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There is an absolutely gorgeous huge owl perched on the thick tree branch outside. The bird stares, unflinchingly, into the room where two people are talking. Or, rather, one is talking, the other is mostly listening.

"Do you know what is on the line? Our reputation. Which is sullied as it is. And why? Whose fault is it?"

Charles allows himself a shrug as though he has no idea what is implied by not so subtle accusation.

"I believe this term was rich on disastrous accidents. It's difficult to blame anyone particular for a sequence of —"

Stryker peers at him across the table and Charles abruptly stops talking. He gets mildly alarmed seeing concentrated glee in Stryker's deep seated eyes.

Luxuriating in silence his office fell in, Stryker tugs at the corner of the paper, victoriously peeking out from underneath polished paper-press. He is savouring Charles' reaction, which, thankfully, isn't all about intense shock and bewilderment seeing that it has shrouded him since morning and hence has worn off. He regards a crude headline with a new level of interest. A picture of the missing girl depicts her grinning cheerfully at the camera. A campus building on a bright sunny day is in the background.

"I don't need another media scandal, Xavier," goes on Stryker. "Our community has been upholding a good name for ages. However, my predecessor had made some grave mistakes," he pressed his lips in an uneven tight line, like his words alone were not enough to express his blatant disfavour.

Charles shot a subtle look at the spot on the wall where the large photograph of the previous dean surrounded by department heads used to hang. It is gone now. Instead of it, there is the picture of Stryker shaking hands with some imposing grey-haired man, who Charles fails to place.

When Stryker pushes his chair back to stand up, the owl gets startled. It spreads its' hoary wings and soars up. The branch shakes and a couple of yellow leaves fall off. It will be bare in no time as autumn comes and goes very fast in this part of the country. The transition between seasons is disappointingly brief. He is not used to continental winters, thus he can't but wonder what it would be like, to experience real snowdrifts and blizzards.

"It seems I bored you," Stryker chops his words.

Charles briefly visualizes that that was what he intended to do — to put Charles' career on the chopping board and chop it to his heart's content.

"Not at all, sir, but thank you for your concern," Charles rises up too.

That was either a very correct or a very wrong word choice, because Stryker's face goes through a series of flickering expressions, none of them too pleasant.

Encouraged by the lack of verbal response Charles hastens to leave.

As he shuts heavy doors behind him and turns around, he is intercepted.

However, before concerned Jean can question him, he asks:

"I wonder have you got any owls living in the park? I've just seen an enormous one. Are they common in this area?"

"Owls? Well, I haven't seen any for ages, but, I guess there might be a few left."

"I see. Thank you."

Now, she seems confused rather than concerned. She grimaces slightly and in doing so bites on her lower lip. Charles bids her goodbye with a smile and leaves the small outer office quickly.

In this wing the working hours are almost over. He encounters no one as he walks along a row of closed doors. Twilight blurs the names on the door plates, but highlights the echo of his steps. Someone left a window on the staircase open and due to chill Charles subsequently realizes that he's left his overcoat in his office, which, of course, is not in the main campus building.

He starts down winding pathways covered by crunching leaves, to be swept away come morning.

On his way to his office and back, he catches sight of her face looking from the missing person posters, pinned to notice boards at all intersections.

That she could vanish like that, in the age of net surveillance and supermarkets aware of your future purchases, is very disturbing.

He continues nursing that thought even when he comes home.

After turning on the heater he starts roaming around his kitchen, looking through cupboards and jar-packed shelves, searching for sugar he knows he has definitely bought, and finally discovers it on the kitchen table. The familiar red-dotted tin is hiding right in the shadow thrown by the large fruit bowl. He stares at it, infinitely sure that he hadn't put it there. Hasn't it always been on the counter with other tins, where he could easily reach it? This question will be left unanswered, it seems.

When in his living room, he tugs the curtains together, shielding from intruding moonlight, and switches on the floor lamp. Charles lowers himself in an armchair, and puts the steaming tea cup on the coffee table, next to the book he was reading yesterday.

Carefully, he takes it, leans back and tugs at the tip of a book-mark, relishing at the dry, almost sensual feel of paper against his fingertips. His eyes search for a necessary paragraph, but he gets distracted by the slight disturbance in shadow pattern. He looks at the armchair on the opposite side of the coffee table and sees her looking back, always locking eyes with him. Unlike earlier, in class, she looks extremely pale and exhausted. She never smiles like she used to.

"I am so sorry," says Charles.

Words fall like marbles. Empty marbles that fail to roll and fail to break the dull static of his living room, which, albeit it happens rarely, makes Charles regret his decision to choose the house this remote.

She is blinking slowly, owlishly, as though she is on the verge of falling asleep, and she doesn't acknowledge his apology.

