Secrets

Chapter Twenty

"I have news about the video we've been talking about" Mr O'Hara announced.

The men and women sitting on the chairs that were arranged in a circle in the living room looked at him expectantly. They had talked about the video of the strange incident at a concert in their previous meetings as well, but hadn't come up with any new results.

"So, last week during our Thanksgiving dinner I got to talk to my niece. She went away for college in the summer and I hadn't seen her since, and we are not in touch besides the family group chat. Anyways, as I've told you before my family likes to tease me for being interested in the research that we do. My niece told our family how she had met two girls at college who lived on her floor and liked the same music as her, and how they hang out a lot. Then later she told me that these girls had been at the concert the video was taken at and-" he began a detailed explanation.

"Please, get to the point. What do these college kids have to do with our research? I don't see the connection" Mr Schulzenberger interrupted in the slightly rude manner he possessed.

"Yes, I'm getting there" Mr O'Hara said and took a deep breath.

"And because my niece is very chatty and out-going, she talks about just about everything that happens to her. So she told us in great detail how those two girls – apparently they're sisters – have an older sister who is friends with the singer she loves. She said there had been some drama because of public photos or something. Anyways, she freaked out because her friends' sister is her idol's friend, and they never mentioned it to her" he continued.

"Before you interrupt me again, I'm getting to my point now. Later my niece asked me if I'm still interested in all this magic nonsense – her words – and said she had been in an incident she had thought was strange. Apparently she dropped a pot full of boiling water with spaghetti in the dorm kitchen, but it didn't spill and instead landed quite softly on the ground next to her feet. She said she felt this weird tension as it happened, like time was standing still and then being fast forwarded. Anyways, she jokingly asked me if that didn't sound like magic, and if I could explain to her what had happened, but I told her no."

He paused, but everyone was still staring at him.

"I didn't think about it anymore, Thanksgiving is always busy with all the family around, but the next day I remembered what my niece said about the incident and it reminded me of the comments under the video from the concert. The people who claimed to have been there described a similar phenomenon."

The other people in the room hummed in understanding.

"So I did something I'm not proud of and usually wouldn't do, but it was for the sake of research ... I don't have any social media accounts, but I looked at my niece's Instagram. It's rather fascinating what young people these days publish of themselves on the internet. My niece uses it a lot. She posts photos every game that they have, and- anyways. The point is, I looked at her photos, and there was a group picture from the evening she and her friends cooked together a while ago, when the incident happened. Some of the girls in the photo were her teammates that she talks about often, but two weren't. Though I found more pictures with them as well. I got curious and looked at the other girls' profiles as well. One of them was private, but the other one posts a lot too, and some photos are of her and my niece with their friends. I looked at her photos, and I saw that she had been to the concert in St Louis, where the video we talked about was taken at. Do you understand what I'm getting at?" he asked towards the others.

He took a sip from his water bottle that was standing on the floor next to him, throat dry from having spoken so much. Despite the cold weather, he found himself sweating, worked up from sharing his discovery.

Mr Schulzenberger spoke up again.

"You suspect that somehow your niece's friends and both incidences are connected?"

"I guess that's a possibility. The sisters seemed to be there both times, right?" Mr Jackson, who was sitting next to Mr O'Hara, chimed in.

"That is exactly what I'm trying to say" Mr O'Hara nodded.

"And it seems like there's more to it. My niece's friend also has lots of photos with her sisters on her profile, and when I googled the singer I found that it was indeed the friend's older sister in the paparazzi pictures. Unfortunately I didn't save them, and they've been taken down in the meantime. But the older sister was at the concert, too."

Mr Schulzenberger hummed in response.

"That's a lot of coincidences" he said.

"So those sisters your niece is friends with were at both the concert and at the dorm kitchen when she dropped the spaghetti pot? Is that right?"

"Yes, that is correct" Mr O'Hara stated.

"So ..." Mr Schulzenberger looked at the other attendees expectantly.

"Can we conclude that they may be able to perform magic tricks? They tried to avoid an accident both times?" he asked.

A woman sitting opposite to him gasped in surprise.

"That's what I was thinking, too" Mr O'Hara confessed.

A silence filled the room, everyone lost in thought.

"It does make sense" Mr Jackson reiterated.

The others shared the sentiment.

"What are we going to do now?" Mr Schulzenberger asked, eager to get results instead of just speculating.

"We need to find a way to get to them" a brunette woman suggested.

"Maybe we can ask them questions."

"Don't be so naïve", Mr Schulzenberger said angrily.

"As if they would just share any of their secrets. You've seen how hard it is to get any information at all."

A discussion was brought to life how to proceed. Mr O'Hara kept quiet, having a bad feeling that he shared too much and it might cause trouble. He was only interested in the research, he didn't mean any harm.

Unfortunately for him, Mr Schulzenberger's plans were different.

"So, we will have someone go to their campus and watch out for them? Not to talk, just to see if anything is unusual about them."

A man in his forties with blonde hair and an athletic figure was picked to fulfill the task. He was the newest member of the group, having only joined at the beginning of the year, and he couldn't always make their monthly meetings. From what the others knew about him, he took the research very seriously due to personal reasons. He had a big nose and a faded scar on his left cheek that made his face look distorted, and a limp in his right leg. Despite this, he looked average enough to not draw any attention to himself for his assigned task.

Mr O'Hara protested, saying that this wasn't what he wanted, but Mr Schulzenberger didn't change his mind. He was the founder of the group, they held the meetings in his house, and he had the last word. Defeated, Mr O'Hara sent the man screenshots of his niece's Instagram account.

He didn't say anything for the rest of the meeting, feeling like he had betrayed his niece's trust. They talked about their plan in more detail, but Mr O'Hara didn't listen anymore. An hour later the meeting was dismissed, the attendees having agreed on a date for their next meeting, the first meeting of the upcoming new year. They would hopefully have a lot to talk about if everything went according to plan.