Angeline's Close

"It's an awesome place!" She exclaimed in her excited high pitched voice. "I wish I'd moved here sooner, the neighbors are bubbly and good-humored, they even brought me an apple pie!" Then she continued emphasizing on how much the new apartment had a certain nostalgia to it, like she'd been there before, hence, the homely ambience to it.

She gets off the call and strolls into the kitchenette, her own home, she muses. Finally! This is something she had planned for many years now. Working tirelessly and constantly pondering over the new home, though small it was hers. She rummages through the cupboards and shelves for forgotten cutlery by the previous tenants. She had planned to buy her cutlery but believed her one spoon and fork would suffice.

She can't see the top shelf, so let's her hand do the searching for her. She feels something sticky, lifts her hand as quickly as she can. A honey colored liquid is stuck to her fingers along with a loose piece of paper. Peering at it closely, for it seemed faded and her lights were dimmed. She made out a silhouette of a Caucasian man and his little boy sitting on his lap. The man looked highly stern as his lips drew a slit drawing his mouth area. The little boy, however, had bulbous, kind eyes and a smile that could even warm the iciest of hearts. She peers at the photograph inquiringly taking in all the details. She flips it over. Ten digits are scantily written on the back.

"It must be a phone number," she queries herself. " An address, directions to a place, a bank account or maybe a secret code…."

Her mind is brought back to the present by two, loud sudden knocks. She places the photograph carefully on the counter, careful not to deface it more. She takes measured steps towards the front door. The food delivery man was just on time, for her stomach was violently grumbling. The photograph intrigues her. It's something about the fading colours or the child's beautiful eyes. She puts it down, again cautiously has her dinner, watches the evening news and gets into bed.

An hour later, she is tossing and turning anxiously. Sleep had eluded her. Something was making her apprehensive. She sat up in bed staring into the darkness. Fidgeting all the while. Her mind starts having flashbacks of when she was younger and of her childhood that was not so great. Growing up, she wasn't so privileged and really had to work hard for everything she had now.

The photograph flashed back into her memory. The number also makes her mind whirr. She takes the laptop, starts an image search after scanning the photo. Nothing comes up about the two. She turns the photograph to key in the ten digits onto the laptop. Various searches pop up but none give her a clue as to what the digits are. Frustrated, she slams the laptop shut. "I need to sleep!" She lets out a loud tired moan. She slides back under the blankets and shuts her eyes. She blacks out.

The cheerful singing of the sparrows outside, make her turn slowly and ever so slightly. Glancing at the nightstand, the faded photograph lay there as though waiting to be solved, a riddle of sorts it seemed. She picked it and looked at it ever so carefully, as though she had discovered a new insight overnight. A sudden thought crossed her mind. She'd ask around if anyone had known the man and his little boy.

After work she goes out to her neighbour's house and asks about the photograph. Not many seem to know of the two in the photograph. Moreover, since it was brown and fading nobody seemed to care. Grace, her close friend, meets her for lunch.

"Where have you been hiding?" She questions. "I haven't seen you in a while nor have you picked my calls!" Grace concludes. "I'm sorry," she says" I'm just busy as a bee." Her eyes wander off.she becomes distant. Grace calls for her attention then suddenly realizes the brown fading photograph. "This is what's distracting you! Who is this anyway?" Grace inquires. "I'm not sure, I found it at my house and I really want to know about it." She replies. Grace looks at her questioningly for a minute then resolves to help her. "We can ask one of my investigator friends to assist in this, I know someone, just send me the photograph."

A few days later, after her teaching class, someone called her. She listens to the introduction on the other side. The information is that the man in the photograph, Mr. Kiribati passed away some months ago. His son however was very much alive and lived on the opposite side of the town. She resolves to visit the address she is given. She heads home, to find her mother waiting for her. She explains the photograph to her mother. Her mother asks for it. The mother's eyes widen with every second that she is observing the photograph. A slight sniffle is heard, then a choked voice softly says, "Don't go there, please Angeline."

"Why? Why shouldn't I go, mother? Is there anything I should know?" She questions.

