Mr. Om took Juin to the living room and made him a pot of tea. When he brought the pot of tea over, he said to Juin, "Young Master David hasn"t been well for a while, and he has just shown some signs of recovery lately… We thought..."With a sigh, he poured out a cup of tea for Juin. "Do you still like your tea with milk, Young- I mean, Mr. Juin."
"Just call me Juin, Mr. Om. I"m not used to people calling me Mr. Juin," Juin said with a smile. "And yes, I would like to have some milk."
Mr. Om poured some milk into the cup of tea before pus.h.i.+ng it toward Juin. He then poured a cup of tea for Mrs. Smithson. After placing two cubes of sugar into the tea, he handed the cup of tea to Mrs. Smithson.
"How have you been, Mrs. Smithson?" Juin asked as he looked at the quiet woman sitting on the rocking chair opposite him. He recalled that she used to look brilliant, like a powerful modern-day woman. But now… She looked a little tired and haggard, and her eyes were unfocused, as if a part of her soul was gone.
"I"m fine…" Mrs. Smithson said in a small voice before taking a sip from her tea. She then placed the cup of tea down on the coffee table before asking, "Why are you here so suddenly, Juin?"
"Erm… I was in the city, and I thought to come and visit you guys," Juin lied with a polite smile. Putting on a concerned expression, he then asked, "What happened to David?"
Juin recalled that David started to hide from him not long after Ashton"s disappearance and that the boy could not bear to be in the same room as Juin. And it was around the same time that David started to be more religious, walking around with a bible and a cross in his hands.
At that time, Juin was too distraught to pay attention to him, so he did not think too much of it. But now that he thought back, was David already acting in this manner at that time?
"I-I don"t know…" Mrs. Smithson murmured as she rubbed her temple. "He has been like this since… Well, since Ashton"s accident."
When she said the word "accident", she could not help but glance at Juin with a weird gaze.
"After you… left, Young Master David did not talk for a long time, and for a year, he refused to leave the house at all…" Mr. Om said with a sigh. "A child psychiatrist was called, but Young Master David refused to talk to her at all…"
He did not understand anything that had happened. The young master that he had cared for since birth turned into a stranger overnight. Even though David was a quiet child before the arrival of the two boys, he was often full of smiles. But the David nowadays barely smiled anymore.
Juin exchanged glances with Lucifer, who was sitting next to him. Both of them felt that David"s condition might have something to do with Ashton. Given that Ashton might have extraordinary power… Did his power go haywire that night and he accidentally hurt David?
"It was possible," Lucifer said even though Juin did not say anything. Clearly, he was able to understand what was in his vessel"s mind. "But let"s listen more…"
Juin sighed and pinched his glabella. He wished he could remember more.
"Mr. Om, do you know anything about that accident? I kept trying, but I just can"t recall anything."
"Actually, now that you mentioned it…" Mr. Om wanted to say something, but when he saw his mistress glaring at him, he immediately shut up. "Nothing… That was probably nothing."
Juin doubted that whatever he wanted to say was nothing.
"Mrs. Smithson?" Juin called out softly, changing his target to the woman before him. "Do you know anything about it?"
Mrs. Smithson answered immediately, "No!"
However, the way she glanced at Juin while holding her hand tightly told him that she knew something.
"Did David see something back then?" Juin asked again. He did not want to hurt her by invoking any unpleasant memories, but he wanted to know more about himself. And so, he told himself that as long as he did not hurt her physically, it would be alright.
Mrs. Smithson looked away, but her hands that were resting on her lap had been trembling for some time now, as if she was thinking of an unpleasant memory.
…
Flashback to 3 years ago, the day Ashton disappeared...
Mrs. Smithson was sleeping when she was woken up by some unknown noises in the middle of the night. With bleary eyes, she looked out the window and saw that it was raining heavily. She got up and went to the window and saw that the heavy wind was so angry that it threatened to tear some of the trees from their roots.
Some of the trees with thinner trunks were bent by the wind, facing the right side. Mrs. Smithson looked at the pathway in front of her house, the one that led to the mailbox, and she could see a lot of fallen leaves on the ground.
A flash of lightning caused her to wince, and she closed her eyes in preparation for the next thing to come.
BAM!
Once the loud thunder was gone, she opened her eyes again, and the next thing she saw was a bolt of lightning that hit in the direction of her neighbor Jim Mack"s house. Praying that nothing would happen to Jim Mack, she then put on her bathrobe.
Worried that the boys might be afraid, she decided to check on them, starting from her son first.
When she was near his room, she was surprised when she found the carper to be slightly wet in certain areas. However, thinking that the boys might have spilled some drinks, she did not think too much about it at first.
The carpet outside of David"s room was also wet, and it was then that she felt suspicious. There was no way for her son to spill something from the top of the stairs to his room. And the amount of water on the carpet was too much to be from just one gla.s.s of drink.
Worried, she quickly placed her hand on the k.n.o.b. When she turned the k.n.o.b and pushed the door open, she could not see well as most things were covered in darkness… which was weird, since her son always slept with a batman nightlight.
So, she quickly turned on the nightlight, as not to wake her son up. But when she could finally see the inside of the room properly, she did not see her son anywhere. His bed was unmade, and the comforter was on the ground.
Just as she was about to go and check Ashton and Juin"s room, as David sometimes would sneak out to play with them in the middle of the night, she heard a small whimper coming from under the bed.
"David?" Mrs. Smithson called out softly as she walked into the room. She then kneeled down on her knees and looked under the bed, where she found her son hugging the teddy bear that had been accompanying him since he was in preschool.
Seeing her son s.h.i.+vering madly and completely soaked from top to bottom, Mrs. Smithson immediately started to worry about him. She tried to coax him into coming out from under the bed, but as if possessed, her son kept pus.h.i.+ng her hands away while stuttering, "H-He"s going to get me… He"s going to get me… D-don"t… Don"t let him get me…"