Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.
-- Thomas Jefferson
Cassie pulled the phone away from her ear and as soon as she did that she received a notification. Her heart pounded heavily against her chest. She gulped as she looked down at the notification. It was a text message from the same number that she got the voicemail from. She clicked on it and some numbers came on her screen, it took her a moment to realize that they were GPS coordinates. She bit her lower lip and then she copied the coordinates. She clicked on her search engine, pasted it in the address bar and clicked on go. Thanks to her high-speed internet connection, in a second, the answer to where those coordinates led to was provided to her. Cassie rolled her eyes as soon as she saw that the coordinates were for the campsite where Avril was kidnapped. She had been sent there twice mysteriously so she was starting to suspect that she would be sent there some more.
Cassie walked up the stairs and tiptoed once she neared her room door. She gently opened the door and peeped into the room. Thankfully Phoebe was still sound asleep. Phoebe had driven Cassie's car from the cafe to Cassie's home when she came in the morning and she kept the keys on Cassie's bedside table. Cassie quietly picked up her keys and tiptoed out of the room. She was leaving the house, not of her volition, but she did not mind too much because she knew that staying at home would only mean that she would cry some more. Cassie ran down the stairs and out of her house. She shook her head once she saw how poorly Phoebe had parked her car. She unlocked the car using the key fob and then she pulled open the door. She reversed it out of her driveway and drove off.
All through her drive, so many thoughts ran through Cassie's mind that she could hardly focus on the road. She was at a red light and she saw it as the perfect opportunity to think some more.
Am I stupid to keep going there alone? What if it's a trap? What if I'm only being messed with? Are some of the thoughts that crept into her mind.
The sound of cars honking behind her broke her out of her daze. She looked up to see that the light had already turned green.
"Sorry," she said pointlessly and drove. The car behind her came to her side and an old man who was driving it flipped her the bird before speeding off. Cassie rolled her eyes and continued driving, making a conscious decision to not overthink.
Cassie knew that she was nearing the campsite when the number of cars on the road began to drop, she could only see two cars in front of her, and through her rear-view mirror, she could see one behind her. What filled the space was huge trees on either side of the road. It made the path she was driving seem eerier and narrower. She had driven there before of course, but the more she went there the more she realized how truly disturbing that area was. It looked like one of those places in scary movies where people got killed with their body undiscovered for days, and then a couple messing around in the woods will come across the body which would already be rotting away, or a random old man with a dog (they always have a dog) will come across it and call the police.
Cassie got slightly mad at herself for making herself think thoughts that would only make her more terrified. She thought about the voice message again and was still unable to decipher if it was a man's voice or a woman's. The person was breathing so hard and she could tell that he or she was trying to be quiet, almost like someone could walk in at any moment. Cassie took a right turn and drove into the woods until she was at the campsite, she drove further and stopped once she was faced with the cabin. A part of her wished she had dragged Joseph along with her even if she knew that in the face of danger, Joseph would use her tiny body as a shield. That shameless twit!
Cassie examined the area carefully before pulling her car door open, and once she was out she inspected her environment some more. She walked up to the familiar cabin and pushed the door open. She stood by the door for a while until she was able to muster some courage to enter. She let out a deep breath and walked into the cabin, the door made a creaking noise at it slowly shut itself. Cassie walked on the equally creaky hardwood floor and climbed the also creaky staircase up to the second floor. She strode to Avril's bed because she knew that that was where her messenger wanted her to be. As she approached she saw two items on the bed and when they were perfectly in her view she furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. They were textbooks, two of them. One a Mathematics textbook and one an English language textbook. Mathematics was Avril's worst subject and English was her favorite which meant that she had been left with another clue. Another clue was not what she wanted because she was yet to discover the significance of the ones she already had.
Both textbooks were sealed which meant they were new or resealed. Cassie piled the Math textbook atop the English one and picked them up. She stumbled a bit due to the unexpected heaviness of the books. She tucked them under her arm and walked back down the stairs with them. She raced out of the cabin and rushed into her car. She dumped the books in the passenger seat and drove off as though she was being chased by an armed person.
