liar, liar - chapter 3 part 5
She looked at him blankly and eerily calm, because there was a lie hidden in his words. She simply felt it and he knew. He had just the same expression in his face like her, yet it slowly, pleadingly turned apologetic. Whatever it was, Reginald just couldn’t tell her. Ayna was aware that she should probably be scared, terrified even, but all she managed to sense was anger and annoyance.
The book felt so heavy in her arms and yet she wasn’t able to let go of it. She didn’t care if it was dangerous. She would never let go of it. Right now it seemed to be the only anchor she had left. All of this was so similar. Daniel being gone just like that, it reminded her so terribly of her father disappearing. No matter how often her mother had explained to her that it had nothing to do with Ayna or her sickness that had hospitalized her when she was ten, it just sounded like a lie. Just like the statement that Daniel had committed suicide. Both were lies and no one could convince her otherwise. Ayna’s father hadn’t left them, he had been taken from them. Just like Daniel.
She felt numb all of the sudden. Probably her father had not only disappeared; someone had killed him as well. Just like Daniel. Trying to calm her shallowly breath she looked at Reginald again and the way he responded to her glance he turned pale as well. All of this wasn’t only too much for her, but for him as well. For Reginald however being pulled to the surface of reality after diving in the pool of his own university was probably not so bad than Ayna drowning in this new and darker one.
“He had been doing research for you”, she merely whispered. “You were working on something new, but you never published it. This one”; Ayna gestured towards the book that was still lying on the table,” was your last publication. You were disgraced after that. I remember. And Dad was helping you out. I remember him telling me that he was going to make it right, for you. And then he was gone. Just like that. And now you want to make me believe that Daniel’s book has nothing to do with all of this? You were just telling me that Enochian is a hoax, that it was copied from another language. This language. All these years you were lying to me, to Mom. And now you are lying to me again!”
Reggie could have said everything. He could have used his husky, rough and yet warm voice trying to calm her down, or to reason with her. He could have reached out to her, gently rub his hands across her arms to do so. Yet he did nothing like that. As a matter of fact he did nothing but look at her in defeat. Still there was more written across his face.
“Your father leaving had nothing to do with this book”, he said after a moment of consideration that felt like torture. “Yes, he was trying to find new evidence for my work after it being sabotaged but that was not the reason why he left. You should ask your mother about that. I am not the one to tell you. But what I will tell you is that him not coming back…. This had everything to do with what you see in that book and that’s why I never published anything again. He disappeared because of me, but he left for something else.”
Ayna realized that she had been holding her breath as her lungs started aching: “For what?”
“You have to ask your mother”, Reggie responded and his lips formed a thin line.
