“Meg, what is it again that you wanted to tell me?” Hera asked.
“Uhm,” Meghan started as she paced closer to Hera’s spot.
Both young ladies are working a week end part-time job as waitpersons in an average coffee house, garnering a double hundred and fifty bucks a week for their assiduous 15 hours shift.
“You see, err. . Nate's mom actually invited me over for a dinner,” Meghan continued, making her sisterly friend’s brain rotate to find out what she's trying to say.
“Nate's mom?” Hera candidly doubted, not that she was uncertain if she heard the statement right but her gut was viscerally precise that what her best friend had just said was completely impossible. Nate is Meghan's boyfriend, and his mom was never less the same to any galore antagonist mother in novels and dramas that strongly opposed her child in having any type of intimate relationship with average people. Unquestionably, she was firmly against their mutual love.
“Yep,” Meghan replied.
“So, when's the dinner?” Hera asked who’s still in the stage of deciphering what more of the statement that Meghan wanted to tell. “Tonight,” she answered. Her eyes and the way she bit her lower lip were sending signals that Hera had finally grasped.
“Holy guacamole! Why are you still standing here? It's already 6,” she exclaimed as her friend’s eyes bespoke relief. “Well, it felt uneasy leaving you here in the café alone,”
“I'm fine, I think you should go now. I know you wanted to prepare,” Hera complacently reassured.
“Thank you,” Meghan's face became brighter as she ran in glee towards the staff room. When she came out wearing her clothes, “Bye! . . . and sorry!” she waved her hand before exiting the café.
Hera continued wiping the tables until an expected customer came in. “Good evening Hera,” An imposing old man in his late 50's with checkered long sleeve and tortilla-colored slacks blithely greeted. He was a history teacher and a regular customer of the coffee house after moving into the near neighborhood. “Good evening Mr. Brandt,” Hera greeted back in a deferent manner.
Without him telling, she moved to the counter to make the customer’s perpetual brewed coffee which she already knew that it is what he sips on habitually. “Are you supposed to work today alone?” The old man asked.
Meghan and Hera were indeed close to Mr. Brandt since they have always served him coffee whenever they both come off for work. Being comfortable around him had brought a heap of refinements to both ladies as he always made them feel like his own grandchildren. Forsooth, he constantly supported their life decisions and gave remarkable advises apropos to the situation the ladies were in.
Moreover, he also tells interesting stories of the past, sprinkled with a bit of superstitions and inhumane tales which really drove Hera thrilled every time she hears about it.
“Not really. Meghan just left saying that Nate's mother had invited her over for a dinner,” Hera informed. “Oh well, that is some quite surprising news!”
“Thank you,” Mr. Brandt flashed a warm smile when she had served him the coffee. The damsel sat on the chair beside him and they started a casual, father-daughter conversation as usual, pausing when customers come in and resumed when they were out. “Before I forget, I have a favor to ask but it is alright to refuse,” he spoke after taking a gulp of his coffee.
“I actually need someone who has a better eye sight to help me find an essential book in my cellarage,”
“You see people get old that even with the use of flashlight, they are still incapable to find what they had remembered,” he pacifically chuckled to himself and she chuckled in. “I do understand that, I'll be at your house when I'm done for today's work,”
“There is no need to rush young lady, you can come by any time next week after your shift,”
“Oh, no one's rushing Mr. Brandt. I actually have plans for next week so I might as well head into your house when I'm done with the stuffs here,” Hera insisted.
“Alright,” he surrendered, evidently showing his idleness in protesting which Hera was totally aware of. “Meet you before long then.” he drained his coffee before leaving the café at a leisurely pace.
In about three hours, Hera had finished her shift at exactly 9 PM. Dawdling out of the café, she buried her hands into the pocket of her topcoat that she had used to screen herself from the brutally frigid night breeze of January.
She walked across the busy streets of New York, then strolled along the sidewalk, and into an alleyway, leading her to the neighborhood street where Mr. Brandt lives.
Arriving at a familiar house, she huffed onto her hands to warm it up before running a finger onto the doorbell as the sound of gravelly ding-dong invaded her pinkish ears from the cold. Within a couple of seconds, the door opened, presenting Mr. Brandt in his plain pajamas and glasses. “Come in, come in. And make yourself comfortable,” he openly welcomed when he recognized the young lady. “Thank you,” she replied.
Following what he said, Hera comfortably breezed into the warm house, leaving her boots onto the shoe shelf and sliding each of her feet into the pair of grey cotton slippers which were undeniably big for her tiny feet.
“Your house is quite spacious Mr. Brandt. You live here alone?” she nonchalantly asked, secretly marveling at the atypical interior design of the place.
The exterior image of the house was casual and simple, similar to any other houses in the neighborhood, but the inside possessed the ambience of Baroque period; furniture and other objects were antique and vintage.
“Yes, but I do have someone who stays here at times,”
“A relative?” she hinted.
“My grandson,” he answered that had quickly paused her eyes upon wandering around. “You have?”
Mr. Brandt vented a calmly laugh. “Have a seat, I'll have you some coffee,”
“Oh, there's no need Mr. Brandt, you can just show me the way to the cellarage,”
Mr. Brandt, once again, seemed helpless to her ever-adamant behavior that he had eventually escorted her down to the cellarage before going back upstairs to make some coffee.
The basement was quite caliginous, and seeing that the light bulb was indeed old and couldn't suffice light to the corners, Hera used her phone's flashlight so she could view things a little bit clearer.
“Surely there's a lot of stuff in here,” she spoke to herself as she began to look for the old and thick book, described by Mr. Brandt as maroon-black and had a moon-carved design.
‘If I would secure an important book in the basement, where would I place it?’ she concepted, pointing her phone to each corner of the room.
After a few seconds, she decided to go through the large wooden boxes placed beneath a console table.
Hera began checking each of the piled boxes, and when she opened the last one of the row, an exquisite red chiseled rectangular casket appeared into sight. And as she was expecting, she found a maroon-black, moon-carved designed book lying in it.
‘This must be it,’ she thought.
Gently putting the book back into the casket, she fixed the stuffs that she had disarranged into their previous placement and briskly walked towards the stairs.
Hera was on her second step when a loud bang from above her echoed along the stairway. Alarmed by the noise, she swiftly ran upstairs but was stopped by the enclosed door. “Hera! Do not open the door!” Mr. Brandt yelled from outside before she could even twist the knob.
“What's going on?” she eagerly asked, furrowing her forehead. “Stay right there, and do not open the door,” he gravely instructed. Then, she heard a cocking of what she could think of as a gun.
As the entire system of her body began being filled by nervosity, she still had managed to become alert of the unknown circumstance revolving around her. Everything went completely quiet and all that her ears could perceive was the loud pounding of her own heart against her chest.
Within a minute, she was startled by the continual noise of falling fragile objects and breaking furniture.
Couldn't take a hold on the stalwart urge of finding out what's going on, she twisted the knob right away, yanked the door open, yet despite taking the courage of making a spontaneous move, she was only met by dimness and again, troublous silence.
Having no regrets on her impulsive move, she took a pause to examine the room while she tries her foremost to feel her surrounding. Her eyes halted at a shelf about three meters away from where she was when she caught a figure beside it.
It was a man's silhouette,