Chapter 108 - 109. Mirai
After dinner, Winnter asked Thomas to take us to the portal by wagon. Actually, I planned to have a leave from school the following day and I wanted to stay for the night in that girl's house. I wanted to get closer to one another, having no secrets among us, like I keep the Manjis from her. But the hostess of the house didn't want me to skip my duty and asked me to go home soon to Euron, get enough rest before I went to school the following morning.
While I was waiting for Thomas to prepare the wagon, I saw Winnter was looking at Summer's body and smiling. "She is beautiful, isn't she?" I nodded in agreement. Mickey, who knew she was just a corpse, started feeling uncomfortable.
"Day or night, summer or winter, even autumn, the window is kept open so that everyone can see the beauty of Summer. Her clothes are changed every week, father also makes magic that keeps unable to get rotten for the rest of time." Winnter smiled in satisfaction. "Her beauty is perfect now and I am happy." She added.
The wagon arrived and we all got into it. Mirai took a seat next to me and Mickey sat on her lap, meanwhile, Winnter sat in front of me. On the way, I saw Winter kept looking at Mirai. "Mirai means the future. It means someone expects for the future and hopes for the future. That was the purpose of your parents to have named you that." As she said she stroked that tubby cat.
"Yes, my mother hoped that I have good hopes in the future," Mirai replied and she kept stroking that cat, and Mickey did enjoy it so much.
"The first time I saw you in that prison room I was so shocked. How come a girl of nine years old was sent into the most horrible place in the wizarding world?" asked Winnter.
"I was bad and I had to be punished," Mirai replied innocently.
"What did you do?" I was also curious to hear her reply to Winnter's question.
"I just felt someone did something wrong so I paid it back. But they said it was not supposed to pay back what people have done to me that way, and I was imprisoned for that." Mirai pinched Mickey's cheek out of excitement. Mickey was quiet, but I knew he was excited for that little girl, too.
Mirai rolled up her sleeves and showed off a long and circling scar on both of her arms. "I lived in a low-class environment," She said, "I was going to school with my friend when suddenly a building near us was bombed. That building shattered and collapsed on me and my friend. My friend died on the spot but I was badly injured with cut injuries. Blood was all over my body."
That girl's mind was wandering somewhere in the past. "My body was a total wreck and paralyzed, I couldn't move my legs at all. I was just lying." After saying so, she looked at me.
"My father was a doctor. He also knew about technology very well and worked for the government. Before parts of my body got rotten and decayed, father tried to do everything to save me, looking for good donors or even killed innocent people of his patients for their organs to make my body complete again." Mirai smiled as she finished the side of her story.
After listening to the sides of my friends' stories I felt grateful that I was not the only one who had dark times in the past. We were three people with the bad and dark times in the past who were united to work together.
"You know what?" They both turned to me. "I am happy to be with you." I looked at them and said to them insincerity, "You two are great people I met in my life. You are great at managing to survive despite your horrible pastime. I am not alone now," I smiled at them.
Winnter put our hands in her hand. " Start today and on, there will be no secrets anymore. Remember, we are a team that will bring Aras back home, so we have to work together well. Especially you, Tha," she warned me again and just laughed remembering my mistake.
"Don't hide anything from us again, Tha," Winnter said firmly. "We will help you solve your problem with that marionette. You just have to be sure that we will be able to finish it all." She smiled at me.
…
It was one in the morning when we finally reached our home. We decided to have some rest straight away. I needed to sleep fast in order to be able to be at school on time this morning. But before I walked further into my room, Winnter's voice stopped me. "Tha.' She called me.
"Tomorrow you have to unpack your clothes out of your suitcase and we need to do the right things upon the greenhouse which is on the side of your house for planting vegetables," she smiled at me. "Your mother loves you. It's just she may not know how to convey it to you properly. Make yourself comfortable here and stay here for good."
I smiled at her encouragement. I knew that sooner or later I had to get accustomed to it. "I will learn to love living here slowly but surely." I finally accepted her advice and went to my room to rest right away.
Winnter had been out since the afternoon. She said she would buy a new charger for her phone since the old one had been out of function, while Mirai remained in my room playing with Mickey. At nine in the night, someone knocked on the front door. I was sure it was not Erick because he always used the back door or the kitchen door.
"Winnter?,"I called back to make sure it was Winnter who came. No answer was heard. I peeped through the window and it was not her, someone was standing before the front door. I opened the door and allowed her to come in.
I often saw him walking with his dog, going to the market on foot, or buying bread in a shop not far from that shopping center. I didn't know her, her name, or anything else, but seeing her quite often. After asking her to feel at home, I went inside for a drink and snack.
"I saw you with Mirien that night." She suddenly broke the silence once I sat down after putting a drink and snack on the table. It happened almost a month ago but she still could remember it pretty well. "I am right, am I not?! I was out to look for my dog at that time. I saw you were talking with her."
"Yes, I was," I said the truth. To be honest, I was confused, things happened all of sudden. I didn't know her but she came to my house out of the blue and asked me about the incident.
He was around 70-80 years old. His back was slightly crooked, but when he walked, she looked fine and healthy. His hair was almost white perfectly and was cut short.
"I was following that kid right after that." She continued.
I didn't know how to respond, I sat still and listened to her further what she would say.
"She didn't stop at her house but went to one of the houses near the market. Do you know the house with the fence painted black with a persimmon tree in the front yard?" I tried to remember the house she described and yes there was such a house she told me about. "She was there for quite some time before she finally went into the yard". She added.
"How could she go into the house? Wasn't there an iron fence? Was it not locked?" The fences were always locked in my neighborhood in the evening or at night, including my house. I usually locked it even in the afternoon when the house was empty.
"I didn't think so because she simply walked in at that time." She was so confident in telling that to me. I sensed something odd with her statement, but it was possible when the owner of the house forgot to lock it.
"Actually I followed her because I felt something weird with that kid. She usually said hi to me when we came across, but that night she didn't. Moreover, when I met you both, I smelled something really rotten. I thought it was coming from you. But when you turned and I was behind her, I still could smell it. it was such a strong bad smell. It looked like something rotten she was carrying".
I tried to recall again that night when I was with Mirien, and as I remembered I didn't smell anything bad or things like that. I guessed the woman who was shopping in that shop with me also didn't smell something suspicious. Even when I went home with Mirien, there was no bad odor or anything coming out of her to my smelling sense.