It was a deep dark night. With everything silent. Just one sound. The ticking of the clock. The Bouvier Manor was surrounded by high protection. Not even an ant could crawl in alive. Everyone was in their rooms. Everyone except Lyric. She liked night time strolls. She was walking at the edge of the lake, closely followed by a person. She had no idea that she was being followed. She was as surprised as anyone could be when she turned and saw someone standing behind her. She was so shocked that she fell in the lake. She wasn’t a big fan of being in muddy water at the middle of night. Even if her father had told her a billion times that there was nothing in the lake, she was still afraid that the lake was filled with poisonous huge snakes. She yelled for help and the person following her gave a hand to her so that she could get up. For a second, she considered staying in the lake but the thought of being eaten by snake made her take the hand. She slowly got up to her feet at her hands touched the mud at the edge of the lake.
“Who are you?” she asked the person.
“Your personal body guard! Mr. Lawrence has asked me to stay close to you to protect you!” Lyric knew exactly why her father had given these orders. Three precious stones were stolen in the previous month. Mr. Anonymous was getting more popular and the media had its full attention on Mr. Anonymous. The Blue Pearl in the centre of the manor was really precious. And her father was sure that it was the next victim of Mr. Anonymous. And something that happened a week ago made him more scared.
After the stealing the Rainbow Quartz, someone saw Mr. Anonymous’s face without Mr. Anonymous realizing. He informed the police as soon as he got home as he was afraid to leave his house, in case Mr. Anonymous had realized. “I saw him!” he cried as soon as the police picked up the phone. “I saw Mr. Anonymous! I know how he looks!” The police asked for his address and came over. But when he didn’t open the door, they had to break the door to find him lying on the floor. Dead. The news had spread like wild fire. No one wanted to leave their houses. There was a curfew for a day and people stopped attending galleries. Unique stone galleries in particular.
“Okay, I’ll go to my room and grab a towel!” Lyric affirmed.
“Wait! I have a towel for you!”
“Why?”
“In case someone pushed you in the lake!” he replied opening a suit case behind him that Lyric hadn’t noticed till that time. He handed her the towel but that was not what Lyric wanted. She wanted him to go away and leave her alone.
Pretending to shiver, she spoke in a broken voice- “I need to change into some warm clothes! I am going to my room!”
“Stop Miss! I have clothes for you!” he said handing her a pair of clothes.
“But I can’t change here! I am going to my room!” she left, shuddering for real. The night was getting colder by the moment. As expected, she was still being followed by her guard. She opened the door to her room and turned to the guard.
“I’ll be here ma’am! Outside your room! Call me if you need me!”
“Sure!” Lyric retorted closing the door. She looked at the glass window. She could use a rope and get inside the cellar using the emergency exit door. She ambled towards the open window and saw a rope dangling. She pulled it to check its strength. “Strong enough! Looks like a sister has figured out this shortcut to reach the pearl. I thought she didn’t have a brain! Hopefully, she won’t post it on the internet. Or else even Mr Anonymous would find out. She carefully climbed down from the rope to the top of the cellar in which the pearl was kept. As she can closer to the roof, she noticed the top was cut in a square big enough for a human to slid down. She couldn’t keep her foot on the top roof as the alarm would go off so she turned upside down and got a little down, to see who was inside. There was a person whose face wasn’t visible through her shoulder-length blonde hair was. There was ANONYMOUS written at the back of her jacket in a spooky manner. Lyric got back to her room, stupefied. She considered putting her foot down on the roof but chickened out when she noticed that Mrs Anonymous had a revolver. The only problem was that she had seen Mrs Anonymous. It was a woman. And she had seen her. Without further thinking, she packed her bag. Before she realized it, the alarm went off and she didn’t wish to know-how. So, she screamed and when the guard came, she distracted him and ran away.
-Janushi Raichura, Author of the book series Ventures of Gem Land
