Magnum Opus I

Part 3 Chapter 3

The girls had scarfed down their food in what seemed like two minutes. After taking about 30 seconds to let the mushed up French Toast settle in their stomachs, Octavia threw a $20 bill onto the table and they made their way out the door, eager to finally meet the woman they had spent days searching for. 

As they got in the car, all of their thoughts were travelling at ten million miles-per-hour. Questions were soaring through their minds such as 

What is the lady like?

Is she friendly?

How old is her kid now? He's 'gotta be at least in his 20's. 

Is it even a he?

How old would she be now? 

Does she even still live here?

Who even was that guy at the bar? 

The red lights that they just happened to be stopped by on each street felt as if they lasted an eternity. The girls were silent, as they were lost in their own brains, each having a different conversation with themselves. 

They finally turned on the street the man had scribbled down on the napkin and counted each address number until they saw it, "1215... this is it, it's the one he wrote." 

The house was small but cozy, fitting into the rest of the coastal houses in the neighborhood. The only difference in this house was that the wood was blanketed with a fresh coat of white paint and baskets full of baby-pink flowers hung from the roof of the porch that hugged itself around the entire house. Octavia killed the engine on Bruce and as she was examining the house, suggested they would just walk up to the door, knock and explain the entire situation to the woman they had... somewhat been stalking for the past three days. 

Without hesitation (Octavia didn't allow herself to hesitate because if she did, she might chicken out,) she jumped out of the truck and made her way up the cobblestone steps and stood in front of the white, wooden door. As she hit the door with her closed fist, it popped open on it's own. 

Confused, Kijani shouted to the open door, "Hello? Is anyone home?"

No response.

Your door is open! We came to return something that you must have lost a long time ago! Helloooo?"

Still no response.

Kijani sort of leaned in towards Octavia, whispering, "I think we should just go inside... maybe they're in the backyard or something." 

Octavia nodded slowly out of confusion. The entire situation was too strange to comprehend with all of the adrenaline rushing through her body at the moment. 

Kijani pushed the door open further, revealing an extremely open living room with dark hardwood floors and beautiful floor to ceiling windows that overlooked a massive backyard that was covered in those soft pink flowers hanging on the front porch. One more time, she yelled, "Is anyone here? We just let ourselves in, please don't like shoot us or something..," her voice transforming to a mumble when she got to that last part. 

As they made their way through the bedrooms, there was an eerie feeling drifting through the house. It was clean, but it looked like nobody had lived there for awhile. Yes, the flowers in the back were beautiful, but they swarmed in an overgrown frenzy, uncontrollably blanketing the entire backyard. Where there weren't flowers, there was grass that was about 5 inches too tall. Octavia stopped in her tracks, causing Kijani to run head on into her back. 

"What the hell, dude, you can't just stop li-" She stopped when she noticed what Octavia was standing in front of. There was a single room that was the same color as the flowers. Inside laid an ivory baby crib decorated with handmade quilts, stuffed bears, elephants and giraffes. Next to the crib was an ivory changing table to match. Within the shelves were stacks of clothing that were mostly pinks and grays. A mobile boasting beautiful colored butterflies floated over the empty bed. 

Octavia made her way further into the room, running her fingers along the edge of the crib, leaving a small pile of dust at the end of her trail. As she went to pick up one of the stuffed bears, she noticed another slip of paper resting on one of the pillows. "Another address..," she pointed out, "And.. there's two numbers under it. What the heck do you think this means?" She looked over at Kijani who was sifting carefully through the piles of clothes on the changing table. 

"I don't know... this is all just so weird. It's like someone was expecting us to come in and find the paper. Why else would it be here?"

Octavia shook her head, "I have no idea... I mean... I say we go. If we pull up and the place is sketchy, we won't even get out, we'll just leave." 

"I guess..." The doubt in Kijani's voice was a change in tone from the fearless daredevil Octavia was used to. 

"If you don't wanna go, I can like.. drop you off back at the diner or something and I'll just go alone."

"Are you crazy? If there is some psycho there and I let them murder just you, I'd never forgive myself." 

"Well I mean let's just hope there's no psycho in a population of hardly over 300 people," Octavia smiled and picked up the slip of paper, sliding it into her front pocket. 

After looking around for a few more minutes, they made their way back to Bruce. "Hopefully this is our last stop... I miss Derek," Octavia spoke up as she laid her head down on the steering wheel. 

"Yeah, I miss Cal. I hope he's doing alright without me. Knowing him, he probably burned the place down trying to figure out how to clean a bathroom properly," both of the girls laughed out of exhaustion. They were ready to end their journey. If this didn't work out, they were just going to fill up Bruce's tank and make their way back home. 

Octavia put the keys in the ignition and Bruce roared once again, letting them know he was awake and ready to move out. "This is it," Octavia said out loud, "this is all or 'nothin." Kijani smiled and laid her head up against the window.

"Let's just hope that it's the 'all' and not the 'nothin'." Octavia rolled down the back windows and once again, they were off to try and end their adventure.