Dangerous Liaisons and Treachery
Part Two of the 'Lily' Trilogy
Sportacus hadn't slept that night. He was sure he hadn't slept the last two nights since Lily had vanished. He'd looked for her for the briefest time but had found nothing.
Finding nothing had not necessarily been a good thing.
But it wasn't his lack of knowledge of Lily's current whereabouts, or the fact his sister had materialised unexpectedly in town after having disappeared from his family home three years before that disturbed him. It was the indecision he wrestled with about whether to tell his parents that he'd seen his wayward sibling.
Deep down he knew he had to tell them. He knew he had to break the news and listen over the telephone to the reactions he knew it would induce. As he'd laid that night in bed, his eyes closed as he tried to force himself to sleep, he'd played the inevitable phone call over in his head. A morbid rehearsal of what was to come. He'd almost spoken out loud the words he didn't want to say, to hear his own voice speaking as he gauged his own tormented emotions. He'd heard his father's voice, his simple single word of acknowledgement, broken up by the staccato of his mother's quiet sobbing.
Of course his father would come. He would come to town and he'd want to hear everything first hand. How even in Lily's brief visit she'd made a big impression on the town. How she'd hit him, leaving a bruise that he'd explained away as innocently as he could to the kids who looked up to him. How Stephanie had led him to her Uncle's house and how the Mayor had applied a cold compress to his cheek to try and help reduce the swelling and discomfort.
How Bessie on seeing him hadn't bought his story for a second.
Sitting up and swinging his legs over the edge of his bed, he traced a hand backwards over his hat as he remembered the events that had unfolded that afternoon. Bessie had certainly lived up to her name of 'Busybody'. Having gently coaxed Stephanie back outside to play with her friends, leaving himself, the Mayor and her alone – Bessie had dismissed his explanation of falling and hurting himself. She'd seen Lily leaving town. The black look she'd cast behind her as she'd walked away.
He'd tried to repeat his story, trying to fend off the truth but Bessie had stood firm and he'd caved in. He'd told them about Lily, how this hadn't been the first time she'd hit him. Or anyone else. He'd told them how she'd disappeared from home three years ago, her father's guess in the middle of the night while her family slept. He'd told them about his parents' anguish that his sister was gone, not seventeen years old, into the world without a single sign or clue of her whereabouts. He'd told them about the search efforts of his and his friends to find her, of the efforts of an organisation linked to the heroes of the Island in the North, but all to no end.
He'd held back his own silent relief that Lily hadn't been found.
The Mayor and Bessie had listened to him, remaining silent as he told them all he'd kept to himself until this point. It was the Mayor that had told him what he hadn't wanted to acknowledge yet, the quiet man's soft urging that he make the call to his parents. He'd politely refused, explaining instead that he wanted to try and find Lily himself, or at least be sure that she wasn't holed up anywhere nearby.
Including with Robbie Rotten.
Getting up from the bed he walked over to the window deck and looked down at the billboard concealing the entrance to the villain's lair. He'd been to see Robbie; it had been one of the first places he'd gone in his search of Lily. Of course, he'd been as welcome as he'd expected but if he knew his sister she was bound to have been there. Robbie had protested at his presence, even baulked at the notion that he'd have anything to do with 'Sportasmurf's' sister, as he'd put it. He'd admitted to have at least seen her through his periscope heading in a direction leading out of town, and hearing the kids talking about her, but that was as far as the villain's assistance had gone.
Unwilling to outstay his welcome, and end up trapped in a situation he couldn't escape from, he'd left.
Now, as he gazed down at that oh-so-innocent billboard, he wondered. Had he been too quick to accept the villain's story?