"Shall I read for you?"

And he starts reading out loud, whilst keeping his eyes on the book, turning page after page and the rest of the evening passes by like this.

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Halfway through the night Charles wakes up and discovers that his dream was disturbed by tyres grinding against gravel outside, just on the drive way, if his ears aren't lying. He wishes he could go back to sleep, but his mind decides otherwise. This untimely waking feeds fuel to something akin to fight or flight response. It forces his heart to pump so fast that he feels a physical reaction — a rush of blood to his head. There is no chance that he can fall asleep again. Here it goes, then.

Propelled by morbid curiosity, which rises as soon as he fully comprehends what is going on, he clumsily gets out of bed and stumbles to the window. The moon reflects light right into his eyes. Even though the light is decent, he gets to see absolutely nothing but his peaceful, empty yard and a fraction of his neighbour's, fringed by evergreen shrub. The sound of car engine is dying and he sighs as he hears a swoosh made by garage doors on the other side of the semi. His bedroom window doesn't grant him a proper lookout angle in any case, so standing here and peering into darkness is just ridiculous and, perhaps, a tad creepy.

In his head, his reasoning to act like he does may be sound.

After all, it is quite unfair. If not for occasional random sounds he would suspect that he is currently living next door to a ghost, or, for all he knows, a family of ghosts.

By his rough estimation, it has been two weeks since they moved in. Of course, after this discovery Charles waited a proper amount of time before circling chest-high emerald shrub, a natural demarcation line, which runs from the house wall straight to the fence. Truth be told, he was a little confused by the absence of a well-trodden path joining two households. Backyards were separated by a brick wall and were out of question. As for the front he could definitely say that the grass seemed untouched and flower beds perfectly undisturbed. It prompted another question: how did the previous owners visit each other? So, he squeezed himself through the gap where the shrub meets the fence and walked to the door and knocked. And though it was well into Sunday afternoon no one responded. The red doors stayed unopened. The porch, almost identical to his, for his was just freshly painted, was swept clean and that was the only indication that someone was active in the other part of the house. On the ground floor, the curtains were stingily prohibiting anyone from peeking inside. Unfortunately, upper windows remained shaded as well.

Coming back to his senses, he grudgingly admits that if one of these days the fate has mercy and he sees them in person, it certainly won't be today.

The rest of the night he kills by mindlessly sorting through neglected mail and grading papers. The dawn is very slow to come and when it does there's no actual sunrise.

Morning haze appears so thick that Charles reconsiders driving and decides to take a bus to work. Whilst pocketing his keys, he gazes at his neighbour's door. It has recently become a habit of his.

The lamp on the lamp post, which also serves as a crutch for the shared letterbox, is sizzling as though an entire swarm of distressed bees have been caught in a snare. The feeble light is flashing on and off. When he looks up he notices that something dark is beating against the inside of the lamp, being ruthlessly caught in the cage made of glass. The tap of its wings grows stronger, then dies out, then grows intense again. Tap-tap-tap. And again. The creature is following the same pattern, in vain, until it exhausts itself. Something about that trapped moth makes Charles' skin crawl and his heart stutter. Behold the power of projection, he muses to himself and closes the gate.

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While students filter through the doors of the lecture hall, Charles catches sight of Jean in the corridor. He doesn't recognise her at first, because she has done her hair high today and is wearing a blue knitted suit, and it strikes him how different she looks. Jean is hugging a thick folder and waiting until a human flow subsides.

"Afternoon, Professor," Jean finally gets in.

"Hello, Jean! How have you been?"

"Fine. Just fine," she says tonelessly. "I've been running back and forth since morning, imitating a flurry of activity, because our dean was in the productive mood. Are you absolutely sure that you don't need a secretary? An assistant?"

"Am I already entitled to have one? I think not. But I'll bear your offer in mind."

"I do hope that you will," she pulls an envelope out of the folder she is now holding it like a tray and thrusts it at him. "This is yours. I actually came to give you this."

"What's this?"

Charles takes the beige envelope and feels a hard contour of card inside.

"An invitation."

"Well, are you getting married or something? I must say this is some surprise," she gives him a sceptical look and then Charles catches up. "Ah. Of course. A Town Day?"

"Yeah. It is a big day here in Glirham," she explains, very helpful as usually. "And there used to be a huge staff party out of town every year, but since the change of, how I put it, administratorship, well, it is going to be some sort of an up-scale social function with lots of important people. I was even told to call the Mayor's office, ask for confirmation."

"Hm, things are done in a big way."

"Yeah, only like that from now on."

"Could you tell me more about it?" he asks, putting the strap of his laptop bag over the head.

