“Why does it seem like when everyone meets you it changes their lives?” Grace asks me. “Are you trying to blame me for this?” I ask her back. “No I am not blaming you. Just saying that you are so special to everyone. Why?” I hear my sister’s questions and have no idea how to answer it. “Because everyone we met are complete whack jobs.” I smile at her. She rolls her eyes at me. We pull up to the house, well more like the ashes. “Where do you think the next piece of the story is?” I ask Grace. “I know exactly where it is.” Grace gets out of the car and I follow her. She climbs up to the tree house and starts to get on the roof. “Got it!” She says. She takes a box of candy down from the roof. “Candy?” I ask her. She opens the candy box and there is the next letter or clue. However these don’t feel much like clues. This just feels like his way of forcing us to learn about him. “This is how we use to trade notes when he was my imaginary friend.” Grace says. “Yeah that’s not creepy at all.” I say as she starts to open the letter. “This part of my story is for you Grace. You see after that night at the carnival I followed you guys home. After that I made time every day to follow Cahira and you. I wanted to see how the family dynamic worked. That is why after years of following you I decided to ask Cahira to be the one to introduce me to the family. I knew that dad would listen more to her then you Grace. From watching you for years no one saw how special you are. I saw it however, you do not have the killer instinct like Cahira once did. But much like me it was in you, just waiting to come out. I never meant to hurt Cahira but as we know she got injured. I knew she was my only way in, so with her in a coma there was no way for me to explain myself. You were nothing like Cahira who was untrusting and suborn. You were sweet just unnoticed. Once I got to know you I realized you were innocent and my way in. You told me all of your secrets and the family secrets that you knew at the time. I got to know more about my dad in the times we spent together and more about you my little sister. I never meant for you to burn down the house. When I came to see you and I saw what you had done I ran to save my dad. I wanted to at least meet him before he was dead. See as he killed my mother and I will never get the chance to meet her thanks to him. I know more than you think. Well on to the next phase, we’ll call this the Hope phase. Go next to where I met Hope, I found her while I was watching the both of you. So where did we meet? You tell me my sisters.”
“Where the hell are we supposed to go to now?” Grace says. “What did you say to him about our family?” I ask Grace. “Well everything a small child know. I talked about how dad was successful and how mom hated me. I talked about how Percy was the only one that could get everyone to smile. You loved me more than anyone but even you had no emotion. Still I wanted you to wake up more than anything.” I look at Grace. “I feel like that’s not all you told him.” I feel honesty is the only way. “I was a little kid! What else could I have told him!? I would love to know.” Grace yells at me. “Who knows? But he seems to think you taught him something about us.” I yell back at Grace. “Well I didn’t and if I did, I don’t know what it was!” Grace yells some more. I just shake my head. “How did he know you were going to light the house on fire?” I ask Grace. “What do you mean? He said he was coming to see me and just happen to see the house a blaze.” Grace says. “Didn’t you light the house on fire in the middle of the night?” I am trying to understand what he learned about the family from her. “Yeah, I did so what?” I start to look at the ashes. “So did he ever come to visit you in the middle of the night before?” I am trying to understand what his train of thought was. He has been watching us for years and knows all about us. “No, he normally didn’t. Why was he on his way here?” Grace is starting to get my train of thought. “There had to of been a reason. You need to think Grace why would he come out of nowhere? Did you see him earlier that day?” I ask Grace hoping that she will remember something that will help us. “It was years ago I don’t remember if I saw him that day!” Grace yells at me. “GRACE! Come on think harder!” I yell at her. “Cahira I don’t know, and this pressure isn’t helping me!! All this is doing is making me angry. I need time to think about it!” Grace yells at me. “The school.” I say. “What does that have to do with all of this?” Grace says to my random comment. “Hope said she tracked me down once at a school. She went to make sure I was okay but that makes no sense because that was after he made a comment about me.” I say. “She had to of checked on you before. There is no way she could have known where to find you if she hadn’t found you before. So, let’s start at our elementary school.” Grace says as she heads to the car. We may not know where we are going but at least this is a start.
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