The Awakening of a Soul Reaper

Chapter 13. The Picnic

It’s Sunday morning, you can smell the aroma of freshly baked bread rolls hanging in the air, Clarise is up from before dawn busy preparing for the picnic.  Willows is going to devour this she thought to herself laughing while slicing a piece of ham to put on one of the rolls together with letch, tomato slices, and cheese, she also made some small tarts, meatballs with pieces of sausage on a stick and a cherry in-between amongst other things.

Just before she starts to pack everything up she runs up to her room and collects the photo and puts it in her purse afterwards, she packs up everything else into a basket and leaves the house to go to the meeting point.  As she walks she can’t help but think about what if;

She has a family member?

What is she going to ask them?

And what is going to happen if she finds no one? 

She shakes her head from left to right I can’t think like that, let’s stay positive she thought to herself.

As she gets closer she can see a small blue car parked on the side of the road right in front of the bakery, outside stands two individuals having a conversation, it's Willow and James, I wonder what they could have been talking  about she says softly. 

”Oh hi Clarise” James greets with a smile while putting his glasses back on his nose, Willows eyes wander down to the basket “and what do we have here?” she asks.  Clarise just starts to laugh “oh just a couple of things I threw together” she replies. 

“I thought we are going to go together to your dad to talk to him?” Clarise asks.

“I decided to man up and talked to my dad last night and he agreed, but we need to be back by 1PM.

She nods her head, “impressive” she says, she looks around, “have anyone seen Tyler?” she asks.

“No but we are still a bit early,” Willow replies

“Okay guys, we need to go, I need to have the car back by no later than 1 PM, I promised my dad,” says James while hurrying around the small car and climbs in front of the stearin wheel. “Clarise you can sit in the front with James I will sit here at the back, you can give the basket here it can sit next to me,” Willows says with an over-friendly smile while she grabs the basked out of Clarisse’s hands. Both James and Clarise start to laugh at her, but she doesn’t care as she opens the door and puts the basket right next to her.

It’s quite a small car on the outside with its bubble-shaped headlights with a chrome rim around them, the side mirrors are attached on the side of the nose of the car and not on the door like most modern cars also with a silver chrome foot piece, the roof of the car is a light cream almost white color and the rims if the car has round silver wheel covers on, the inside of the car feels a bit cramped, the seats are a light brown color with a combination of leather and plastic and the steering wheel has a big round dark brown rim attached to three white spokes that lead to the center where there is clearly a big round button for the horn.  The driver’s door makes a hard squeaky noise when James closes it.  “Unfortunately we have to listen to the local radio station the car doesn’t have any other inputs,” Jamie says with an embarrassed look on his face, it only consists of two round knobs and a screen with a red needle pointing to the frequency it’s on.  He turns the key and with two swings of the engine, it starts to purr like a kitten, and off they go, to the first location.

Everyone is quiet keeping to themselves the drive over to the house, “So what were you two talking about this morning?” asks Clarise trying to break the awkward silence.

“We were just talking about the weather!” replies Willow almost like she is afraid that James might answer the question, “Can I have a look at what’s inside the basket?” she asks swiftly afterwards.

“No that is for lunch!” replies Clarise, while closing her eyes and smiling.  The rest of the drive is quiet and uneventful, pulling up to the first house, Clarisse’s heart starts to race, stopping in front of the house James ask if he should accompany her to the door, “No you have to make sure we have lunch when I return!” she says as a joke while looking and laughing back at Willow sitting there with her eyes all round and innocent like she has no intentions with the picnic basket.

It’s an old suburban house with a face brick wall in front with a small gate to walk through, as she walks up to the door and nocks a man maybe in his late twenties opens up, she questions him if he knows or have any relation to a Paul Hubert, the man thinks hard for a moment but says no after a while and Clarise goes back to the car.

They go to the second house which was not far from there, as they stopped they saw two kids playing in front of the house with their mom, Clarise went up to the woman and asked if she know anyone by that name however she replies that they have recently bought the house from an elderly pair who moved to a smaller more manageable house, they give her the address and Clarise went back to the car, they look at the time it's already past eleven “will we make it through all the houses in time?” she ask with a depressed look on her face.  Willow quickly puts in the address of the new house in her phones app and she sees that it’s on the way between the third and the fourth house so it’s on their way but they will need to get going.