Cassie let herself relax once she could see a lot of cars driving alongside hers. She felt silly for being so terrified of a place she had frequented. She gazed at the books and bit her lips as she began to think of what they meant. Midthought, she made a split decision to take them to Joseph for if there was anyone that could offer her help it would be him. Sadly.
-
Cassie knocked on Joseph's door with the books tucked under her left arm. She continually knocked on the door as though she were playing the drums. She bopped her head to the quite catchy beat as she waited. The door was yanked open by Joseph who had a scowl on his face and an apron tied around his waist. Cassie giggled at the apron and let herself in. The smell of something delicious filled her nostrils. She wet her tongue and traveled toward the smell.
"What are you doing here?' Joseph groaned as he followed Cassie into the kitchen. Cassie dropped the books on the kitchen counter and peeped into the glass of the oven. Joseph was making lasagna and from the look of things, it was nearly done.
"I have perfect timing," she praised herself and then she turned around to look at Joseph. "You better have some wine to go with this meal."
"And who says you're partaking of it?" He folded his arms.
"You screwed up my relationship, the least you can do it feed me," she hissed.
"Why are you even here?" he asked lazily "when you called you said we'd meet tomorrow."
Cassie picked the textbooks from the kitchen counter and dropped them on the couch in his almost empty living room. Joseph stood over his couch and scratched his head once he saw what she had placed on it. "I'm not following."
"Right after I called you I got a creepy voicemail, and then I was sent GPS coordinates which led me back to that cabin and these textbooks were waiting for me on Avril's bed.''
Joseph nodded, with a look of bewilderment on is face "Okay, but why are you here in my house?"
"Maybe you'll know what this is supposed to mean?"
"Avril hated Math,'' he reminisced and then he walked into the kitchen, Cassie followed him. He opened the oven door and the enticing smell of the food immediately traveled out into the kitchen. He slipped his right hand into black oven mitts. He pulled out the oven rack, inspected the dish and pulled it out. He placed the lasagne on the stove and pulled a knife out of the knife rack. He stuck the knife into the center of the dish and held it in place for a few seconds. When he pulled out the knife he looked at the blade and nodded in satisfaction. He placed the knife on the lasagne and retrieved two plates from his dish rack. He placed them on the counter beside the stove and cut out a nice square of lasagne and with a fork, he gently placed it on the plate closest to the dish, he repeated the process for the second plate and then he pulled out two forks and placed them beside the meal. He handed Cassie hers with a frown on his face and then he walked to his simple dining table and sat. Cassie followed him and she sat opposite him. She plastered an annoying smile on her face as she sat down.
"Yours is poisoned," he muttered.
"No, it's not," she stuck out her tongue "so . . . about the books –"
Joseph held up his index finger "The dining table should be a place of silence," he warned and began to eat his food. He ate the meal so carefully and with so much focus, he treated the dish as though it was an art piece that needed to be respected and handled with utmost care and caution. Cassie found him to be a peculiar guy. He was organized in a way one would not expect him to be on first interacting with him. Cassie stared at the elegant movement of his hands as he dug his fork into the dish and carefully lifted it up and sent it into his mouth. His discourteous character did not match the mannered way in which he ate.
Cassie snapped her eyes away from him and focused on her food. She took a bite of the meal and her eyes widened in shock "This is delicious," she exclaimed with a full mouth.
"One must not voice out things that are obvious," he said in an annoyed tone and continued eating.
"Wow," she dragged with her eyes wide open, "what a humble guy you are," she said dryly as she pierced her fork into the lasagne.
Once they were done eating, Joseph made Cassie do the dishes, so she stood over the sink with a sponge, scrubbing the plate clean. Cassie placed the last plate in the dish rack and rested her arms on the sink, she pushed out her derriere and stretched her body.
"You obviously don't clean often," Joseph said in an annoyed tone as he picked the textbook and tore the protective covering it came in.
"I don't clean at all," Cassie replied, exasperated. She dragged her feet to the couch and slouched down on it. She rolled her friendship charm bracelet off her wrist and set it down on the other textbook. "It's time to get serious, we need to find out what these mean," she said.