Revenant

Chapter Two - Don't go out after dark

REVENANT

Chapter Two

Don't go out after dark

Clara could honestly not stop thinking about what had happened at Degani's earlier that day. She could barely sleep through the night at all. Every sound she heard seemed like something crawling on the outside of her bedroom walls trying to claw its way in. She even thought she could see shadows or blood red eyes staring through her bedroom window, but she just eventually decided that she was being a little more than ridiculous.

She couldn't help but notice the way her Aunt Annjel was acting when she had gotten home late in the evening. She eyed Clara's - well acquaintances, not well and truly friends - as if they were secretly spies or something. She eyed them off suspiciously and disapproving. She had been acting like this towards everybody and even everything since they had moved into Emu Park.

Clara was almost beginning to be suspicious of her.

It reminded her of the feeling she had when she was about eight years old - a suspicion about her connection with her; was she her mother? The thing she had always wondered was; why do we look so different from one another? Of course, there was the possible explanation of the father she'd never mentioned, but shouldn't she have still had at least something about her that matched her 'supposed mother' - even something as small as a similar nose shape? But, no.

She remembered the day when she had finally found the courage to voice her suspicions to her Aunt. It hadn't turned out well. It had resulted in her running away from home.

Clara remembered the devastation she had felt and, as she stared wet-eyed at the ceiling, held a hand to her chest as if she was feeling that desolation all over again.

"You're a liar! I hate you!" Her small voice echoing around her, when she remembered what she had said to her 'fake mother' when she had found her, sitting beside her real mother's grave; Endrea Anderson. "You have been lying to me this whole time about everything! My mother is dead? Why didn't you tell me?"

The pain. Oh, the pain.

It was here in the middle of the woods, just outside of Emu Park, where her grave lay. Clara had gone hundreds of kilometres south to find it that day, barely noticing her surroundings as she had travelled from bus to bus. She had been that determined to find the truth.

Clara knew, right now, as she lie in bed, that she was just as determined to find the truth about what had happened with Marcus at the Café. She was going to find out somehow, she was.

She ignored the voice in her head quoting; curiosity killed the cat, by replying simply to it with; "Satisfaction brought it back."

~~**~~

Clara awoke in the morning with a start, feeling a prickly feeling on the back of her neck; the feeling of someone watching her. It wasn't a right kind of feeling, because it felt more like she was being watched by the eyes of a stranger, not anything like the feeling she got when her Aunt stares at her with hawk-like eyes whenever she thought she did not know she was looking. No, this was an ice cold feeling.

She looked around her room, breathing heavily, as if she expected to find someone there. The room was empty, with only her presence visible. Clara shook her head, thinking no more of the fact than 'she must be losing her mind'. But, considering what she had witnessed yesterday in the Café, it could be possible that she wasn't. Someone could be watching her. She remembered what Marcus had said, "If you want to play dirty, then so be it." Could Marcus -