When Silver Met Gold

Chapter 14 - Under A Spell

A sick feeling rose in the pit of my stomach. I had never seen a girl cry like that. I wanted to go to her, console her to whatever her problem was, but I couldn't gather the courage to. I didn't know who she was. Where did she live in this area? What was it that hurt her so badly? Why was she alone? Why alone?

After a couple of days, I craved to have a glimpse of that face, which made me freeze. I saw her. I saw her and ecstasy blossomed in my heart.

She strode towards the kids who feared her but also had a frown on their faces. She smiled at them, raising her hands in surrender. She extended her hands to her ears and held her earlobes, and she shouted, "Sorry."

My head spun, and my world spun. I found myself holding a tree, my head leaning onto it. I saw her with my peripheral vision, made difficult by my hooded eyes.

The smile on her face made the world spin around me and stop at the same time. Her sorry—that innocent apology—hit me with an epiphany that this sorry this sound would always ring in my head until my last breath.

The pout on her cherry color lips made me want to go to her. Propose to her right then and there. The thought hit me like a train. Was I thinking that? Did I just think to propose to her? Was it that simple?

You have gone crazy, Aaliyan; you have forgotten your limits!

I closed my eyes to my mind and paid full attention to her.

She put a hand in her pocket, took out candy and chocolates, and gave them to the kids. They took the candies with frowns and pouts on their faces.

Did she win the kids with toffees? Yes, she did.

If somebody told me a few days back that I would do what I was going to do now. I would have laughed in their faces for expecting that from me, and now my inner self was smiling in my face.

I followed her. I stalked her.

A part of me was scolding me doing such a cheap thing. For being ruthless and ignorant to the facts and stalking a girl who could be a past serial killer and was now a child hitter.

Another part of me wanted to know her, console her, hold her, bring all the happiness, and put her in her feet.

When she kept going towards my house, I was shell-shocked. Did she sense that I was following her? No, she couldn't. The most important thing I learned about her was: she was unobservant to the point she could never tell what happened around her two minutes ago. She was cut off from the world and its matters.

The second time on the same day, my world spun in front of my eyes. This time it was because of anger when she opened Auntie Sabira's house door.

Who was she? Did Uncle Mubashir sell the house or put it on rent? I was thunderstruck at how he could do this to Auntie Sabira. It was her house, her property.

I called him. Rage surged through my body, blocking me from thinking clearly. "Who's the girl in Auntie Sabira's house? Uncle, why did you ..."

"Whoa whoa... easy young man..." He was terrified by my yelling.

"How?" I clenched my fists and stopped myself from saying something that I would regret later.

"She's Musca."

"Musca," I heard myself whisper, the perfect name for a girl like her.

"Yeah, Musca."

"Musca as in Auntie Sabira's daughter," my eyes widened as my pulse picked up in thrill.