But an emotional mother just runs out the door and Angeline is left in a state of panic and confusion. She hurries after her mother but trips and grazes her knee. After quick first aid, she gets out of the building only to see her mother's car drive off. What's with the photograph, although, the numbers to her were more important. She thought. She gets back into the house, cleans the graze well then heads out towards the address. Now, even more determined than ever.

She goes by the bus, anxious and wondering what she will even say to whoever was at the address. She suddenly feels her heart rate rapidly rising. Her mouth tastes sandy and dizziness overtakes her. She closes her eyes for a moment thinking the worst. Although she attributes this to her lack of sleep the past few days. She wants to get off the bus, but the address is five stops ahead. Should she or shouldn't she? In her mind a series of thoughts start flooding through both positive and negative. Why was she feeling on edge like this?

"Last stop, Maua. This is the last stop everyone, get ready to alight." The bus conductor shouted. Angeline works her way towards the door of the bus, as she gets off something catches her blouse and rips it as she moves. She is now angry, to add onto her earlier anxiety. Turning around she sees a nail that stuck out,left with a little piece of fabric from her blouse. She yells at the bus driver for having unsafe measures in the bus, but her words land on deaf ears as the bus engine revs off, leaving a cloud of black smoke around her. She turns the back of the blouse to see the damage the nail had made; to her favourite blouse in fact. She then notices that apart from ripping her blouse, she had scratched her arm. "Great! Now more pain to my earlier graze" she mumbled angrily. Focusing ahead, she realized she had never been in that part of town before. Everybody was busy, even the buildings themselves looked busy. She tried asking around if anyone knew the place she was searching for but no one seemed to know. She sat outside a small shop, looking at the photograph again, wondering why she had come on this wild goose chase for someone she hadn't known. Though again under the digits in a tiny font the words written "Find me" motivated her. But why was mother distraught? She starts overthinking again,decides to call her mother, only to notice that there wasn't any phone signal. "Argh! What town doesn't have a phone signal?" She shouts loudly. By now, Angeline is highly frustrated but is determined to see this through as she'd already come so far. As she sat there pondering what to do next, an old man in a very old rickshaw passes by. " I've noticed that since you got off the bus you've been sitting here for forty five minutes now. Are you waiting for someone? Or going somewhere? I could assist you…" he tells her in an animated voice. He sounded genuine so she asks him of the address she was given. He knows where the address leads to and welcomes her onto the old rickshaw. They move on slowly as the old man talks to her of his many adventures in the town and its neighbors. She, on the other hand, answers with a single word or a sentence,as she takes in the environment of the town. They seem to be going on non-stop. She asks him if they are almost there but his answer is no. She also notices that the further they go the houses become less.

Suddenly, they come to a fork in the road- which is now deserted and he tells her that the place she is looking for is on the left fork,but he can't take her as it is uncharted territory for rickshaws and vehicles so people move on foot. She sighs nervously, she wished she'd had come along with Grace at least it wouldn't be so lonely. She turns to ask him how she'll get back on the road but he is long gone. She follows the left fork all she sees are huge houses hidden by huge cemented walls and gates. Little movement and deafening silence...it's like the crickets were told not to call. Looking above her,the dense canopy of trees made it hard for the sunlight to penetrate to the ground so the more she moved inwards, the darker it became. She finally sees someone coming out from one huge gate. She hurries over to ask, "Hello? I'm looking for this address, where can I find it?" The old lady points to the huge gate on the right side. It seemed that it was the only house lined on the right. She turns to say thank you, but the huge gate is already shut. "This must be the most weird place I've been to." She tells herself. "No one waits for a thank you, and they are so reserved." It was strange indeed. She takes one look at the photograph again and notices that the gate looked similar to the one she was now looking at ever so keenly. "Find me" it said and so she was here trying to find whoever or whatever. She bangs on the huge black gate. A voice on the intercom, which was hidden, asks if she has a passcode. She replies with a heavy no. "Look behind the photograph!" The voice shouts. After she tries guessing different digits and codes. "4-6-3-7-8-8-0-0-5-2" she reads. Suddenly, heavy chains are whirring and loud clanking is heard. Angeline shields her eyes and ears for the sound is very loud.

