tea. Lola swore it wasn’t her, and I believe her. I suspected you, to be honest,” Sophie swallowed again. “And I've been watching you to ascertain it.” Grey green eyes bore down into Sophie’s eyes, and a cold sweat broke at the back of her neck.
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