Moon Phased: The Triple Claim novel Chapter 82

Chapter 45-2

Chapter 45-2

+25 Points

“Excuse me.” I heard an elderly woman’s voice say from behind me, making me turn to see if

she was talking to me.

As I turned to face her, her eyes widened, before she asked, “You by chance wouldn’t happen to be Carla Wilson’s daughter?”

“Yes, Carla was my mother.” I admitted to her, hoping that maybe she knew my mother well,

and might be of help finding what I was looking for.

“My name is Rosella Henry, and I heard about your mother, and I just wanted to tell you I am so sorry for your loss. Carla was a bright student of mine, and I dearly miss the after-school

sessions we used to have.”

“After-school sessions?” I asked her, confused by why my mother had to stay after school, since she was so bright.

“Your mother was duel enrolled. She had gotten a scholarship to the community college in the next town over, and I would help her after school with her online courses she was taking.”

With a confused look now on my face, thinking this had to be a mistake on her behalf, I said to the elderly woman, “I think you are mistaking, my mother went to Berkeley.”

Shaking her head, she says back to me, “No, I am not mistaking. I spent a full year helping your mother get her pre-law degree. She may have gone to Berkeley afterward, but she got her pre-law degree at the local community college.”

With her pre-law mentioning, I knew that she had to be telling me the truth, as it suited what my mother had become, but I was now confused about why my mother hadn’t told me that she had also gone to a community college.

“Is there something you are looking for?” The elderly woman now asks me, as she points to the computer screen behind me, while she squints her eyes looking at the screen I had pulled

Seeing this as my opportunity to ask her, I seized the moment, by saying to her, “Actually, I was looking for articles that might pertain to my mother or Ethan Ryder.”

“I see.” She says as she takes a step back, still looking at the screen, before she asks, “And why Ethan Ryder?”

I let out a nervous chuckle, wanting to make her think that I was being bashful with what I was about to say, when, in reality, I was hoping to play her like a fiddle to give me

< Chapter 45-2

+25 Points

information. “I know this may sound crazy, but I had found some pictures of the two of them together in my mother’s old room, and well, I was curious if they were a thing back in the day. My mother never really talked about her life when she was my age, and now that she is gone, and I am here, I was just curious about who she was before she left here, and who her

friends were.”

“Oh sweetheart, I can’t even imagine how hard this must be on you, but if you are looking to speak to some of your mother’s old friends, I am sorry to tell you that most of them are no longer with us, including Ethan Ryder.” She says sympathetically to me, now making me wonder who else my mother’s friends were, and when and how they had passed too.

“Oh my. What happened to them?” I asked her, hoping that she would be forthcoming with the information, but that wasn’t the case.

She immediately tensed, as she looked away from me, looking at another elderly woman that was now staring in our direction, directly at her with narrowed eyes. Turning finally back to me, she said, “I am truly sorry about your mother, but I can’t help you.” Before she turned and walked away from me, leaving me sitting there, wondering what the hell this town was hiding, because it was clear that she knew something, but it was like she was being silenced from speaking about what happened.

Turning my attention back to the computer monitor, I continued to search through the articles, but after another thirty minutes of finding completely nothing, I gave up all hope of finding anything that would shed light on what happened in this town all those years ago.

Shutting the computer down, leaving it like I had found it, I moved to stand to leave, but as I walked towards the front of the library, a framed map of the town on the wall caught my eye. In the center of the map was the small town, with all its buildings depicted on it as small squares symbolizing the structures, with the high school having the biggest lot, resting at the corner of the town.

I don’t know why at that moment, but my eyes followed the path into the forest that the rogue wolf had taken, leading my eyes straight to a plot of land on the far outskirts of the town. Looking down at my watch, I calculated how long I had left before Mazie’s shift was over, before I pulled my phone out taking a picture of the map.

The living residence of this town may be silenced about what happened, but the one thing they couldn’t control was their dead speaking the truth.

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