On opening, before her stands a young man, with the bubbly blue eyes just like in the photograph. "You found me!" He exclaimed. Behind the gate was a beautiful sight, well manicured gardens, exotic flowers and orchard. Who wouldn't want to enjoy this beautiful view? The house was also grand finished with white paint and pretty flower pots on the ledges. The young man says that the photograph is of him and his father but the rest of the family was cut off mainly due to relocation and unfairness. He leads her towards the house. A sharp nauseating smell gets her nose making her sneeze. She asks him what it is but he doesn't answer. He opens the door. What a sight! The inside doesn't match the beautiful gardens outside. The man says that it has been so, ever since his father's demise and that only the heiress to the property could help in restoring the house. Angeline asks who the heiress could be. The man says that the heiress is the one who could decipher the code on the back of the photograph as it was somewhat a riddle. She gasps as she was a fan of riddles and wanted to be done with this and head back home as she was now very hungry and tired.

She moves slowly among the tables lined in the living room and finds more photographs now with a little girl. Then a huge one hanging on the wall with the man and a beautiful lady with graceful eyes. Must be Mr. and Mrs. Kiribati, she tells herself. The young man who now introduced himself as Bo, says he is the little boy and the young girl was Sophia. To Angeline, the name Sophia was familiar just like her Grandma Sophia. Were they the same person, she kept on asking herself. Bo, leads her outside and he asks her to crack the code but she isn't sure about it as Bo somehow seems anxious. She tries to think of words that could lead to her cracking the code, while Bo said that she had to stay there until she had undone the code. She wondered about her mother and her friends. She now thought that it was a bad idea to have come all this way but how come her mother didn't want to talk about it? She never mentioned family members from her side. She strolls back inside the house telling Bo that the outside isn't helping her think. She goes back to the shelves with the photographs. Behind a photograph she finds a small,black leather bound book, a journal. She flips through the pages, a particular page catches her eye, it notes that Grandma Sophia and Old man Bo were siblings, but Grandma Sophia was to inherit Mr Kiribati's property but she didn't because she was chased away by Bo. Bo was in fact jealous that his father had chosen Sophia over him! At the bottom of the page, "I open at the close" was inscribed and signed by Mr Kiribati. That meant that Angeline was part of this family and that's why mother didn't speak of this side of her family because of Bo. Bo comes to find her among the photographs he threatens her, commanding her to break the code immediately. She refuses and he pushes her into a darkened room. She needs to find her mother, she phones her, but still no signal. What to do, she flips through the remaining pages of the journal using her dim light from the phone. Then the pages tell her of secret passages inside the house. She puts the book down and finds a lever, a door opens and she moves through it, slowly and groping through the dark. It then stops in front of a great steel door. Again a code, is it the same one like the outside. By now she is hurrying, afraid that Bo might find and hurt her. The codes aren't working. She then remembers the phrase and says, " I open at the close." The steel door creaks open. It's laden with antique objects and bank bonds. Just then, Bo appears, he has a smirk on his face. He tells her that he knew she would decipher the code.

He moves menacingly towards her, she shakes in fear. Her mind flashes back thinking of how her life would possibly end in a far away place in which nobody knew of. He makes toward her, gives her a hefty push. She loses balance, almost falling but stands again running away trying to throw things to deter him. He is relentless and fast for an old man. She manages to scramble through the door but is met by Bo's fierce looking dog. The dog barks violently and she moves back until she gets into the room where she was first held captive. Bo approaches her and gives her a hefty blow that sends her reeling to the floor. The taste of blood is now in her mouth. He is about to land another one when a voice brings him to his senses. "Touch my daughter again and it will be the last time you see those bank bonds and the antiques." Angeline's mother was at the threshold of the house and her chest was heaving as she was frightened for Angeline. Behind her, a group of policemen came with her to aid in finding her daughter. Having found no other threat they moved out with Bo. And off he went in a police car. Then the most amazing thing happened before them. The rooms started getting colour. The dust that had caked the furniture lifted and the inside of the house now looked like the outside.

Then a mother said to her daughter, "This now belongs to you,because it opened at the close." She told her that she was brave to take on Bo. For her mother herself had been afraid of coming to the house for twenty years. To Angeline, this was something that she only saw in movies. What had started with a photograph, had led her to her new home.