Chapter 8 A Story of Hengelbert

“So, are you going to settle in this village?” Clayton looked at Sonya as they were walking on the small path.

Sonya inhaled, uncovering her sight from any hair strands that were blown away by the morning breeze. “It’s a good place to contemplate and restructure my life again!” She smirked and glanced at Clayton.

Clayton nodded and put his two hands into his jean’s pockets. “Yeah. I understand. A new beginning in our life needs a lot of effort and struggles but that’s life. Life needs us to transform into our new chapter, don’t you think so?” His hazel eyes stared at Sonya.

“Auntie Caroline told me about what had happened to you. I mean she is concerned about you a lot!” Clayton shrugged. “Please, don’t think that I am too nosy in your personal life!” He stopped walking and looked into a pair of Sonya’s brown eyes.

Sonya smiled. “Of course not. I knew that I got a stroke of bad luck in that part of my life but believe me, everything that beats you so hard but doesn’t kill you, is going to make you stronger and…” Sonya showed her index and thumb fingers to show him a metaphoric gesture of minimum bare for a hurt feeling. “But barely makes you vulnerable perhaps…” She laughed.

Clayton smiled and nodded. “Yeah.” He rubbed his chin and turned his eyes to the brook.

“So, how about you? How long will you stay to get your inspiration and begin to write your research?” Sonya folded her two arms as the morning breeze blew quite chilling.

“I’m going to stay for two weeks then; I plan to fly back to my university and meet my professor to discuss the topic! After that, I’ll be back to this place and start my research. I hope my research grant will be approved as soon as possible!” He took a deep breath.

“Clayton, would you mind if we visit your uncle’s burial?” Auntie Caroline stopped walking and looked at Sonya and Clayton in a barter. She smiled widely as she found that Sonya and Clayton were talking and getting to know each other.

“Of course not!” Clayton answered and walked after to catch up with Auntie Caroline’s steps.

Sonya inhaled and yanked at Lassie’s necklace. She stopped and knelt. “Tell me, is he a good guy?” she stared at Lassie.

That German Shepherd dog barked as he complained why Sonya doubted the good virtue of Clayton.

Sonya got up and inhaled. She made a gesture with her hands that it was clear. “Okay. Don’t get salty, I just want to make myself sure about him, personally!”

After praying on Uncle Hengelbert’s and Granny’s burials, the three of them came to the cabin. It was locked.

Auntie Caroline gave the key to Clayton. “Open it! Jackson is staying there but if you want, you can use it while Jackson is away. He’ll be back in three days!”

Clayton got the key and he unlocked the cabin.

Auntie Caroline inhaled deeply. “Sonya can help you to find some files that you’re looking for! Will you, Sonya?”

Sonya nodded her head, then she saw Auntie Caroline jump across the brook after washing her hands on the streaming water of the brook with Lassie. ‘Auntie did it again, washing her hands and Lassie’s paws into the streaming water of the brook. Was that a kind of ritual?’ She sighed as she watched Auntie Caroline’s back and Lassie returned to the house.

Clayton was busy sorting some piles that were arranged neatly on the side of the wooden table.

“I can’t believe it smells nice here!” Sonya threw her eyes to every angle of the cabin.

Clayton stopped sorting the files and looked at Sonya. “That’s myrrh!” He showed Sonya a burner equipment. He also found a myrrh essential oil that Mr. Jackson used to keep the room’s air from any dusty aroma.

Sonya sniffed the myrrh pieces that were put into a red velvet buckle. ‘I never thought that Mr. Jackson was so organized and tidy. I got a wrong impression about him!’ Sonya smiled and rubbed her forehead.

“It’s sage!” Clayton showed her another thing that he found on the table. “It’s become a ritual for full moon festival. Auntie Caroline burns it though!”

“Yeah!” Sonya took the bundle of sage from Clayton’s hand and sniffed it. “What are you looking for?”

Clayton stopped, rubbed his forehead, and put one of his hands on his waist. “Anything about Rose Duville’s files and the sacred land!”

“The sacred land?” Sonya stared at him skeptically.

Clayton sighed, wiping his nose, looking at Sonya slightly and returning his eyes to those piles of bundled files and articles. He put one of his hands on his waist. “Uncle Hengel ever told me about the sacred land, the land in the forest where Rose Duville negotiated with some sacred entities!”

‘What did this guy talk about?’ Sonya scorched as her ears captured Clayton’s statement.

“Is it what you’re looking for?” Sonya handed a folder of a bundled file with a hand writing on. “Rose Duville’s files! I think it is a handwriting of Uncle Elbert!” Sonya blew the folder’s surface to dust it off.

“That’s Rose Duville!” Clayton took the folder from Sonya’s hand and put it on the table. He unclipped an old photo and showed it to Sonya.

‘The same photo that Miss Clementine show me a few days ago!’ Sonya took it from Clayton and examined it.

“And this is the photo of her husband, doctor Wolf Hügel!” Clayton handed an old picture of a man in his formal suit.

Sonya took it from Clayton’s hand and examined it carefully. She wrinkled her head. “Was he your ancestor?”

Clayton shrugged. “I don’t know. Why?”

Sonya smirked. “His lips, his eyes almost his face looks like you!”

Clayton chuckled as he heard what Sonya told him. “You like observing people!”. He inhaled. “But you are the second person who told me about it. That I look like that man!” He pointed the man in the picture with his index. “Uncle Hengel told me when he showed me that photo. We also have the same birthmark!” Clayton showed Sonya his left arm with a specific birthmark that appeared like an old scar.

Sonya inhaled.

