A MAZE OF GREED

Ruth could not get those particular thoughts out of her mind. The information she read in the book about the witches was too miraculous to believe. How could anyone do all those things?

Mind control?

Mind reading?

That all was too confusing. To try her theory, Ruth decided to follow the steps given in that book. She saw a guard stationed near her. From his face, she could not tell what he was thinking. So she decided to read his mind.

She focused on his forehead. Taking a deep breath, she mustered all her will. Five minutes later, she gave up.

"No, Ruth this is not working!" She grumbled.

Deciding to try one more time, she repeated all those steps, but nothing happened.

"What the hell is going wrong?" She cursed under her breath.

Maybe she could not read people's minds. So could she move things with her mind power?

With a thought to give that possibility a try, she found a flower on the nearby plant. The red-coloured bunch of petals looked beautiful to her eyes.

Concentrating her mind on it, she imagined it falling down. After ten futile attempts, Ruth was so frustrated that she kicked the wall behind her in anger.

"Ouch!"

"Ruth! What are you doing?" She heard Ida from her behind.

Embarrassed, she smiled sheepishly. "Oh, nothing. It was nothing!"

But Ida was not ready to buy her lie. "It was clearly something if you kicked the stone wall with your timid foot." She pointed the obvious.

Ruth groaned in exasperation. "Actually, I... I read about this particular mental exercise the other day. And since, I am trying to do it but it does not seem to be working." Ruth told the half-truth.

"Mental exercise?"

"Yes. You know since what happened with Fannie and confrontation by Lady Theodora, I was very disturbed. So someone suggested me about this book, that gives account on various mental exercise to calm your nerves and channelising your energy in a positive way." Ruth blabbered whatever came to her mind.

She was very bad at lying. She was not sure if Ida believed it or not, but if it was Thea, Rees or Mrs Payne, then they would have seen through her lie. But Ida slowly nodded in understanding.

"Well... if it is a mental exercise, then there must be certain things you should be careful of. Maybe you are missing on one of them." Ida suggested.

Ruth pondered over it for a minute. She mentally recited all the five steps, and then it clicked to her. She was forgetting the very important step.

Step 1- Believe in your powers.

How could she believe in them when she does not know what exactly they were?

"Ida, they mentioned something about believing in your... your strengths. But what if you do not know what they are? How can you believe in something that you do not know even if it existed?"

Ida did not know why Ruth was asking such weird questions all of a sudden. But if they meant, she could relax more, then Ida was glad to help.

"Hmm... Many of us do not know about their strengths. But I believe that every person has at least one in them. They just need to look closely.

Well... if I think about my strengths, then I would first look into my past."

"Past?"

Ida nodded. "Yes. Past! Because past experiences would make me realise my strengths. For example... umm... yes!

If in the past I have done something special like saving my master from any threat or warning them against any trouble or helping them in any way, then I would consider loyalty as my strength.

Because loyalty made me leave my comfortable cocoon. It made me push my limits. It gave me the motivation to work in a particular direction. It made me take such an action that I would remember all of my life, and which I could use in dealing with my future in a more constructive way."

Ruth looked at Ida, astonished.

"What? Did I say something wrong?" Ida asked after seeing the stunned look on Ruth's face.

Ruth smiled widely. "No, Ida! You are... you are genius! I can not believe that you said those words. It... it reminded me of Mr Payne. If he was here right now, then I am sure he would have said similar thing."

Ida smiled shyly. Now how she would tell Ruth that those words were a result of eighty years of eventful experience of living both as a human and a werewolf?

"Why... thank you for the sweet complement, Lady Ruth!" Ida bowed dramatically.

Ruth laughed, sharing her friend's humour. A sense of gratitude arose in her heart for this lady with a magnificent personality. She had shown Ruth a way that might take her to her answers.

*

*

*

In the local library of Warthford Island, Florence and her Perrito were busy going through the stacks of papers and various handwritten diaries that the library had preserved in the archives.

They mentioned many families that had and were living in the Warthford island. There was a separate account of the families that had migrated out and on the island. But Florence could not find any familiar name or description.

The afternoon turned into an evening, and the librarian came to remind them that they only had one more hour before the library closes. They need to put everything in their previous place and clean the mess before that.

Perrito sighed after the librarian went away.

"Miss Florence, we are looking through these papers for the whole day. I do not think the people you are searching for forever lived here.

Warthford is an island with less population. We all know people living here. If your relatives had ever lived here, then we would have found something about them by now."

His words were logical, but Florence did not want to believe them. She had not travelled this far to return with empty hands. One thing that she had realised was Ruth had many powerful people by her side.

She was not the same Ruth who was once indebted to her. She had changed very much than Florence ever thought. If Florence needed her out of her way, then she needed to find something strong against her.

Besides, Florence was not over the incidence where she had witnessed Ruth's hidden side. That had created many questions in her mind. And her instincts told her that the roots of those answers lay in Ruth's past.

Ignoring his saying, Florence moved to the next level of the shelf.

"Miss Florence, those are the records of the theives and criminals." The man told her.

"So?" She asked a bit irritatingly.

The man clamped his mouth shut and began helping her.

Forty minutes later, she shrieked in anger and threw the stack in her hands on the ground.

"Miss Florence, please!"

He ran to her side quickly as she fell down on the floor in disappointment. Tears of frustration streamed down her eyes as she put her head down in her palms.

She was very positive that she would find something to bring out Ruth's true face in front of the whole world, and especially in front of Edwin. But after spending days walking the lengths of the Warthford Island, inquiring hundreds of people and all the efforts of the travel, it seemed like a crazy idea to her.

The man sat beside her, letting her have her moment. He did not know why Florence was desperate, and maybe he could not have understood it even if she explained it in detail.

He realised that it was only twenty minutes left before the library closed. And looking at the mess they had created over the hours, he highly doubted they could clean it within such a short time.

A minute later, when he was trying to come up with the right words to let her know their situation, he saw her lifting her head up. This time, she was calm. She cleaned her face of the tears and said,

"We should start cleaning."

He did not object and started picking up the papers and cleaning everything, that was scattered on the floor.

Florence had lost all of her hopes, and she had decided to leave for Vincardine the very next morning. By now, she had realised that it was a useless idea, and she cursed her instincts.

She bent down to pick up a file but, unfortunately as if the time had decided to test her patience, its contents spilt on the floor. She breathed deeply to control her anger. She did not want to leave a bad impression on her Perrito.

She crouched down to collect them when she found a handwritten paper.

Curiously, she studied it but could not read the handwriting clearly as the style was unfamiliar to her and the words used were too difficult for her to read.

"Those are reports made by the Lord's guards. They kept records of all the thieves activated on the Warthford Island." He heard the man say.

"How old is this?"

Observing the paper, he replied, "About thirty years. It is a record on the two famous thiefs of that time, lovers." He started reading the description written in the records.

With every detail he said, Florence's mind started drawing a picture like a master painter. In the end, when he stopped and looked up at her, he was shocked to see a smile on her face that reached her eyes.

Maybe her instincts were not that wrong!