Her Soul

13. with her

The chirping of the birds was the only sound, the cottage had an eerie calm. Aviana sat there lost in her own mind. The memories of that day tried to push past the wall she had built and she tried to hold it back knowing this was not the right time for reminiscing.

She felt a nudge on her arm. "Is there something behind the tree?" Riaan asked. Somehow his hair and the woods seemed like a perfect duo for Aviana. That was something she liked in this whole deal with him, one could say she hated forest but when it came to him, he reminded her of forest in a good way.

"No...nothing." She realized she must have been staring at the tree for a prolonged time.

"I asked, why your mother would think you have imagined it." His eyes were beyond curious trying to get into her mind.

"It is nothing." She dropped the topic.
It was clear he did not buy that but he did not ask further. Aviana felt thankful, she was in no mood to talk about that.

"Are you sure this was the cottage?"

"Ya, I think."

Riaan looked back again into the cottage to see if he had missed anything. He got up and looked down at her as the sun pored through the crevices in the trees. "Someone took it."

"What!" Her heat shot upwards. The sun blinded her, she immediately looked down. Riaan moved to stand in front of her shielding her from the sun. "Why would someone take it?" She considered it.

"So that you would be blamed." His mind was working as he spoke.

"Blame me...why_" She did not understand why anyone would want to blame her.

Riaan continued, "When they heard that Sage had died, they must have worked out the plan. They must have been waiting for an opportunity like this."

Aviana was still processing his new revelations. Can drama be added to her life in any other form? To add to all that was going on, now someone wanted to frame her. He continued, "My guess, they must have come here the first thing to take the diary and hand it over to the cops."

"Thereby blaming me," Aviana completed the sentence for him, understanding creeping inside her. They had come here wanting to change an accidental death to suicide.

He gave her a faint nod. "But then they must have found out the diary had nothing in it except birthday plans. If the diary reached the cops, the blame would be off your head. Which they did not want. So they took it." His eyes looked dark and intense.

"What they did not expect was, Sage's sister would also know about the diary." Puzzles were falling in their places. A faint trace of an image started to develop in Aviana's mind. If Eugene had not come forward their plan would have worked. Everything made sense to Aviana but she could not wrap her mind around the fact that someone tried to frame her. Why?

As if he heard her thoughts he said,
"Question is why and who." He locked eyes with her. Aviana felt like they were partners solving a mystery. He was Sherlock and she was Poirot- those two were not partners exactly but she liked the duo. Growing up with books, mystery had been her favorite genre when she was a kid.

His eyes got lightened suddenly. "Who knows about the diary's location?"

"Pretty much my entire class. This is a high school we are talking about "

Riaan looked disappointed by her answer. If only one person knew its location, it would be easy to shortlist the possible suspects. Aviana felt herself being disappointed at his disappointment. Seriously! Grow up.

"We need to find out who took it." His voice was confident. He then started moving away from the cottage to where his car was parked, leaving back Aviana who was still seated on the stairs.