“You know that Uncle Hengel was an anthropologist before he changed his career to become a writer?” Clayton turned his head to Sonya and gave her a challenging smile.

“Nope!” Sonya looked at Clayton that she was quite curious about the guy who was standing next to her. “Before marrying Auntie Caroline?”

Clayton nodded. “Uncle Hengel was my motivation why I chose to study anthropology!”

“He gave me all of his books about anthropology when I was seventeen!” He inhaled and then, turned his eyes to Sonya who observed him. “Tell me, don’t you think that our bloodline has something threaded? Your mother and Auntie, both of them are two siblings just like my dad and Uncle Hengel. In your bloodline, if they could bear a child, they only bear a daughter, and in my bloodline, if they could bear a child, they only bear a son. Don’t you think we have some red thread connection to be understood or at least to find it out?”

Sonya stared at him as he looked at her.

“Uncle Hengel, once, told me that Rose Duville and doctor Wolf had magical bond between them!” Clayton stopped and looked at Sonya, trying to know her retort. “The civilization had brought some perspectives about witchcraft, entities, indescribable ones, angelic or demonic creatures, wolves, vampires!”

Sonya nodded her head. “Yeah! But you said that Rose Duville and doctor Wolf, her husband, they had magical bond, what’s that?” She became curious and took the photos of Rose Duville and her husband as she stared at them.

“Both of them were living in a period when people believed in superpowers and supernatural, although I believe that it does exist until present! Uncle Hengel studied about that and he was curious that they just disappeared!” Clayton inhaled and paused his story.

Sonya lifted her two eyebrows. “What do you mean they just disappeared?”

“After doctor Wolf married Rose Duville, he tried to keep his career under private track and never any single cameras could capture him unless this photo is the only proof that doctor Wolf ever existed and so did Rose Duville!” Clayton showed her a photo of doctor Wolf before he married Rose Duville.

“Uncle Hengel was curious that the name of Wolf Hügel was unreal name of doctor Wolf!” Clayton rubbed his temple.

“You mean that doctor Wolf wasn’t a real person? Did he escape from something?” Sonya got confused and triggered with Clayton’s story.

Clayton sighed. “Uncle Hengel speculated it as I did. You know, Rose Duville had a dark history with a son of August Cardinal. They split after they both cherished a forbidden love between them!”

Sonya turned her eyes to the door of the cabin that was open. “I heard about it!” Sonya inhaled. “Fortunately, she could thrive for her justice!”

“Yes. But have you ever read the history of the Cardinals and August Cardinal’s?”

Sonya shook her head. “Nope. Why?”

“They were one of the hundred wealthiest family in this planet!”

“Really?” Sonya got surprised.

“Uncle Hengel studied that August Cardinal owned the third fourth this city nearby and the villages surroundings. They had business in farming and mining!” Clayton shrugged. “Only few people knew about that!”

“Uncle Hengel was studying the field, about civilization, people in this village and nearby towns until he caught some findings about witchcrafts, wolves and vampires!”

Sonya rubbed her back neck; she felt some hairs on her back neck were standing. “You said that vampires really exist!”

Clayton nodded his head. He looked at Sonya hilariously as he found a panicked expression from that woman. “Are you afraid of that? I said referring to the study, it really exists!”

“So, why Uncle Elbert should quit from his career as an anthropologist and became a writer after getting married with Auntie Caroline?”

“Perhaps, Uncle Hengel wanted to keep his investigation on his private track and he didn’t want to publish his articles about that!”

“He didn’t want to share it with me too!”

Sonya rubbed her forehead as she was thinking. “He never allowed me to visit this cabin too! It’s my first time to enter this cabin!” She exhaled.

“Really?” Clayton chuckled.

“Perhaps, he wanted you to know his admiration for Auntie Caroline and you told her about it!”

Clayton smirked. “Uncle Hengel wrote a lot of some stories about Auntie Caroline as the main character in his stories!”

“Yeah, I know that Uncle Elbert really loved Auntie!” Sonya smiled. “What a big blessing of the universe that Auntie Caroline had!”

Clayton stopped reading the files and glanced at Sonya. “You think so?”

Sonya cleared her throat and pretended that she didn’t hear Clayton’s question. “Anything about the sacred land that Uncle Elbert wrote?” She asked Clayton about the content of the files that the man was reading and having in his hand.

“Uncle Hengel wrote that he met Auntie Caroline for first time while he got lost in the sacred land! On this paragraph, Uncle Elbert wrote that he felt that his meeting with Auntie Caroline was destined as he dreamed about it for almost two weeks!” Clayton smiled and touched Sonya’s arm with his right elbow. “Doesn’t it sound magical and romantic? Something that you can find out in some literature?”

Sonya smirked. “As a matter of fact, I do believe that romanticism only exists in some literature but not in the real life! That’s why I love reading some romantic novels, books!”

“Hush. Listen what I am going to read!” Clayton put his finger on his lips. “I know that I started falling with this young woman not only physically, emotionally but also spiritually. Although, marrying this woman will take much consequences on me. And I told my brother, Caleeb, about it that perhaps, through his bloodline, a son will be born, not mine. Since the clash of energies, I felt so intense but we do believe that our love bond could conquer it!” Clayton stopped reading the file that was written with handwriting of Uncle Hengelbert and wiped his eyes. “Your son, Caleeb, I will take him as my own son, I could sense our bond every time I stare at your wife’s pregnancy, I could understand what your baby was trying to say to me!”

Sonya inhaled. She looked into Clayton’s eyes. “You must have been hurt when you found Uncle Elbert passed away!”