Mina ✓

•|chapter sixteen: the riddle [present day]

"Quite so Miss Wood," Oleander nodded, his eyes still on the diary. "Consider this as a guide. A guide to solve the mystery behind the disappearance of Wilhelmina Andras."

"Really, but how?"

"Now consider these first two lines - 'You who read this must know of the tragedy, and have thus begun your quest to uncover the truth," he explained, quoting the lines. "It is pretty straightforward. Paisley Rose has tried to say that the message she has written is intended for someone who wants to know the truth behind the disappearance, which is pretty understandable."

"The next two lines - 'Take heed to my words, trust not what says the world," he continued. "This is where all the information we gathered becomes of no use. What does the world say? Wilhelmina Andras disappeared. But she tries to say it is not so. She never really disappeared; she was made to disappear," he proclaimed darkly.

"And that Felicity Rose had not fallen from a tree but was murdered," Yvaine mumbled.

"Yes," Oleander replied in acquiescence. "But the last three lines are still a mystery to me. Is it to be taken literally or is it but a hint?" he mused, a subsequent silence befalling upon them.

Yvaine shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Look underneath, the riddle said. And last night she had found the knife under the floorboards. What could this mean? Was this house, no matter how preposterous the idea seemed, a clue to the disappearance? This was the house of the Andras family, wasn't it?

Yvaine bit her lip. How foolish of her! In the quest to find everything about Wilhelmina Andras she had ignored such an important fact glaring at her face. This chateâu was one of the oldest structures in the town. It was an ancestral property that her grandfather had inherited from his maternal side, perhaps due to some relation to the Andras's.

She had never really cared to know about the history of the house but now the knife and the ghost of Mina made her wonder whether this was the same chateâu as that of the Andras family and could more clues be lying around the house?

"Ahem, I have something to say," Yvaine cleared her throat, breaking the silence, making Oleander and Amberly look at her. "Last night I found an old knife on the top floor, embedded within the floorboards. It was covered in dried blood."

***

"Mom, how can you be so sure that they will come? What if they don't get the message?" Gaia Rose reasoned with her mother Vesna as the two sat side by side in their living room, with a pot of steaming tea and five beautiful blue china cups set on the coffee table in the middle of the four lime green couches.

"There was a reason why Aberford Rose had made the will that the diary is kept securely by every Rose descendant and why it must be transferred to the one after whose arrival will emerge the bottle," Vesna answered with confidence, referring to the nephew of Paisley Rose. "I am sure they will figure something out and they will come here. Even your intuition says that Gaia. Else why did you want to sneak out and meet the new librarian?" her eyes glowed like the windowpane blazing in the sunlight.

"I wanted to speak with her about something else," Gaia replied sheepishly. Earlier that morning her mother had caught her sneaking through the kitchen door to the chateâu. "It was not about this."

"You can't deceive your mother, young lady," Vesna chuckled, seeing the mauve aura of deceit above her daughter's head. A momentary silence ensued between the two.

"Hey mom," Gaia spoke after a while, pulling the sleeve of her baggy yellow shirt. "I was just wondering, maybe you could tell me what's the matter with that house, that chateâu?"

"I thought you were not interested in all that folklore."

"Come on, mom," Gaia groaned. "I just wanna know. Can't you tell me? I know you know." She said a little vexedly.

"Fine," Vesna took a deep breath. "As we know the chateâu belonged to the Andras family. It was also the place Wilhelmina Andras got murdered by her older brother, Johnathan and after which no one till date knows where her body is."

"So one of the voices in the chateâu belongs to Johnathan Andras and another belongs to Wilhelmina Andras?" Gaia said with a frown. This question had been troubling her for quite a while; whose voice was that she had heard the other day at that place? And what about that buzzing noise?

"Perhaps. There is no surety about it," Vesna answered, her eyes glowing as she watched the aura surrounding her daughter's head turn yellow with curiosity. "In fact, most don't even know that Wilhelmina never disappeared, that she was killed. Thus the chateâu of the Andras family never went untenanted. It has been always occupied."

"Well, that could mean-" a loud ring of a bell interrupted Gaia. With a shocked expression, she looked once at the door and once at her mother.

"What did I tell you? They have came," Vesna smiled. "Go and open the door."