Guten tag, people :{D Here is the second to last chapter :)
Disclaimer: Refer to the previous chapter...its gonna tell you to refer to the previous chapters...
Rin sat in bed, trying to read and failing. It was late, very late, the green numerals on the alarm clock showing that it was 11:58 p.m., but she just couldn't sleep. She had been brooding ever since Mum's revelation at supper, unable to stop going over and over in her mind what she had said. Of course it had been a shock, but Rin was beginning to think it actually explained a lot.
~Earlier at Supper~
"I just think...everything is going to be all right, I suppose," she said.
"I'm glad to hear it," Mum said, smiling at her. "So, does this mean you've finally come round to the idea that moving to a flat won't be so bad?"
"No, it doesn't," Rin replied. "But then maybe we won't have to."
"Oh, Rin," Mum groaned. "I've explained the reasons to you."
"What if Dad came back though?" said Rin, trying not to give away, to control the words coming out of her mouth. "I mean, I think we should wait a bit longer. In case he wants to, that is."
Mum looked at Rin, her eyes full of sadness. "It's not going to happen, love," she said quietly. "I didn't realize you thought it still might."
"You don't know it won't. If Lily wasn't around..."
"I do know, Rin. And I should have told you more; then perhaps you'd have understood earlier. But it was hard for me to talk about it." Mum paused and looked down. "The truth is," she murmured, "things hadn't been all that great between your father and me for a long time, even before Lily came on the scene. I think we'd only stayed together because of you."
The kitchen suddenly grew hazy, and Mum receded into the distance. Rin felt cold and shivery and sick, and she clenched her fists.
"What do you mean?" she asked. Her voice sounded hollow to her, as if it wasn't her voice at all. "Are you saying Lily doesn't matter?"
"I'm sorry, hun," Mum said, looking up. "She could vanish in a puff of smoke tomorrow and your father and I still wouldn't get back together..."
Mum's mouth kept moving, but Rin didn't hear another word.
Rin had re-run her memories, like videos of the past, and saw her old life in a different light. She had thought about her parent's moodiness with each other and their arguments, and realized it was true: they hadn't been that happy together. Rin sighed. She closed her book and put it down on the bedside table. She shut her eyes and leaned her head against the pillow.
So Lily wasn't really to blame. My parents would probably have split up eventually anyway. Which meant that maybe Mum was right. Maybe it is time to sell this house, put the past behind us, move on. All that voodoo stuff, thinking about hurting Lily, even killing her...it was like a bad dream. Rin could hardly believe she'd actually felt that way.
"That woman still deserves to die," hissed the voice. "Die, die, die..."
Rin had been expecting the voice, of course. But she immediately noticed there was something different about it now, an edge which hadn't been there before, a bitterness in that last word as it echoed inside her skull.
She opened her eyes, catching the numerals on the clock changing to 12:00. She looked beyond the clock, into the corner of the room where the shadows were thickest, and saw a pair of fiery yellow eyes burning in the darkness, staring at her. The voodoo child was beside The Junk Basket.
"But why?" Rin whispered. She could feel her heart thumping.
"Why?" said the voodoo child. "Because she shouldn't exist. Because this isn't the way it should be, should it? Dad should be here, with Mum, with..."
"Dad's not coming back though," argued Rin. "I don't think Mum even wants him back. So there's no point in killing Lily. The old life is gone."
"Gone?" the voodoo child wailed, the harsh, shrill sound of the voice filling Rin's head, making her wince. "It can't be gone, gone, gone..."
"It is," Rin whispered softly, almost inaudibly, and she suddenly felt as if she were letting go, saying goodbye to it. "Gone forever and ever."
There was a brief silence, but a silence that prickled with menace. "Well then, we can't let them get away with it,"
*gasp* What is the voodoo child going to do? Was that a good cliffhanger? Review and I might upload the final chapter faster...