They turn to leave, whilst a different crowd of students starts filling the seats. Some of them greet him, or, maybe Jean, because he can't recall seeing them in his class. Charles smiles back and nods, still secretly smitten with the amount of attention he gets. His teaching path was blessed with a smooth and easy start. However, to some extent, he knows the taste of anxiety and worries one can experience when subjected to greater than ever demands to teaching.

As they come out of the archway and pass the fountain representing the Founding Father, Jean stops reciting the guest list and adding helpful commentaries. She whips her head to the left and Charles mirrors her gesture.

"I thought they had already left."

She is referring to detectives. So it happened that Charles had already had the dubious pleasure of meeting them both tree days ago and the conversation tactics of the younger, the fair-haired one, left a lot to be desired. The two of them have paused on the other side of the fountain, talking.

"Poor girl," Jean sighs, sad, and then gazes at Charles sheepishly. "Is it just like you told the press, Professor? You suppose she's already dead?"

"Believe it or not, but those were not my exact words. That lady took too much liberty with paraphrasing," Charles detects a slight chill on the back of his neck, as though he is being stared at. "Excuse me, but I have to go catch the bus if I don't want to miss my appointment."

"Let me see you to the bus stop. I was going to fetch him a coffee anyway."

Jean, he has to hand it to her, has mastered the paradox art of being productively inquisitive without being overly intrusive. She darts a curious glance at him, which is a transparent veil over her plain desire to ask a question. She is brimming with it like a wire strung tight, but struggles with rigid propriety rules. Jean doesn't feel like a person to step over that invisible line, and when Charles gives in he doesn't do that because he feels pressured.

"They are offering me a part-time position at the Grey Yard."

"Um, those psych wards?"

"The modern approach they utilise at the hospital appeals to me. Not to mention the fact that I need to practice."

"The modern approach, you say."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, we… we're almost at the gates, Professor. Could you please tell me about the article?"

"She left a note."

"Right, everyone knows it. But the unfinished note is hardly a big deal. It was kind of old. And, technically, she didn't leave it, did she? Well, police dug it out of trash."

"That's precisely what I've been thinking. Given that the local paper provides such marvellous apt description of any findings, I strongly suspect that their ties with the police are fairly tight. And in case everything they write is legit, there is more to that torn piece of paper than meets the eye."

"As in — what isn't said is the real story?"

"Correct."

And because history likes to repeat itself, now Charles is reaping the fruits of his ill-considered words. As usual the top problem in his life is to be misunderstood and misinterpreted.

Jean frowns thoughtfully and lowers her eyes down, obviously thinking hard.

"You know," she offers quietly, "I may sound crazy, but why don't you go to police. Not that this is any of my business, but it seems you can certainly help."

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For five blissful minutes Charles lost himself to the pleasure of a nice, sweet cup of tea with lemon. It would have been a lovely moment to enjoy and to savour.

She narrows her eyes, but doesn't say anything. Tonight she seems neither melancholic nor tired, but upset and impatient. Her dark hair is loosely done, accentuating her almost translucent, fair skin.

The way she starts drumming the tips of her black manicured nails against the table is very telling.

Okay, then.

Charles leans back slightly and lays his hands flat on the table.

"Who else is involved? Everyone needs a push. How did they make you feel? What exactly did you feel?"

Forgoing tea, Charles gets up and strides to his living room, where his laptop is charging.

"Thus let me live, unseen, unknown, thus unlamented let me die…" he murmurs under his breath to the empty room.

The screen comes back to life and his fingers hover over the keyboard for a split second, while he collects his thoughts. An eighteen-year old. She is most likely on every social network there is, utterly and completely exposed to the world; everything laid bare for those who wish to see.

Google search provides him with a link to Facebook page, Twitter and Instagram, and something else he never ever heard about. Charles clicks on Facebook link and immediately recognises the photo from yesterday's paper. So, that's where it came from. He thinks back to her first picture in the paper, which was obviously taken from the student record, submitted as recently as a couple of months ago, and it didn't do her any justice. It was lifeless and dim.

He scrolls through her feed and discovers lots of musical videos there. He chooses to click on one, at random, and the intro pierces his eardrums with shrill acid sound. Recoiling a bit from united despair of unknown number of guitars and a synthesiser dying together and wailing in agony, he adjusts the volume and lets it play in the background.

Then, he takes a deep breath and clicks on the first photo album on the left that catches his eye. His gaze roams over dozens upon dozens of group pictures, excessive selfies, landscape shots of debatable beauty and supposedly smart quotes. Slightly overwhelmed by brute force of social exhibitionism, Charles briefly closes his eyes. Chaos is the first word he might use to put a name to it. Only an hour of thoughtful reading and sorting through it all later, a definite pattern starts to form in his head. Her life looks less like a web of intertangled threads but more like a web of strategically multi-coloured threads woven together.

