Spell for the day :

COMMAKUS PANCAKUS

Apparently this spell creates a stack of yummy pancakes...

Here is to all the ever hungry but lazy folks (which includes me)

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**Ingrids' POV **

I whisper something which was lost in the time. I was looking at that person and forget what was it I even told. He has me entranced with just his presence, or maybe there is something more to it.

Mrs Potts turns to look at us and hurriedly runs to us, she looks calm but her body says otherwise. She has a hunched posture and the sweat beads on her forehead were so obvious. Her eyes held fear, and her movements were haphazard.

"Who were you talking to?" Lili asks.

" Some guy who thought he could trespass from here." she says acting nonchalant about it but I doubt it.

"I saw him somewhere." I say looking at his retreating figure keenly trying to figure where I did.

I ask her again who was it, but she repeats the same thing and continues her act. Something seems weird about the way she is acting, looks like she is up to something.

She hurries us inside and desperately tries to change the topic. We manage to have our dinner without talking about that stranger and I was half asleep by the time I completed. I sleepily walk with my sister up to our rooms.

We walk back to our rooms and head our own way, when I hear someone call my name.

"Yeah?" I say turning around.

"What?" asks Lili looking equally confused.

"Called me?" I asked puzzled.

"No." she says yawning.

"Well, goodnight."I say and walk back to my room confused. I was sure someone called me, or maybe I was hallucinating given the half sleepy state.

I have a restless night, turning around and rolling over. Something seems strange, I feel as if someone is staring at me but there obviously is no one. Maybe all the things that happened were finally catching up, the stupid thing at the barn, the fight with Kevin and that pesky trespasser.

Somehow, that stranger seems like the sore thumb and has my attention. Where did I see him? I start wondering only to hear someone calling out to me again. More like a whisper in the wind. That whisper gives me goosebumps and I pull my blanket closer and more tighter around me , closing my eyes shut and wishfully hoping whatever this was stops.

Okay, high time I sleep, I think and forcefully shut my eyes and try to sleep. After a few long hours of endless turning and restlessness I finally end up sleeping.

Knock, knock...

I hear pounding on my door, I turn around and see the time is just 9:30, it's holiday for heavens sake, I can sleep for some more time, right? So I try to ignore the pounding but before I could even go back to sleeping I see Lilia entering my room , with her hand over the phone and covering the speaker .

"Mom and dad are on the phone " she mouths to me.

"What" I ask, not expecting this. I hope they have not heard of all the stupid stuff we did, we didn't do anything bad, did we ?

"Here, talk" she says shoving the phone to me.

"Hey mom."

" Hey baby, how are you."

"Good Mom. How are the preparation's for the ball going on. " I ask and sit up straight even though my mom wasn't here, I could imaging her stern voice scolding me for still lying in bed this late.

After a long talk, my mom tells

" Keep yourself safe and take care of Lili. I heard there was someone hunting in the forest last night, don't talk to stranger and don't let strangers in. "

She oddly enunciates that word, what is she trying to say? What was the hunting about ? Is it the same one that I saw. So many questions swirl my mind.

"Yes mom." I say ignoring all those questions.

I cut the call and turn to look at Lilia wanting to ask her what was it about the hunting that mom mentioned, but I guess she doesn't know about it and I'll keep it that way, until I find out more about it.

" So do they know something about what we did?"

"Nothing yet, let's have that barn cleaned before school starts ."

"Okay yeah, I'll go and get someone to clean it." she says leaving me with my thoughts.

Is it the same guy that I saw the last time, who was it that I saw yesterday with Mrs Potts. So many questions flood my mind.

I receive a text from Em.

Em- Heard there was another" hunting " yesterday. Wanna check it out?
P. S Don't tell Lili, might not let us.

I felt bad about not letting Lili on this, but I needed to figure this out. It has been troubling me.

Me: Sure, meet me in 10 in our backyard.

I get up, brush and get changed when I receive another text stating that she was here. I make my way down and sneak out from the kitchen door.

I see Em dressed up in complete black and standing by the end of the backyard looking all up for some action.

I brisk walk to her hoping I don't end up seeing Lili or the other way around.

"So what is this about? " I ask Em.

"Well, I heard my mom talking on the phone about this. Says the body was found early this morning and was probably hunted last night."

I say walking into the woods.

"Remind me why are we going behind a dead animal?"

" 'Coz you said something about a crazy person"

Yeah, crazy creature. I remind myself.

"So how did my mom come to know about this," I ask curiously.

"So that was who my mom was talking to earlier this morning," she states in a huff and continues walking.

"Oh great! Come on let's go search," I say, leading her towards the clearing.

We walk to the place I last saw him. It appears clean and nothing out of the odd.

"You sure it was this place?"

"Yeah the last time it was around here. Come on let's search around."

We split ways and search, I smell rather than see the blood. The stench of it is was so overwhelming.

I cover my nose and text Em to come here.

