AURORA (Original Novel)

Chapter 9. Evil. Part one

Aurora tried especially hard not to catch the eye of the locals; many knew her and almost everyone knew her parents, especially her mother, who attracted undue attention to herself with her behavior. Bielke mostly avoided police cars, which in recent days had multiplied like flies throughout the area. After the mysterious story with Odd Hansen, the girl was completely convinced that real mysticism was happening around her person. She didn't know whether her father or mother was looking for her; less than a day had passed since Aurora left her home and most likely, Victoria, who was in a drunken delirium, would not soon realize that her daughter had disappeared. There's nothing to say about Phineas; he may not come for a week, if not more. Maybe her parents won't look for her at all. Bielke was now worried about something else. Just two things, first, where to sleep next night? Second, this is a creature with amber eyes. The girl resolutely went to the abandoned factory, she was a little scared and uneasy, but she had to do it, see everything with her own eyes, otherwise her soul would not calm down.

Gruve was left behind, here and there were lonely farms with spreading arable fields, and once Aurora saw a freely grazing flock of snow-white sheep. The abandoned building was located in a separate place, next to it there was a working workshop, what kind of enterprise this was, Bielke did not know, but she saw tractors, combines and trucks driving in and out of the iron gates. A large round pipe, visible from the territory of the organization, emitted clouds of steam, as it was written on a sign that was attached to a three-meter concrete fence. "Repair office Onsen and co." The noise of metallic clanging and the knocking of something heavy against something echoing echoed throughout the surrounding area. There were no residential buildings around, only forests and hills, somewhere further away there was the village of Orvik and a large parking lot for truckers.

Aurora took one of two routes to the crime scene, a wooded dirt road that ran straight through the hills and into the unknown looked creepy, but was the best option. Walking along the side of a large highway, along which patrol crews ply and acquaintances might see, was not immediately the best choice. While Bielke made her way through the wild thickets, she muttered songs and melodies to herself. In the thickets a woodpecker was knocking on a tree trunk, looking for food. The weather was good and the sun illuminated the path, giving confidence and driving away bad feelings. For almost two hours, Aurora sat in a small clearing just above the foot of one of the hills, watching the work of the enterprise, which was located below in full view. She was thinking about how best to get to the abandoned area, which was hidden from here by a neighboring hill and dense thickets; she could make her way through the windfall directly, but Bielke did not like the dark, mossy and bumpy path at all; she could still go around the entire territory in an arc, go out onto the highway and through a couple of kilometers away there was a village through which a path was laid directly to the ruins, or you could crawl through the hole that was in the fence of the Onsen organization and there through the warehouses to the grove, and now you were already there.

Over these thoughts, basking in the sun and chewing a loaf of white bread, the girl spent time in the clearing. The workers scurried about below, doing their work and not noticing the observer. A curious squirrel, pretending to be a monument, froze for the first half hour on the trunk of a pine tree that grew close to the stump on which Aurora was resting, decided to nevertheless come closer to the person, smelling bread, and soon, having become completely emboldened, climbed onto Bielke's lap. She was so delighted by this that she held her breath so as not to scare the animal away. Then she carefully placed a piece of loaf in front of the curious muzzle of the squirrel, who grabbed the treat and, waving her fluffy tail goodbye, disappeared into the crown of a pine tree, where she apparently had a shelter. This amused the girl so much that she laughed, her mood lifted a little, and Aurora, with a surge of vitality, began to go down the hill to the territory of the enterprise.