One more hour passes. He has almost got used to her eclectic taste in music and he discovered plenty of information: starting from her hobbies, cycling and dancing, and a favourite colour, yellow, to the fact that she, for instance, used to part time as a waitress in a place called "Sparkle", liked Italian food and considered herself a friendly person and an extravert. In front of Charles' eyes there slowly emerges a portrait of an upbeat, young woman barely treading into adulthood, but harbouring high expectations, a feature common among Millennials. Nonetheless, some maladaptive personality traits shine through her cheery façade. Like, for example, worrying signs of body dimorphic disorder. Things like that are never mentioned in a newspaper. After everything he learnt he wonders whether she has ever seen a therapist. What about a local welfare agency? What was her relationship with her parents? Tense and, probably, abusive would be his guess.

"Now I have more questions than I'll ever get answers," he mutters as he puts his laptop into sleep mode.

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You can't but fall in love with Glirham university campus in all its woodland beauty. Charles did. At first sight. The central and the oldest campus building, dating back to the beginning of the nineteenth century, is a token of impeccable architecture and artistic taste. Fringed by fine park lands, aged brick columns stand on the outskirts of town like a natural sanctuary, a reminder of times when higher education was a sure ticket to better life for a chosen few and a privilege entitled to those who seldom appreciated it.

Speaking of which. Namely, speaking of appreciation. Postgraduates keep testing his limits. Apparently, his liberal approach has failed and he needs to think of something new.

Immersed in these thoughts, Charles is walking to the parking lot and frisking his coat simultaneously, going from inner to outer pockets, looking for his car keys.

The grey sky is quickly turning dark-grey, whilst evening is sneaking up closer and closer.

Lamp posts are lighting up, illuminating his way. Those are his house keys — he identifies upon touching the brain-shaped trinket. Whose present was it? A silly thing, but nevertheless he's got attached to it. Weird. They are certainly not in his bag. Where else?

Finally, he stops near his car door and decides to check his inner pocket again. Here they are, snuck under the backing. When he is about to put a key in the door his phone beeps and at the same time somebody grabs his elbow. Charles almost jumps out of his skin.

Turning around fast, he drops his keys and his phone slides out of his loosened grip too.

He didn't immediately recognise the detective from earlier, who has just demonstrated a wonderful dexterity, swiftly bending and catching his phone in mid-air. Keys were not so lucky.

"I am sorry," Lehnsherr said, without an ounce of apology in his voice. "I didn't want to frighten you."

"It surely seemed like you did," observes Charles somewhat breathlessly.

His mouth feels dry and he swallows a lump, willing his pulse to slow down.

"I called your name several times, but you didn't respond. I figured you were talking on the phone. Heard some mumbling. Here you are."

Charles takes his phone back and looks down at the ground. He can't see his keys, which means that they most likely went under the car.

"Will you please hold this for me?" he doesn't really wait for an affirmative nod as he simply passes his bag to Lehnsherr and kneels on the ground, thankful for absence of rain and thus puddles.

Using his phone as torchlight, he quickly locates his keys and grabs the chain, pulling them closer.

"Do you need help, Professor?" asks Lehnsherr sarcastically from above.

"You could have been less blunt from the start," blurts Charles, straightening up carefully, "but that is impossible, so, no, I don't need any help."

"Let's get straight to the point then," announces Lehnsherr.

The man has his commanding, emotionally disembodied tone honed down. To Lehnsherr's credit, he is charismatic enough to pull that off. Had Charles been someone else, he would feel an immediate urge to snap to attention.

"Hm, I wonder how it works on suspects… I've already told you everything I could recall. Miss Lee has only recently enrolled on my course. Therefore I didn't have a chance to get to know her better."

"But you knew her good enough to point out that she is already dead."

"That was a misunderstanding."

"Mispronouncing someone's name can be called misunderstanding. Presuming that someone's dead is something else."

"Thank you for sparing your time and telling me this," says Charles calmly and takes his bag.

"You're welcome," responds Lehnsherr silkily, suddenly shifting uncomfortably close and preventing him from opening the door. He made Charles wrong-footed on purpose, violating his private space, so that Charles' bag, he unconsciously raised up, was the only barrier separating them. And it was not big enough. Charles didn't expect this evening to end with a sharp imprint of the other man's aftershave invading his senses and a car handle digging in his lower back.

"I say, how about you refrain from commenting on my investigation from now on? Or otherwise meddling in police affairs?"

"Harassing me is not necessary. I have no intention to prolong our acquaintance, detective, trust my word," slowly gets out Charles.

Rattled as he is, he prefers to stay still with his back pressed to his car door until Lehnsherr is gone from his sight. There goes one more negative experience to be recorded in long-term memory and to be avoided thereafter. This negative experience has a face.

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