At the third house where they were looking for a forwarding address, they can’t enter due to construction taking place but the foreman gave Clarise the phone number of the new owner of the property.  “Okay on to the new address of the second house,” James says excitedly, as he steps on the clutch and slides the gear lever into first gear.

When they reach their new destination they find that it’s a retirement resort for senior citizens, they get stopped at a red and white boom barrier where they are greeted by an elderly security Gard who walks over to them smiling, “Good morning, good morning and who will you be visiting today?” he says as he looks over James’s shoulder and sees the picnic basket and smiles.

Not quite sure what to say Clarise replies “we are here to surprise the Hubert’s” with the most incent look on her face that she can pose.  “Oh well, isn’t that lovely? This will be the first time someone came to visit them since they moved in, I think they will love the company!” the old security Gard replies while twirling the ends of his thick busy mustache and hands over a clipboard with a piece of paper clipped to it, it reads at the top ‘Victors Registry’.  James quickly completes all the fields and hands the board back to the security guard, “They are in apartment 3B” he replies while walking over to the boom gate and lifts it up, “it's straight ahead and at the second crossing, turn left you will see the big 3A on the mailbox in front, enjoy your visit” he adds as they drive past.

At the second crossing they turn left and they count the number together “3A, 3B!”  Clarise steps out of the car, her heart starts racing again as she starts to walk up the pathway to the front door, on the left, there are poppies flowers that blooms blood red and on the right there is lawn, her eyes grow big as she looks up, there in front of the house is bright orange and yellow flowers, “Marigolds” she says going to a stop, “is this a sign” she looks back at the car at James and Willow as they sit and stare at her with great expectations.  She walks over to the front door and presses the bell, from inside the house she hears an elderly female’s voice “I’m coming”.  A skinny lady who is about 60-years-old with thin white-grey hairs all taken together and combed to the back where they are kept in place with a few hair clips and pins, she has thin rimed light pink reading glasses that sit on the tip of her nose, light wrinkles flowing from her eyes down her cheek opens the door.  “Yes, how may I help you?” she asks.  “S-s-sorry mam” Clarise stutters a bit, it feels like her heart jumped from her chest right into her thought “sorry to bother you, do you by any chance know a Paul Hubert, he would have been in his forties now?”  The lady gives a step backward while putting her hand over her mouth, “Will!” she calls out, “William”, “Yes dear” a man’s voice comes from inside the apartment, “Comer over here!” she calls again, a tear starting to roll over her cheek.  Clarise shocked don’t know what to do, should I run away; what should I do? She asks herself swallowing the spit that has built up in her mouth.  A man rather big ins size comes around the corner, his one hand with fingers what looked to Clarise is the size of bananas so big are they, takes the lady by her shoulder and asked her “what’s wrong love?”

The lady points slowly to the door to Clarise “she asked about Paul” she says with a tremble in her voice.

The man tilts his head towards Clarise and she can see his well-rounded face with black hair, with some grey hair here and there looking at her, he comes forward and she can see if he stands upright he is almost the height of the door frame.  “Missy you asked about our Paul?” he says with a shiver in his voice.

“Yes,” she takes out the photo and shows it to them her hands shivering.  The man comes forward and looks at the photo, his eyes filling up with tears, “that is our Paul” he admits while bowing his head, the lady comes forward and holds the man by his arm also now looking at the photo.

“Who are you?” the lady asks.

“My name is Clarise and I think Paul might have been my dad” replies Clarise.  The lady leaves the man’s arm and runs towards Clarise, she grabs her and holds her tight, the man leans over the woman and wraps his arms around them both holding them.

Willow and James are glued to the windows of the car as they look at what plays out before them.  “Do you think it them; did she find them?” asks James.

“Nah I don’t think it’s them” Willow answers sarcastically “off course she found them,” she says while slapping him at the backside of his head.  He takes his finger and slides his glasses back in place while laughing.

The old man and lady invite Clarise inside “My friends are in the car” Clarise says while pointing at the two in the car they start to laugh as they see how Willow smacks James against the head.

“Well tell them to join us!” replies the man.  “Come you two and bring the basket with” yells Clarise from where she is standing while waving at them to come.  Willow does not look pleased maybe because they have to share more of the goodies in the basket.

