Dead and Departed

Chapter Thirteen

The noise was what woke Charlotte up. It was a Saturday, so Charlotte didn't have to go to work until the afternoon. She'd decided to sleep in.

Charlotte froze in her bed. She never really expected robbers, but it was the first thing in her mind whenever she woke up in the middle of the night. Lots of times, Charlotte had woken to imagined noises, but they never meant anything.

But, this time, Charlotte was fairly sure she hadn't imagined it.

She slipped out of bed, trying to decide whether or not she thought it was nothing or if there was actually something wrong.

Charlotte heard something scraping against wood. She tensed, wondering for a second if she should call the police, but then remembered one time when a stray cat had found its way in. Xander had carefully coaxed it into a crate and took it to the local shelter. Maybe something like that had happened again. Still, Charlotte had to be careful.

Her phone was in the kitchen, which was a problem. If it was an intruder, Charlotte had no way to call the police. After all, the sounds had come from the kitchen.

Charlotte sat there.

...

Miya's door swung open. Confused, Miya threw off the covers to see her dad.

"Hi sweetheart, I'm sorry to wake you up." Her dad said. "I got to rush off to an emergency that popped up for work. I'm going to be back soon, but it'll be another ten minutes until your babysitter gets here--"

"What's going on?" Miya asked. It was one in the morning. What could possibly be happening that needed a translator?

"Don't worry about it. I just have to translate a few documents for the government and then I'll be back. No biggy. You just try to go back to sleep. Remember: don't answer the door, or answer the phone, or anything that I wouldn't do. The baby-sitter will use our special knock and already have a key, so don't worry about opening the door."

"Dad, I know all that stuff." Miya answered.

"Good," Miya's dad pulled the sheets back up on the bed, they had slided off, and kissed her forehead. "I'll be back soon."

...

Charlotte held her breath. She hadn't heard any other noises for the past seven minutes, so it might have just been a false alarm, perhaps the picture frame falling from the wall and sliding off the table.

Suddenly she heard the door. At least, she was pretty sure it was her door. She'd be surprised if there was anything with squeakier hinges.

She slowly stood, deciding to take the risks. Curiosity, something she hadn't felt in a long time, was urging Charlotte to go down the stairs and look.

When Charlotte stepped out onto the stairs, she heard the floorboards creak and tensed- but there was no response. After a few seconds, she relaxed and continued.

...

Miya found it hard to go back to sleep. After such a mysterious visit in the middle of the night from her dad, Miya couldn't get her mind to shut off. Her baby-sitter had arrived a few minutes ago, which, Miya had no idea how her dad managed to get them to come on such short notice all the time.

Speaking of her baby-sitter, Miya was glad that she was keeping a safe distance. Once, her dad had hired one that had insisted on acting like a bodyguard. Miya had hated him. The one Miya had today just walked in, said hello, and sat to type on her phone.

After that, Miya had slipped back into her room to try to sleep. Many failed attempts later, Miya was under her covers working on some more of the notebook.

She still hadn't turned it over to her father yet. When Lucy had come over, inadvertently stopping Miya from telling her dad, she took it as a sign and hadn't tried since. After that, Miya had been decoding little bits at a time, which didn't bear a lot of fruit. After that one paragraph mentioning Lucy and her dad, Miya hadn't found anything else except lots of babbling about how whoever wrote it had a ton of regrets.

Besides, Miya was pretty sure if she gave the notebook back, she'd never found out what everything was about. The journal was from four years ago, so Miya guessed it didn't hold any secrets that couldn't wait another month or so to be revealed.

She was wrong.

Hello! I'm busy working on other stories right now, so it might be a while until the next chapter comes out. I would greatly appreciate follows and votes. I would be willing to follow you if you follow me!

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~Eudora Perine