Chapter 19: Dilemma at the Doorstep
The pair of golden eyes widened in recognition then changed to desperation.
“Fred!” Electra’s brother said. “You believe me, right?”
“Louis”, Fred said, stunned.
“You have to believe me.” Louis Roucan shook him by the shoulders. “You’ve got to. Electra’s alive!”
Fred looked to James and Paolo for an explanation. Both shook their heads.
“I have proof”, Louis continued. “It’s all here.” He pointed at his temple. “I saw her in my dreams. She’s alive.” Faith shone in Louis’s eyes that Fred was almost convinced that he was telling the truth.
“But you told me Mr. Roucan had her body returned to the forest.” Fred remembered the visit in the hospital years ago. Louis had been miserable when he recounted how Electra was secretly retrieved from the morgue. There would be no more reminders of the girl who lived in the underground forest for Mr. Roucan had burned the house to the ground along with her body.
“It was all a lie”, Louis said.
Fred exchanged looks with the other men. They nodded and went inside. Alone with Louis, Fred took him to the bench and they sat.
“What do you mean?” Fred asked.
“The corpse had Electra’s face but it wasn’t her. I know that now”, Louis had calmed after sensing Fred’s willingness to listen.
“Is it because of the dream?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you lost your gift?”
Louis was born with the Sight. He couldn’t see ghosts but predicted the future. One of the setbacks was his incapability to predict when the event would happen. James had informed Fred that Louis could no longer see the future after Electra died.
“I didn’t. The medications suppressed it”, Louis said. “My Sight slowly came back after I stopped drinking that quack’s prescription.”
“Anti-depressants.”
Louis nodded and said, “I haven’t told anyone about it ever since.” His eyes darted to their surroundings. Suddenly, he went rigid, “Who’s that?”
Fred followed Louis’s line of sight and saw Tony speaking on the phone.
“That’s my chauffeur”, Fred said.
“How long has he worked for you?”
“Since I arrived in the Mysts.”
“Have you made a background check on him?”
“No. A friend made the necessary arrangements for my stay.”
“He could be a spy”, Louis muttered darkly to himself, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“I assure you he’s not.” Fred couldn’t believe how much his friend had changed. What happened to the kind and innocent boy he knew?
“You don’t know what father is capable of.” A mixture of anger and fear crept in Louis’s face.
As a matter of fact, I do, Fred thought. He knew what the old man had done in the past. Mr. Roucan had raised Victoria, a clone as a substitute for his reclusive daughter; faked the clone’s cause of death; and hid Electra’s existence until the very end. He had enough influence to fool everyone into thinking that his family was normal.
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Lemuria: The City of Mysts
Fantasy"Anything and everything is possible in the Mysts." Dr. Fred Williams has a secret. He fears its discovery when a daughter of his patient starts asking him about the City of Mysts. Fred is led to a website where a story about his past is...
