Anaya: A Dark Voyage [#1 LightBlood Series]

Chapter 21 - Better The Devil You Know

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The leaves in front of the house crackled and crunched under her feet as she walked closer to the door. She noticed three young boys sitting close to the door, playing. They were sitting in a circle with a wooden bowl filled with twenty to thirty small stones in the middle. One of the boys took a stone from the bowl and threw it into the air then attempted to catch as many other stones in the bowl as he could before the stone in the air came down. Kande smiled — in a way that wasn't that visible. Like she was trying so hard not to be caught smiling — when she realized they were playing Kudoda. She remembered playing that game from her own childhood. It was one of the most played games in her home country Tanzania. Although she never got to play that game again after they moved from Tanzania to Kolontou, watching the boys— the energy they had, how happy they looked as they laugh so loud when a stone is missed — it felt like it was just yesterday she played the game.

"Any of you live here?" She asked. One of the boys had thrown his stone up and was about to try to catch the ones in the bowl when she did. With all their attention moving to the stranger that stood in front of them, the stone fell from mid-air to the floor with no one catching it.

"I do, please." One of the boys, the oldest among the group, replied.

"Ok. Is anyone else home aside from you?"

"Yes. My Mama is in there..." The boy paused while he stood up and headed to the door, "I will call her for you."

Mama Diarra walked through the door with the boy seconds after he entered. Mama Diarra was still not clad in black clothes and was looking radiant; a bit worn out from her constant worrying and crying but still looked good. It seemed she was, however, having difficulty dealing with the disappearance —and possible death — of her daughter. She worried about her whereabouts. Was she safe? Does she get good food to eat? Does she sleep well? It was already two months after Anaya disappeared. All efforts by the local police to try and find her had been fruitless. There was no evidence or any clue that could lead to where she could possibly be or at least, to give a theory of what could have happened to her.

The police had given up on the search. They said trying to find her missing daughter was like they trying to find a dinosaur in the twenty-first century. It was impossible. But then again, they didn't know what was possible. Then, there was the money factor. Mama didn't have enough money to keep the search going. So she just had to agree with them on giving up the search. However, deep down within her, she knew her daughter was alive. She didn't know why or how but she just knew she was and looked forward to seeing her walk through the door one day. Her room had been left as she had left them. Nothing had been taken from there despite the constant backlash by her family and even friends to accept that her daughter was dead and move. She would always go to her room to clean and lay the bed. Anaya should find the place just as she left it when she returns. She would think.