Chapter 12: Chapter 12

With all the personal stuff they encountered, the case remained still untouched. When Aper left Skyleene's house that night, she started researching over Awo Aro. The book that she showed Aper that day helped her on her investigation. That book contained the area where the flower might be, while the book that described it did not. That flower was purple, with three to four petals, long leaves and gentle as a rose. Sure, flowers look the same at some point when you had enough of their pictures and descriptions. That flower was different because there was no picture of it.

When she had the time to check the book for the location, something caught her attention. There was a field full of that type of flower, but no one knew where it was. People did not recognize how that flower looked like, which made it more difficult for the field to get located. Maybe she passed right by it and did not notice it, but that was not the case then. There were no fields in the district where she lived, and looking for an unknown flower in the place - where it was clear it was not – it was like searching for a needle in the haystack.

When she was still studying the books from Old Dulles, she gained more knowledge about flowers and animals in general. People could call her a botanist, yet they preferred "witch".

What was left to do was to go to that reunion so she could get more information about that dust. That was the only lead to find the killer. Another thing had crossed her mind: how did the murderer kill the living person? If you kill someone, people - that live on Earth - would damage the body. People in C.C. did that too; there was no difference in that aspect between those two realms. However, if you hurt a body from a different realm and brought it to another one, that soul would get trapped somewhere between the two, due to the open wound. How did the police know that the body was from another world? They could not find the man in their data. Since Condemned City had dealt with souls and paranormal activity before, they had to make some preparations regarding their population. Every civilian was tagged, and all their political manners got recorded.

When Aper found out about the victim's identity, Charlie Nim, he must have used a portal to Earth or contacted someone who had relations with the two realms. Skyleene heard of people who lived in C.C. and Living World, but she never encountered one. The CCPD had more links with the two worlds, which meant that it was easier for her to crack the case.

She rummaged through all her books and found the one about the C.C. departments. If there was a field of Awo Aro, she had to find a good place where it could be.

❧

After a long night of reading and learning more about Awo Aro, Skyleene's body appeared behind the bathroom door. She had dark circles under her eyes, a sleepy face and looked bored. She went to the kitchen, made coffee and landed on the couch in the pile of books. Last night, the light in her bedroom started to make her eyes hurt, so she moved her stuff to the living room, where the light had a white tone. Mushu was with her through all the reading, but he fell asleep midway.

She kept on reading about Awo Aro, learned the geography of Condemned City again and made some background check on the detective's department. The agency where Aper worked was the one that was in charge of the district where she lived; nothing new. They had an agency in each region, a boss for each one and some exceptional detectives. Each agency got represented by a top detective each year; her partner had done that for the last three years. He was not stupid, and she knew that. The man had an ego that made him do dumb things, and she was not in the position to judge him when she did not know much about him other than his address and job.

The thought of Aper made her wonder why he was bipolar. People in C.C. did not have mental illnesses since they were just souls. They were immune to diseases that living bodies encountered, and the fact that Aper had a mental disorder made her think. In the last 35 years, she met people with the weirdest behaviors, but that was because that was their personality.

People could not reproduce there, hospitals were not that well loaded, and everyone had not aged one year. She did not know why at first, but, with time, she did not give much attention to it.

The sun went down once again, and Skyleene had to add another white night to her calendar.

❧

Light drowned Skyleene's house. Books ravished on the floor as always, a black, hungry cat waiting for the girl to wake up and a black dress waiting to get dressed. Mushu's wet nose touched her hand, making her flinch and jerk her hand away. A knock on the door made the cat move to the window. In his sight appeared an Aper with an Old Dulles waiting patiently for the door to open. Aper noticed the cat looking at them through the window and took a step to be in front of him.

"Hi, Mushu! Please tell Skyleene we're here and to open the door."

Mushu looked at him, then turned around to the sleeping girl, then back at him. Aper looked in the direction he was looking and tried to see through the glass. It was darker inside, but Aper managed to see the sleeping figure on the couch and the books on the floor. He looked at Mushu with a questioning look, and the cat just moved its gaze to the flower pot next to the welcome mat.

The boy checked the pot and found a spare key that he used to open the door. Old Dulles followed him inside without a word. At the sight of the books and the pale, sleeping girl, Old Dulles's jaw dropped and almost screamed like those spoiled girls from movies.