The Awakening of a Soul Reaper

Chapter 11 Paul Part 2

The next morning the dim rays of the sun creeps inside the room where Clarise is lying on her bed sleeping, she opens her eyes looking down at the foot end of the bed at dust particles that float in the rays of the sun.  Its Saturday, she lifts herself to a sitting position on the bed looking at her room, most of her old things from home is still in their boxes so her walls still looks pretty bleak, at the sidewall her backpack is standing upright against the wall, and next to it is an old vanity table with the picture of her mom, dad, and aunt Belle stuck to it.

She stands up and walks over to the photo dragging her feet, looking at the picture once more.  A thought comes up Ignus said my dad was going to say goodbye to someone in the city? Was it a relative, maybe his mother or father? Can I still maybe have a granddad or grandmother or an aunt or uncle…

She quickly goes and cleans herself up and gets dressed, Aunt Belle already left early to go and open up the bakery for her early patrons.  She makes herself some coffee and goes and sits in the living room, the old shoebox lies on one of the couch cushions where she and aunt Belle sat the previous night, she goes and sits next to it opens it, and start looking through it, maybe there is a letter that can give her some indication of whom her dad was she thought to herself but all she can find is some old school reports of her mom and her aunt and some other pictures not related to anything.   After finishing her cup of coffee, she decided to go to her aunt, maybe she knows his last name or any other detail.

As she nears the bakery, she sees a girl coming out of a shop, she immediately recognizes Willow, “Hi Clarise, how are you this beautiful morning?” Willow asks with a smile.

“I’m good thank you, how are you?” she replies.

“I’m always good! So where are you off to?” Willow asks.

“Going over to my aunt” Clarise replies.

“That is my next stop, I want to go and see if your aunt made some of those small delicious jam tarts” replies Willow.

Clarise looks over to her and starts to laugh out loud she can see how Willows's mouth is starting to drool over the thought of food, “when looking at you, I wouldn’t say that you can eat so much?”.

Willow looks over and says “only delicious food and sweets, oh anything sweet” she replies laughing.

The two girls reach the bakery and go inside, “Hey you two!” Aunt Belle greets them.  Willow gets everything she needs two dozen jam tarts, a loaf of banana bread, and a couple of bread rolls, while aunt Belle packs up everything into a brown paper bag the bakery door opens, and another familiar voice joins in, “Morning Aunt Belle, I just came to collect the order my mother placed yesterday.  Oh, hi you two” he greets the two girls.  Willow rolls her eyes while greeting him back, “hi James”.

Clarise walks over to her aunt and asks her aunt, hesitating to ask “Aunt, hum Aunt Belle I have a question, but please, I want you to take it the wrong way”.  Aunt Belle looks up into her eyes and asks “does this have something to do with our conversation last night?” she asks with her voice almost disappearing.

“Yes, do you know if my dad had any other family?” her aunt looks down at the floor, thinking…

“His mother and father lived in the city, but, ugh” she sighs “after he disappeared and your mom didn’t hear anything from him…, she went, on a wild goose chase searching through the city, she didn’t find anything, the only thing she accomplished at the end of the day was more sorrow.  I beg you please don’t do the same, besides who knows what could have happened to them maybe they have moved away or something…” she said trying to convince Clarise not to go looking for them.

“Do you at least know his last name?” she asks.

Aunt Belle realize that she is not going to let this go, last night she opened Pandora’s box and there is no way of closing it.  She tilts her head backward and puts her index finger like a question mark between her mouth and her nose, pulling her lip up, I think it was “Hubert”.  she leans forward and hugs her aunt, saying softly “Thank you!”

Clarise goes back around the counter to where James and Willow were standing, “Wait you three!” Aunt Belle calls out with a smile, “take these, I just made them,” Willow’s eyes grow big it's backed éclairs with chocolate melted over the top and cream with chopped strawberries as a filling.

The three of them step out of the bakery eating their éclairs, Clarise stops and looks at them, for the first time she feels like she wants to share something with them, and maybe they can even help.

“What…?” asks James while Willow stuff her mouth with another big bite out of her éclair.

“I need your help?” replies Clarise, she goes about telling them that her father might have had relatives in the city and she wants to try and find out if they are still living there.

“You say Hubert, and that is all you have?” asks James.

“Let me ask my dad, he knows a lot of people and he might know someone besides, the barbershop is in their family for three generations who knows maybe someone knows something” replies Willow.

James looks over to Clarise squinting his eyes, “I have an idea, they are elderly so the chances are that they will not be on social media, but in the old day’s people used to list their names in the telephone directory, if we can maybe get hold of a couple of directories then we can cross-reference and who knows even if we can get an old directory maybe the people living there now might have a forwarding address or know where we can get hold of them” he replies.

