6.

There is a voice calling out ... Maxene ... Maxene ... it is a voice of one who Maxene has not heard from or seen in a few years. It would always have been likely that they would one day come together again but perhaps not expected so soon. When last they came together Maxene had a role of mentor despite both being just children. They both still are children though the difference between ten and sixteen can be huge especially when you are sixteen remembering back to when you were ten.

There is an eeriness to the calling as for when Maxene hears her name being called she cannot see just exactly who it is calling her. She suspects who it may be though can't be sure as a number of years have indeed passed. The voice too, it has a certain echo that makes it difficult to pin-point its origin.

The day as it is, is moving on and it no longer is as bright as it had been not so long prior, and the pending darkness is taking advantage of the dying brightness. A flash of light shoots close by Maxene, a light that look more like static energy than anything else and the same kind of flash shoots pass her again only on her other side. This confirms just who it is that is out there ... somewhere.

Maxene's companions become uneasy. They do not like what they see or feel, they become agitated. Maxene is uneasy so naturally those shape shifting are uneasy such is the control she has over them and the connection there is with them. The creator of the calling out and the flashing light is something or someone the creatures are also aware of as indeed they were around when its originator and Maxene had last been together.

It is not long before a person out of view steps into view and Maxene easily recognizes the familiarity in that person right away even though appearances have altered during the years which have passed since their shared past and now.

'Maxene ... so good to see you again ... what ... no hug for your sister? And we had such a good thing going ... once' speaks Lonnie Turner, the sister who has a special connection with electricity.

There is no immediate reply and there will be no reply, not verbally at least, however long Lonnie may wait for one. Maxene has changed in many ways other than just physically as Lonnie surely must have too though the longer this confrontation, if that's what it is, goes on then the clearer it is that things are indeed different.

'What's wrong sister, cat got your tongue? ... Maybe you prefer how I used to look ...'

Lonnie transforms herself in an instant, morphing into the ten year old girl she used to be. The creature standing in front of Maxene begins to growl even though it and the other two are standing on two legs rather than four.

'Hmm ... do these things speak for you now? Wait ... can they speak? Why do you not speak? You must have some questions to ask of me?'

Maxene takes a moment or so then moves on without so much as a decent acknowledgement to who had come to her. The creatures move on too with no instruction of any kind being necessary, the relationship between them being somewhat instinctual. Lonnie does not appreciate this at all and returns herself to how she should look. Yeah, she may have come across as insulting more than anything and as far as she sees it she has every right to be how the hell she wants to be.

It may have been clear to Lonnie that Maxene has come to have so many issues with communicating, issues that were not there last time round, still she does not take kindly to being blanked, even if Maxene did have a right of her own and even if Maxene has become ... quiet. There are other ways to respond and Maxene chose to ignore each and every one of them.

In her dismay and anger at being blanked, Lonnie lets a bolt rip from the palm of her left hand. The bolt finds its way in connecting with Maxene's upper back causing her to stumble forwards a couple of feet.

A reaction comes quick with Maxene not hesitating to turn, raise an arm and flick her right-hand sending Lonnie flying thirty feet through the air. With that gap between the two this creates and with the time it takes Lonnie to get back to her feet ... Maxene is gone, out of sight, too far away to even be guessed at as to where exactly she may be.

This particular area, the stretch of road, it has three turn offs ... a three-prong fork, Maxene could easily have taken any one of these ways as she could have taken one of the other two. For Lonnie this is okay, she does have her own unique ways of tracking, for the moment she will let things be. If they do not come together again soon then they will in not much more than two years' time.

7.

After the deaths of Frank and Sarah Osmond on a most peculiar summer's day in 2008, Father Jason Alveron found a park bench to sit on. It was in this moment he official decided that he no longer wanted to belong to or represent the church.

How odd it was that a large number of crows decided to wait until the priest exited a certain household before storming the home to take the lives of two people. Why had they not taken the life of Father Alveron himself or of the child a loving couple had chosen to adopt years before? Odd is still incoming; this day was not done yet as only minutes having been spent in quiet contemplation Jason Alveron would be joined on his park bench by someone familiar. They would sit together a moment or two in silence; a moment or two is all Jason could remain quiet.

'You knew, didn't you? You knew they would be killed ...'

'No ... well yes ... kinda. I suspected the girl's connections with those things, and I guessed in time her foster parents would be in danger. Didn't expect that danger to come as soon as it did ...'

'And it was you, you who had the Cardinal send me off nearly eight years ago, he put me in a team with you and that lawyer fellow. I had never led a group before. I had always done my thing by myself ...'

'Look back when I was an instructor, I had a student ...'

'I don't care ...'

'What?'

'I don't care if you used to be an instructor, I don't care if you had students, I don't care why we were put together and I certainly do not care what is happening now.'

'How can you say that, especially with what you have witnessed?'

'What have I witnessed Patrick? Tell me what? No, scrub that. I do not want to know ... I am out.'

'What do you mean out?'

'Out ... out as in out of all this whatever it is, out of the priesthood, I am done.'

'Look Jason, please, if you just go visit Jerry Grady ...'

'I don't know a Jerry Grady; I do not want to know a Jerry Grady. I am done so please leave me alone.'

'What happened to us on our plane journey should be all the proof we should need and of course you know what you have seen ...' Professor Patrick Dunne may as well be talking to himself, Jason has already well on his way to whatever he may see for himself from this moment on. 'Aren't you the least bit intrigued?'

There is no response. There will be ... in time.