The five walk inside, “please make yourself at home!” the man says while showing his hands over to the living room chairs.  The inside of the living room is full of ornaments from a couple of cuckoo-clocks and also what seems like war memorabilia, some nicely framed photos that are put on display on an antique display cabinet.

I’m “Will and this lovely young lady is Anne, we are your grandparents” introduced the man themselves.  “Well um I’m Clarise and these two are Willow and James” Clarise points to sitting together on a two-seat couch.

“Do you want some tea or coffee unfortunately we don’t have any cool drink in the house” the lady says while looking at Will?

“Tea will be fine, I brought us some treats with,” Clarise says while she pries the basket from Willow's hands.  Willow clearly not impressed with Clarise.

The five of them sit and talk they ask each other questions and laugh, Clarise tells them the story of how her mother died, and everyone goes quiet, “so all I have is my Aunt Belle and now you!” she looks up smiling.

“You want to know what happened to your dad?” asks Will.

“If you know; and if you don’t mind?” replies Clarise.

“He was murdered! On his way to enlist he was ambushed and killed, they found his body one morning on the curve of the road” replies Anne as she starts crying again before Will could answer his own question.   

“By whom?” Willow asks as she puts another small jam tart in her mouth and stares at Anne with a shocked expression on her face.

“Someone with a dark soul” replies Will with n sigh tilting his head and looking outside “our Paul only wanted to help those in need, he never did something that would hurt someone else, even if it meant that he could gain from it”.

After exchanging phone numbers and Clarice invited them to the bakery they parted ways.

“Look at the time I will never make it back home,” James says with a serious voice looking at his watch on his left wrist.

“I’m sorry”, replies Clarise from the side feeling sorry for him.

He starts the car and they drove off, saying goodbye to the security guard at the gate, Clarise kept a couple of treats out especially for him to say thanks. The rest of the drive home the three chatted like old buddies James looked over to Clarise next to him, it’s the first time that she seemed like a normal teenager to him, he takes his hand and adjust the rearview mirror and he grabs a glance of Willow looking back at him through the mirror and for the first time in a very long time she is smiling at him.

James stops in front of the pathway that leads up to Clarisse’s house, “thank you so much, you will never know how much it meant to me, what you did for me today” she says while looking back and forth at both of them, she grabs her basket and climbs out of the car.  “Are you going to come and sit in the front? I’m not a taxi driver you know!” James says at Willow playfully with a smile on his face.  She climbs out without saying a word and gets into the front seat of the car and the two of them drive off.

“Hello Aunt Belle, I’m home!” Clarise calls out when she enters the house.  “I’m in the kitchen” replies her aunt busy with Sunday dinner.  The whole house smells of baked chicken.  “How was your picnic; did you enjoy it?” her aunt asks.

“Well…, I have a confession to make!” Clarise says while looking down at the ground swinging her right food side to side as if she is bruising it over a piece of grass.

“I’m listening!” says Aunt Belle now giving her full attention to Clarise.

“We didn’t have a picnic” she looks up at her Aunt “but we went to look for Paul’s relatives,” she says nervously trying to hide her smile.

“And…?” her aunt asks holding both her hands up and staring at her, she can clearly see that Clarise is not finished with what she wants to say “did you find anything?”

“Yes, I found them!” Clarise says her voice full of excitement and joy “they live in a retirement home on the other side of the city, Paul’s mom's name is Anne and his dad’s name is William but everyone just calls him Will” she rumbles. 

Aunt Belle has never seen her like this not even when she and her mom came for visits, it’s truly an amazing sight for her as Clarise jumps up and down, waving her hands and arms around as she explains and tells everything.

“Can we maybe invite them for dinner sometime?” asks Clarise.

“Of course we can!” replies Aunt Belle with a smile?

Clarise goes on explaining about Paul’s death and that he didn’t willingly abandon them, he did tell his parents about her mom but they never met and he never knew that she was pregnant with his child.

Later that night after dinner and after she bathed, Clarise goes up to her room, she closes the door behind her, while she walks to the boxes with all of her old things from her old room, she summons Ignus.  He appears beside her and she starts to talk with him, she also tells him about the events of the day, as she starts to unpack the boxes.  She tapes a couple of posters against the wall and one behind the door and as she turns around she can make out a smile on Ignus’es face, “tomorrow after school we train” she says to him “I want to be good enough to take revenge for my dad’s death” she explains to him.