Willow looks over to him, saying “show-off” while flinging her head to the other side.

While the three of them discuss the way to proceed, Tyler’s voice brings them to silence, “Good morning!” he says while going and stands next to Clarise “so what are you up to?” he asks.

James starts to speak but Willow steps on his toe, she leans in and whispers in his ear, “looks like you forgot your manners again!” he becomes in his face, while everyone stares at him, Clarise wants to start laughing but she is afraid that she might hurt his feelings again.  She turns to Tyler and explains to him her situation.

“Well, my dad hardly ever through away anything, unless my mom threatens him or if she threw it away secretly.  If we need old phone directories, I bet, that is the place to go and have look” Willow says a little bit shy.  The four of them set of to the barbershop.  At the shop her dad, a tall middle-aged man with a fit upper body he has misty blue eyes with a big thick moustache, shows them to a dusty unarranged storage room at the back where he keeps all his old stuff, “As I said to your mother, you never know when you are going to need something again” he laughs while scratching his wiry ash blond hair with greyish sideburns.

It is quite a mission and the three of them have to take turns going inside because of all the dust.  Willow came out running out a couple of times because of spiders, and James had to wipe off the dust and cobwebs of his glasses a couple of times.

“You have something on your nose” Tyler says pointing to his own nose to Clarise, when she wipes it she makes it worse her whole cheek is full of dust.  He lifts his index finger and hooks her chin towards him and gives her a kiss. She pulls back she looks his face up and down from his eyes to his lips she leans in and kisses him back “Ahem!” Willow clears her through waving the dusty air in front of her face while looking down at them where they are sitting on the floor.

Clarise and Tyler both turn red of embarrassment.  Finally, they find the directories.

The four of them goes through the directories and write down all the address details of the people they find, then they cross-reference and remove all the doubles and at the end, they have a list with 2 people still living at the same address, 1 person that moved and 4 people whose details no longer appears in the directory.

“Where do we start? “Willow asks while dusting off her hands and clothes.

“Well, I guess with the people still living at the same addresses, right” replies Clarise with some doubt in her voice, as she pulls her eyes to the one side and her lips to the other side of her face.  Willow goes on her phone and pulls up a navigation app, they insert the address to see how far they are from each other and from them, “wow that is some distance” says Clarise with a crack in her voice, “how are we going to get to those places?” she asks.

“Well, I might have a plan…” replies James with a smirk.

He explains that “Me and my dad, have been restoring an old car and, sometimes my dad lets me drive it to the park and back, maybe?” he smirks again looking over to Willow” I can tell him that we are going for a picnic and then instead of going for a picnic we can go and see who lives at these addresses?”

“But you don’t have a license?” asks Willow

“I have one” replies Tyler, “I got mine the beginning of the year” he replies

Clarisse’s face lights up, “that is a wonderful idea,” she says while jumping forward and giving James a hug and then turning to Tyler and give also a hug.  “Well, I’m coming with you!” Willow says while stomping her one foot and pointing with her index finger to the floor making a point.

The three of them, Clarise, Tyler and Willow arrange to meet up at the bakery and then to go to James's house to talk to his dad the next morning at 9.  “Remember to bring something sweet to eat, we do need to make it look real for his dad,” Willow says while giving an evil laugh.  Everyone starts to laugh, Clarise turns around “sure I will arrange something” she smiles as she walks away.

Outside the four of them decides to go and get a soda at the dinner.  Willow looks over at Clarise and Tyler “so Tyler?” she says, “you turned 18 this year, right?”

“Yes, I did the 12th of January” he replied.

“Interesting, and you Clarise?” she asks.

“I’m actually turning 18 in a couple of weeks” she replied

“But you are a grade higher than us?” asks Willow as she looks to Tyler.

“Yea I was actually put in school late because of when my birthdate is but I managed to skip two grades…” he replies like its nothing.

“Wow then you must be smart?” asks James.

“No not really” he replies “if I was smarter, I would have already started looking for Clarise” he says looking at her taking her hand in his.

The four friends spend the rest of the day together chatting, later Tyler walks Clarise home, at her door he stands holds her hand, while his other hand slides from her chin up to her ear, he brings her closer and their lips interlock with each other, his hand slits down her back pressing her against him.  Her arm surrounds his muscular body holding him tight.  He pulls his lips away letting their foreheads rest against each other and their eyes locked like they are sharing intermit thoughts with each other.  “I really like you” he said to her.  “I think I like you more!” she says with teasing smile.  “If I don’t go now, I will not have the willpower to go later” he says to her, “but I will see you tomorrow morning at 9” he says to her, going down the footpath the leads up to the door.