Age nineteen

Chapter four

The room was bleak, cold, and completely dark.  Cobwebs lingered in every which way, and antique furniture layered with dust sat perfectly arranged in the room. Cautiously, I walked farther in.

The only sound I could hear was myself breathing. I wasn't so sure I still wanted to go on, but I had to. The witch girl had said it was a matter of life and death. ", you can do this." I reminded myself. Once inside the room, I became aware of how dark it was. I knew there would be a light switch in there somewhere, I just needed to find where it was. Slowly, I placed my hand on the wall, looking for it. I ran my hand through the wall, moving from top to bottom, then adjusting my standing position and searching again. I had spent fifteen minutes doing that when I realized that I was wasting my time. I turned my flashlight on, I had completely forgotten that I had my phone with me. The bright light scared the darkness away. Not too far from where I stood, I could see the light switch and was delighted to pull on it, lamps turned on. I had expected bulbs to turn on, but instead, lamps that looked very outdated came on. With the light. J could see how vast the room was.

It had more length than width and didn't look like anyone had been in it for years. I felt braver with the lights on, so I stepped cautiously forward. With every step that I made, the floorboard creaked. It was aged. But I was confident because this was underground, and not up the stairs. I couldn't fall in, that was impossible

I stood at the center of the room and looked around. I couldn't believe that all of this had been kept away from my reach. I wondered if my father knew about this room too. Judging from the state it was in when I had walked in, my brother hadn't entered it. I convinced myself that my father didn't know about the room either and that it must be my mother's covenstead. Because I could not believe that my father would keep information as delicate as this from me. But then, I needed to find out exactly what was going on, before getting mad at him. I squatted next to the brown table by my side, it was aged and looked like it had been there for ages. Books were stacked neatly on it, but they were so dusty, I couldn't read out their titles.

I bought out my phone, and made use of it as a flashlight, as the light generated by the lamps weren't bright enough to read with. Using my left hand to hold my phone, I used my right hand as a duster. I hit the books hard, and the air was choking with dust. I coughed loudly.

"Genealogy of the Skanda's" the first book on the stack read. Skanda was my father's name which was also my surname. I picked it up in excitement. At that point, my knees were growing feeble as I had squatted for a prolonged period. I sat on the old wooden chair, without bothering to clean it. It didn't matter to me, as much as finding out what was going on did. The first page turned, and I skimmed through it, from left to right, then from up to down. But there was nothing written on it. I raised my brow in surprise. The later pages weren't any different. They were all blank.

I took the second book from the stack, and it was empty too. With less shock, I dropped it and picked up the next book on the stack. Nothing was written on it either. After I had examined almost all the books I was more disappointed than surprised. If all the books turned out empty, then I wasted my time coming down here, because there was no other piece of information in this room. And time was what I didn't have. The second to the last book was equally empty. I sighed in wrath. The last one, which was also the smallest of them all, didn't take me long to lift from the table. I placed it on my lap, and turned to the Middle, expecting the worst. I saw a picture on it. A familiar face, one of the three girls I had asked my mother about.

I went back to the first page and began to examine the book. The first page read "rest on Anabel, we do not know what might have caused this, and we are still grieved about it, but we promise you that we love you, and cannot replace you." Her pictures were put on the first page, down to the eighth page. She was a blonde, just like my father. And judging by the pictures, she was really tall too. She looked somewhat five feet ten inches. She had black attractive eyes, and her nose was broad. Exactly like my father's. On the ninth page, a caption read. "Not another loss, sadly at age nineteen too. We are going to miss you Charlotte, please keep your sisters safe. We can not afford to lose anyone else. Good night.'' She looked a lot like the first girl, except that she was very tall. She had brightly colored pink lips and a pointy nose. I wiped a tear from my eyes. I could only imagine the pain my father had gone through when his wife was feasting on his daughters. It was sad that he was too blind to notice. But this also meant that he knew about the curse, but wouldn't let me know. He was also hiding it from me. I grunted in bitterness. I had so much to say to him, but I saved them for after his tour, which was in a few days time. After I had turned a few more pages that contained the pictures of the second girl, I saw the last of the three girls. She looked a lot like me.but she had my father' brown wavy hair, and she was taller than I was.``At this point, we have concluded that this is nothing but a curse. Sandra, we tried to protect you, but we couldn't. Rest with your sisters, and please protect Kerah. We cannot lose her too" Sandra had died at age nineteen too. I swallowed the imaginary lump that was gathering in my throat. I would be nineteen In a few weeks. The excitement that was welling up inside of me instantly died. The joy of being a year older, the hallucinations I had, about a great day with my father, and my mother if she wanted and all my friends, thoughts of college that had filled my imagination had all vanished. I suddenly didn't want to age. With each second passing, I was only getting closer to my death day.``23rd December." I recited calmly,  I was trying to control my emotions, but I couldn't. My body quivered in fear. Drops of perspiration were trickling down my face. I had to act fast, or join the rest. Anabel's message was beginning to make sense to me.