I walk a little further and find a few broken bottles , a huge deer lying dead with its eyes still open. It looks so gross.

"Where is it ?" Em shouts and then appears after a few seconds.

"Couldn't you smell this stench?"

"I'm not a dog, how can I smell this!"

How was I able to?

Well it's so overpowering. I was lost in my thoughts when I hear someone calling me.

I shake my head and turn to see Em near that deer with a flashlight in her hands.

"Where did you get that from."

"I come prepared. Now here look at this," she says pointing at the injury in the throat.

"Looks like something was pierced through in here."

"Looks more like someone bit. Look at those marks," She says, examining the cut.

Flashbacks of the last time I saw that person suddenly hit me . I remember him eating the animal like a monster and his face filled with blood which I'm sure wasn't his.

We suddenly hear someone talk, and footsteps approaching us. Em drags me out from the body, to hide behind a bush, surrounded by a couple of trees. Soon we see the police department making their way here.

"Why are the police involved in this. Isn't this just a dead animal?"

"Yeah, I mean it is illegal to hunt in these parts of the forest but for the police department to get involved.... "

"Maybe it's bigger than what we thought it is."

We hear someone make a gagging sound, I was tempted to peek and see who was it.

"Don't let anybody anywhere near this place and keep the council members informed about this." someone commands.

"Shit, my mum's here."

"Shush, you dont want her to see you near this," I say, pulking Em behind the bushes.

"Also someone ring up The Swans and tell them about this, they are bound to be terrified of this, given it's so close to their place." she commands to the offficer nearby.

So close to our place. Who would be so close to our place and do such a nasty thing.

"Have this body examined. Take it to the lab."

I hear a shrill phone ring and Mrs Rose, Em's mother excuses herself and walks away from the party, unfortunately she walks towards us.

I turn to look at Em asking her what to do.

She signals me to stay silent and so we do. Holding our breath and not even moving a little muscle in our body.

"Yes."

"Aha, looks like it. Seems similar to the last one."

"Yeah, there seems to be a similar pattern."

"Who knows we are having this investigated, maybe those tales were true. Looks like they are back in town."

Who is back?

"Yeah already done all the arrangements, no one is to enter the forest after sunset."

"Yes, I'll tell Elena too."

My mom, what has she got to do with this?

"Okay, meet you at the mayor's place. Bye"

She ends the call and takes a few steps back but suddenly turns back.

"Iddy, crawl back slowly. Now! " Em whisper yells.

We slowly make our way back, crawling on all fours and move back, making sure to not make a single sound. We weren't aware that there is a slope behind us.

She makes a hasty move and loses her balance which resulted in her going down the slope.

"Arrggghhh" she yells completely giving off that we were here to the police.

I get up and run behing her hoping to stop her. I focus so much on stopping her that I forget about everything else and end up shouting as well.

I stretch my arms and suddenly she stops by at the edge of falling into a animal trap which was probably kept there by some hunters.

And I see that I was still a few feet away from her but she somehow manages to stop. Lucky for her, I think.

We get up and I make sure she is okay and off we go running not wanting them to know that it was us with them the whole time.

We run not knowing which direction to go to. I hear the police party shout and asking us to come over.

"No way, if my mom sees me here she will never let me out," she says, panicking. She starts twirling her hair unable to decide what to do next.

Let's go this way, she says pointing to what looked like a old barren road.

"Never seen this road here," I say, looking at the road suspiciously. It looked eerily calm. Like the calm before the storm and my gut feeling didn't agree with the silence around.

"Me neither."

We are walking down the trodden path when we hear the party still chasing us. We start running this time and Em ends up tripping, being the clumsy one, and falls down.

"Em!! You okay?" I ask kneeling down beside her.

Arrghh! Blood.

"I guess so!" she says, getting up with a hand around me and one on the forest floor. She tries walking, but she ends up with a limp.

I help her up and we try walking. Em walks ahead of me with the limp and I turn around checking if the police were still following us when I notice my phone lying there. I rush to pick it up and suddenly hear voices around. I run for my life, and soon realize Em wasn't with me and instead was heading on a different route.

"Iddy, come on this route looks familiar," she mouths.

"But the police," I point out to the other side where the police were literally a few steps behind us. Luckily, we both were hiding behind the bushes, not visible to them.

I hear and gunshot and run for my dear life.

On the way, I see some blood trails on the forest floor and on the trees around. I silently prayed I wasn't going running to the monster's den.

AUTHOR'S NOTE :

So guys, I finally learned to update quickly. So here is the new chapter for you, hope you liked it. And also there are some major changes to the book, not plot-wise tho.

I renamed the book, and it is now titled THE GRIMOIRE instead of THE TWIN DIARIES and also I updated the cover. Yayyyy..

Do check it out (P.S. it is inserted above) and lemme know what you think of it.

Until the next chapter

Lots of love
~Vaishnavi.